The Wild playerbase has been furious for the last few weeks. While there are many players who don’t like the current Standard meta, we no longer have oppressive, Tier S decks and there’s actually a lot of diversity. In Wild format, on the other hand, variants of Questline Warlock are dominating at all levels of play, and while there are a couple of other viable options, the entire meta is wrapped around either playing or countering the new Warlock builds.
While devs have made clear that balancing Wild will only happen in extreme cases (because they want to leave the format to itself, like it was initially planned), Lead Designer Alec Dawson has confirmed that the current situation is probably extreme enough.
Last week, he has shared an outline of the upcoming balance schedule, announcing two Warlock changes that happened in the last patch. Evidently, however, the patch targeted Standard again – it did nothing to stop Warlocks in Wild. However, the patch was never meant to be a balance update – it was meant to focus on Battlegrounds, those changes were thrown in there last minute to expand the previous balance update. There’s an actual balance patch planned – devs are going to evaluate the current meta until the end of next week, and then release an update later in September. They are currently talking about both nerfs and buffs, and from what it sounds like, some of them should target Wild specifically.
While we don’t have a potential date for the patch, if they plan to evaluate the meta until September 10, then September 14 or 16 seems like the most obvious release date. If everything goes smoothly, the current Wild nightmare might end in less than 2 weeks. But do keep in mind that those are just my guesses and might not be correct at all.
We’ll keep you all updated once we learn more – about cards that they think about targeting or a potential release date.
Still the plan. Previous changes were an addendum on initial round (short window, no loc).
Next full patch was created specifically for balance changes. Talking about many things (nerfs + buffs). Approach to wild is act in extreme cases, current case probably clearing that bar. https://t.co/3SL0oaonOK
— Alec Dawson (@GW_Alec) September 2, 2021
Honestly, I don’t think a single nerf can make Wild a ‘better’ format – which is okay for me, because it is by nature meant to be broken. This implies that there will always be the one best/absurd/annoying deck everybody hates.
And this will not get better overtime, when there are more and more expansions/cards to add to the pool. 😉
I really hope they target the questlines. I was playing Reno Priest almost exclusively in Wild and after the new expansion dropped it went from being the best control deck to a trash one. Way to go Blizz! If they don’t fix their cards right so we can play non-questline and older decks again I’m going to Classic.
can’t wait to see flesh giant being nerf to 11 mana!
Honestly it should be 12. All the other Giants are, but as someone said earlier, it could likely be Crystallizer.
This one made me rofl. Even if it wasn’t meant to be funny. 😉
Hopeful that they’ll address the Razorgore exploit in BG’s as well.
What’s the exploit. Haven’t seen anything.
It’s with the 2/4 2 drop that gives Dragons Health when it gains attack. Basically turns Razorgores it’s ridiculous health minions very easily. We’re talking 300+. It’s kinda dumb.
Lol, only 300+?! You must not have seen the Chromawings with 1000+ health. The Whelp Smuggler definitely needs a fix.
I was going for the average rather than the extreme but yes they both need nerfing.
“A bug that caused Razorgore to gain buffs separately for each dragon (so each buff counted for Whelp Smuggler) was fixed – it now gains its buff once (e.g. a single +5/+5 if you have 5 Dragons).”
I really hope they nerf perpetual flame to two mana.
I think that a nerf to crystalizer should be enough