Big changes coming to Hearthstone in patch 7.1 – Spirit Claws will be increased to two mana, and Small-Time Buccaneer will have its health reduced to one according to Polygon.
First up, the shaman card Spirit Claws will have its mana cost increased from one to two. Spirit Claws is a weapon that has a mere one attack, but that increases to three attack when a minion with spell damage is on the shaman’s side of the board. Since the card’s introduction in the One Night in Karazhan adventure, the shaman class has dominated the meta in part thanks to the powerful early game opportunities the weapon provides.
Another big change is coming to the Small-Time Buccaneer card. This one mana-cost minion will see its health reduced from two to one. The Buccaneer will keep its powerful card text, which adds two attack to the minion if the player controlling it has a weapon equipped, but the health reduction will make it easier to clear off the board.
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The other change will be ranked floors for ladder, upon hitting ranks 15, 10, and 5 you will no longer be able to de-rank passed those ranks for the remainder of the month.
Blizzard’s specific solution to this problem is something it’s calling “floors.” Beginning with update 7.1, players climbing the ranked ladders in either Standard or Wild mode will hit “floors” at ranks 15, 10 and 5. Upon hitting these floors, they will no longer be able to de-rank with losses for the remainder of the month.
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The date of the patch will be sometime in late February.
Update: Here’s the official post from Blizzard:
We’re continuously looking for ways to refine the Ranked Play experience. One thing we can do immediately to help the Ranked Play experience is to make the overall climb from rank to rank feel like more an accomplishment once you hit a certain milestone. In order to promote deck experimentation and reduce some of the feelings of ladder anxiety some players may face, we’re introducing additional Ranked Play floors.
Once a player hits Rank 15, 10, or 5, they will no longer be able to de-rank past that rank once it is achieved within a season, similar to the existing floors at Rank 20 and Legend. For example, when a player achieves Rank 15, regardless of how many losses a player accumulates within the season, that player will not de-rank back to 16. We hope this promotes additional deck experimentation between ranks, and that any losses that may occur feel less punishing.
Update 7.1 Balance Changes
With the upcoming update, we will be making balance changes to the following two cards: Small-Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws.
Small-Time Buccaneer now has 1 Health (Down from 2)
The combination of Small Time Buccaneer and Patches the Pirate has been showing up too often in the meta. Weapon-utilizing classes have been heavily utilizing this combination of cards, especially Shaman, and we’d like to see more diversity in the meta overall. Small Time Buccaneer’s Health will be reduced to 1 to make it easier for additional classes to remove from the board.
Spirit Claws now costs 2 Mana (Up from 1)
Spirit Claws has been a notably powerful Shaman weapon. At one mana, Spirit Claws has been able to capitalize on cards such as Bloodmage Thalnos or the Shaman Hero power to provide extremely efficient minion removal on curve. Increasing its mana by one will slow down Spirit Claws’ ability to curve out as efficiently.
These changes will occur in an upcoming update near the end of February. We’ll see you in the Tavern!
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I don’t think these changes will make any difference at all Maybe to Shaman … but the Pirate Package will be as strong and overplayed as it currently is.
This is a case of too little, too late Blizzard.
I think this delay before taking action has caused massive damage to the game.
Plenty of players have left, my friends list becomes less active daily.
So we will still be inundated by bloody Pirate Warrior and Jade decks for the foreseeable future.
In other words Blizzard have basically done nothing to address the crisis in the meta.
NOTHING.
I think the STB nerf will definitely make a difference. Going down to 1 health means that any damage will kill it. Mage can ping it away instantly, Paladin HP trades with it, Druid and Rogue HP can take it out with an attack, Voidwalker can trade on it, UTH can 1 for 1 it. This will save 2-3 damage and a card in hand for most classes. Now Druid doesn’t have to waste Wrath on STB, Rogue can save Backstab, Mage can save Frostbolt, Warlock does lose Voidwalker in a trade with it. This makes a huge early game difference. For aggro decks, losing that 2-3 damage means a lot and gives the opponent more time to stabilize. This hurts Pirates more than you might think.
Sorry, typo. Meant to say “Warlock DOESN’T lose Voidwalker in a trade with it”
I completely agree. This nerf will make a big difference. The fact that Shaman can vortex STB and Patches off the board with one card (and Mage can Arcane Explosion/Arcane Missiles) makes the follow up pirate cards harder to build off of and the strategy as a whole becomes less consistent. Let’s see the nerfs happen and experiment to see how they impact the meta before we complain. I’m fairly optimistic.
Actually it does make a difference that 1 life. Now it can be killed by any damage taken and it won’t be able to trade anymore.
Hunters and Paladins rejoice.
Yess, but is sad because now that the nerfs are coming people will play those cards even more just to farm easy ranks , and then probably disenchant? like Stbuc is a weaker lepper gnome now, the weapon is still good, I was goning to say nerf to reno mage but next expansion there will be no reno mage so yeah, nice nerf 😀