After it seemed like we won’t get any changes in Boomsday, Blizzard surprised us by announcing that there will be a balance patch after all. New set of nerfs was just announced yesterday. The nerf hammer will hit three cards – two Standard and one Wild. Here is a full list of upcoming changes:
- Giggling Inventor – Mana Cost upped from 5 to 7.
- Mana Wyrm – Mana Cost upped from 1 to 2.
- Aviana – Mana Cost upped from 9 to 10.
To read about the full, official reasoning behind those changes, check out the blog post detailing them. And if you want to read my own analysis, thoughts, and possible impact on the meta, keep reading this article.
Pro-Tip – Dust All Of The Nerfed Cards!
I’ll start off by stating what’s probably obvious to most, but I always see some comments from people asking that question. When nerfs happen, you should absolutely disenchant every card that is nerfed. You get a full Arcane Dust refund, meaning that if you ever want to play them again, you can just re-craft them with no additional cost, and you can use all of the extra Dust in the meanwhile.
The full Dust refund period usually lasts for 2 weeks, so another option is to keep the cards for now, maybe play with them in their post-nerf state to see how well they work, and Dust them right before the 2 weeks mark. It’s also a good approach, but I’m not a big fan of it. You might forget about them, miss the deadline and be left with useless cards that you can no longer get full value from. Dusting the nerfed cards is always the first thing I do after the patch rolls out, even though I often craft them again after a while.
Nerf Analysis
Let’s start with analyzing the nerfs, one by one. I’ll also try to answer a question a lot of you might have – why there are no Druid nerfs?
Giggling Inventor
This is by far the biggest deal when it comes to this batch of nerfs. Ever since Boomsday, Giggling Inventor has been topping popularity charts, reaching as high as 50% inclusion rate, which is not something you see every day, especially given that some decks just couldn’t play her at all (Genn Greymane builds like Even Warlock or Even Shaman). The card’s popularity has been slowly falling down, to around 30%, where it sits right now. That fall wasn’t caused by people realizing how to play against the card, or maybe it becoming worse in a way, no – it was because everyone was teching against it. Cards like Mossy Horror, Blood Knight and Mind Control Tech, which have raised to popularity mainly because of Giggling Inventor, having a bigger presence on the ladder (combined) than the card they’re trying to counter. Giggling Inventor, however, is still played in many decks, simply because it’s so strong.
I was really curious when devs have stated that no changes are planned for now despite all of that. It seems like they’ve backed down on that statement and swung the nerf hammer anyway. One thing is sure – nerfing it from 5 to 7 mana simply kills the card. The difference is MASSIVE in every single deck. If you use her as a defensive mechanic, waiting 2 extra turns is not an option when an Aggro deck is punching you, you will just have to play another option. If you use her in Token Druid as a way to summon more bodies, Violet Teacher will most likely be a better option now, especially since you can no longer combo Giggling with Strongshell Scavenger on the same turn. Same goes for Quest Rogue – one of the deck’s main powers was chaining two Giggling Inventors in the late game with Valeera the Hollow, now it’s just impossible. And so on and so on. The card is no longer a good tempo play, it’s not a good value, and it doesn’t fill the mid game defensive option niche anymore (especially since for just one more mana you get a Primordial Drake, which is a way better defensive option).
On the one hand, I do understand why they didn’t nerf it to 6 mana. The card would now suddenly fit into Even decks, and while I don’t think that Even Warlock would necessarily take massive advantage of 6 mana Giggling, other decks such as Even Shaman or Even Paladin might. The first one, especially, is built around flooding the board, and Giggling even at 6 mana would be a great addition. But I dislike the fact that they too often go with the laziest route – mana cost nerfs. Why not change the card to 4 mana and make it summon a single Annoy-o-Tron instead? Or even make the Annoy-o-Trons she summons 0/2? (in the second case, they would probably have to hit the Quest Rogue in some other way)
But still, I’m glad that they did decided to hit this card in the end. It was just too good, made other mid-game options obsolete, not to mention that it forced so many decks into running counters. Nerfing it should have a significant impact on the meta, something that we were lacking in this mid-expansion state.
Mana Wyrm
While I did expect Mana Wyrm to be nerfed or moved to Hall of Fame eventually, I didn’t expect it to happen now. Tempo Mage, the deck which can abuse the card to the fullest extent, is not an amazing option right now. It’s viable, yes, but far from a meta breaker. My best guess is that they know something we don’t – for example, Mage might be getting some powerful cheap spells in the upcoming expansion, and they would just be too strong with Mana Wyrm, so they’re nerfing it preemptively.
For those of you who think that the nerf is unjustified in general, I disagree completely. The timing is awkward, but Mana Wyrm deserved a balance change for a while already. It was probably the most powerful 1-drop in the game, a single card that could snowball the entire match. Just casting a single spell, which isn’t hard in a deck full of 1-3 mana spells, made it a 1 mana 2/3, which is something you would run in nearly every deck. Another spell or two and it was going absolutely out of control. And it’s not like dealing 3 damage on Turn 1-2 is easy, so it sticks relatively often when compared to other 1-drops.
And just like in case of Giggling, I think that they could go for another nerf. Decreasing the health from 3 to 2 would put it in line with other powerful 1-drops, but it would no longer be the powerhouse it is now – e.g. it would die to 2 attack minions. At 2 mana, it’s like a slightly better Mana Addict (while it gains only +1 per spell, I’d say that the fact that Attack is permanent is a big advantage), but given that Mana Addict is not a great card to begin with, 2 cost Mana Wyrm doesn’t look good right now.
To be honest, I think that Mana Wyrm isn’t completely dead. If you play a deck full of cheap spells, it will still be okay. Just like Mana Addict was teched in early in Boomsday to fill the slot, post-nerf Mana Wyrm will be able to do the same thing, but better. However, instead of being completely broken, it will be an “okay” at best card. Which I’m absolutely fine with if they decide to print some more powerful cheap cards for Mage to offset that.
Aviana
That one was unexpected too. I thought that they would go for Juicy Psychmelon, but it looks like they decided to nerf the “combo activator” instead. Aviana combos were played before Psychmelon and they would probably be always played. Technically this nerf doesn’t kill them – Druids can still run Innervate, or just play 10 mana Aviana one turn and then drop a 4 mana copy with Flobbidinous Floop on the next turn. However, since combos require additional pieces now, they become less consistent, thus worse. The fact that Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King are in the same mana slot for Psychmelon means that drawing the combo will also be less consistent.
However, as much as I hated facing Druids in the Wild, they weren’t even the strongest class in the format. Even Shaman or Odd Rogue had better win rates across the board. So I don’t think that it was necessarily a balance change. It was nerfed for two reasons – first is because Aviana combos were frustrating to play against, and second is because they limited the future design space. When you can consistently turn the cost of every minion to 1 and start with 10 mana, then a lot of possibly degenerate combos might be built around that shell in the future. Nerfing Psychmelon wouldn’t change that. I think that the change is good when it comes to the future of Wild format, but is it enough? Wouldn’t it be better to remake the card somehow? Because right now the combos are still possible, just less consistent, which means that playing against them will most likely be even more frustrating.
No Standard Druid Nerfs?
That’s probably the most common question when it comes to this set of nerfs, and while I don’t disagree with the fact that Druid is too strong right now, Blizzard knows much more than we do. Some of the most powerful Druid cards – Branching Paths, Spreading Plague, Ultimate Infestation, Lesser Jasper Spellstone, Malfurion the Pestilent, Oaken Summons (+Ironwood Golem), Hadronox, Twig of the World Tree etc. will all rotate out with the first expansion of 2019. That will turn the whole Druid class on its head. Players have demanded nerfs for Classic staples like Wild Growth or Nourish that see play in every Druid deck right now. While they’re indeed strong, I think that ramp is an important part of the Druid’s identity and the cards are so powerful mostly because there are insane cards you want to ramp into, a lot of which will be gone soon. For example, in the past, Nourish was mostly used as a card draw, only occasionally +2 mana crystals were better than +3 cards. That’s because there were no Branching Paths and UI, so Druid was struggling with card draw and ramping with Nourish often meant that you had no plays to make.
There’s also another expansion which comes out roughly 1.5 months after the nerfs. The set is surely already finished and playtested – maybe it pushes Druid in another direction, or doesn’t give the class new strong cards, or maybe they’ve printed some counters for cards like Spreading Plague.
Another thing we need to think about is the Hall of Fame rotation coming with the first set of 2019. Maybe they do want to get rid of Wild Growth after all, but they want to Hall of Fame it instead of nerfing it? It might not be an awful idea, because the card ultimately will not be as oppressive in Wild, but it will let them print other Ramp options instead for the Standard format.
And my last point is that it’s too early to say how strong Druid will be right now. Yes, the class wasn’t directly nerfed (although Giggling Inventor nerf will hurt Token Druid a lot), but there’s a chance that the entire meta will change, and Druid will get weaker too. Given that they are playtesting those changes, they probably have a better idea of how will they affect the meta. Or maybe not and I’m giving them too much credit.
So all in all, while I wouldn’t mind seeing some Druid nerfs, I’m almost certain that there are some reasons behind that and it’s not like they’ve decided to leave the most popular class (at the higher ranks, at least) alone.
Impact On The Meta
When nerfs happen, it’s always very hard to predict the exact impact they are going to have on the meta. But this set of changes is particularly difficult to analyze. Giggling Inventor getting nerfed means that a certain card disappears from 1/3 of the decks on the ladder. And so, the cards that were played to counter it, such as Mossy Horror and Blood Knight will also even if not completely disappear, become much less popular. It means that roughly 60-70% of the meta will have a few empty slots to fill, and right now there’s no telling what cards will work best. In other words, the meta can flip around and look completely differently than it does now, or it might not change all that much.
Few things are sure, though. The biggest loser of this nerf patch is Tempo Mage. Mana Wyrm was an insane card, and while I agree with the nerf overall, because Mana Wyrm was unhealthy for the game in general, Mage didn’t get any compensation. If you nerf one of the best cards in the class, the backbone of Tempo Mage, it’s obvious that the deck will suffer in return. It was already a low Tier 2/ high Tier 3 deck (viable, but not amazing) and I would be absolutely surprised if that change didn’t kill it for now. I guess that Mage players will want to wait until the next expansion – I hope that Blizzard knows what they’re doing in that context, and that they will give Mage some stronger cards instead (because let’s be honest, Jaina didn’t get many great cards so far in 2018).
It’s hard to judge how Quest Rogue will perform. On the one hand, Giggling nerf is significant – not only it will be harder to stall the game against Aggro, but the deck has lost a massive late game play, since I don’t think that it will want to play the 7 mana Giggling – and even if they will, there will be no way to play them twice. On the other hand, Tempo Mage will most likely be out of the meta, and it was a terrible matchup for Quest Rogue. While I think that Giggling nerf will have a bigger impact than losing one bad matchup, the deck’s performance will heavily rely on the other meta changes.
Like I’ve mentioned before, Giggling Inventor nerf will most likely mean that less players will run Mossy Horror. Less Mossy Horrors in the meta means that Spreading Plague will get stronger. Giggling nerf will hurt Token Druid (it was probably THE best deck to run Giggling Inventor in), but other Druid archetypes should get stronger. But it’s far from a given – let’s say that Zoo Warlock becomes even more popular than it is now, then Druids might have a hard time, since the matchup is pretty good for Zoo.
If I had to make some predictions, I’d say that Deathrattle Hunter is going to be very strong. The deck performs very well against Druids, other than Token Druid, which is getting hit. One of the main weaknesses of the Hunter deck was Quest Rogue, which is also getting weaker. Which means that it shapes to be a solid player in the upcoming meta.
Another deck that looks promising is – oddly enough – Resurrect Priest. Quest Rogue and Token Druid were generally bad matchups for the deck, and Tempo Mage was a terrible one. At the same time, the deck is performing really well against Deathrattle Hunter or Even Warlock (which will also benefit from the Giggling’s nerf, since it couldn’t run it anyway and had a pretty hard time getting through without Mossy). I don’t think that it will be a new meta-breaker, but it should get better.
Closing
I’m happy about any card changes. The meta is always getting stale mid-expansion, and a nerf patch is like a breath of fresh air. Even if it’s not big, the nerfs always push players to try out new things, the balance of power shifts around, there’s much more to do, at least for a few weeks – and then the reveal season for a new expansion starts and players get excited again. The cycle was nearly perfect for the last few expansions, to the point that the meta never felt really stale, as it would 3 or 3.5 months into the expansion with no changes.
Like most of you, I’m surprised that they didn’t touch Druid, but given their amount of data, I have faith that it’s a part of some bigger plan. It would just make no sense for them to see that Druid is dominating the high rank meta and decide to not take any actions. But I might be overly optimistic about the whole case. We’ll probably see if that’s true or not when the next expansion hits.
And what do you guys think about the nerfs? What are the cards you would like to see nerfed? Do you think that they will impact the meta in a meaningful way? Let me know in the comments and until next time!
Happy about Mana Wyrm, it surely restricts design space a lot. And cheap spells are fun, so hope to see more of those now. It fit nicely in classic as a two mana card. A little bit sad it cant be one mana in wild though…
In the same spirit,I hope Preperation gets rotated to wild. Super restricts which spells can be made for rogue. Wild growth should stay as is, because it is an easy card for new players to understand and build around (very much needed), but Nourish can also go to HoF – always having those two around at the same time is tiresome.
Cut the bull. A meta overrun run with 4 “different” Druid archetypes running the same OP cards that don’t get nerfed might somehow weaker too? You’re insulting everyone’s intelligence. Championing classic druid cards with “class identity” while finding reasons to justify a nerf to a card that means just as much to mage’s original style just shows your bias as well.
The point made was that the majority of these cards are rotating out.
BUT
Do we really want to play another 6 months of Druuudstone?
I remember back in KnC when they nerfed Patches/Bonemare/Raza, the consensus was “where’s the Cubelock nerfs? Won’t this make them OP?” and the response was “they’ve probably playtested that, the meta will settle, etc etc”. But true to form, it was 3 straight months of Cubelock on the ladder until the nerfs came for them too.
What I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t count on Druids in standard magically becoming… NOT overtuned and dominant until either nerf, rotation, or some unforeseen tech card in the next expansion..
Also as somebody who’s played a lot of evolve Shaman this expansion, there’s no way in heck Giggling is still worth it at 7 mana. I’ll give it a shot, though!
Do you think Quest Rogue is dead because of the giggling nerf? Or this to early to tell?
It is likely not dead, but even more polarized. You dont need GI to win your good matchups, it is “easy mode” for sure but good players still grind those matches well enough before boomsday, so…but it would often be clutch vs aggro. So I expect it to again need a more specific meta with less aggro. Maybe once a month someone will crush the legend meta with it, and it will fit in anti-control tournament lineups.
I’d like to once again mention the Fiery War Axe and Hex nerfs.
There will be no strong cheap spells for Mage in the near future. Mage is chosen to be the new bottom class, period.
PS: I will be very happy if I’m proven wrong. 😉
Warrior started getting stronger cards right after the nerfs – in Kobolds & Catacombs. Both Armor synergies (Drywhisker Armorer, Yip) and Recruit stuff were the best things Warrior had. It just happened that Odd Warrior is better now so he can’t play most of that stuff (except Reckless Flurry, which is a staple AoE).
I’d argue that they’ve tried to give some strong Shaman cards in Kobolds & Catacombs too, but they once again went for a questionable theme (basic totems) with not much support outside of the cards added in that expansion. However, they rehabilitated themselves in The Witchwood, giving the class lots of its current staples – Hagatha, Shudderwock, Earthen MIght, Murkspark Eel.
The recent balance patches and the general class balance was quite alright. Yes, there are always weaker and stronger classes, but it’s pretty much impossible to have a fully balanced meta where every class is on the same power level.
But I might also be giving them too much credit in that department, not sure.
I might remember wrong, but Warrior was essentially a dead class until Witchwood (Baku)!? Sure there where some experiments with fatigue builds, but they wheren’t successful.
Same for Shaman (Shudderwock).
I guess we’ll have to wait and see. As I mentioned, I’d be very happy if Mage would get good new cards.
I don’t think token druid would get much worse. it was one of the strongest deck in witchwood and back then it didn’t even use giggling.
For all of the people complaining about things not happening to Druid, I think this article hits one of the main points on the head (so much of their powerful cards rotating)
But even more than that, I think the nerf to giggling could open up a lot of space for more midrange decks that could give druid a hard time. It feels like those decks were mostly forced out because they weren’t fast enough always to keep up with aggro, and often ran into the wall of giggles with removal against control and combo decks.
Only time will tell, but it could be fun to see more midrange decks pop up since there really aren’t many on standard anymore (except for evenlock and kinda deathrattle hunter). The whole insta-concede rock-paper-scissors of aggro-control-combo could use a fourth option to spice things up until the new expansion.
For all the people in wild, I can completely understand the complaining because card rotations do not matter. Druid will still have all the tools it needs to just build up cards and all of the sudden win after shutting you down by gaining 40+ armor.
Very happy with the change to Giggling Inventor. I can now consider removing the Mossy Horror in my Even Shaman (i still might need it to deal with Spreading Plague but i’ll depend on how many druids i see in the ladder)… Interested also in seeing how will this modify some decks. For Example, the standard Odd Rogue has 2x Giggling and 2x Blood Knight. So it will have to find replacements for those cards (maybe BK for Blink Fox and Gigglings for Tar Creepers)…
In the case of mana wyrm, i agree that a different aproach might have been better, like changing it to be a 1/2 or maybe even a 2/2. making it a 2mana minion removed a lot of it.
So you’re suggesting making Mana Wyrm a 1 mana 2/2??? You can’t be serious.
i think 1/2 would have been better, but maybe 2/2 wouldn’t been so terrible, its much easier to remove 2 health on T2 than 3 Health (backstab, murkspark eel, eviscerate, drain soul, slam, etc). But maybe you are right, 2/2 might not be enough of a nerf.
Just remember that a vanilla 2/2 for 1 was an aggro staple. A 2/2 for 1 mana wyrm would be nuts and arguably even be a buff
That said, I agree that a 1/2 for 1 would’ve been the ideal nerf
You know what – HS is a digital game. So why not make that totally ‘risky’ move and just do it. If 1 mana 2/2 is too oppressive (pretty good chance it is), then just nerf it again…
Oh wait – I totally forgot how complicated it is to implement all those nerfs … well then, no risks. Just do another dull ‘change the mana cost’-nerf. :/
Yeah, I’m trying to be sarcastic.
I use mossy for clearing those pesky plagues all the time
I know that I mentioned this in other pages, but, would not have it been better nerf mana wirm in December with the new expansion and mage receive new cards and doesn’t now, when mage is not at his best?
same as Zeon what about odd warrior?
I’ve just answered his comment, you can check out my opinion about Odd Warrior there!
Reasonable analysis,I like it. Just wondering what it will make Odd Warrior like…
Sjow recently hit leg1 with odd warrior without gigs in the list.
Quest Rogue was one of the deck’s worst matchups and that’s getting nerfed, but on the other hand, Tempo Mage was one of the best matchup and the deck is also getting nerfed. So that makes it pretty even.
Odd Warrior also loses Giggling Inventor, which is a good card, but not necessary. Warrior won’t feel the nerf as much as Token Druid for example.
However, if Deathrattle Hunters become more popular, that’s not a good sign for Warrior, since it’s a bad matchup for the deck. Togwaggle Druid is also a terrible matchup if that deck becomes more popular, Resurrect Priest is also pretty bad for Warrior.
I honestly think that overall the nerf patch will be bad for Odd Warrior, but not THAT bad – the deck should still be viable. But that’s just my educated guess, like I’ve said in the article, it’s impossible to accurately predict how the meta will look like since majority of the decks on the ladder will have to change a bunch of cards.
Yeah, absolutely agree with that. Thank you! I have to say I did not play Odd Warrior all too much when I wanted to ladder before. There are just too many Shudderwocks or other bad matchups on the ladder. I will, however, always play the deck as long as it is viable for the sheer fun it provides when there is a chance to actually win (I mean shudderwock might as well be concede if you do not draw like a God and somehow manage to pressure)
For that, GI is indeed secondary. Just wondered mostly about the general development of whom you’d now face. Hunter I don’t mind all too much, feels good to play against imo, even if you’re unfavored. I often even managed to win and now that felt really good. Like winning a 40/60 uphill battle if you know what I mean. But yeah, let’s see if it stays fun, I really hope so.
I played a shit ton of Odd warrior to legend for the last couple months.
All my lists I cut giggling inventor… too many counter cards like MOssy horror and blood nights running around in the meta. And you already have enough strong anti agroo tools without it.
I think the meta is gonna get a bit worse for Odd warrior. Deathrattle hunter was already a slightly unfavored matchup, there will prob be more unfavored matchups on ladder after these nerfs.
Like more people playing Togg druid, Rez Priest, deathrattle hunter and maybe even more Shudderwalk shamans.
Also note, quest rogue can beat odd warrior 100% of the time by subbing one tech card, Lab experimenter (Shuffle 3 cards into your deck)
Play DK Val, Play one on a minion (shuffle 3 copies) PLay the shadow (shuffle 3 more Experimenters back into your deck)
Game over, you win the value matchup, you never fatigue and have infinite value.
Well, let’s hope that the new meta will be more midrangey then. Especially fun times with Odd Warrior ahead if that happens. Would make combo decks retreat a bit as they cannot handle the pressure well enough and pure aggro can be stopped early enough to survive. So less Shudders and Quest Rogues (who are crippled either way already), that would sound like a good setup to play the deck to me.