Update: The fact that card reveals for the next expansion start tomorrow (November 16), it’s all but confirmed that this is when the patch drops.
Unexpectedly, Blizzard has just announced a balance patch coming next week (probably with a Patch 21.8, which should add new expansion pre-purchases etc.).
The patch will include four changes in total to address some overtuned cards (or simply cards people don’t like playing against). Aggro Druid, Questline Mage and Garrote Rogue will all get nerfed. Slower Priests build will get buffed (or, to be more precise, their previous nerf from last expansion will get reverted).
Nerfs
- Razormane Battleguard will have 2 Health (down from 3).
- Arcanist Dawngrasp (Sorcerer's Gambit) will give +2 Spell Damage (down from 3).
- Garrote will shuffle 2 Bleeds into your deck (down from 3).
Buff
- Renew will get cost 1 mana (down from 2).
We don’t have the exact release date for this patch yet, but it seems like Monday for full patch notes and Tuesday are very likely (since they want to release it well before Masters Tour Undercity takes place next weekend).
Read more below:
Hello all,
We will be making some card changes in a patch going out early next week that we wanted to let you know about, to give players time to prepare for Masters Tour: Undercity, taking place from November 19-21. These are the cards that will be changing:
Razormane Battleguard
- Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health → New: 2 Attack, 2 Health
Arcanist Dawngrasp (Mage Questline final reward)
- Old: Battlecry: For the rest of the game, you have Spell Damage +3. → New: For the rest of the game, you have Spell Damage +2.
Garrote
- Old: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 3 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn. → New: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 2 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn.
Renew
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 1]
The first three cards will be eligible for the normal full-dust refund for two weeks following the patch. Renew, which will go up in power level, will not get a dust refund. Keep an eye out for Patch Notes early next week for dev comments on these balance changes and more.
where is the mr. broken nerf???
The pathetic thing that questline mage for example considered as “only” great deck but Still will nerfed, while the questline pirate warrior in the top gets the canoneer which can do an insane amount of damage before the end of the questline. And after finishing quest do not have to do anything for the 4 damage/round, not to mention the free minion and weapon. To go back for mage after the quest you need cards to do dmg and if you out of luck can easily die with empty hands at round 6-7. ????
Well, blizzard is finally dealing with the solitaire archetypes, which is something that i’m very happy with.
We have all suffered from burning to ash and bleeding to death, we’re it after quite some time has become an increasingly growing anger. I would argue for that questline mage especially has ruined this meta, as it held back the unit interactive game of hearthstone that we all “feel in love” with. As state’d below me, turn 6 and 7 OTK’s are a problem, as they force the opposing player to act as quickly as possible, resulting in many aggro oriented decks and a loose of what streamer trump calls “value”.
It might not be that much removing 2 bleeds or 1 overall spell damage i terms of actual damage, but it still very strongly affects the deck. Hearthstone is after all a “winner takes all game”, so being a couple of damage away from winning still accounts for a lose. Therefore, taking off a little bit of damage from the decks in focus will reduce the chance of an OTK with no ability to response. As we have seen, Questline mages and Garrote rogues on the brink of defeat when the combo intialized. Rendering they’re damage even the slightest could be the diffrence between dealing 32 damage and dealing 27 damage, which gives the opponent another turn to finish of the opponent. Therefore, i think these nerfs will severally hurt win prencantage (especially against midrange decks), hopefully leaving them in the dust.
Moving on to the other nerf, i think it really won’t affect aggro druid that much. Because of it’s very efficent abilty of granting a taunt to guard it, it will always be protected from minion damage. Spells can as always hit the Razormane from “the side”, but most spells already deal 3+ so it won’t be a problem (only touch of nathrezim effects it now) . Still a good nerf, as it brings the stat power down a tiny notch while keeping it’s consistent value.
Priest i don’t have much to say for, have’nt really encounterd that many lately.
Wow this got long, sorry for being such a “know all” xD.
Quest warrior will dominate aggro druid, shiver my timbers without a pirate on the board, freebooter for 2 damage battlecry, Rancor 2 damage aoe, also quest rogue, wicked stab, si7 agent, easier to combo into with a Prize plunderer
These are good changes. Inevitability is not a problem per se–the problem is OTKs on turn 6 and 7, and the two decks that could do that have now been nerfed. This will make strategies that focus on life/armor gain and removal (Control Warrior, Libram Paladin) stronger, and those can balance out the strength of Face Hunter and Handlock.
As for Renew, the previous change can and should be reverted because the context is different. In Barrens, where lethality was historically low, cheap resource generation was a problem. Now Priest won’t be able to win through resource generation alone. It needs help to be able to keep up with what other classes can do.
As for people calling for nerfs to Pirate Warrior–it’s not actually that good!
Control Warrior can probably beat Face Hunter. But Handlock? NO. The MU at Legend is about 87-13. The Warrior can remove all the Giants, but has no way to WIN the game. Just dies in fatigue.
Hand lock isn’t used that much more after the nerf. There can be a polar matchup for polar decks. Quest warlock is meant to beat that control you’re talking about more than anything.
By “Handlock”, I am referring to QUEST Handlock, of course. The Quest gives Warlock a win con, something that Control Warrior lacks.
renew got nerfed for the right reasons. I can’t believe this
You’d imagine the changes were made due to current performance and obvious interactions with the new set coming up. As mage isn’t performing that well but maybe there’s something to be released which will buff it hugely. I’d be keen on seeing ignite not infinitely regenerating same with warrior quest would be nice to limit to 4 or 5 turns of reinforcements. I love the razormane battleguard nerf and think quest warrior and rogue should pick up, popularity wise even more.
I’ve seen this idea many times, but I don’t think it matters at all. I have played a lot of Questline Mage early in the expansion (got bored of it later) and literally my biggest Ignite (according to achievement) was 8 damage, but that was probably with another source of spell damage.
Even if you limit it to 4 shuffles, so 5 casts in total, that’s still more than enough damage to kill Control Warriors (remember that you also have Runed Orb, Fireball and Apexist Blast + you can often generate some more) – they would need to get incredibly lucky with Armor gain to play around that. And for decks without any life gain, you don’t even need that many shuffles, sometimes you don’t even need a single shuffle to kill them if you draw your Fireballs.
Ignite being infinite matters maybe in 0.1% of the matches, so limiting it would be irrelevant – unless you want to limit it heavily, like to 2 shuffles, but then it kills the entire idea behind the card.
Oh, and of course it makes a difference in Wild, where you have an infinite Ignite OTK combo, but I was talking about Standard.
I lost a couple games earlier when the QLs were released to Mage because ignite prevented fatigue damage.
I don’t know if the nerf is even necessary Ql Mage maybe boring but it’s not that strong.
In other words, they did the nerf correctly here. It really was the extra damage creating the problem.
I have a bad feeling when they patch-in the new expansions, because it will cut the remaining time left to finish miniset achievements into a shorter one. Even shorter than the previous miniset, where it’s 7 days cut-off from the release date.
Anyway, back to the nerf. +2 or +3 spell damage is not the problem, the problem is when Mage can literally empty their deck for infinite damage from Ignite, or the fact that the quest is too easy to complete. The quickest I faced was turn 4, where they drop Arcanist at turn 5.
Garrote nerf probably kills the card. Razormane nerf is good. But what I don’t like is the fact that Wandmaker can start dropping Renew back again. I’m gonna say, the “created by” Priest meta is gonna make people furious once more.
Er, post QL completion, Cram Session will draw one less card. We are talking about a deck which was struggling to break 50% win rate. After this nerf, its dead.
The best deck post nerf? How about QL Warlock. Ironic isn’t it?
Oh no, I don’t think that will be over for the mini-set achievements. The next expansion patch would be 22.0, this will most likely be 21.8 (or however they want to call it), just adding expansion pre-orders, not actual expansion data and achievements. They always release a patch on the expansion announcement day and that’s the patch I’m talking about.
I expect the actual expansion patch to release in 3 weeks or so. That’s still not much time for achievements, but they’re doable.
Blizzard looking at Renew in July “Nerf on”
Blizzard looking at Renew in November “Nerf off”