In case you missed it, there will be nerfs to some seemingly overpowered cards in the near future. This lead to much happiness across the community, however, many people still feel Blizzard hasn’t communicated enough on these decisions. Iksar, a Hearthstone Game Designer, took to Reddit to discuss how Blizzard communicates with the Hearthstone community.
The truth is that ‘we’re considering it’ is the honest answer. We announced on Wednesday and as of Sunday night things still weren’t set in stone. As of the previous Thursday we were having long group conversations about the pros and cons to changing each of the 5-6 Shaman cards we had considered. Once the changes were actually decided upon, we sent the blog out to localization to be translated and announced in all regions within 24 hours once that was complete. I think part of the miscommunication was that there was an interview with IGN posted here a couple days before the card changes documenting a lot about how things were ‘on the radar’. That interview actually took place a couple days before it was published, before we had decided on a plan of action.
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Here are the Shaman cards that were considered:
Tunnel Trogg ended up being very close to being nerfed, but ultimately Rockbiter Weapon and Tuskarr Totemic were the chosen ones.
Rockbiter, Trogg, Totem Golem, Thing From Below, Tuskarr, and a little conversation about Doomhammer. Some of those never reached serious consideration but it’s still good to have a conversation about hypothetical impact. Trogg was very close, but didn’t hit a few of the most powerful decks that already don’t include him. Rockbiter was wider reaching and we felt that it set us up better for the future of Shaman. Tuskarr was the most clear offender of both power level and fun.
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I’m glad they didn’t nerf Tunnel Trogg. I can understand why it would be considered but it’s power level is on par with the Mage’s Mana Wyrm and a nerf to Trogg would mean they would need to consider a nerf to Wyrm too.
Thing from Below and Doomhammer are much stronger cards than the Trogg because most can’t remove them as easily without tech cards or uneven trades.
I think this next round of nerfs is very good for getting us closer to a healthier meta. It will be interesting to see in what direction it will go with the nerfs and the future set release.
I think that out of those, besides Tuskarr Totemic, the one that deserved the nerf most is Thing from Below. The card is completely broken and very consistent. It was meant as a late game tempo play to offset the fact that playing totems is a tempo loss (you don’t really want to Hero Power every turn), but it turns out that Shaman can pump out so many Totems, that it’s often played for nearly free as soon as turn 4-5.
It was so strong that even Aggro Shaman played it. And it’s clearly a card that wasn’t meant to be played in Aggro. You can’t give Aggro decks nearly free 5/5 minions.
Of course, nerfing Tuskarr will indirectly nerf Thing from Below too. Tuskarr won’t be played in Aggro any more. But it still might in Midrange. Not to mention that the Wicked Witchdoctor lists (like Xixo’s Totem Shaman) might become more popular, and it’s also very easy to get a free Thing from Below in that list.
Innervate or Preparation are insanely strong, because they give you free mana for nothing. 5/5 Taunt is worth ~5 mana. If you can drop that even let’s say for 2 mana (and that’s very easy), that’s 3 mana worth of free tempo and you don’t even need to use any additional card to achieve that. And the biggest problem is that it’s from WoG, so it will stay in Standard for next 1.5 years.
I feel like Thing from Below should be one of the two: cost should be reduced only when it’s in your hand (which might kill the card, but not necessarily – it could still be played in more totem-heavy lists) or make it count only the Basic totems – so Totem Golem, Flametongue, Mana Tide wouldn’t reduce the cost. The second nerf seems better, because in order to make it cheap, you’d have to actually sacrifice the tempo first. For every 2 mana spent on Hero Powering, you’d get 1 mana discount on each of the Things from Below. And in slower Shaman lists it would still make Thing from Below a very good tempo play, but slightly later than it is now.
However, Thing from Below is directly affected because of the Tuskarr Totemic nerf. Tuskarr Totemic is significantly worse in aggro now, since there’s no chance of the 3 key Totems that are beneficial to Aggro(and that broke Tuskarr in the first place). It’s likely that Tuskarr will see less play in those aggro lists, and maybe even midrange non-totem based lists. If that is the case, that DIRECTLY affects and makes Thing From Below worse in those lists, without reducing it’s effectiveness in lists that is was SUPPOSED to be part of – totem lists, and control lists.