Celestalon Confirms Balance Changes, Many Of The Decks Played At Worlds (Mostly Combo) Will Get Hit

Okay, this might seem like pointless news, but I’ve heard people arguing that we won’t get any balance changes before new year since the meta isn’t really broken. Which is KIND OF true, it’s not in a terrible state, but we could still use some changes. And luckily, Celestalon just confirmed that we indeed will get them.

And not only that – he said that many of the decks played at Worlds will get hit. It’s also no surprise because obviously pro players would pick the best decks to play in such a high stakes tournament… but what’s interesting is that most of the Worlds line-up consists of Combo decks. We’ll have a full list of builds and analysis posted later today, but long story short – we’ve got Garrote Rogue, Lifesteal OTK Demon Hunter, Alignment Druid, OwlTK Warlock, even OTK Y’Shaarj Shaman. The promise was for Alterac Valley to slow down the meta and let more Control-oriented strategies to shine through, and it looks like Team 5 wants to keep it.

My previous guess was that we will get a balance update on Tuesday and I stand by it – if that’s correct, then I would assume that patch notes will get announced a day earlier, on Monday. Can’t wait to learn what will get nerfed.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

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12 Comments

  1. Pandamonium
    December 18, 2021 at 11:50 AM

    I hope that actual attrition control can be playable but that seems hard to accomplish as of now. Their last balance update was horrible as well (buffed 3 warrior pirates shortly before mini-set added cannoneer & Smite, removed Illucia for no reason). It would be hard to do worse than that update.

  2. Alglyphic
    December 17, 2021 at 5:20 PM

    “Never fall back! Oh, never fall – ”
    “Wait!”
    “What’s that?!”
    “They summoned the NERF LORD!”
    “Hurry, fall back! Hurry, fall back!” (Fall back! FALL BACK!)

  3. Jourreson
    December 17, 2021 at 2:14 PM

    Today i used leftover for alligment druid, cool. Anyway, otk and face decks are most boring and sad to play against, good decision. BTW if u dont wanted otk decks why u changed illucia!? That was so satysfying to disrupt combo when PPL play they single player Mode heh

    • Bisalissy
      December 17, 2021 at 2:44 PM

      They changed Illucia because of her impact in Aggro Priest. As this archetype is no longer a thing, I hope they revert her ^^

      • Pandamonium
        December 18, 2021 at 11:45 AM

        Yeees. Nobody can pretend that Illucia is a problem in shadow priest. Look at the meta now! How would a strong shadow priest ever be considered a problem in this meta? Plus don’t kill the best control disruption card and pretend it was because of some fringe reason in aggro priest. And in the same patch they buffed THREE warrior pirates, shortly before the mini-set gave them the cannoneer and Smite!

    • TardisGreen
      December 17, 2021 at 3:17 PM

      Illucia was broken from day one. There is no way that Priest should ever be allowed such a tool.

      I suspect the nerf won’t ever get reverted, even when she is rotated to Wild.

      • Guguspatacus
        December 17, 2021 at 4:52 PM

        Almost every single class has (at least) one game breaking card, a thing that is ridiculously unbalanced, capable of winning a matchup on their own. Hell, even some of these cards are/ were neutral cards, and were taken advantage of by several classes. Right now, Priest doesn’t have anything close to the power of the meta defining cards. Priest has (right now) no way to deal with OTK (and historically never had any way), has a hard time against aggro due to pretty poor AOE compared to warlock, and besides quest (:clown:) has almost no way to close out a game vs another slow deck. Just bring back Illucia back so Priest can deal with some OTK decks for the love of god. Priest has been last or second in winrate for the whole past expansion, and this one is no different so far.

        • Pandamonium
          December 18, 2021 at 11:45 AM

          Tardis just loves trolling about Illucia, don’t feed him.

        • TardisGreen
          December 18, 2021 at 12:17 PM

          No way!

        • TardisGreen
          December 19, 2021 at 7:45 AM

          And look at that. A player hit Rank 5 Legend with Shadow Priest. The deck is a little different from the UiS Shadow Priest, but even the “redesigned” witch makes an appearance in it.

  4. DemianHS
    December 17, 2021 at 8:50 AM

    Good news! <3 Maybe this time We will take a break of Combo Otk decks. <3