Stonekeep takes a look at which cards are still potentially problematic in the Classic Set!
Introduction
Hearthstone has one, huge advantage compared to the other popular card games. It’s digital. There are no paper cards, there is no way to play the game with real cards, unless you print them out yourself and simplify the rules. There are a lot of voices that say Blizzard isn’t using this advantage to its full extent, but I’m not here to argue about that.
Being a digital card game means that, like in any other online game, balance changes are very easy to make. You change one card – everyone who owns the card has it updated to its new version. The last batch of changes was made around 4 months ago, with the release of Whispers of the Old Gods expansion and formats.
Standard Format – is it Balanced?
Standard is the format where you can use cards from (about) the last 2 years worth of expansions and cards from the Classic set. It means that there is a constant factor – Classic cards, at least not according to what Blizzard says right now – are never going to rotate out. It means that we’ll always see cards like Fireball, Chillwind Yeti or Sylvanas Windrunner. It means that in order to keep the overall balance of the competitive format, the Classic set should be as balanced as possible. But is it?
I’ve heard a lot of voices, including the ones from pro players, that the balance changes to the Classic weren’t enough. That there are still some cards that are too strong, that will be always staples. It’s not really healthy for the game and Blizzard knows that – Ben Brode has said that they don’t rule out potential future nerfs or even removing cards from Classic altogether. As the recent Purify drama has shown, they are also willing to increase/decrease showing rate of certain cards in Arena to balance things out, but that’s a topic for another article.
There is also another thing. The Classic set is supposed to be core for deck building. Cards that you can always get back and put them into your deck, something like a basic kit, with expansions and adventures being more advanced deck building blocks. To achieve that, Blizzard should also consider adding certain cards from expansions into the Classic set. Some cards are crucial for the class identity, and are really well-rounded might as well be played until the end of time.
As someone who has been playing since Closed Beta, I’ve seen every expansion in action. How cards were wrongly evaluated, how the initial meta was shaping, how we’ve been surprised with a lot of decks that no one thought would work. And even crazy expansions like Goblins vs Gnomes had a fair share of balanced cards.
Since I like theorycrafting, I’ll write about two things. In this article – cards that could use nerfs if they’re going to be played forever and in the second one – cards from the expansions we have so far that could make their way to the Classic set. It’s based mostly on my own feelings – a semi-competitive player with over ten thousand Constructed matches under his belt. I won’t list everything, because it would take way too long, so I’ll focus on the cards that I think deserve it (nerf or spot in Classic) most.
Cards That I Would See Nerfed
This list will probably be slightly controversial. I mean, some of them are pretty easy and clear, but others… let’s say that there is no way to nerf them without making them useless. We all know that it’s usually the way Blizzard nerfs things in Hearthstone – they make them terrible. I’ll try to give some ideas for each card listed, but in reality it would require a lot of playtesting to see whether the new version would be balanced.
Savage Roar
I was really surprised when Blizzard didn’t nerf it and decided to nerf Force of Nature instead. I think Savage Roar was a real problem here. The card is really broken, because it scales so well with the amount of minions you have on the board. But unlike Bloodlust, 2 minions on the board are enough to make the card good (not to mention that it’s 2 mana cheaper). Savage Roar limits design, because now adding ways to flood the board or minions that are sticky for Druid or to the neutral pool is risky. I think the best way to approach this card would be to remove the +2 Attack it gives to your Hero. It won’t matter that much if you have a lot of minions on the board, but it won’t be good with only 1 or 2 of them. It would be much more in line with Bloodlust (2 attack to minions instead of 3, but for 2 mana less), which in my opinion is well-balanced.
Ice Block
Another card I’ve suspected of being nerfed. This card promotes very uninteractive gameplay, is often played in a combo decks that want to stall the game. It has little to no counterplay, because current card that destroys Secret suck and would only be good if virtually everyone plays decks with Secrets. But I think that nerf is a bad word here. I don’t think you can nerf that card – they would have to completely remake it into doing something else. That would probably be the end of Freeze Mage, but I wouldn’t cry. While I like playing with the deck, it’s probably the most solitaire-style deck ever and it’s not fun to play against it.
Divine Favor
Oh, this card might even be on the top of my “I hate this” list. I think the card is really poorly designed. It punishes people for doing what the slow decks are supposed to do – getting card advantage. Usually there is zero counterplay to this card if you play a slower deck. You will just have much more cards, because your cards cost more. On the other hand, Aggro Paladin can throw their whole hand onto the board by turn 4-5 and then refill it with this card. This card means that Blizzard can’t really print too many strong Paladin low drops, because Aggro Paladin will just be too strong. Or heck, even printing aggressive neutral drops is scary. I think the card should be nerfed to prevent the potential catastrophe in the future. I think the easiest way to nerf it would be to limit the maximum cards you can draw. Let’s say to 4. Drawing 4 for 3 mana would still be insane if you manage to do it, but nothing close to drawing 5 or 6, which happens. Alternatively, change the mana cost to 4 and it would be fine.
Power Word: Shield
Okay, I have no intention of beating a dead horse. I think that Priest in the current state deserves only buffs. But it’s not about the current state – it’s about the balance in years to come. And I think that Power Word: Shield is one of the strongest cards in the whole game. You basically play it in every Priest deck. Every single one. It doesn’t matter what archetype you play, it’s not a meta call, the card isn’t high risk – you just put 2 copies into each deck. And you would probably put 2 copies of it into almost any deck in the game. It’s that strong. First of all – for almost no cost, it thins your deck. Unless you play a fatigue deck, you want your deck to be as thin as possible. Why? Because it gives you a higher chance to get to the highest priority cards fast. Or to draw your win condition faster.
Giving a minion +2 health often means that you can get a free trade. You have a 3/2 on the board, enemy plays 2/3. You PW:S your minion and trade. For only 1 mana and 0 cards, you have kept your minion alive while killing your opponent’s one. And last, but not least, it’s a spell for the sake of spell synergies, like Wild Pyromancer – PW:S is the reason why a lot of Priest decks run 2 copies of those. To nerf it, but not make it completely useless, you could change the health gain to 1 from 2. So it would be 1 mana +1 health, draw a card. It would still be played in Control Priest for Pyro synergy and in Combo Priest for cycle, but it wouldn’t be an auto-include into every deck.
Preparation
Once again, I was surprised that this wasn’t nerfed. It’s a spell-only version of Innervate, and I think it’s really one of the strongest spells. While it gives you no card advantage whatsoever, it allows Rogue to get insane tempo plays. After all, getting 3 mana for free is very strong. But not only that. The even crazier thing is how well it combos with Gadgetzan Auctioneer – not only do you get up to 3 mana for free, but you also draw a card. The fact that it costs 0 mana makes it way too flexible. I think that the best way to change it would be to make it cost 1 mana. Seemingly not a big change, but it would make a huge deal. First of all – you couldn’t play t6 Auctioneer and immediately follow it up with a bunch of spells thanks to the Preparation. Then, some other insane tempo turns like Azure Drake + Prep + Fan of Knives would be nerfed. It would require one more mana to do the whole thing. Once again – even though Preparation might be not particularly op right now outside of the Miracle, now Blizzard has to think twice before giving any strong spells to Rogue, because of how easy it is to play it with Preparation. Have you noticed that Rogue has gotten almost no spells for the last few expansions? And the only good one above 1 mana he got is Shadow Strike, which isn’t even THAT strong.
Doomhammer + Rockbiter Weapon Combo
Oh the dreadful Doomhammer + Rockbiter Weapon. The main offender here is Aggro Shaman, but it’s also broken in more aggressive Midrange Shaman builds. I actually think that the cards by themselves are balanced. Rockbiter is fine, it’s a good early game board control tool. And Doomhammer is also fine, because even though it deals quite a lot of damage, it’s over 4 turns and is countered by weapon destruction. When you combine both cards, though, you have insane burst turn. Rockbiter Weapon on something with Windfury means… 6 damage for 1 mana. A 1 mana Fireball into the face. It’s a bit too much in a class that already has so much burst available. And there is an easy fix to prevent that. Make the target affected by Rockbiter unable to attack opponent’s Hero. This way, it will stay as an early board clear tool. And combined with Doomhammer will still be able to kill two 5 health minions. But it won’t be the broken burst combo it is now. Plus it will fix not only the Doomhammer problem. It will reduce the burst potential of Al'Akir the Windlord and possibly other things in the future. Shaman is known for Windfury stuff. And in my opinion it’s not good to have Windfury and cheap attack buffs in the same class.
Battle Rage
The card by itself is really balanced. It would be okay or meh in most of the other classes. But in Warrior? In Warrior it leads to the decks like Patron Warrior or Tempo Warrior cycling like crazy. Yes, the card is situational and requires set-up, but it’s just so easy to set it up in such a deck. Assuming that your Hero is damaged (and it generally should be if you play a deck like that), it takes only 1 damaged minion to make this card good. Who wouldn’t play 2 mana for 2 cards? Then, things get crazy with more minions. Getting 4+ draws for 2 mana is broken if it doesn’t require THAT much setup. Not to mention that “cycling” it for 2 draws is extremely easy.
I don’t think the card should be nerfed hard, because after all it requires some setup and it’s not unconditional, but I think that – just like in case of Divine Favor – limiting the potential draw would be good idea. In that case, I think the card would be balanced at max 3 draws. That’s still a lot, but kind of limits the card’s broken potential. Another way would be to not count the Hero for card draw and only draw a card per damaged minion. This wouldn’t limit the max potential as much (it could still possibly draw up to 7 cards), but it would be harder to set up the huge draws. Yet another way that I just thought of would be to slightly remake the card. It might say “Draw a card. If you have a damaged minion, draw 2 cards instead.” – meaning it would be in line with other card draws. It could only draw 2, under a slight condition, but for 2 mana as opposed to “standard” 3 mana (Arcane Intellect). But I think that it might be a bit too much.
Execute
One of the strongest removals in the game. I never had problem with Execute when Control Warrior was the only deck using it. But when Midrange Warrior decks started popping up, it occurred to me that the card is just too strong – it gives too much of a tempo swing for the Warrior and the condition isn’t hard to meet at all. We all know by now that one of the Warrior’s identities are Whirlwind cards and it gets something like that in nearly every expansion. If the trend will continue and cards like Death's Bite or Ravaging Ghoul will still be released, Execute’s activation will remain a trivial task. Most of the time, Execute is a 1 mana removal. Playing against a deck that already out tempos you, you try to protect yourself with a Taunt or at least play some big minion to make the trades on the board. And then you get it removed. Okay, every class can do that. But Warrior can do that WHILE developing its own tempo. He drops Ravaging Ghoul, Executes and that’s a 3/3 + a removed minion you want for only 4 mana, which still leaves Warrior with a lot of room in the late game. I think that at 2 mana Execute would still be great removal, but it would slightly reduce the tempo effectiveness of the card.
Fiery War Axe
That might be the biggest offender in Warrior. But honestly – I don’t really know how to handle this. On the one hand, Fiery War Axe might be the single strongest card in the game. Having it on turn 2 vs not having it might change the win rate of some matchups by almost 20%. And that’s A LOT. I don’t know a single Warrior deck that doesn’t play 2 copies of FWA, no matter if it’s Aggro, Midrange, Control, whatever. On the other hand, it’s really hard to nerf the card without making it completely useless. Subtle nerfs are hard on such a straightforward card. You increase mana cost by 1 or decrease attack by 1 and it will suddenly be way, way worse. So while I think that the card really deserves a nerf, I also think that it’s necessary to keep the slow Warrior lists consistency in the early game. So in this case, I have no idea what to do with the card.
Abusive Sergeant
The backbone of every Aggro and Zoo-like deck. It has one of the most impactful Battlecries among low mana minions. Giving something +2 Attack, even if not permanently, either means you trade it up or deal 2 more face damage. Turning a 1/1 minion into a 3/1 for the sake of trading into let’s say a 3/3 is really big. It’s great at gaining the board control, and then it can also be used as a surprise burst. After all, 2 damage for 1 mana (as long as you have a minion to play it on) is awesome. And I think it’s a bit too awesome. If a 4 mana 4/4 with the same effect as this 1-drop is sometimes played in Zoo (Dark Iron Dwarf), I think it really shows how strong this card is. And it has the “vanilla” 1-drop stats too – 2/1. I think this card should be changed and there are two ways to approach it. Either give it a Leper Gnome treatment – reduce the stats to 1/1 and make people play it mostly for the effect OR reduce the Attack gained from Battlecry to 1. Either way, it would leave the minion playable in Zoo-like decks, but it would no longer be an auto-include in almost every fast deck.
Azure Drake
I think that Azure Drake is THE most common neutral minion in the game. And according to vS stats, it’s THE most common card played in the whole game (their sample size is over 500k games, so I believe it). And I honestly think that it’s not broken and I wouldn’t change it in any way. But I’ve put it here to discuss one matter which seems really weird to me. We have no strong, mid game card draw minions in the game. The reason why Azure Drake is played so much isn’t because the card is overpowered – it’s because we’re in a heavy Midrange meta and there are no other options when it comes to card draw. If you play a Midrange deck and you need card draw, you’ll usually end up putting Azure Drake into your deck.
Gnomish Inventor is an alternative, but the card is much weaker. It costs only 1 less mana, but it loses 2 points of Attack and spell damage. Some decks run it, but mostly for the cycle part, they don’t care about the body. I think that nerfing Azure Drake wouldn’t be the best idea, because it would nerf the whole Midrange archetype. Instead, it would be nice to add more card draw options, so there would be a choice beyond “do I need a single copy of Azure Drake or two”. Even better, add more options to the Classic Set.
Closing
Standard format is, surprisingly, quite balanced. Even though one class (Priest) clearly stands out, overall the game is in a decent state. However, it doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be better. If the Classic cards will stay with us forever, the set should be perfectly balanced. If we get some terrible balance down the road, in some expansion, at least we know that it will go away eventually. It’s not the case with Classic cards.
Obviously, in perfect world we’d also see a buffs to underplayed cards that are interesting. There are a lot of cards that would make interesting decks if they were slightly stronger. But I don’t expect that, because Blizzard rarely buffs things. I would be happy if they, at the very least, made some nerfs.
This is only the first part of the article, in the second one I’ll talk about the cards from expansions that I would see in Standard. Stay tuned!
I get your point about cards being over powered and agree with a lot of them but I also think that every class needs some over powered cards to make them work or make them interesting and fun to play. In fact those cards are usually the whole point you play that class in the first place. The only really unbalanced classes at the moment are Warrior and Shaman (and an underpowered Priest) and I would definitely change some of their cards.
You’re talking about changing or taking away some of the best cards from each class and while it makes sense in a way I also don’t really see the point as long as the power is evenly spread.
I think Fiery Waraxe is totally broken and one of the main reason why Warrior decks are so consistently good and usually top tier. It’s value is just insane as you can usually remove the first 2 minions the opponent plays while you can develop your own board. Of course there’s nothing you can do to the stats or mana cost that wouldn’t make it useless but I would love to see it have something like this…
“Take 2 damage when you attack”
or
“Take 3 damage when you equip”
…or something similar. This would fit the theme of “Fiery” and similar to the Flame Imp mechanic. The name Fiery always bothered me anyway. Why isn’t it just called Waraxe? Anyway it would not affect it’s effectiveness or decision to include it in any deck very much but at the same time it would provide a slight edge to decks trying to fight against the warriors ever increasing armour. It would also mean the Warrior has to decide is it worth taking to damage to take out a minion or attack face as it could put them within lethal range or drop their armour below shield bash range.
Fiery War Axe could get destroyed if you attacked with it on the turn you played it. This way you have to decide whether you want the 2 mana deal 3 damage, or if you want to hold back on attacking for more value.
Completely disagree on Ice Block being nerfed especially when one of your reasons for suggesting it get nerfed is “it’s not fun to play against.” Haha. Such a ridiculous comment to even make. I’m sorry people play cards on you you don’t like. Maybe you’re playing the wrong game.
Also, to say you’re playing solitaire is an equally ridiculous statement. You’re playing a reactionary, control-based deck generally when you run Ice Block. It’s actually the exact opposite of solitaire. 99% of your plays are reacting to the opponents previous play. I would say most rush decks are actually solitaire because generally you play a minion, go face. Their plays often have no bearing on yours.
cards are never going to be what the people want,trying to change many of them doesnt make sense, as you might know no matter what there will be always some cards perceived as overpowered. Maybe some adjustments are ok, but ppl need to realize that we are not game designers, we do not have all the resources and knowledge the developers have and proposing changes only by our perception of mana equality is not enough. Sometimes its true you dont need to be smart to realize that there are a few cards that have great impact, but the best way to deal with this is the current standard mode. Everything we have proposed im sure the guys from Blizzard have tested it. in the past 2 years the only time I felt i was playing a totally unfair game was against warsong commander, but besides that im ok that the balance of the game rotates with the new adventures/expansions. If I wanted to play a perfectly even match I would play chess (which I love and even there who starts first its a great deal) but this is hearthstone and i get excited everytime a new expansion is realeased because the constant change is what makes the game extremely fun
Oh no, I’m not saying that Blizzard is completely incompetent and they can’t balance their own game. Obviously, they can, but they simply refuse to. For some reason, I’m still not sure what it is, they’ve decide to not change anything EVEN if it’s broken and “let people play with it and try to adapt”. Sure, it works sometimes when people have no clue. For example, Flamewreathed Faceless – the card isn’t overpowered. It’s very strong, but it’s not broken. It has clear counters. People have learned how to play around it and don’t complain about it so much now.
But there were some cases where extremely broken cards were shaping the meta and that went for months. Remember Undertaker? Old Buzzard + Unleash combo? Warsong Commander + Frothing Berserker shenanigans? Heck, even Dr. Boom? That card was clearly broken, people haven’t learned how to counter it, because you just couldn’t. All you could do is play BGH in every deck and play Dr. Boom yourself.
Blizzard refuses to change cards unless they’re COMPLETELY broken and even then it takes at least a few months for them to do so. They might know how to balance the game, but they don’t do that. That’s their policy. We don’t change stuff even if they’re a problem. And that’s really wrong in my opinion.
Imagine card like Dr. Boom was in Classic. Luckily for us, it was in GvG, so it already rotated out in Standard. But if it was in Classic, that would be terrible. Now, let’s say another card of the Dr. Boom level is in Classic. What do you do? Leave it alone? No, you should nerf the hell out of it, because it won’t go away. Some of the cards I’ve mentioned in article are Dr. Boom level of broken, but they’re still looking for a right deck to play them in.
And now, Blizzard has two options. Design AROUND them, meaning don’t ever release cards that would activate them and make them ever more broken. Or another way would be to change them.
Sure, you might not want the game to be completely balanced. But there are people playing it competitively. There are thousands of dollars on the stake for people playing in tournaments. Then there are people who value the games that are balanced more – after all it’s more fun . They sure as hell want every class to be as close as possible. Your comparison to chess makes zero sense. It’s the other way around – the game is much closer to the chess when it’s imbalanced. If everyone plays the same broken deck, like Secret Paladin after TGT, THEN you get to see mirror matches all the time and it looks like chess. The more balanced the game is, the more diversity you see.
P.S. I’m not saying that the game is not balanced. A lot of guys here in comments have completely missed my point. But I guess it’s hard to imagine that a card might be broken if it’s not played in a top level deck and you don’t lose against it all the time.
I think the best way to nerf Fiery war axe is to make it so it’s attack drop by 2 or 1 per swing, so it will still be a good early removal, but isn’t stronger than 2 dark bombs
Btw if you actually play this game, a lot of card you call auto-include aren’t at the moment. More and more priest list aren’t running PW:Shield AND Northshire. No one is playing Divine Favor, I never see Abusive Sergent except in zoolock and a bit in aggro shaman. Ice Block is used in a dying archetype and Prep is mostly whats keeping Rogue alive. Anyway, you didnt pull all these choices out of your ass but it doesnt mean everyones gonna agree at all.
This article wasn’t meant to focus on what is overpowered at the moment, but what will possibly needed to be nerfed in the future. Divine Favor was a huge problem for a while when Secret Paladin and Aggro Paladin were more popular, this also limits Blizzard’s ability to create low cost minions for Paladin.
I don’t think we’re gonna agree on that. LIKE I SAID, the cards added to the game SHOULD BE balanced over Basic Cards. Now when you’re talking about Divine Favor you mention Secret paladins………….. Where were they coming from ??? A broken card called Mysterious Challenger. 6/6 body slamming into play a possibility of 6 FUCKING CARDS at once.
Please, don’t tell me the basic cards are the problem. Execute for 1 mana is strong, I agree. Don’t add to the game powerful tools like Blood to Ichor, Ravaging Ghoul,etc..
Now I’ll quote something from the article about Ice Block. You guys are telling me the problem is BASIC CARDS. Now here it says ” It has little to no counterplay, because current card that destroys Secret suck and would only be good if virtually everyone plays decks with Secrets. ” Now you say the problem is the cards around it like the aweful secret eater they added recently.
I don’t want to argue forever about this and english is my second langage I can’t explain everything I want to say correctly. I just think the problem will never be basic cards but the cards added around it to balance the game.
But you’ve just proved my point. “X card in basic is too strong? You shouldn’t add X, Y and Z to the expansions!”
That’s now how it should work. Like I’ve mentioned many times, it limits the game design. If Paladin has Divine Favor in Classic, now they can NEVER, EVER add too strong Aggro tools to Paladin. And now Paladin will be always stuck in the Control and possibly Midrange role.
One might perceive it as something okay, I don’t think it’s okay and limiting classes in that kind of way is bad. Because all it takes to lift this limit is to change one card – Divine Favor – that would make this archetype broken as hell if there were strong early game cards for Paladin.
Listen, it’s not something I’ve just made up. It’s their own design philosophy. They don’t want to have cards that will limit their future design. Do you know why they’ve nerfed Master of Disguise? Virtually no one has played it. I haven’t seen it once in Constructed. Yet it deserved a nerf, because it limited design. And just as they’ve nerfed it, they’ve released Scaled Nightmare – a card with infinitely scaling attack. That’s the point – if there was a permanent stealth in the game, they couldn’t release such a card. Even if that combo wasn’t particularly strong, it would be very unfun and uninteractive. I’ve predicted the nerf on Master of Disguise for the exact reason – it limits their design.
Divine Favor or Savage Roar might not be overpowered cards right now. They might not even be played in a single competitive deck. But just like Master of Disguise – they limit the design potential and – in the long run – that’s unhealthy for the game.
Classic set should be a base, should be a core, but shouldn’t be something they will ALWAYS design cards around if it’s going to put up some walls. Not if you can break those walls down so easily.
P.S. Mark my words, some of those cards WILL get nerfed in the future. Maybe not soon, but they will.
I would nerf Rockbiter Weapon by rewording it. Equip a 1/3 Rockbiter weapon or give a friendly minion +3 attack this turn. It’s not a choose one effect, instead you target either yourself in order to equip the 1/3 Rockbiter or choose a minion and give them +3 attack this turn.
Great article, but the only thing that needs a nerf is divine favor and the shaman combo doomhammer+rockbiter in my opinion, but i would give priority to the mighty paladin card draw mechanism divine favor.
Divine favor is not being played right now because aggro paladin is not being played right now, and the reason for that is blizzard is not giving paladin good aggro tools because divine favor exists, this is a neverending circle and until blizzard nerfs that card (A.K.A destroys that card) the circle will not break. That card shouldn’t be made in the first place imho.
It’s like every other card even worse, if you draw it at the wrong time it’s insanely bad. Often, like extremely often you’ll draw it when your opponent’s hand is low or out of cards. Decks running 2 copies of it are clunky. Yes when it works it’s stupid strong, but it wont happen every game.
Blizzard created a card game, they knew (or maybe not after all…) how much work is needed to balance a card game even if it’s almost impossible. They have a world of possibility to create ANY card/mechanic and a team as big as they want to make it work but instead we get Ben Brode and very bad decisions about balancing/nerfing stuff.
Nice article 🙂
YAY on more mid-range card-draw neutrals … it feels weird putting an Azure Drake into a deck with like 2 direct damage spells just for the body and card draw. Yes, PW:S is an amazing card – but there aren’t a vast number of amazing early drop minions for Priest to abuse horribly with it (Injured Blademaster or maybe Kvaldir), most early game Priest cards have pretty poor attack values; it would be horrendous if it was a Rogue card.
Most of the rest of the cards are, I feel, strong because of the way Hearthstone plays. The game favours aggressive play and weenie board floods far more than say MtG; it’s the fact that the attacker chooses the targets rather than the defender choosing blockers that makes the game play that much faster. Anything that boosts aggressive play has a stronger impact than something that boosts control or combo games; boost an aggro deck and the game can be over by turn 4 or 5, long before a more measured deck will have any chance to gain momentum (which is kinda the point); e.g. Entomb is an amazing card really but it has had less impact on the game than Darkshire Councilman simply because Zoo.
That’s the real issue with Abusive Sergeant, Divine Favor, Savage Roar, Battle Rage and Fiery War Axe – all of them greatly benefit aggressive play either as cheap attack boosts or big card draws; offsetting the main weaknesses of aggro in a CCG that already plays more aggressively. So I agree with everything you said with regards to those cards 🙂 Wouldn’t touch FWA though – it is sort of *the* defining Warrior class card.
However … and a I’m little biased here as I’ve been playing a lot with my take on a Malygos Miracle Rogue lately but Rogue’s kinda *need* that massive tempo burst you get from preparation. You’re often using your daggers early on for removal of low-health minions – so you’re trading health to be able to control the board long enough to do a huge mid-game swing, get a decent Edwin out or do some serious deck thinning to get your finishers in place. If it goes wrong, you’ll be too close to dead for the mid-game swing to even really matter.
Preparation could take the increased cost now while we’ve still got Thaurissan, Tomb Pillager and (less commonly) Cutpurse to lower card cost for the big tempo burst (plus the Coin and Preparation are also great combo activators) but when Blackrock Mountain and League of Explorers drop out of rotation (next year?)… I also don’t see it as necessary when compared with Innervate. You need a lot more ducks in a row to get the *great* spell-based tempo burst than you do to drop Druid of the Claw on the board on turn 2 or 3.
… and finally, yes, I agree some cards should be moved into Standard – Tunnel Trogg is the one that comes immediately to mind; Mage, Priest and Warlock all have good 1/3, 1 cost cards – Tunnel Trogg just makes sense to me as a Mana Wyrm equivalent. The same argument could be made for Vilefin Inquisitor.
Get rid of inervate. it’s black lotus …
Preach.
You have a good insight there. Agreed with most of the stuff, especially with warrior and shaman cards. I personally have stopped playing those classes because it feels unfair winning with them. I want to win by playing the game well, and not by drawing 2x 7/7/4, or by going face with Doomhammer for 16 dmg on an empty board for 7 mana.
Same goes for execute – 1 mana remove any minion really? The real effect cost is 5 (assassinate), the condition may reduce it to 3 or at most to 2…. but not to 1 obviously. Battle rage is also meh.. like “draw a lot of cards for 2 mana” – in comparison with uhm for example “Purify” :DD
Anyway may be nerfing all of these is not a good thing, but something should be done definitely because it is not a single card but a combination of powerful effects that makes some classes really op in the meta.
1- FWA is a 2 mana card that remove 2 card for the opponent. it is not situational , and if every other use is not necessary is 6 dmg on the face. for 2 mana is just to mutch. I think make 2/2 keep it as a strong card, maybe a little bit balanced.
2- rockbiter weapon i suppose a good change is “give +3 attack to a minion of equip a 3/1 weapon to your hero”, the card is almost the same, still a very good card, but you avoid 10 dmg for one mana.
3- execute have to cost 4 mana. Or if you want to keep ot at one mana you have to take the dmg of the minion in your face, like a weapon attack of infinite value.
4- savage roar is super op, but at this time is not ruining the game in any way. Same go for divine favor.
5- PW:S ok first think, i’m a priest player ,so my judgment is conditioned. i Think is balanced, you draw a card, the effecte is almost neglectable, in the late game if you have no minion it will sit in your hand, and can cost you the game, it is not like fan of knife or other cicle that you can throw away.
6- abusive sergent must get same nerf as the gnome, it have to be 1/1, and it will still be played as mutch as it is now.
7- azure drake only problem is that it cicle to well, so it goes in almost every deck,i like the card and i think nobody ate it.probably free 2 slots in many deck at 5 mana con lead many other option in decks, maybe the battle cry could have dragon sinergy.
In magic the gathering the basic set is reprinted every 2 years, and some card are removed and other for previous edition are added. a card can enter the basic set, go out, then come back.
Balance in Standard is not really the issue. The issue with Standard is how stale and boring it is.
As far as the basic set card pool for Standard goes I don’t think that there is anything else which requires a nerf.
There are, however, cards from other adventures and expansions which DO require a good nerfing …
I 100% agree with adding cards to the basic/classic set because some classes really got the raw end of the stick with standard in that respects. Like for example Mage has an amazing basic/classic set. They have card draw, board clear and some of the best basic/classic spells, minions and secrets in the game. Hunter on the other hand, while they do have some amazing basic/classic cards, have NO CARD DRAW! Flare is very situational and Starving Buzzard, well that’s got to be the most unplayable card in the history of Hearthstone. Hunter will ALWAYS be Face and Midrange if Blizzard doesn’t give them card draw. Joust was NOT the answer to that Blizzard! Joust just doesn’t work. Hunters simply can’t go beyond Midrange without some way to draw cards. Yes I understand that everyone is scared of a Face Hunter with card draw but Aggro Shaman is more aggressive than Face Hunter and even they have card draw. You could give Hunters a card that draws cards, but also changes Hunter’s hero power at the same time. Like 4 mana spell “Draw two cards, change your hero power to restore 2 health to any friendly beast”. Face Hunter can’t use that, but Midrange and Control definitely could.
I loved the article and agreed mostly, though the Rock-Biter weapon made me scratch my head not sure how that’d work out.
But anyways I’d like to ask a question on Priest, which as everyone knows, is pretty much a joke in standard.
What do you think needs to be done?
Right now priest is at an all time low, it lost Velen’s Chosen to make Northshire Cleric and any other low cost minion, be able to trade up, because the Priest class 1 and 2 drops, have no effect on the board considering if they try trading it’s almost guaranteed to die.
It also lost Light Bomb, making one of their strongest (and really only seen) AoE cards vanish meaning board control is next to impossible.
Their board clears are Auchenai/Embrace with Circle of Healing (But that’s a two card combo and is only 4 damage), Holy Nova, which let’s face it 2 damage right now is a joke, with WoToG, C’thun’s cards are too big, N’zoth just brings deathrattles back, and Yogg has like two, maybe three other minions in their deck making board clears next to pointless. And their only other AoE is either Doomsayer or Excavated Evil, none of which allow Priest to get back in the game.
Doomsayer makes their turn a fresh start, but what good is that when there are no decent late game cards for Priest other than neutrals? Sure you have Confessor, but at 4 health on turn 9/10? There’s almost no way they don’t have an answer even if it’s not often run. Plus Excavated damages your own minions, and again it’s turn 5 for 3 damage overall.
There are just too many decks out there where it’s not worth it. Light bomb sure it killed your minions sometime, but at the current meta, Light bomb + another AoE the following turn (Holy Nova being the preffered one) would actually work!
And let’s not mention Shadow Word: Horror… exactly how many cards are being played with 2 or less attack? Almost all C’thun cards, bar Beckoner and Disciple (which is already at 1 health) have 3+ attack. If you’re playing N’zoth, you’ve probably got big deathrattle minions like Sylvannas, Tomb Pillager, Tirion, etc, etc. And again Yogg plays few minions but decks that do, don’t really have ones at 2 or less attack.
Do you think they have any way of coming back right now? I know in the current meta maybe not, but without bigger 1 drop, 2 drop heck even 3 drop minions, their turn 4 is useless when the enemy is almost guaranteed a better board considering Priest’s minions for the first three rounds, don’t have any attack that isn’t effective enough.
I agree with regard to divine favor . for the rest do not. change all these cards means to be in front of another game .
seriously you would change the priest’s shield? I would like to change ’cause he’s too synergy with pyromancer ?? It is the only way to ward off all cancers of the goal and you would change the only way that a priest has to have its say before getting asphalting . I do not agree I’m sorry . give him some good drop to 1,2,3 and then they are more than happy to change my opinion
I have to disagree with Fiery War Axe and Execute only because Warrior id my bae and I wouldn’t want to see it lose 2 essential cards. Honestly, execute is very balanced because you can’t play it by itself, you need to trade another card in order to activate execute, and execute has a tough time dealing with cards hiding behind a taunt.
Whirlwind effects, which warrior will always have, do not require trading and they go around taunts. Plus the other player will often damage his/her own minions themselves whilst trading. 1 mana remove any minion in the game is BROKEN! It really does need a nerf.
The fact that execute is only 1 mana makes the fact that is has to be comboed much less of a hurdle, though. Also, They have consistently added strong cards that activate it (death’s bite, ravaging ghoul). I think increasing it to 2 mana is a very good idea. I agree that fiery war axe shouldn’t be nerfed though.
Hm, that could be good. Also prevents Thaurissan from allowing cthun–>execute as easily. That is currently pretty op.
Good article. Only gripe I have with it is the power word shield analysis. Priest already don’t have an early game, and you want to nerf that card over power overwhelming. I have a 1/1 and power overwhelming to clear a 5/5. Let’s see someone do the same thing with power word shield.
savage roar is a bit of a non factor since Force of Nature was nerfed.
Execute needs a price hike though.
Yup, right now it’s not a huge factor, because we don’t have a strong deck to utilize it. But the card itself remains incredibly strong burst tool.
Too much controversial choice, Execute, Ice Block, Power Word: Shield… Really ? Fiery War Axe, it’s not because the Warrior class is in a good spot right now that we should start nerfing every good card. I do agree on stuff like Doomhammer and maybe Battle Rage but that’s it.
It’s not because Warrior is in a good spot right now. It’s because those cards are too strong. Or in case of Ice Block, it’s not about being strong, but uninteractive.
The thing is, those cards are broken, but you don’t realize it, because they don’t have flashy effects or they don’t win games by themselves. How is 1 mana removal not broken? Sure, it’s conditional, but the condition is very easy to meet in Warrior right now. 2x Ravaging Ghoul, 2x Blood to Ichor, some lists running stuff like Whirlwind, Cruel Taskmaster and a lot of other things to activate it. At this point it’s very easy to activate Execute. And we’re left with 1 mana almost unconditional removal. That’s not good. Tempo-style Warrior decks are too strong right now and that’s one of the main reasons.
PW:S might be the most broken card in the game. If it was neutral, it would be in every deck you face. Maybe outside of hyper-Aggro and mill, for obvious reasons. People don’t realize that only because it’s in Priest, who sucks. But that can change, Priest might get much stronger, and a card will still remain overpowered.
I have thought a lot about those, I didn’t just pull them out of my ass. I know they’re controversial, but I have a lot of arguments to back each of those claims.
I think the game should be built around basic cards and with a minimum of common sense but like everyone realized lately, Blizzard doesn’t care at all like they did with WoW for so many years. Instead we get condescendant ” Dev’s Insight ” of Ben Brode when things go south.
So when you tell me we should nerf a basic and staple card of Warrior like Execute, it’s like telling me we should remove the Queen from Chess because it’s too strong. You do have arguments and you take the time to write and explain your opinion but it’s based on a state of the game that isn’t normal to me, therefore kind of hard to debate.
Very well written and explained although I think Warrior’s “Charge” and Rogue’s “Conceal” are way more gamebreaking than for instance Savage Roar, PW:S and Divine Favor. Leaving interaction limiting cards in classes with strong, consistent cycle and high burst seems very bad for the overall long-term health of the game.
I agree with Charge. The card might not be strong, but it might activate some fringe combos (like the Raging Worgen one). Now when releasing each new Warrior/Neutral card Blizzard needs to think about how it might possibly combo with Charge, and if it would be too strong they need to change it.
Yes, you’re right, changing Charge would be good idea. They’ve already did it once – it used to cost 0 mana and just give minion Charge. That one was way more broken than it is right now, but any way to give ANY minion Charge might be abused somehow.
That’s the same reason why they don’t really print any Charge minions – they’ve realized that they lead to pretty “unhealthy” strategies in general.
However, I disagree with Conceal. Since it lasts only a single turn, it’s not that big of a problem. When it comes to the Charge, you have zero ways to react. You can set up the board state with a Taunt or something, but you never know when enemy is going to play it. But when it comes to Conceal, if enemy Conceals a minion there are still some ways to interact with it. You can play accordingly. Some decks can kill them with AoE. If enemy wants to kill you with that minion, you can play defensively, play Taunt, heal up etc. If enemy then wants to combo it with some spells… Yeah, I think something like Loatheb should be in Standard. So you could counter that too.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Conceal gone, honestly, but I don’t think it’s that high on priority list.
nice read – thank you
Really sick article! Thank you for all your passion on this website. I’m a huge fan of your website and I’m nearly everyday here to read the newest HS news.
Keep it up mate.
i really dont like the fact that classic cards are stapled into the meta. it keeps too many deck archtypes the same… and it forces blizzard to keep on nerfing cards that maybe they wouldnt have to if they took a slightly more practical approach.
Use the newest adventure (Karazhan) and newest expansion (Old Gods) along with Basic to set up your Core meta.
Supplement in a rotation of 200-300 cards drawn from all the other sets (Classic, NAX, GvG, BRM, TGT, LOE) and these would make up Standard Packs. (this way my Nax and GVG cards are sitting in my collection collecting dust – no pun intended)
so every 3 months rotate in and out different cards that make up standard… and every 6 months you rotate in a new expansion/adventure and drop the current into the pool rotation cue (Karazhan for instance would replace League of Explorers…. Whispers of the Old Gods would be replaced by the spring 2017 expansion)
this will keep the meta fluid and vibrant..ever changing with a significant number of cards rotating in and out every 3 months… and it will keep your entire collection viable… and probably save blizzard a lot of money in forced combo nerfs…. (lets face it – if grim patron wasn’t printed – warsong commander would never have been nerfed)
Yes, that way the meta would be shifting much more often and playing would be more fun. But then again, I don’t see this happening. Hearthstone team is REALLY lazy. And they aren’t the best at balancing things, it takes them really long time to realize what’s wrong and why. This leads me to a conclusion that those 3 months “sets” might not be balanced at all and they would be a complete clusterfuck.
However, that’s a really good idea. And while we’re at it, I’d also increase the length of the seasons. Monthly season are way too short. For casual people they won’t even reach any high rank and it resets. And for pro people, it’s just pointless grinding for the first ~week or so again and again and again. One rotation could be one season and it would be much better in my opinion.
Sadly, it’s not going to happen. Because it’s Blizzard we’re talking about.
No power overwhelming? That seems to be the card most streamers complain about
I didn’t include all the cards, because that would be way too long. Also, I might have missed some.
I have thought about PO, but I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s only really strong if you build a deck around it – so you play a Zoo-like deck with a lot of small tokens or you play a combo deck with Leeroy + Faceless combo (which will die in Standard after Emperor Thaurissan rotates out anyway).
Given the downside of the card (the minion dying at the end of the turn), I don’t think it’s that bad. It’s just 1 damage over Blessing of Might and 0 damage over Combo’d Cold Blood when it comes to the trading/bursting potential and it doesn’t stay on the minion.
Every strong 1 mana card might be problematic in Zoo, because of the nature of the deck. Drawing 2 cards per turn means that utilizing 1 mana cards is much easier, as you don’t run out of cards after first few turns and can refill easily. But I think PO is just below the line of nerfing it – if you reduce it to +3/+3, it would most likely be too weak.
Highly controversial choices. I enjoyed reading your analyses, even though I disagree with some choices. I think you are spot on with Doomhammer and Divine Favor. I like some of your nerf recommendations – Savage Roar limited to minions and Abusive Sergeant’s battlecry granting +1 attack. Your Ice Block take is interesting – I agree Freeze Mage isn’t as fun to play against, but when playing it there is a moderate level of strategy you have to employ, I think the card is OK as is for now and maybe we’ll get some more Secret interaction down the road. I don’t, however, have any problems with Fiery War Axe, Execute, Azure Drake, Battle Rage, or Prep. And c’mon man, if Power Word Shield really IS one of the best spells in the game as you say, let’s just let Anduin have it… it’s not doing him a lot of good anyway 🙂
Ice Block – yes, I’m not saying that there is no strategy and ways to play around it. And I don’t think the card is too strong. The problem is that it’s very uninteractive and thus not really fun to play against. Yes, another way would be adding more Secret interaction, but if you add too efficient ones (something like Ooze for Secrets), then they would become nearly unplayable.
The cards you said you don’t have problem with are hard to evaluate, because the advantage they give you is very subtle. For example, Fiery War Axe – like I’ve mentioned in the article – might be the single most impactful card in the game. And sure, it’s fine right now, but do you want to see FWA in virtually every Warrior deck 2 years from now? 5 years from now? That might happen, and that’s my main concern. Obviously, there will always be “best” cards, but I don’t think a single card should have 100% inclusion into every deck of a certain class.
When it comes to Azure Drake, I stated that it shouldn’t be nerfed, but rather more Midrange card draw options should be added. Because right now it’s the most played card in the whole game.
And about PW:S – yes, I wouldn’t even dare to touch it right now, considering how weak Priest is. But I was talking about general situation. Priest is weak right now, but it might be the strongest class one year from now. Remember what happened to Shaman? It was considered the worst class in the game, 2-3 expansions and it became one of the strongest.
Thank you for sine rally gold insight on the game state. Even though I’m not agreeing on you with every card on the list, then I enjoyed reading. Your arguments are great. This was a real eye opening for some of the cards like FWA, AS, OP and RB+DH.
But I don’t think that Execute is a problem, it’s rather Battle rage, but in the decks where Battle rage works best, then you only need 2-3 bordclears with 3 damage or more.
Savage roar would be balances as long as there doesn’t come too many charge minions. You can interact with the card by removing all the small minions that are being used too bust you down, if you do that, then you opponent have no use for the card.
I love the stuff you but on the site and I like you arguments in general, so please keep posting them.