Hearthstone’s 20.2.2 patch last week came with numerous balance changes: five cards were nerfed and ten cards were buffed. While we have become accustomed to regular nerfs, buffs have been few and far between as a balancing tool in Hearthstone.
The patch notes sold the buffs to us with the following note: “We’re issuing a number of buffs in 20.2.2, mainly focused on bringing up struggling classes and archetypes. One of our goals for a meta is to provide deck diversity: not only different class options, but also attractive deck options that play markedly different from one another. These buffs follow that goal, as each one is targeted at helping out an underrepresented archetype or play pattern.”
In this article, I will examine the effects of the buffs. What archetypes was each buff attempting to improve? How successful have they been?
Razorboar and Deathrattle Demon Hunter
Looking at the performance of various archetypes in the post-buffs meta, Deathrattle Demon Hunter is one of the winners of the patch, and it is also one of the archetypes that received a buff in the form of Razorboar gaining one extra attack.
Determining the effect of the Razorboar buff, in particular, is more difficult: some of Deathrattle Demon Hunter’s weak matchups were nerfed as Paladin and Rush Warrior got hit, and Razorboar was already one of the best cards in Deathrattle Demon Hunter before the buff.
Nonetheless, a buff to one of your key cards can never hurt, and while Deathrattle Demon Hunter is still not a top-tier deck, it is now a worthy competitor and capable of climbing the ladder better than it was before the patch.
Sort of one point for increased archetype diversity?
Dark Inquisitor Xanesh and Corrupt Priest
Honestly, I thought this one would be listed under bug fixes instead of buffs, but I’ll take it in any form. Remember the Play 50 Corrupt cards quest? Initially, it could only be completed by playing the cards in their non-Corrupted form, which was both counter-intuitive and significantly more difficult. After it was fixed, I assumed the similarly worded Dark Inquisitor would follow, but it didn’t: Xanesh stubbornly kept discounting only the cards that had not been Corrupted yet.
Anyway, now Dark Inquisitor Xanesh can finally discount both Corrupt cards and cards that have already been Corrupted. This has had the desired effect of promoting a Priest deck that attempts to win games with cards that are part of the deck. Unfortunately, that style of Priest struggles to break through a 50% win rate. Yet, hovering at just below it, it is a deck that can be played for fun.
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This is what a Corrupt Priest looks like at the moment: Insight, Fairground Fool, Auspicious Spirits, and Carnival Clown all benefit from Dark Inquisitor Xanesh‘s effect, and Y'Shaarj, The Defiler can give all of them another go in a single game.
I’d rate this as a partial success: it led to some new experimentation and while the deck is not strong enough to climb with, it is not so bad that you lose too much when playing it for fun.
Shaman, quo vadis?
Shaman received more buffs than any other class: Unbound Elemental got an attack buff, Tidal Surge was made one mana cheaper, and Lilypad Lurker received+1/+1 stats.
This was expected and justified, as Shaman has been by far the weakest class in Forged in the Barrens. As a downside, there are still no Shaman decks capable of climbing the ladder after these buffs: Murloc Shaman and Aggro Shaman were the closest to being playable and they got nothing, while Control Shaman is miserable even with the buffed Tidal Surge.
Elemental Shaman looks like the strongest Shaman deck right now, and it has a hard time reaching a 50% win rate.
Elemental Shaman is incredibly dependent on finding Kindling Elemental in the mulligan: the most common list includes no other one-drops, and there really are no other good one-drops that could be used in the deck. Interestingly enough, this resembles the situation Paladin was in a year ago before Aldor Attendant was buffed to cost only one mana: without enough good one-drops, a class cannot shine, and Shaman is too slow to get on the board to have a chance to achieve consistent success.
None of the buffs addressed any of the fundamental issues Shamans are facing, such as an acute lack of good one-drops and miserable card draw. Looking at the performance of the buffed cards, none of them are doing any better now. They might be much better cards now than they were, but the support structure to enable them to shine does not currently exist for the class.
The Shaman buffs can only be considered a failure at this point in time.
Fiendish Circle and Zoo Warlock
Zoo Warlock is one of the most iconic archetypes in Hearthstone, and Forged in the Barrens is the first time that it is completely dead. The buff to Fiendish Circle can have no other targets than this legendary deck unless you believe that Blizzard attempts to help Darkest Hour in Wild (and they don’t).
Unfortunately, the best Zoo Warlock decks cannot reach a 50% win rate at the moment. They also do not use even the buffed version of Fiendish Circle. The attempts to actually put Fiendish Circle in a deck have ended in fire and brimstone, and it has not been a pretty sight.
There might be some ways to improve this list. Hecklefang Hyena and Boneweb Egg are weak cards, and adding a second copy of Man'ari Mosher seems like an obvious improvement. The problem is that even with any conceivable improvements, the deck is unlikely to be strong enough.
So, nope, Fiendish Circle buff did not succeed at all.
Deck of Chaos and Meme Warlock
On Twitter, we were promised some spicy changes. Making Deck of Chaos playable would certainly count as spicy, so I think this buff may have been the one referred to there.
I don’t even know how to rate this buff: Deck of Chaos still sucks. It sucks slightly less now, so maybe someone can imagine themselves playing a meme deck built around it when you don’t lose every game. I don’t think the buff was ever meant to make Deck of Chaos competitive, so maybe this buff accomplished exactly what it set out to do when it got people to play with the card in search of some fun.
According to statistics, this best Deck of Chaos Warlock might be able to reach a win rate above 40%. If that sounds like a deck you want to play, then this buff is a success?
Control Warrior Buffs
Control Warrior has had a harder time in Forged in the Barrens than in a long while, and two of the buffs were aimed at improving the archetype: Whirling Combatant Attack buff and Shieldmaiden mana cost reduction. The buffs have had a minor impact: Control Warrior is still not a top-tier deck, but it is a playable deck right now.
The more common way to build the deck is with Shieldmaiden, but there are also some lists that make use of Whirling Combatant and Overlord Saurfang. So far, the non-Frenzy approach seems slightly stronger.
Warrior lost a lot of Armor gain in the rotation, and the cost reduction to Shieldmaiden has given Control Warrior just enough Armor back to make it playable.
N’Zoth, God of the Deep
N'Zoth, God of the Deep was quite a surprising card to buff, and it was done in a somewhat perplexing way with a mana cost reduction to nine mana: N’Zoth is hardly ever played on turn nine anyway, and few decks can make use of one mana crystal in the late-game.
Demon Hunter seemed the most obvious candidate for using the new N’Zoth as they can resurrect an Illidari Inquisitor and use their Hero Power on the same turn to make it hit face immediately, but it starts to look like N'Zoth, God of the Deep is too slow for the class: decks with it can succeed, but often they do even better without the Old God.
The most important effect of the buff seems to be a mental one: people started to experiment with N’Zoth again, and discovered that the best class to use it in is actually Paladin!
Between Murgur Murgurgle, Carousel Gryphon, and Hammer of the Naaru, there is a lot of Paladin class value to be resurrected with N’Zoth. When the immediate face plan of Paladin was weakened, this value started to look more attractive all of a sudden.
N’Zoth’s cheaper mana cost is largely irrelevant for Paladin: there is some potential to Oh My Yogg! to protect the newly resurrected board, but much of the time that one extra mana makes no difference.
Were the Buffs a Success?
There are many ways to evaluate how good the buffs were.
The last time Blizzard buffed some cards, they had to revert multiple buffs because the cards became too good. This time, there is no risk of that! Good, buffs did not break the game.
We can also look at whether the buffs helped some decks, and they definitely did. While Deathrattle Demon Hunter might be fine without the Razorboar buff, and Paladin did not need the N'Zoth, God of the Deep buff to build a N’Zoth deck, the Shieldmaiden buff helped Control Warrior become a more playable deck, and the more meme-oriented buffs to Dark Inquisitor Xanesh and Deck of Chaos gave players some new low-tier options to play around with.
However, if we look at the best decks in the game, and even if we extend our search to tier-two decks right below the absolute top decks, the effects of the buffs are nowhere to be seen. Razorboar and N'Zoth, God of the Deep see some top-level play right now, but they would most likely be capable of that even if they had not been buffed as the decks they are used in became more desirable thanks to the nerfs. Shieldmaiden is the only buffed card that would not appear where it is now if it had not been improved, and it is played in a niche deck.
Yet, even though patch notes told us that the buffs will bring up struggling classes and archetypes, that may not have been their intention at all. The ineffectiveness of the buffs to promote new decks into the mainstream has been a hot topic over the past days, and here is a developer response that was posted on Twitter while I was working on this article:
Paladin a little stronger than we’d like but everything else is hitting on the intentions. Most of the buffs were to set up classes for the future or do some cost correction. Player expectations surrounding patch can be hard to manage (people have different spice tolerance).
But we can see that and adjust how some of the communication goes out. We’ve been fairly consistent in the way we balance over the last year or so (lighter touches, usually don’t kill decks) and can do a better job of getting that message out.
In the end though our expansions and mini sets will act as opportunities for bigger landscape shifts. Less likely to see that in our frequent balance changes unless something is very off.
Bringing up the struggling classes was not meant to be read as bringing them up now, but instead sometime in the future. So, according to Blizzard, the balance patch was a stunning success. Happy Hearthstone days, everyone!
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
Yeah I was not amazed by the buffs, and not really the nerfs either, but I like that they didn’t break any cards, and this is the first time I got to legend so can’t really complain, and did it as a discard warlock, so guess the game is all good. xD
I agree. Nerfs served their purposes which unfortunately can’t be said for the buffs. They feel lackluster to say the least. Struggling classes and archetypes are still struggling. Deathrattle demon hunter will probably still drop in winrate once post patch meta returns to paladin mode. And buff to N’Zoth, as mentioned in the article, didn’t really do anything except promote experimentation. But the deck was already great before first nerf patch, slightly weaker afterwards due to faster meta and is amazing again due to meta slowing down.
I hope mini set will bring some fresh air to the game.