Finally! It’s been over a month since the last balance update and players have been long waiting for some meta shifts. Blizzard just teased a 25.2.2 balance patch, and it’s a big one with a total of 25 card changes in Constructed and 17 changes in Battlegrounds.
The patch is releasing this Thursday (January 26) – we don’t know the exact time yet, but we can assume that it’s the usual 10 AM PT / 19:00 CET.
While we don’t know the exact changes, we know a full list of affected cards through a teaser posted on Hearthstone’s social media:
Constructed
Nerfs:
- Wildpaw Gnoll
- Sinstone Graveyard
- Final Showdown
- Sinful Brand
- Glacial Advance
- Shockspitter
- Astalor Bloodsworn
Buffs:
- Unholy Frenzy
- Battlefield Necromancer
- Boneguard Commander
- Vengeful Walloper
- Wither
- Vast Wisdom
- Energy Shaper
- Timewarden
- Haunting Nightmare
- Bonecaller
- High Cultist Basaleph
- Infantry Reanimator
- Dar'Khan Drathir
- Asvedon, the Grandshield
- Disruptive Spellbreaker
- Last Stand
- Remornia, Living Blade
- Nellie, the Great Thresher
Battlegrounds
Buffs:
- Pufferquill
- Grease Bot
- Vanessa VanCleef
- Thorncaptain
- Ripsnarl Captain
- Toxfin
- Master of Realities
Nerfs:
- Soulsplitter
- Magmaloc
- Felstomper
- Sister Deathwhisper
- Eternal Knight
- Sinrunner Blanchy
- Ghoul of the Feast
- Cyborg Drake
Changes:
I think that the bottom two cards just imply changes that are neither nerfs or buffs or maybe that are too hard to judge. Possibly full reworks? But I might be wrong.
- Eternal Summoner
- Anub’arak, Nerubian King
We’ll post full patch notes as soon as they’re available!
Pretty sure they are not reworking two minions already. My guess is definitely that they make them non-race, so they cannot be reborn through the undead mechanics. That would balance them out.
That would make sense with the graphic and that they are neutral, although it would be a nerf to both…
I wouldn’t be surprised if Eternal Summoner and Anub’arak are taken out of battlegrounds, replaced with X and Y, and return either slightly changed or unchanged once undead is a rotating tribe (~2-3 weeks from now).
The only constructed change I’m really interested to see is Astalor, and if they remove his battlecry and add both effects to the manathirst.
Maybe they just up his mana cost, which will change nothing for druid ’til the moment Brann and Guff finally rotate out.