The Winners and Losers of the May 22nd Balance Update

Another set, another round of balance changes: four cards are going to be adjusted with the May 22nd update, clearly targeting the omnipresent Tempo Rogue archetype alongside a minor adjustment to the insane Control Warrior mirrors. In a nice change of pace, none of the changes intend to completely butcher the affected cards, but they’ll nevertheless reduce the effectiveness of the two specific strategies that dominated the early weeks of the Rise of Shadows meta.

In a nod to Rogue’s incredible potential, three of the four cards adjusted belong to the class. From a long-term perspective, the nerf to Preparation is the most important one as it was the only evergreen tool that was touched this time around. Much like the original Innervate, its mana cheating potential will be reduced by one, but the developers are right to point out that this won’t affect the card’s interaction with many of Rogue’s cheaper spells. It’s still a viable card but likely won’t be an auto-include in normal tempo builds that don’t rely on Gadgetzan Auctioneer and other spell-cycling effects, similarly how the nerf to Execute knocked it out of Tempo Warrior builds.

EVIL Miscreant was also changed, but perhaps less so than many of use would have anticipated, losing one health point overall. This is impactful in the aggro matchups and the mirror where it would allow value trades with Southsea Deckhands, Lackeys and other critters. The card likely remains playable in every Rogue deck.

The Raiding Party nerf is the big one in the context of the current metagame: you will no longer be able to establish your Waggle Pick + Dread Corsair setup on curve with the help of this card, and if you consider that it reliably draws three (with a tutor effect!), this new cost is not a crippling nerf by itself. That said, it’s likely that different Rogue strategies will supersede the current one going forward due to the combined effect of these changes, but it won’t be because this card was nuked by the developers – a nice change compared to some of their previous balance decisions.

The odd one out is Archivist Elysiana’s price change, which is also a perfectly sensible one. It limits the arms race in the Control Warrior mirrors without having to modify the card’s effect, making it impossible to play it twice under normal circumstances (surely you’re not going to run Baleful Banker or Youthful Brewmaster for a chance to hold onto the coin in half of the mirror matches?) and capping the length of the games. The fact that this matchup would regularly go to the turn timer was unacceptable for a multitude of reasons, and this adjustment seems to be just enough to keep the card on the playable side as a tech tool. It’s also worth mentioning that Control Warrior players will no longer be able to fit in a hero power alongside the card, which can be a fairly big deal tempo-wise in the late-game scenarios, thereby potentially making the card even less desirable in a regular build.

The main talking points will revolve around Dr. Boom, Mad Genius and Conjurer's Calling as untouched cards, but it’s not like the archetypes using these cards were only checked by Rogue. While it’s unlikely that the Tempo Rogue deck in its current form will survive this triple threat of nerfs, the class is probably still good to go. Still, this means that Warrior is in pole position for the time being – and in the short term, the bomb package seems extremely desirable. That said, it’s a lot easier to counter it than Valeera’s shenanigans were, which makes Nomi Priest a clear beneficiary of this change.

While it’s impossible to predict the new metagame in advance, we can peg a few archetypes that will likely improve in stature. Slower, Mech-based Hunter builds (and the class’ midrange archetype) will likely become more viable now, having found shelter from Rogue’s relentless aggression. Fundamentally strong but outmuscled archetypes like Murloc Shaman and Zoo Warlock could also benefit from these adjustments – of course, all this remains to be seen.