Mogu Fleshshaper’s mana cost increased enough it’s just 1 mana below Sea Giant. Sure, Fleshshaper has Rush so you can trade into something, but Sea Giant has the advantage that you don’t even need to combo it with Mutate.

Fleshshaper is probably still a little better than Sea Giant, but the two are close enough that the Fleshshaper change is undoubtedly a big nerf, IMO.

I’ve always found the underlying philosophy of balance changes interesting. Blizzard’s approach has traditionally been hesitant, careful and slow; in Starcraft and Warcraft 3, balance patches were few and far between, leaving it to players to figure out counters to 4-pool zergling rushes and mass gryphons, which led to a cool dynamic where players evolved the metagame through trial and error, a long-time pursuit of mastery and perfection of a game whose rules remained mostly consistent, where an innovative build from 2010 could be faithfully replicated in 2015.

League of Legends, another game I intermittently follow, has a radically different philosophy. They regularly and purposely upend the game’s balance, making different characters and items overpowered, just for the sake of novelty and player engagement. It keeps the game fresh and novel for highly engaged players… but it makes the game completely unrecognizable from what it was like a couple years ago. If you stop playing the game for a year, you pretty much have to start over from scratch if you want to get back in, and if you quit for a few months, you either have to read through six patch notes upon your return or prepare to be surprised in-game by all the things that have changed.

Metagames used to last four months and more, with two expansions a year plus an adventure which had a lesser, sometimes negligible impact. This year, metagames have lasted roughly one month. As the meta gets figured out more quickly thanks to resources like hsreplay, Team 5 has resorted to shaking up the meta more quickly.

Today, you get an expansion release, then a nerf patch hits within the month. Then a month later you have card buffs, like in Rise of Shadows, or cards being temporarily moved back into Standard like in Saviors of Uldum. Then maybe there’s another nerf patch the next month, followed by the next expansion just ahead.

The benefits of increased novelty are obvious, but there are drawbacks to this approach as well. Sometimes, the hurried balance patches leave one or more classes in the gutter, and if you don’t have the cards to play another class competitively, then you’re screwed. You can invest a ton of dust on a deck you find powerful and fun, and a month later it might not be competitive any more. Unless you invest in Hunter, apparently.

Aggro overload Shaman actively seeks out cards that have overload and cards with overload synergy, so at least in that deck archetype, Sludge Slurper is still way, way better than Cable Rat, even after the nerf.

There was a way of mostly-guaranteeing Sorcerer’s Apprentice off of Zephrys. It required a bunch of conditions to be met, like having exactly 2 mana left over after playing Zephrys, being at high health (so you’re not offered healing options), your opponent being at high health (so you’re not offered burn spells), and the board being clear. So it was done at 10 mana, playing Wild Pyro + Equality + Zephrys to leave you at exactly 2 mana.

It’s something that could be pulled off consistently… assuming your opponent didn’t kill you first. After that, Apprentice + Faceless Manipulator = infinite Sound the Bells. It didn’t make for a competitive deck, but perhaps qualifies as viable for you.

The fact that they haven’t announced what the balance changes will be makes me think they’re still fussing over the finishing touches.

Significantly, the win rates have evolved since the shaman nerfs were anounced, with Hunter climbing to be neck and neck with Shaman at the top, with Warrior as a (very) distant third.

With the way things are looking, if Shaman gets nerfed and Hunter doesn’t, Shamanstone might just be replaced with Hunterstone. Will Hunter see nerfs as well? Or will Hunter slingshot to the top once again, as they did after the Warrior, Mage and Priest nerfs from Saviors of Uldum?

By the time Devoted Maniac was revealed and we all voted on it, we didn’t know what invoke did for Shaman yet, and Shaman has the strongest invoke effect. Besides, Team 5 gets to playtest and tweak cards before reveal, so they have way more information in terms of evaluating cards with novel effects.

I agree with you that some things will get past them, like Corridor Creeper. That’s inevitable. But I don’t think imperfect information can account for Hunter being consistently top tier and avoiding nerfs while most other classes that have been top tier have gotten nerfed this year; I think Hunter is purposely kept near the top.

There could be good, valid reasons for it, too. Aggro decks are rarely super unfair or super un-fun to play against, so Blizzard would rather have you play against a lot of Hunters than against a lot of, say, Quest Rogues from Year of the Mammoth/Raven. Aggro decks are also easier to play, giving less experienced players a good way to compete and have fun. I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem that the dev team balances Hearthstone according to criteria other than just class / archetype strength. I just wish they were open about their goals in this, and if they do go out of their way to ensure Aggro is top tier, maybe they could spread the love a little instead of guaranteeing Hunter’s place on the podium every expansion.

This bothers me as well. Back in Saviors of Uldum, the nerf patch hit the #1 class in terms of winrate, Warrior… as well as the #5 class (Mage) and the #6 class, Priest. The #2 class at the time, Hunter, immediately climbed to the top.

You could argue that Hunter had no cards as overpowered as Dr. Boom Mad Genius, Pocket Galaxy, Conjurer’s Calling or Extra Arms. And you might be right about that. But Hunter as a class has been at or near the top for the entirety of the Year of the Dragon, and I can’t even remember the last time Hunter was below-average.

Great article! I do think any history of the “bonus effect if you’re holding a dragon” mechanic should mention Duskbreaker, though ^^

At 3 mana, Shadowbolt is borderline playable. For 4 mana, you expect something dramatically more powerful, like Walk the Plank, Polymorph or Hex. Going back to a bigger Shadowbolt at 5 mana (Flame Lance) is therefore completely out of the question.

Rolling Fireball is like Flame Lance, except it can make use of any overkill damage. In a way, that makes it more like a smaller, smarter Volcano that only damages enemy minions.

So, how good is an 8-damage, smart Volcano? Not very. Volcano deals double the damage in exchange for a 2 mana Overload. Reno deals more damage and comes with a 4/6 Body for just 1 more mana. The idea is cool, but 8 damage is just not enough for 5 mana. Warlock can achieve something only slightly weaker for 3 mana with Dark Skies. I give this 2/5.

Mage sports a surprisingly high 8% play rate for its dismal overall winrate, but 8% play rate is nowhere near enough to justify putting this guy in your deck, and with the entire expansion card list revealed, I don’t see that play rate growing much. 2/5

I want to see the Trolden video of a turn 9 Ysera being answered by Quest Shaman’s turn 10 double 12/12 Dragonmaw Poachers. 5/5

I expect the battlecry will be irrelevant, Treant cards are bad (with the exception of The Forest’s Aid in Token Druid) and this is not powerful or consistent enough to make them good.

Goru’s stats are good for the mana, but at 7 mana you want more than just a good body from your minions, just ask Gruul. 2/5

Yeah, this should have been printed ages ago. Armor ended up being way, way better than healing as a mechanic, which led to insanely lopsided matches like Control Warriors with 80% winrate vs. aggro.

Yes this counters armor stacking, like Dragon Slayer will counter Dragons and Hungry Crab counters Murlocs and there is anti-Secret tech cards and so on. The point of this card is not to make armor-stacking pointless, but to prevent armor-stacking to represent 30%+ of the playerbase again. If Control Warrior or Combo Druid or some other form of armor stacking becomes oppressive again, THEN you’ll see people start putting this card in their decks to counter it. But if this is just going to be a 5 mana 5/5 in 90% of your matches, then no one’s going to play it. That’s just the nature of tech cards.

Love it, 5/5

Forgot to mention: 4/5

As far as the Duskbreaker comparisons go: This is much, much weaker than Duskbreaker. It costs more mana and its effect is a Deathrattle instead of a Battlecry, which makes it even slower to activate and your opponent gets to control when to activate it if they want. Heck, even on turn 6, which is 2 turns after Duskbreaker, you might not be able to activate it even if you desperately want to, if your opponent doesn’t have a 5-attack minion to run Chronobreaker into. So… not Duskbreaker, not even close. And thank goodness for that, that card was busted.

That said, there’s a lot of room to be worse than Duskbreaker and still be good. Chronobreaker’s stats are a little weak for its cost, but they’re not too awful either. Its dragon tag counts for a lot, as you can discount it with Frizz, and it helps you activate other Dragon minion battlecries. Your opponent obviously gets to choose whether to trade into it to minimize its deathrattle effect, but that is not synonymous with the Deathrattle being useless; if it forces your opponent to make awkward trades they otherwise wouldn’t have made, that’s still valuable. This is not the type of card you build a Dragon deck around, but rather a role player in a Dragon deck. It’s fairly competent at that, too.

As others have pointed out, this is similar to Doomsayer. It is fantastic in the early game vs. aggro, but even in the midgame it can help you gain board control. You clear the board then play this, hopefully keeping the board clear until your next turn, where you get to develop minions first; that’s how Control decks gain board control and turn the corner vs. Aggro decks. Worst case scenario, this absorbs five damage that would have gone to your face, and 5 points of healing for one mana is pretty decent, especially for classes that struggle with healing. 4/5

That… doesn’t sound too scary to me. For starters, that combo has always existed technically with turn 9 Alexstrasza into turn 10 Fireball + Fireball + Frostbolt. Freeze Mage decks have made good use of it, but I don’t think that deck archetype has the support it needs to be good now (e.g. Ice Block).

Besides, in a lot of matchups I feel like the combo isn’t super relevant. An aggro deck will have won or lost well before turn 10, most of the time. Many control-oriented decks can heal out of range after you play the Alexstrasza, or have a ton of armor which makes the combo fail as well.

Being able to cast Pyroblast for 6 mana is certainly cool, but I don’t think it’s good enough or consistent enough to be part of a competitive deck.

My point is that in Big Spell Mage’s heyday, there were better big spells around than there are now; Dragon’s Fury and Meteor were fantastic, whereas today people look to mediocre spells like Pyroblast and Power of Creation to complement the standard Blizzard + Flamestrike. Besides, Arcane Tyrant worked with Dragon’s Fury just fine.

Also… do you really not see the parallel with Arcane Tyrant? Take the example you just used of Blizzard. Back in the day of Arcane Tyrant, you’d pay 6 mana for Blizzard + a free 4/4, now with Dragoncaster you’re paying 6 mana for a 4/4 + a free Blizzard. I know it’s not exactly the same mechanic, but a known, similar point of reference helps you better gauge the power of a card.

Cheap, efficient removal with a value cherry on top. This is both auto-include in Dragon Mage decks, as well as a strong reason to run Dragon mage.

The dragon-in-hand requirement won’t always be met when you need to play this, especially when you need to answer something like a turn 1 Flame Imp, but even without the discover effect this is still adequate. 5/5

Like Arcane Tyrant, but significantly worse. Instead of paying mana for a big spell then playing Tyrant for free, here you pay the mana for a minion then cast the spell for free, which is similar. Yes, this does allow you to play Pyroblast and Power of Creation for less mana, but those are not good cards and I’m not sure you want them in your deck even with the synergy with this card.

For this guy to work, you need to have this on hand AND a dragon AND a big spell that you want to cast. Even then, you cannot get both Dragoncasters on the board off of one spell, like Arcane Tyrant could, and unlike pre-rotation Big Spell Mage, you don’t have powerhouse spells like Dragon’s Fury or Meteor.

The actual effect is nice when all the pieces come together, but this has significant deckbuilding requirements (big spell dragon mage?) and that even then it’s inconsistent. 3/5