Will We Have a Balance Update Soon? And Which Cards Are Most Likely to Get Nerfed?

Two questions in the title are constantly asked by the players. Over the last couple of expansions, early nerf patches became a norm. Players approach crafting and disenchanting cards much more carefully and try to wait until Blizzard makes the first step. After all, no one wants to craft a deck that will get nerfed a few days later. Yes, you can get refund for the nerfed card, but if you crafted something else then you will come out with nothing. And I understand this approach. What’s why I’ve decided to write this article and try to answer two questions from the title.

Will We Have a Balance Update (and When?)?

This one is pretty simple. Yes, I’m nearly sure that we will. However, there’s no need for an “emergency” patch like the one we had in Ashes of Outland. The meta is not in shambles, no single deck is dominating to the point where it can’t be beaten. However, it doesn’t mean that the meta is completely balanced. There are cards and decks that feel too strong, or at least unfun to play against.

For that reason, I do not recommend hitting “disenchant all” button – if you need some dust, search for “extra” in your collection manager – it will display all the cards you have more than playset of. And then Dust the ones that are weak or mediocre and you don’t think will get nerfed. Leave the ones that have a chance to get hit. Of course, it’s impossible to tell with all certainty, but the point is to avoid very strong cards that have a chance of getting changed. While this method “blocks” some Dust, it can yield a quite big return in the future. Let’s say that you save 6 extra copies of some Rare card that got nerfed – boom, that’s 480 Dust for free (normally you would disenchant them for 120, now you do for 600). Do it for a few more cards and you can craft yourself a Legendary or two from the extra Dust.

Now, the better question is WHEN we’ll have a balance update. This one is a bit more difficult to answer. In the recent AMA, Hearthstone devs have mentioned that they’re monitoring the meta and thinking whether they need a patch or not. That tells me that they didn’t think that a quick nerf patch is necessary, but they’re still considering one. Given the general opinion about the meta is okay-ish with a few exceptions, I don’t think that they need to hurry up, so I doubt that it will drop this week. Maybe a week or two from now, after the meta has more time to develop? Hard to say.

Which Cards Might Get Nerfed?

Of course, this is all based on statistics from the early meta, how cards feel to play against, as well as my own gut feeling. There’s no denying that the stats available to us pale in comparison with Blizzard’s internal stats – they know much better which cards are too strong and which are underperforming. They also get much more feedback about the meta then we do, although we’re fully aware of the general community sentiments about decks too.

So, here’s the list of cards / archetypes that we feel might get hit. While I can’t guarantee that any of them will get nerfed, maybe they will go another route and change something else, no one knows. But I feel like those are pretty good candidates.

Also, I’m not saying that every single of those cards should get nerfed. For example – when talking about a single deck, usually 1-2 cards would be enough, I’m just listing cards that I feel are most likely to get hit.

Druid’s Mana Cheating / Beast Shenanigans

You see, here’s the thing – if we look at the early stats, Druid doesn’t seem to be overpowered. There are a couple of stronger decks, it’s good, but not too good. However, I feel like it’s the most likely deck to get hit mostly because of how infuriating it is to play against quite often. If you don’t draw the right cards, you spend the first few turns doing nothing and you die against Aggro. But if you do – you summon a massive board on Turn 3-4 and your opponent has no chance of winning. Those polarizing games are something people really dislike.

Some potential nerf candidates are Guardian Animals, Lightning Bloom or Overgrowth. The first one lets you pull 10 mana worth of minions from your deck for 7 mana, while the latter two let you get to that 7 mana much quicker. I think that upping the mana cost by 1 might be enough for it to be more fair. Overgrowth is a slower ramp card, but it’s basically 2x pre-nerf Wild Growth slapped into a single card – it’s really strong. However, I’m not sure whether it wouldn’t be too weak at 5 mana – after all, we already have Nourish, which at 1 more mana is way stronger in the late game because of a secondary effect (card draw). Bloom is a pre-nerf Innervate, but with an Overload downside. However, the issue is that if you have an insane tempo turn because of the mana cheating, having some Overload on the next turn is not that big of a deal. It’s hard to say how to nerf it – reducing the mana gain / Overload to 1 would just make it a weaker Innervate, but for Shaman too – I don’t think that’s a good idea. One thing I thought about was making REFILL Mana Crystals instead of gaining them – it means that you can’t e.g. play a 7 mana card on Turn 5, but you can still e.g. play a 4 mana card, then Bloom, them play a 3 mana card. It would also retain its usability in Combo decks, e.g. Malygos Druid.

Kael'thas Sunstrider is another problematic one – the card was already nerfed once from 6 to 7 mana, but it turned out to not be enough. Increasing it to 8 is one way to handle the card, possibly even 9 given how swingy it is (although then I feel like it would become a meme card). Another idea I’ve seen is letting him discount only a single spell per turn, which would get rid of the most degenerate turns, although cheating even a single big spell is often enough to make the card worth it.

Oh, and a good way to nerf Guardian Animals indirectly would be changing Twilight Runner‘s mana cost to 6. They could even increase the stats a bit to compensate. But the point is that pulling it out with Guardian Animals is super strong, because you also refill your hand after ramping up, negating one of the downsides of early ramp (lower hand size).

Some Pure Paladin Cards

I honestly didn’t expect to say that, but I do think that Pure/Libram Paladin (however you call it) is too strong now. A deck that I considered a meme back in Descent of Dragons has been gradually getting more and more powerful throughout Ashes of Outland as everything around it was getting nerfed, and the new Scholomance cards have finally made it strong. Possibly too strong. When it comes to Pure Paladin, it’s hard to pin-point which card is too good. The deck is simply very consistent and it doesn’t have a star card carrying everything. That’s why in case of Pure Paladin, they could go multiple routes – nerfing any of the deck’s more powerful cards will hit the entire build by forcing them to either run a weaker version or replace it with a secondary option. Here are some of the cards that I feel stand out and might be targeted with nerfs in the future:

• First Day of School – I’ve rated the card 9/10 and I stand by my rating – it’s really, really strong. It feels like a better Fire Fly, which was a staple 1-drop in nearly every meta deck at the time. While the card falls off in the late game, you can’t really expect an early game / technically a 1-drop to be very good throughout the entire game. Well, and if you high-roll something like Reliquary of Souls then it can come handy in the late game too. But I feel like it would be hard to nerf the card. Making it 1 mana would probably make it too weak, but I wouldn’t be really surprised. I also thought about making it 1 mana and giving you two 0 mana minions instead, but that would be boring – the pool of 0 mana minions is just too small (you would always get 2x 0 mana 1/1), making it virtually a 2x 1/1 for 1 mana – with an upside of you being able to e.g. handbuff those cards before dropping them.
• High Abbess Alura – Here’s the thing – Alura by herself is not broken. Stats indicate that she’s not standing out in any way. It’s just the Turn 4 high roll potential that makes her really annoying and difficult to play against. Alura + Coin or First Day on curve casting Blessing of Authority or Libram of Hope is often game over for the opponent, which sadly is similar story to Druid’s early Guardian Animals high-roll. In her case, I think that making her cost 5 would work. Or maybe they could restrict the mana cost of spell she can cast to e.g. 5 – this way Authority would still count, but you could no longer summon an 8/8 with Taunt & Divine Shield.
• Lightforged Zealot – I’ve noticed that Zealot is carrying the deck quite often. The card is just nuts – Truesilver Champion is already a playable card, and having an extra 4/2 body on top of that is an amazing tempo push. But since it’s one of the “pure” deck pay-offs, I wouldn’t make it too weak. I think that a small nerf like changing Zealot’s stats to 4/1 or 3/2 would be good enough.
• Libram of Hope – I could also see the nerf targetting Libram of Hope instead – it’s basically the biggest pay-off card for running the Libram package, and I would say that it often comes down too early. With Aldor Attendant played some time between Turn 1 and 4, then Aldor Truthseeker on Turn 5 (which is honestly a pretty common scenario), you can then drop Libram of Hope on Turn 6. And I feel like that’s a bit too strong – 8/8 with Taunt + Divine Shield + 8 points of healing for 6 just seals the game in many matchups. I could see them making Libram of Hope 10 mana instead.

At the same time, I don’t see almost anyone complaining about Pure Paladin, despite it being the #1 deck in the meta at the time I’m writing this. Why is that? Well, honestly, because the deck feels balanced. Besides some insane Alura turns, it doesn’t do anything crazy – it just plays good cards on the curve, has a great mix of threats, tempo, removal, value and healing, can play a faster and slower game and so on. But despite doing all of that, most of the time it feels fair to play against. I really like the deck for that reason, and I hope that if they decide to nerf it, they won’t go too hard on it.

Mindrender Illucia

Oh Priest, Priest… Definitely the most hated class in Hearthstone, and let’s just say that some of the current Standard cards don’t help. Priest might be not overpowered right now, but some of the new cards are too powerful or just annoying. There’s one in particular that I see people commonly asking to nerf… Mindrender Illucia. That’s right, Illucia might be the craziest effect in an expansion full of unique effects. You swap hands & decks with your opponent for a turn, which means that you get to play their cards, but they also get to play yours for a turn. On the upside, since they draw a card with your hand and you swap before you draw, they technically lose one card draw too, increasing the card’s power level quite a lot. The best use for this card is disrupting combo decks – you can straight up win some games by swapping hands with your opponent and playing their key combo card. However, since combo decks aren’t particularly popular right now, why is the card problematic?

Because Illucia is also great when simply played in the early game. Ideally, you want to play her during a turn when you (Priest player) has nothing to do next turn other than generating cards. This way, swapping with your opponent means that you develop a 1/3, you might be able to use something from their hand (e.g. a Coin + 1-drop, or e.g. Lightning Bloom against Druid) and they won’t be able to do anything other than Hero Power + pass. If they play something like Thoughtsteal, then it just generates resources for you, since the hands will be swapped back again. Not only it can be really annoying to face, it’s also very powerful and often wins the games by slowing down the opponent.

Illucia is also pretty hard to balance. The effect is not something you can actually nerf without completely reworking the card. The stats are also pretty much irrelevant, it could honestly be a spell with no body at all and it would still be good. So the only thing you can realistically nerf is mana cost. And I think that 3 mana wouldn’t be enough, so my guess would be nerfing it to 4 mana – this way it would no longer be playable on curve, and it would mostly be used as a tech for combo disruption.

Secret Passage / Cutting Class

Aggro / Tempo Rogue decks (also called Stealth or Weapon Rogue… yeah, we’ll need a better naming for them soon) have become pretty strong in Scholomance Academy, kind of at the cost of Galakrond Rogue (which is a low Tier 2 deck now after being an important part of the meta for the last two expansions). One of the reasons for the success of new decks are the insane card draw / cycle capabilities, which combined with a low curve and lots of burn damage created one of the most powerful aggressive archetypes of this expansion.

The first card is obviously Secret Passage. We all know how strong it can be at the times – facing an Aggro Rogue who Secret Passages when you’re at 10 health often spells death. Seeing this card right after you’ve played a big Taunt usually means that it’s going to get Sapped and they will hit your face with another round of minion attacks. At 1 mana, it’s really easy to play, and with the low curve, when played in the mid game, it usually “draws” you 2-3 cards. Not only that – they are 2-3 cards you pick out of 5. That’s why I think that changing it from 5 cards to 4 cards would be a decent nerf. The card is all about offering more options, and cutting that number by 20% seems solid. Because making it cost 2 mana would probably kill the card, and nerfs that kill the card should be avoided if possible.

However, another class that a lot of people aren’t mentioning is Cutting Class. As it turns out, in a weapon-based deck like Aggro Rogue OR Bomb Warrior (which is slowly rising to Tier 1 once again), it’s way too easy to make it cheap, and cheap card draw is always scary. You need a 2 mana weapon to make it cost 3, which is a baseline for drawing 2 cards. With a 3 damage weapon (which is really easy in both of those decks), you’re already having a discounted card draw. And drawing 2 cards for 0 happens very commonly, and it’s really, really strong. Cards that change their cost are always hard to balance. I’m just afraid that changing it to 6 mana would be too much and kill the card, because then you need a 4 attack weapon to get a better Arcane Intellect, which is the reason why you put it into your deck. I would honestly consider making it 7-8 and drawing 3 instead – this way you would no longer be able to play it for cheap so easily (because it’s harder to get to that high amount of attack on your weapon), but the pay-off for doing it would be higher.

Neutral – Voracious Reader

Talking about card draw… We also have a new Neutral options that found its way into multiple builds. Voracious Reader is a 2 mana Jeeves that draws cards only for you… They really pushed this one, didn’t they? While I don’t think that it’s overpowered enough RIGHT NOW, I would be really surprised if it wasn’t nerfed in the future – that’s why I’ll keep this short. She works really, really well in any hyper-aggressive build that need refill to find more ways to push the tempo / burn cards to kill the opponent. She’s already proving herself in both Face Hunter & Aggro Demon Hunter, both of which are pretty strong decks in the current meta. And given how much time she has in Standard, she WILL break something sooner or later.

In this case, I think that 3 mana would be fair – this way it would be harder to play her + the rest of your hand on the same turn, often forcing players to either wait another turn before dropping her or drawing one less card. However, like I’ve mentioned, I don’t believe that she’s not problematic enough right now to see a nerf in the next balance update.

Conclusion

As you can see, it’s not too difficult to find some potential nerf candidates – either because the cards are too strong, or just not fun to play against. At the same time, the meta is not in a bad state, so we don’t need an immediate nerf patch. I still think that we should see one soon-ish – not only because the meta COULD be better, but because balance updates are always a great way to shake up the meta and keep people more interested. Once the meta settles, people start to find it boring after a while. It’s good to do a refresh every now and then – even if the update isn’t big and it only hits a few cards, it will still force players to experiment and see how the power balance has shifted.

And what would be your predictions? Do you think that we’ll have a nerf patch soon? What cards do you think will get changed? And what cards would YOU like to see changed? Let us know in the comments below!