Irebound Brute
- Old: [Costs 7] → New: [Costs 8]
Dev Comment: Irebound Brute was playable a bit earlier than intended on average. Pushing it back a turn should soften extreme turns.
Mindrender Illucia
- Old: Battlecry: Swap hands and decks with your opponent until your next turn. → New: Battlecry: Replace your hand with a copy of your opponent’s until end of turn.
Dev Comment: With the refinement of Shadow Priest in recent weeks, Mindrender Illucia has been overperforming in the archetype, in an unintended way. Instead of being used as a late game disruption tool, Shadow Priests have been using Illucia as an early game play to essentially skip the opponent’s turn. This change is aimed at removing that problematic gameplay from Illucia, while still keeping her in a similar space with her effect.
Perpetual Flame
- Old: [Costs 1] → New: [Costs 2]
Dev Comment: Perpetual Flame is a very efficient removal tool for Questline Shaman. Going up one mana here will give board-based decks a better shot against Shaman in the early- and mid-game.
Command the Elements
- Tame the Flames (the third portion of the Questline)
- Old: Play 2 cards with Overload. Reward: Stormcaller Bru’kan. → New: Play 3 cards with Overload. Reward: Stormcaller Bru’kan.
Dev Comment: Slowing down the speed at which Questline Shamans can get their final reward should open up more room for counterplay, particularly from slower strategies.
The Demon Seed
- The Demon Seed (part 1 of the Questline)
- Old: Take 6 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero. → New: Take 8 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero.
- Establish the Link (part 2 of the Questline)
- Old: Take 7 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero. → New: Take 8 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero.
- Additionally, The Demon Seed is now banned in Wild.
Dev Comment: After monitoring both Standard and Wild since the release of Stormwind, we’ve decided to both increase the damage required on the first two steps for Standard and ban the Questline in Wild. In Standard, we are slightly upping the amount of damage needed to complete the Questline to slow down the speed at which Tamsin locks up games. In Wild, where there are many more efficient self-damaging cards, The Demon Seed can be completed at an unintentionally fast rate. We are banning the card to protect the format from the problematic gameplay it created. When The Demon Seed rotates to Wild, we will unban it and reposition the card to be more appropriate for the format.
Runed Mithril Rod
- Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: Runed Mithril Rod is overperforming relative to mana-generation sources in other classes, mainly due to Warlock’s card draw potential. Going up one mana will bring Runed Mithril Rod’s power level more in line with what other classes have access to.
The following cards have been adjusted up in power level.
Dev Comments: We’re looking at opening up a few more strategies for some of the less-diverse classes and underrepresented archetypes in the Standard metagame. These buffs are aimed at some of the weaker archetypes to make them more appealing options to play with. Some of these changes are on the lighter side, in anticipation of the mini-set coming in the next major patch after the patch launching Mercenaries.
Leatherworking Kit
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 1]
Selective Breeder
- Old: 1 Attack, 1 Health → New: 1 Attack, 3 Health
Wildfire
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 1]
Mordresh Fire Eye
- Old: [Costs 10] 10 Attack, 10 Health → New: [Costs 8] 8 Attack, 8 Health
Stormwind Freebooter
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health → New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Stonemaul Anchorman
- Old: 4 Attack, 5 Health → New: 4 Attack, 6 Health
Bloodsail Deckhand
- Old: 2 Attack, 1 Health → New: 2 Attack, 2 Health
8 Likes
Holy cow I think ZachO was 100% accurate on his nerf predictions.
2 Likes
The dev team just buffed pirate warrior in wild which was already the best deck according to VS.
That’s…hilarious.
14 Likes
Buffs are not what I expected. Hero Power Mage, really? That seems like it has so little longevity due to lack of synergy with other themes.
Beasts and Pirates getting buffed makes sense, but Selective Breeder at 1/3 doesn’t feel like it helps hunter the way a stickier minion helps other classes, and Leathworking Kit was not the first thing to come to mind but at least makes sense.
Pirates I’m very concerned they’re going to build a monster like it already is in wild. That 1-drop is super premium now. The other two are kind of meh even buffed, though.
4 Likes
They went a totally different direction than I expect for Mage, but my only gripe eith a Wildfire buff was 10-mana Mordresh making it useless.
This… is actually really dang cool.
Also Questlock is dead. Illucia is dead, and Quest Shammy will still be extremely playable. Outside of Brukan, the most effective part of the quest was the early overload clearing and that entire section of the deck’s play pattern remains the same.
Good changes, hopefully Pirate Warrior will see some viability finally.
Also, Wandmaker can now give Wildfire.
8 Likes
Wow!
Illucia is pretty much trash now. It’s not even the “late game disruption” they said they were wanting.
No love for quest priest at all. I was hoping the meta would slow down and give the deck a chance. But…
… Pirate warrior is about to be scary af.
Hero power mage just got a nice boost, too. Though my even deck for wild is now really, really bad.
I don’t know if the hunter changes will come close to making beasts viable.
Warlock is DOA but we all figured that would happen. I’m sure there’s still some low T2 decks possible but taking 8 damage per step means you’re a lot slower to get there and the +3 health won’t be enough to counter the face deck which is currently killing you.
6 Likes
I don’t think Questlock is dead at all. Illucia works a lot better for control now, but since control sucks then Illucia sucks. No buffs to control either and no revert of nerfs to apotheosis either. Pretty dumb.
They basically are trying to push for more Pirate Warrior, Beast Hunter and Hero Power Mage. I think Pirate Warrior makes out the best here.
1 Like
This pushes back your step completion turns by a solid full turn each, and also bumps Flesh Giant turns wayyy back. On top of Rod coming down later, the deck is probably going to be too slow.
Yeah I’m kind of surprised they went with a rework but still ended up making Illucia useless at both aggro and annihilating combo. So I’m pretty pleased there, because that card deserved getting destroyed.
I am OK with the hero power theme buffs to Mage, I just don’t see how they help Mage as a class very much in the longer run. But I guess that’s not the point; they just want the theme to be a bit more playable while it exists.
Shaman Quest needing 3 on part 3 is a pretty huge deal, I feel. Brukan usually comes just as they’re running out of options that aren’t their Brukan super-fuel to acquire him. Ironically Perpetual Flame was so ludicrously cheap in the first place I’m not sure how much that particular nerf will hurt despite it being theoretically double price.
Questlock needs 3 more damage to get the 2nd Giant discount, Runed Rod is now reasonably priced, and Tamsin needs 3 more damage… I think it’s still playable but not top tier. So dead as far as meta is concerned.
1 Like
Do you think Wildfire Mage will be a thing now?
Wildfire into hero power on curve is a big boon but I don’t see how the deck reliably competes. It may be a thing in terms of popularity, I guess, but I don’t see how it’ll be better than Quest Mage, which already is kind of weak.
2 Likes
no one wants to kill a deck completely… just nerf its power level such that its not oppressive to play against. though demon seed might still need some nerfs lol. fatigue nullification is just too good.
1 Like
It slows it down, it won’t be the # 1 deck, but it’ not dead by any means. I played the deck quite a lot and there were more times than I could count where I went over the damage I needed to do anyways. For example, if I was at 5/6 and needed to do 1 more damage to myself, I would very often end up being forced to do 2 or 3 instead. It’s not uncommon.
Does it slow down the deck? Sure. Does it kill it? No. Not at all.
2 Likes
Wandmaker now being able to give Wildfire is interesting, but we’ll have to see if that makes any impact.
3 Likes
It already isn’t the number 1 deck.
Each step slowed down while you still can’t drop even a single giant on turn 5 most of the time.
It isn’t even dead. It nuked with an orbital Cannon.
Dead would be If they reverted the giants to 8.
1 Like
I think it will be at least playable since wandmaker can give you more wildfires.
2 Likes
The one and only ‘’ good nerf ‘’ is Illucia. The rest is the usual Blizzard-style nerfs/buffs thingy KEKW. Demon Seed is still broken hence the wild ban. Team pepega at your service 
Welcome to GarroteStone folks !
4 Likes
Better Just do a slower version( ant aggro ) of Quest mage If you believe that.
They really managed to get a way to do absolutely nothing while buffing2 cards.
1 Like
Imagine thinking a deck is completely dead because it can’t drop an 8/8 on turn 5 and instead might have to wait another turn.
Handlock was massively powerful, and still is for the simple fact it essentially locks control out of the meta. The deck is still going to be good. It might get knocked down to Tier 2 or 3 but it’s not dead.
4 Likes
everyone hold on to something…
I am actually excited for the changes:)
I tried to make WF mage work over and over.
This makes me optimistic. (yeah Ikr?)
8 Likes