Hello everyone,
Alongside our major announcements this Tuesday we updated our website’s Card Library to include new cards from the Death Knight Class and March of the Lich King expansion. Additionally, Death Knight deck building has been enabled there to allow for early theory crafting!
We’re aware of an unexpected issue with the implementation of this feature that has caused some cards to show up with different stats than their in-game counterparts. The inaccuracies do not reflect planned changes to these cards, with the exception of Theotar, the Mad Duke, and Ice Revenant; those 2 changes will arrive with our 25.0 update.
Dev Comment: Two cards not in the March of the Lich King set will be receiving nerfs in the 25.0 patch: Theotar, the Mad Duke and Ice Revenant.
The release of a new class is an incredibly exciting moment for Hearthstone players everywhere, and a moment that we want to be as enjoyable and accessible as possible. Knowing the importance of this new class release, our plan with Theotar was to test out a smaller nerf to the card (from 4 mana to 5 mana) before potentially moving to a larger nerf (6 mana 4/4) if necessary. Theotar’s play rate did not drop as far as we would have liked it to with the smaller nerf and is still much higher than we would like it to be leading into the March of the Lich King. Our aim with this second nerf is to lower the card’s play rate to ensure that the release of Death Knight is as fun as possible for players with a wide variety of interests and experience levels.
The nerf to Ice Revenant might appear out of place, but it feels like a necessary one in a world where Death Knight has access to multiple cheap Frost spells (Horn of Winter in particular). In testing we were frequently seeing Ice Revenant’s game-ending size on turn 4, and the card was simply overshadowing many of the new and exciting things going on in the set.
In addition to stat differences, there are some minion type tag adjustments visible. Minion type tags are indeed changing on many old cards, which we’ll be communicating the specifics on in the near future.
Thanks for the multiple clarifications!
Theotar is a very problematic card and I don’t think increasing the mana cost to 6 will be enough.
I’m especially worried about Wild because there are so many ways to prevent your opponent from playing the game:
Dirty Rat, Theotar, Okani, Mutanous, Counterspell Objection, and coming soon Patchwork.
I 100% agree that combo decks need to be kept in check, but I’d rather we nerf the combos themselves rather than adding cards that prevents people from playing the game.
Disruption should be about slowing your opponent down. Loatheb is a great example of a powerful but fair disruption card. It’s not frustrating to play against (opinion) and it can provide enough tempo to ice the game.
4 Likes
I feel like Ice Revenant could have been turned into a Shaman card, as it fits the class best as an Ice Elemental, while Death Knight definitely won’t need support from a neutral card to see play. Theotar should choose out of two different cards, as having a ~30% or higher chance to snipe the best card in your hand is too high value for the cost.
I feel like the multiple Theotar nerfs are ignoring entirely why Theotar is being used.
We don’t nerf weapon tech because it’s in every deck to combat overpowered weapons. We have had plenty of metas where ooze/viper have been ubiquitous.
The card that somewhat reliably stops overpowered stuff in hand? That can’t be allowed!
3 Likes
So we can have fun at the new expansion but not for the past 3 months
3 Likes
Increase the mana cost even more so it’s only affordable for druid to play it? Theotar has been the only good disruption card in standard that can counter Sire. Sire is the card that really needs nerf, so stealing/getting stolen doesn’t mean an instant defeat/win.
If other key cards like hero cards get stolen, then I don’t see a problem with that. 6 mana is already a good cost to steal something that the player may not use effectively.
3 Likes
Hey ppl working at blizz who gets paid to analyze the game but yet fails time after time after time after time. Maybe Theo isnt the problem. Maybe it’s bran. 
Maybe it was Bran along. Maybe all you had to do, was not bring the card back into standard. Maybe you should send your sallery to me, since you arguably shouldnt be getting it.
Meanwhile you are releasing a class exclusive mutanus + deadly shot + gnomferstu which can be played with brann as well.
Maximum fun indeed!
2 Likes
Changing stats and increasing Theo’s mana lol. Meanwhile , Brann, Denatrius, relics… That’s how we balance the game at Blizzard. KEKW
1 Like
…provided they can pay for it.
I mean, not like the multibillion dollar company that raked it in during the pandemic can afford to give out the new class cards for free like they did with demon hunter, can they?
That would mean their statement above would actually be true.
1 Like