So, they (over)nerfed only the DH weapon in the last unscheduled iteration, as opposed to a more holistic and balanced approach, which, as predicted, made the meta even worse, since aggro DH was at least keeping some problematic (uninteractive, unfun and whatnot) stuff somewhat at bay. Having played the new meta for a bit, below are a few tentative suggestions to improve it as a whole.
- Satanic goat Zarimi
(Text typos corrected to better reflect the card’s actual apperance; come to think of it, should the tribe be changed too, e.g. to dual Demon/Beast ?)
One wouldn’t have to be clairvoyant to have seen that one coming — potentially even more so in the future, but even now, ‘me take extra candle turn’ with easy OTKs from an empty board is obviously problematic, even if someone actually remembered to add ‘once per game’ to this infamous creation of that intern Jeff.
Proposed change:
- Old: Battlecry: Once per game, if you’ve summoned 5 other Dragons, take an extra turn.
- New: Battlecry: Once per game, if you’ve summoned 6 Titans, take an extra turn.
- Comment: For an aggro deck that also manages to run cards like Aman’Thul and multiple copying tools, the updated requirement still shouldn’t be a big issue, while reigning in the clear outlier in terms of power, as well as removing a desing problem in order to open up space in the future. The mastery of time and temporal magic is the domain of the Titan Aman’Thul, so this also fits thematically quite well.
Also, intern Jeff should be fired for real this time, not as an April 1st joke.
Bonus:
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Ship’s Chirurgeon —> renamed to Ship’s Surgeon for literacy reason, since this isn’t a Finnish or Polish version of the game, but an English one.
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Type should probably be changed from Dragon to Beast, since it looks like a chicken or a parrot to me.
- Flash of Lightning
- Old: Draw a card. Next turn, your Nature spells cost (1) less.
- New: Draw a card. Next turn, your Nature spells cost (1) less (but not less than 1).
- Comment: This change, in line with other similar cards, has been long overdue, no additional comment is even required.
- Deepminer Brann
- Old: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, your Battlecries trigger twice for the rest of the game.
- New: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, your Battlecries trigger twice for the rest of the game. Start of Game: Put this card on the bottom of your deck.
- Comment: Brann is mining really deep, good luck finding him there! Now players really have to invest in some drilling in order to unearth a fitting reward, as opposed to getting it as a freebie.
- Boomboss Tho’grun
- Moved from the Showdown in the Badlands set to the Core set (gotta also type a replacement card for it)
- Comment: This is to facilitate the following change.
- Old: Battlecry: Shuffle 3 T.N.T. into your deck. When drawn, blow up a card in the enemy hand, deck, and board.
- New: This card must be included in a Warrior deck for it to be valid. Battlecry: Shuffle 3 T.N.T. into your deck. When drawn, deal 30 damage to your hero.
- New: Those who have played at least 10 games with the old version of the card are temporarily locked away from playing with other classes than Warrior and receive a new Legendary quest (win 1000 games with Warrior) to unlock them again.
- Comment: For some time, a number of players have been abusing a design oversight, creating a negative playing experience for others. We’re giving them a chance to taste their own medicine, while opening up room for a healthier meta. This change is also intended to fix the issue of excessive armo(u)r typically gained by Warriors, as well as open up possible new interactions with cards like Stoneskin Armorer.
- Inventor Boom
- Old: Battlecry: Resurrect two friendly Mechs that cost (5) or more. They immediately attack random enemies.
- New: Battlecry: Resurrect two friendly Mechs. They cannot attack this turn.
- Comment: This change is according to fixing some obvious text mistakes that have managed to sneak into the initial design documents and have somehow remained in the game so far, so it is more of a bugfix than a functional or balance change.
- Sif
- Old: 6 mana. Spell Damage +1 (Improved by each spell school you’ve cast this game!)
- New: 5 mana. Spell Damage +1 (Improved by each spell school you’ve cast this game!) Your spells cannot target the enemy hero.
- Comment: Sif isn’t Malygos, so she shouldn’t be an upgraded version of him. This change fixes some obvious design problems with the card, however, it is compensated by reduced cost, so that Mages could focus more on strategies revolving around the board, as opposed to killing the enemy hero in one turn with uninteractive spell combos.