Suggestion: Revert Nerfs/HoF

Nerfs are always a fun time, one way or another. A meta shift, falls of decks, and rise of new ones. However, sometimes these nerfs don’t age particularly well. Well, why not revert them? If they won’t cause a problem now, no reason to make a card blatantly unplayable when it could see some play! Let’s get into what I think should be reverted from the HoF or from a nerfed state!

  • First and foremost

Change Wild Growth back to 2 mana and Nourish back to 5. These cards were issues back when Ultimate Infestation was prevalent but since only serve to hurt Druid’s classic and basic set. Without cards such as the Pestilent and UI, Druid is far less powerful than he was and giving them back ramp isn’t necessarily too powerful, especially considering Breath of Dreams being in the meta. Nourish being 5 mana draw 3 is how it should’ve been.

Next, Ancient of Lore should draw 2 cards.

Back many years ago, Ancient of Lore drew 2 cards or restored 5 health. I believe, due to the meta we are in, it can go back up to 2 cards, as it was nerfed to 1. It’s very risky to spend a turn doing nothing on a later turn, and it wouldn’t be very powerful at all.

Also, return Keeper of the Grove to a 2/4.

I know, I’m buffing Druid a lot, and I’ll get into other classes soon, but making Keeper of the Grove a 2/2 neutered it and it was unneeded. It can stand as a 2/4 body without pushing the envelope too far.

Now if you’ve made it this far before delving into the replies to smite me about how good this would make Quest Druid, don’t worry I have fixes.

Next class, return Fiery War Axe to 2 mana, from 3.

FWA was nerfed in the hell of Pirate Warrior but it hurt Warrior badly at the time. Now, it can be a better option for those without Livewire Lance, and stand up to Druid to kill them before Quest completion. I don’t think it’s that bad and you can tech against it if you need.

Moving on, revert Hex back to 3 mana, from 4.

I never understood why Hex was nerfed, when all it did was make a pretty fair card worse. It’s similar to Polymorph, except you need to get rid of the body you created. I don’t see why this was nerfed and unnerfing it now likely wouldn’t change much.

Carrying onward, make Defender of Argus a 3/3 again.

DoA was nerfed from a 3/3 to a 2/3 early in the gamestate and it’s good anti-aggro deck, making it a 3/3 makes it more viable against Aggro decks.

Now, onto the HoF

Bring back Azure Drake, Ragnaros, Sylvanus, Ice Block, and Mind Blast.

Ice Block is good anti-aggro, Mind Blast gives Priest back an option they never should’ve lost, Azure Drake is good for Dragon synergy now and a solid card, and Rag/Sylvanus have shown to fit well into the meta during Doom in the Tomb. I find bringing these back into the meta would be a very fun endeavor, maybe only the HoF cards for a little while and see how it goes. Maybe only unnerf cards for a short time?

During a Tavern Brawl on Halloween, the Dreadsteed’s name had “Timeshift” on it possibly, since the Dreadsteed was unnerfed, we may see a Timeshift event in DoD?

I’d also like Baku and Genn back for a short amount of time. It would open up new, fun options into the meta and since WW I think maybe even incorporate them into the Classic set, they were put in too soon.

What do you guys think? I love a discussion in the replies and I’d love to debate over unnerfing cards. Discuss!

5 Likes

I think this would have to go along with a rotating (actual rotation) of the classic set in multiple parts.

Example - Wild Growth at 2 mana, and Ancient of Lore at draw 2 cards in one set. Nourish at 5 mana in another set.

That way you can have cards like Breath of Dreams with set 2, while having something like Infestation with set 1. You don’t have so much overlap of card draw/ramp.

You leave some space for design to fill gaps when the basic set only covers some bases.

3 Likes

agree with wild growth, disagree with nourish. As long as druid quest is still in standard, nourish cannot cost 5.

Ancient of lore and keeper is fine with the power level currently.

FWA should be back to 2, i agree on this considering 3 mana now have the same stats and draw pirate.

Hex should never be 3 again, like you say Hex is same as polymorph, if poly is 4, hex is 4.

I think upping DOA is fine but it may become too powerful.

Mind blast and drake can be brought back too, sly and rag give many ppl PTSD during the tomb in the doom event and i dont think they want to see them again. Ice block is just not fun to play against… so i wont want it back.

As a Druid main i’d love my wild growth back as 2, nourish I don’t care that much about oddly enough to say, it’s really was not something i care to much to play on 5, I don’t mind it at 6 that much as I said, as we have “5 mana” cards like Druid of the claw and and we normally got decent 5 costing cards that was a “fight slot” with, and with the quest as it is now, i would turn nourish into abit nast 5 mana draw 3 get 2 mana - so on a 10 mana turn it’s basically like using 12 mana

Ancient of Lore should draw 2 card, or even just have taunt in general, cause depending on the deck, that can help it find a home in more deck as a , draw 1 w/ taunt or +5 health and 5/5 taunt - Again this is like nourish area with me in it’ll be abuse in the quest druid for the draw and heal with body more, and I don’t mind as it is, but if it had taunt as a typeless minion it can find home in all type of deck eventually, taunt , dragion, mech, token and etc

Keeper does need to return to his old self, or they could made him a 3/3 either way a 2/4 or 3/3 is better stated for a 4 mana silence or deal 2 damage, Or - which is really crazy, maybe turn him into 2 mana 2/2 deal 2 damage or silence.

we have 3/3 deal 2 , or 2/1 deal 2 , and etc in the 3 mana change, make him cheaper might make him a nice slot in the 3 mana area that really not use by many druid decks

I can’t say to much on the other classes… But

Bring back Azure Drake, Ragnaros, Sylvanus, Ice Block, and Mind Blast.

Ice Block is good anti-aggro, Mind Blast gives Priest back an option they never should’ve lost, Azure Drake is good for Dragon synergy now and a solid card, and Rag/Sylvanus have shown to fit well into the meta during Doom in the Tomb. I find bringing these back into the meta would be a very fun endeavor, maybe only the HoF cards for a little while and see how it goes. Maybe only unnerf cards for a short time?

Azure Drake be amazing in this meta right now
I don’t see why Ragnaros can’t return, might make Elemental Mage use their hero power more maybe and have a x2 rag?

Sylvanus - Girl where you’ve been , I need you to steal me something i don’t wanna kill for priest for the 100th time.

Why not just say the Odd/Event Decks return, cause we lost mroe then Gen and Baku, they took all the odd and events out, heck Odd Druid look pretty solid with dream portal and being a 9 mana card it something odd druid needed, draw into some sort “power up turn” which when you hit 1 portal, they pop off

2 Likes

Well the Odd/Even cards made them even more when they didn’t need to be. Muspark can be replaced with Galakrond invokes and Black Cat with Azure.

I said right after, Hex requires you to deal with a taunt opinion NOT equal to Poly and it was never too powerful.

Good point with Nourish

Poly also give a spawn that have attack value and can trade well sometimes. They basically do the same things silence and transform, 1 give attack value the other give taunt.

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True, but Hex has taunt. I’ve actually won games by hexing my own minion. 4 cost for both is fair.

1 Like

While I can agree that some of the nerfs can be reverted, you went way too overboard.

One of Wild Growth or Nourish would be fine, but not both. Keeper of the Grove I think would also be fine at 2/4. I always felt Ancient of Lore would have been fine with “Draw a card and restore 5 health”, still think that would be okay today.

FWA? Hell no. Warrior does not current need a 2 mana 3 damage weapon considering how aggro it already is.

Hex still sees plenty of play at 4 mana and it makes sense with Poly also being 4 mana. You trade 1 damage for taunt, very minor. Leave it as is.

Defender of Argus? Eh, I’m impartial on this one.

HoF selections I’m gonna nope on all of them with the exception of Azure Drake. Did not enjoy the meta with Sylvanas and Rag back a couple months ago, wouldn’t enjoy it now. Ice Block needs to stay dead and Mind Blast will always have me nervous so long as Maly isn’t in the HoF.

1 Like

You need to look deeper than what you see on the surface. Maybe Nourish is too powerful, you’re right.

However FWA being at 2 mana doesn’t just magically make the class more powerful. It already has Livewire Lance which I’d argue is still a really good weappon than the +2 attack. It would not put 7 weapons in a deck.

As for the HoF, you need to understand what ENABLED Rag/Sylvanus. Sylvanus was largely enabled by Priest, which won’t have Lightbomb or N’Zoth, and Rag really isn’t much of an issue, or ever was, just a great minion.

As for Ice Block, Mage is the worst class in the game and had terrible survivability. I cannot and likely will not find a reason for them not to have it anymore. Just use secret tech? Not hard.

Mind Blast is an OTK option and that’s ok. Doesn’t seem to be a great one either if it was in Standard.

I have some concerns about this. I’d love it as I’ve mained Druid since day 1 but if they revert the ramp nerfs on top of the new ramp card this is a 5/5 that draws 2 as early as turn 4. It doesn’t even feel bad to pump Innervates into it because it draws 2 to replace them (unnerfed AoL alongside unnerfed Innervate is something I don’t want to think about) . On 7, sure, draw 2 is fair, but alongside reverting the Wild Growth nerf and the new ramp spell it’s not going to be turn 7. 5 seems pretty average with 4 being possible, and it completely nullifies the supposed disadvantage of ramp, card advantage. UI did the same thing, albeit more so, and we all remember how that turned out

Pre-nerf AoL was arguably the best Druid card for multiple expansions and personally I think it remained so until UI. In any class besides the ramp class it’s probably fine, but combined with unnerfed ramp I don’t think so.

1 Like

If neutral for 5 draws and has 5/5, then AoL should draw 2 again.

You almost need to understand that these are evergreen card, you bring ice block back now because mage is the worst class now, then what? HOF it again when its the best class?

1 Like

What neutral card provides a 5/5 and draws 5,exactly?

For 5 mana, sorry, hangover

I agree with everything…
And as a druid main and Wild Growth fanatic let me also add this:
T5 s idea about ramping right now works like this:
‘’ We re gonna print broken ramp cards that work only in certain decks (for ex dragons) and therefore by adjusting the rest of the deck we can achieve balance’’ which has sooooo but sooooooo BIG flaws.

Flaw no1: No matter what archetypes are brought to standard and no matter how powerfull the standard druid might become druid will never be really good at wild. Wild growth is huge part of the wild druid s identity and without it druids not the same
Flaw no2: The most common complaint i heard about wild growth is that it saw play in many druid decks. Cool but how about considering the opposite that without wild growth druid plays just whatever the expansions serves him.
‘‘Hey druid, play with the quest’’, ‘‘Hey druid, play with dragons’’, ‘‘Hey druid play with tokens’’. 0 imagination or deckbuilding
Worst part? As long as they continue to print stupid retarted ramp cards like breath of dreams the harder it ll be to bring wild growth back to it s normal which is basically the right thing to do.
Druid main here staying far away from the class since wild growths nerf (or about a year +)

No. All the cards you mentioned are still decent after the nerf. The HoF cards are pure cancer

What they should do is stop printing overpowered cards and do more nerfs. Then you will see that the “nerfed” cards are fine.

2 Likes

keeper is so bad, even quest druid don’t want to run it.

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There are still some good cards that were odd like Druid Stag that would be pretty nice to have in this agro meta , with the odd hero power to trade - heck it’ll give some the healing cards some play also maybe an Odd Quest druid that’s decent

I have a wild Odd Druid sitting at 61% win rate when i last play it 2 months ago

Secret tech? This is literally no different than weapons or armor, now. Just tech against it? The tech is evergreen, too…

You’re nuts for saying this. Who’s running FWA, AoL, and KotG? I’ll wait.

I don’t think comparing AoL to UI is fair at all. It wasn’t run at ALL until it was nerfed. Yes, it can come out on 4, but that’s just how Druid works. Since it’s been nerfed so many chances, cards, etc. have been brought into the game where it’s honestly a bad card still. Either way you’re sacrificing an entire turn for draw and a very slow body. Druid is already struggling to do that with Nourish. A mana more and it’s even harder.

There is no way Aol stayed like this until UI, as it was terrible beforehand. This is because UI is one of the best cards ever printed.

Fiery War Axe is one card I will say to never buff again simply for the fact that PW still exists. FWA also fueled every Warrior deck because it was that good. One card should singlehandedly never let a class be T1 because it’s just stupid design. Make a new card for Warrior or make it so that card can’t hit face. Otherwise no to FWA.

1 Like