If you were Blizzard? Post yours here, and comment on each others’ lists!
Here are mine… HUNTER
Ramming Mount now gives +2/+1 (from +2/+2) and the Ram it generates is 2/1 (from 2/2). It is also unbanned in Arena. This card has too much positive synergy with Irondeep Trogg. This change allows Impatient Shopkeep to be a neutral answer, assuming that the Trogg has no other buffs.
Warsong Wrangler to give copies +1/+1 (from +2/+1). (Added 12/19.) PALADIN
Alliance Bannerman to 1 Health (from 2). Most versions of Paladin are overperforming. This weakens most of them without splash damage to Commencement Paladin. (Changed from Attack to Health 12/14.)
Aldor Attendant to 2 Health (from 3). Libram Paladin is the most overperforming Paladin variant, so it gets extra attention. ROGUE
Blackwater Cutlass’ ability changed to reduce the cost of a Secret (from a spell). This nerfs the card for Rogues except Secret Thief Rogue (Added 12/19.)
Field Contact to 4 Cost and 3 Health (from 3 Cost and 2 Health). Garrote Rogue is once again overperforming at top Legend, but is weak at lower ranks. This should lower the skill cap on the deck as far as Ethereal Augmerchant targeting goes and weaken the deck at top Legend, without causing unwanted splash damage.
*Swinetusk Shank Attack to 1 (from 2) and Cost to 2 (from 3). This forces Poison Rogue to invest more cards into a lethal Shank, making them run more draw, more Poisons, or possibly Apothecary Helbrim. (Added 12/19.) SHAMAN
Sleetbreaker to 1 Health (from 2). All the over-performing variants of Shaman run this card now, and all will (Added 12/14.) WARLOCK
Flesh Giant to 11 Cost (from 10). This also gives an evolve from 10, which can help Evolve Shamans running Goldshire Gnoll (Added 12/19.)
Tamsin’s Phylactery goes to no spell school tag (from Shadow tag). 27 Armor should be enough. (Added 12/17.)
Touch of the Nathrezim to 1 damage (from 2). Warlock’s control tools are too strong, making it overly resistant to aggro. However, I’m nerfing some minions in several other top decks to 1 Health so Touch can still remain relevant against them, but not necessarily against emerging archetypes. WARRIOR
Bloodsail Deckhand reverted to 1 Health (from 2). Pirates have been overperforming in both Standard and Wild. Because Deckhand was originally 1 Health this “unchange” would persist after Deckhand enters Wild.
Harbor Scamp to 1 Health (from 2). (Added 12/19). NEUTRAL
SI:7 Skulker to 1 Health (from 2). Quest Rogue is one of many overperforming Rogue decks, but Masquerade Rogue is quite popular so we don’t want hit it with splash damage.
A grand total of 1 warlock nerf. Really pushing the boat there for bringing warlock back into line!
Warlock also needs a head to toe overhaul. Less removal, less lifesteal, less positive effect cards, instead, it should have more sacrificial cards and more interesting card mechanics.
Q rogue is not really comparable to Q warrior imo.
Mainly due to the spread of match ups.
Q rogue is only decent when it can target specific decks, like in the current meta.
Even with targeting specific things, it still performs worse than q warrior who isn’t meta reliant for its performance.
The only decks that need a slight touch are warlock, paladin, and garotte.
For warlock either the survivability or the aoe need to take a huge hit. For paladin I’m not sure. For garotte I would leave contact alone,since that kills a dozen other fun decks, and hit garotte directly: revert the previous nerf, but make them shuffle to opponents deck.
Okay, maybe it would be a good idea to explain what decks are strongest. These lists are by winrate not popularity.
Top Legend
Garrote Rogue
Libram Paladin
Poison Rogue
Elemental Shaman
Quest Rogue
Quest Warrior
Quest Shaman
Buff Paladin
Quest Handlock
Owl Warlock
Diamond 4-1
Libram Paladin
Buff Paladin
Quest Rogue
Owl Warlock
Face Hunter
Quest Warrior
Quest Handlock
Garrote Rogue
Bolner OTK Shaman
Deathrattle DH
There’s a very strong argument that Warlock shouldn’t be nerfed at all. I’d much sooner see zero Warlock cards nerfed than two.
Also, if you’re wondering: even though Poison Rogue is tearing it up at top Legend, again, this is by winrate not popularity — very few Poison Rogue players, they just happen to be doing great. I reckon if it gets popular people will run more Rustrots and it’ll resolve itself.
I actually agree that Warlock’s entire design is way wrong right now. Wrote a wall of text about it.
But a balance patch is not the appropriate way to completely redesign how a class works. The only correct thing to do is to let the combination of removal and non-combat kill tools rotate out.
What fun decks? No. We’re not killing a competitive deck completely (that’s what your Garrote change would do) because it would ruin your Tier 5 build.
Before Alterac released — which from Garrote Rogue’s perspective is “without Scabbs hero” — Garrote Rogue was the top performing deck at top Legend. We’re talking about roughly ten days after Garrote was nerfed. While Garrote was the de facto best deck at top Legend, it was below 50% winrate in Diamond 4-1.
I hate sounding like a Rick and Morty fanboy but you need like 200 IQ to really pilot Garrote Rogue, so you’re going to see at least a two-tier difference between top Legend and Diamond with Garrote Rogue. The difference might unironically be three tiers. If Garrote Rogue is Tier 2 in Diamond it’s God Tier in top Legend — or higher.
At top Legend right now, the difference in winrate between Garrote in 1st and Libram Paladin in 2nd, is bigger than the difference between 4th place and 8th. Libram Paladin is Tier 1, and Garrote Rogue is a tier above Tier 1.
So maybe you’re thinking that a change like that would make Garrote Rogue Tier 4 in Diamond… well, yeah, that’s kinda what I’m aiming for here. That’d be Tier 2ish at top Legend. Maybe actually not the #1 deck.
Um, no. I’ve played the deck enough to know that one Contact is for the kill turn. If you have an extra mana crystal, that’s the same. Now the setup Contact, usually after you run out of Octobot’s goodies each activation costs 1, so the increased Contact Cost means 1 less draw.
In one turn, you gain 1 mana crystal (for kill contact) and you draw 1 card (replacing loss on setup Contact). So increasing the Cost of Contact by 1 would delay Garrote Rogue one full turn. Not three — one.
That turn is spent playing Scabbs. If Scabbs can delay the opponent one full turn, then Garrote Rogue with 4-Cost Contacts is no worse off than before Alterac. That’s a big if, but it’ll be true sometimes.
While I approve your statbased ideas and generally like the direction of your suggested nerfs, I wan’t to state, that I believe, that nerfing purely on winrate without regarding playrate is not optimal. As an example Stormwind Questmage settled at (I believe) about 52% winrate before the nerfs (not sure wether it was the first or second round). However, this low winrate was mainly due to its large playrate forcing everyone else to play counterdecks (or atleast countercards like robes) and pushing out almost all decks, that were weak to Quest mage.
Also I believe a same strength deck with lower playrate will have a higher winrate, since people don’t know how to play against it and people who play it will be better at it.
Now I also want to present some nerfs I would maybe implement:
Quest Warrior:
Change Juggernaut to always summoning a 3/3 Vanilla pirate and equipping a 3/2 weapon. This is not intended as a nerf, but a QoL change, as it will remove feels bad moments of Gorehowl and/or Smite or for the Warrior Swachbuckler + 1 Attack weapon.
As actual nerf I would suggest nerfing cannoneer to a 3/2 as it is propably the stronges card in the deck right now.
Warlock:
I like the idea of reducing touch of the Nazrezhim to 1 damage or 3 healing. Warlock right now has just too many good control tools so it can pull of any kind of stupid late game combos.
I would also like to see the fatigue interaction from the Quest removed, as I don’t think fatigue should ever be an advantage as a game mechanic. (This is not for balance but just as game design, I know it could very well kill Questlock.)
Paladin:
I’m honestly not sure about what to nerf here, haven’t played too much against it this exp. A nerf to Bannerman seems reasonable, although I would turn it into a 2/1. I do however not like the nerf to Aldor Attendant, as it is a key peace and taking of 1/4 of its stats seems harsh. (Also 1/2 statline kinda sucks.)
Irondeep Trogg:
This is a difficult one, as I have yet to see it in action, but its heavy synergy with buffs is frightening. So maybe turn it into a 1/1 or have it summon only unbuffed Troggs, but make it a 1/3, or have it summon Minions with the same stats, that don’t summon more Troggs.
The problem is that in theory the player base spamming any one deck at 15%+ play rate that’s borderline Tier 2/3 will drive out whatever “it” hard counters. It doesn’t matter what the “it” is.
We almost got there in play rate in Barrens with the much worse performing Tickatus Warlock, and people screamed just as loud and as often during those times regardless of how much more terrible that deck was.
The biggest irony is that people play those mediocre decks because they’re fun. If they were try hards like me they wouldn’t touch them.
I would argue, that the first Quest mage nerf was not questionable, the second one was though, and the third one was just overkill. (If I remember correctly there were 3, the first one being the IF nerf to 3 mana.) If the whole meta is trying to counter a deck and it stays above 50% that means the deck is too strong.
I could be totally wrong on my memories though. As you can see I’m thinking there were 3 nerfs and mage was above 50% before the first one with everyone running Robe and stuff.
I would nerf troggs to only be a one time effect with 1 copy.
I would remove shadow tag from warlock legendary spell.
I would nerf shaman free minion by 2 mana this should be a late finisher and not an early game freeze snowball effect.
Idk what to do witht quest priest becuz if this meta gets slower he wil dominate.
Warrior make defias canoneer and second reward do 1 less damage.
Garrot rogue needs nerf dunno how.
Remove immune from trading from doggie biscuit this to me should not even be a hunter card.
Paladin i agree with bannerman nerf.
None, personally. What exactly does nerfing things do with the current card pool? Maybe let priest and mage see more of a share of the meta?
You’d need to couple the nerfs with a LOT of buffs to introduce any new decks to the meta so one without the other is kind of just a moot point. Unless you’re trying to get things to a lower or higher win% that already exist which honestly is pretty unrealistic too when certain decks have gotten a lot of support throughout the released expansions and others have not.
Trogg is the problem here, IMO it deserves the Saronite Chain Gang treatment.
I’m not sure what would be the best paladin nerf… maybe make Alliance Bannerman draw any card instead of a minion, or increase Libram of Wisdom to 3-mana, or nerf the parrot to 2/3, or Aldor Attendant back to 2-mana 2/3…
Personally I don’t have a problem with Garrote Rogue since I rarely reach legend, but seeing as so many people have, a possible nerf would be to change Field Contact’s health to 1. Then it wouldn’t be “augmentable”.
This Touch nerf is probably my favorite. I’d also remove fatigue reflection from the quest and remove the shadow tag from Tamsin’s Phylactery.
I’d change the quest requirements to 3/3/2, that might be enough.