Felerin, the Forgotten to “They cost (1) less.” (From 2.)
Relic Vault back to 3 cost (from 2).
MAGE
Lightshow to 2 Cost (from 3).
Rewind to “another Mage non-Coin spell you’ve cast this game.” (From “another spell.” This prevents the Coin from entering the Rewind pool.)
PALADIN
Sanguine Soldier to “Battlecry and Deathrattle: Deal 2 damage to your hero.” (From just Battlecry.)
Disco Maul to 3 Cost (from 2).
PRIEST
High Cultist Basaleph to 5 cost (from 4).
ROGUE
Ghoulish Alchemist to “Your next Concoction costs (2) less.” (From “costs (0).”)
SHAMAN
Jazz Bass to 2 Cost (from 3).
WARRIOR
Kodohide Drumkit to 3 Cost (from 4).
Power Slider to 3 Attack (from 1).
Verse Riff to +3 Attack & 3 Armor. (From 2 & 2.)
NEUTRAL
Foul Egg loses the Undead tag.
Gorloc Ravager to 4 Health (from 3).
Hipster to 4 Health (from 3).
Incorporeal Corporal to 4 Health (from 5).
REASONING
Primary nerf targets: Frost DK, Unholy DK, Undead Priest. Although Unholy DK and Undead Priest don’t see a lot of play, their winrates indicate that they’re likely to become more popular in the future, especially after a balance patch. Because these decks all share an Undead theme, neutral nerfs were utilized in addition to class cards.
Secondary targets: Outcast DH, Relic DH, Pure Paladin and Miracle Rogue. Although Pure Paladin has a high winrate in Diamond, its low performance in top Legend shows it’s not necessarily as dominant as it may seem; similarly with Miracle Rogue, although it’s high winrate in top Legend and not in Diamond.
Of concern but not targeted: Blood DK, Tony Druid, Totem Shaman. Both of these decks are below 50% winrate at top Legend, showing that they are counterable before the nerfs. Blood was mostly spared because these nerfs mostly hit decks Blood feeds upon (Frost DK, Unholy DK, Outcast DH) and less decks that counter Blood (Relic DH, Miracle Rogue, Tony Druid). However, it’s Discovery highroll is still impacted slightly by the Frostwyrm’s Fury nerf. One of the reasons Tony Druid was spared was as insurance policy against Blood, as it’s both a decent counter and easily countered in turn. Totem Shaman in particular is mostly absent from top Legend yet it crushes Druid.
Buff targets: Casino Mage, Lightshow Mage, Thief Priest, Thief Rogue, Overload Shaman, Control Warrior. These buffs were modest and involve the new cards. Three of these involved the single neutral Hipster. Also Menagerie Warrior was given a very small buff in a way that might also help Murloc Shaman or Murloc Warlock.
Your opinion about my opinion is worth exactly nothing. You ramble on and on, but you still haven’t made a single argument. If you think something is actually wrong, specify… and present some evidence to back your conclusions. I get that you don’t like me but that doesn’t matter.
I don’t think they should be nerfing or buffing anything at this point, it’s been two consecutive weeks almost in a row where most times I try to log on the game is just getting DDOS’d, I’d rather have the chance to play my deck before it gets nerfed. If it’s not DDOSing then they need to fix their servers, that would be a good first step.
Didn’t read your reasoning section, but I mostly agree with your buff and nerf style.
But why are you buffing hipster? It’s a discover card that plenty of popular decks are including, what’s the point of buffing it?
Gorloc ravager doesn’t need the +1 hp either, the point of the card isn’t about sticking a strong body on the board, it’s about drawing (3).
Being somewhat of an ex mage player I might receive some flack for saying this, but I also don’t think that the current iteration of mage is doing anything flavourful. If all of the mage players swapped and played mech mage I am sure mage wouldn’t be anywhere near the bottom of the meta. I don’t think anyone will actually enjoy lightshow mage, it was intended purely as a meme and to bump it up would be a questionable design choice. I feel the same about riff warrior, it is not a great design to play one card to play the next to play the next, again why would you want this style buffed?
Regarding DK, I would nerf 1-3 mana spells. 1 for each Rune. Their effects, not the cost. Which then impacts Nagaling, as well as the spell discovery pool. Not sure which ones, but the point is that they currently Discover too easily things from other runes that’s horrible to play against (or feels really Trolly when I play it myself).
For your specific suggestions. The Unholy crate sees 0 play, I don’t understand why you are targeting it.
Bone Breaker mana nerf is too severe. Nerfing a one mana to two is very severe (remember Mana Wyrm) and almost always results in it being cut completely from competitive play. I would rather cut from 2 to 1 damage per swing.
Classic. Bumping mana costs up and down thinking it matters.
Some of the strong cards are strong because of their EFFECT not their cost.
Classic example: Guff. Does it matter if this card cost 5, 7 or 9? No. Its effect is strong regardless.
Another one, Celestial alignment. Changing this cards cost does nothing. Yet blizzard “balanced” it in exactly that way the first time they looked at it.
they bump mana cost because it’s an easy fix and they don’t want to redesign cards, it makes them look bad and I guess they want it still todo the thing they intended it to originally do which is really shortsighted imo
This right here. People need to stop centering their arguments and balance suggestions around the top players of the game. The majority of players in this game don’t even think/play above a Platinum level thought process. Even if you’re intelligent enough to work around something, it doesn’t mean the majority of the playerbase can/will follow suit. The game can’t abandon the “meat” of it’s audience…
Agreed on most suggestions, but why wouldn’t you nerf blood DK, the meta tyrant? My list:
Frostworm’s Fury - 8-mana
Vampiric Blood - +4 health on both stages, 4 corpses
Bloodboil - Gain lifesteal in this turn only
Relic Vault - revert
Glaivetar - 3/2
Disco Maul - 3-mana 3/2
Seal of Blood - +2+2
The Countess - revert
Rotting Necromancer - deal 4 damage
High Cultist Basaleph - revert
Ghoulish Alchemist - your next concoction costs (1)
Carving Chisel - 2-durability
Foul Egg - no longer an undead
Nerubian Vizier - “it costs (2) less, but no less than (1).”
Rowdy Fan - 2/5, give ally +2 attack
School Teacher - 3/4
Reverts to nerfed cards:
From the Depths - 3-mana, reduce the bottom 3 cards by 3
Pufferfist
Sire Denathrius - Increase initial damage to 10 and make him deal damage like C’Thun or Reno the Relicologist.
Buffs:
Big Dreams - 4-mana
Banjosaur - 9-mana
Lightshow - 3 beams
Buccaneer - 2/2
Kidnap - counter a minion, then stuff it into a bag
Hooktusk - 7-mana 7/7, 7 pirates
Saxophone Soloist - 1/3
Wrathspine Enchanter - “targets enemies if possible”
Verse Riff - +3 attack
Kodohide Drumkit - 4/2
Bridge Riff - 5-mana
I’d also nerf Tony druid. Don’t argue, I just hate druid:
Free Spirit and Groovy Cat - 1-mana 1/3 and 2-mana 3/2, Deathrattle only
Aquatic Form - 1-mana, draw the card if it costs less than your total mana crystals
Underking - 5 armor
Anub’Rekhan - 7-armor
Tony, King of Piracy - 4/7, “both players draw from each other’s decks”
It’s 2023. No reason you cannot drill down to meta specific decks, regardless of rank. I understand your point fundamentally, but I don’t give the devs a pass for being lazy.
I agree with a few of these suggestions, but many targets I think are not ideal. Starting with nerfs, I would only touch a few cards:
Frostwyrm Fury to 8 mana. Here we agree. Most people feel bad about this card. It does too much, it is very relied upon to win the game.
Frigidara reduced stats: the top performing card in Frost DK (highest played WR, among highest in every other metric). It does enough, it doesn’t need to have a beefy statline on top.
Rowdy Fan gives +3 attack: any deck with this guy in it is a top dog. And it is among the top performing cards in the decks it is in. It is also the biggest offender in relic DH’s performance.
Blood Boil only ticks once: Blood DK doesn’t need a big nerf. But it is extremely meta-defining and its playrate across all ranks impacts the gameplay experience of most of the playerbase. This card is not significantly over-performing, but it is particularly oppressive to certain decks that would otherwise have a bit of an easier time overwhelming its defenses: wide aggro decks. The viability of these decks is severely affected by this card alone.
Disco Maul to 3 mana: Pure Pala is fine, but it is a ‘noob deck’ that can completely shut down everything else in the ranks where it performs best. It is also a big reason why Blood DK sees as much play.
Revert nerf on High Cultist Basaleph back to 5 mana: undead priest is underplayed but still overpowered. Would rapidly spike in play after nerfs.
And that would be all for nerfs. I would focus then on buffing only new cards that are completely unplayable. Buffing is a dangerous task that should be handled with caution.
Warrior needs plenty of help: Riffs are an obvious target (I would completely overhaul them, as I have said elsewhere). The menagerie package could get some love. Kodohide Drums to 3 mana is a must.
Warlock fatigue package needs help. Should start from at least a baseline of 2. A tiny rethink of Symphony of Sins’ discover mechanic would help making it more reliable.
Shaman overload package needs help. Inza to 4 mana would put it in line with Stonewright. Jazz bass could cost 2 mana.
Priest overheal package could use a bit of love. As something introduced this expansion it shouldn’t just be allowed to fail. Also would give priest something less annoying to do than copying everyone else’s decks
I don’t really think Mage needs touching for now. But if anything, Lighshow’s baseline beams at 3 would be good.
And that would be all my thoughts. This is just my personal view obviously. And an extra thought:
Ghoulish concoctor change I think is unwarranted for now. Miracle rogue is only performing well at top 1K, and even there it is not broken or overpowered. It is just strong, and it is favored by its druid matchup. Rogue without miracle is pretty much done for. Any intervention here should be followed by a buff elsewhere (maybe the pirate package) or the class will move towards a desert of mediocrity.
