by hsdecktech - 5 years ago     show comments

After listening to a lot of feedback, and looking at over a month of data, the Hearthstone balance team has decided that some changes needed to be made to Rogue and, for slightly different reasons, Archivist Elysiana. Aside from Elysiana’s use in Warrior, there will be no Warrior changes at this time (specifically, no change to the Dr. Boom hero card). However, with Rogue significantly decreased in power, we expect that a lot of Warrior’s natural predators (such as Conjurer Mage and most types of Hunters) will perform better and rise up in the relative power rankings to help keep Warrior in check.

With Rogue, they hit all the highest performing cards: EVIL Miscreant, Raiding Party, and Preparation.

EVIL Miscreant was intentionally pushed to make the Toggwaggle synergy more viable in Rogue, but it turns out that the lackeys are really good on their own, so the over-tuned card was, well, a bit over-tuned. It has been a staple in every single Rogue archetype since it was printed and is probably the single most powerful card in the class right now. Making it this little bit weaker should make it a little easier to kill and, therefore, less likely to be bounced or buffed on the turn after it is played.

Raiding Party was a scary card since it was printed: hyper-efficient card draw and a tutoring effect that synergized well with the cards around it. It has been abused since the moment it came out, first forcing changes to the Kingsbane package and now shaping the entire Rise of Shadows meta (it’s an integral part of the Wagglepick+Pirate package which, in turn, is the reason why everyone runs 2-3 weapon removal cards in all their decks). 4 mana feels like a better spot for this card in a vacuum and also so that players have to work harder to curve it into a Wagglepick on 4 (though, the Coin will still do a lot of work here).

Preparation has been in most Rogue decks for the entire history of Hearthstone. The card is simply incredibly powerful and, after the Innervate nerf, it kind of felt like a matter of time before this move would be made. There was a lot of talk about potentially moving the card to the Hall of Fame this year, but it looks like the team decided that the card was important for Rogue’s identity and that, for that reason, the better move was to just tone it down a bit.

For Warrior (kind of), they changed Elysiana to 9 mana. This one was more about tournament game length than it was about power level. They wanted to make it harder to use her multiple times with something like a Baleful Banker or a Youthful Brewmaster, so that your strategy could not longer revolve around multiple activations in one game, like some Control Warriors like to do. I might have raised it to 10 instead, so that those matchups didn’t potentially come down to who ended up with the Coin, but the same idea is there. By making it harder and less consistent to hit multiple Elysianas in one game, the average match length should go down a little bit, without needing to change the mechanics of a fun, interesting card that isn’t overpowered on its own and which is almost a non-issue on the ladder.

And that’s it for now! Check out the official post below for all the details and for some further explanations behind the changes.

As for what it all means for the meta, it’s always hard to say. I think Rogue will still see play, but at a much lower rate, and in more fair ways. I expect to see Conjurer’s Calling become one of the strongest cards in the post-nerf meta (it already is now), and Hunter should get a big buff both from the weakening of a predator (Rogue) and from the rise of two of its better matchups (Warrior and Mage). Depending on the ratio of Warriors to Warrior counters, Murloc Shaman and Zoo might make a comeback. Token Druid is a really strong deck that  I took to Legend this month, but part of the reason for playing it was beating Rogue, and it also gets stomped by Zoo, so its place is even further removed from how things shake out. Finally, even though it doesn’t currently have a very good matchup spread, Value Shudderwock shaman is now the only deck that can consistently get multiple Elysianas in one game, so there is a chance that it makes a comeback, especially in tournaments, as the ultimate control deck. What do you think will happen after these nerfs?

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment (Blue Tracker / Official Post)

After evaluating game data and working through internal and external feedback on the most popular decks currently in the meta, we’re looking to address the power level and overall pervasiveness of Rogue decks, alongside a specific interaction with Archivist Elysiana. Look for these changes in an update slated for May 22.

We chose to focus primarily on Rogue in this update due to seeing the meta stabilize around the class’s most popular decks. Currently, if you want to build a deck that is strong against Rogue, you have just one reasonable option: Warrior. If you compare Rogue to Warrior, however, you’ll find that the latter class has a wide variety of good and bad matchups, which makes it unlikely that it’ll overtake Rogue in popularity in the current meta.

While we recognize that there are other powerful and popular decks (like Token Druid, Conjurer Mage, and Mech Hunter), we decided to not address them in this update because they all have varied matchups. If any of these decks were to emerge as the new prominent strategy, there are plenty of decks available to combat them, which would allow the meta to continue shifting.

As always, we’ll be evaluating the results of these changes over the coming weeks and look forward to your feedback. Read on for details on these changes, our thought process around them, and our goals for each of the cards we adjusted.

Upcoming Card Changes:

• EVIL Miscreant – Now has 4 Health. (Down from 5)
  • EVIL Miscreant is meant to be a value-generating card that creates future swing turns, but having 5 Health on this minion means Rogue players sacrifice very little to set up those turns. We expect that EVIL Miscreant will continue to be a great option for Rogue decks, just at a power level that is more in line with other available cards.

• Raiding Party – Now costs 4 mana. (Up from 3)
  • Rogue already excels at drawing cards, so having another powerful option that offers consistent results has resulted in Rogue games that play out a little too similarly than we think is fun. We’re making this change to better represent the power level of drawing from a very specific subset of cards.

• Preparation – Now reads: The next spell you cast this turn costs (2) less.
  • All changes we make to the Basic and Classic sets are aimed at ensuring Hearthstone’s long-term health. Preparation is currently seen as such a powerful card that it appears in nearly all Rogue deck archetypes. That said, the change we’ve landed on is a small one. While we do want the card’s power to decrease, we also think it’s important for Preparation to remain a reasonable option, since it fits the Rogue class fantasy so well.
  • Preparation is regularly used to reduce the cost of cards like Sap or Eviscerate, and those interactions will remain unchanged. Reducing the cost of your next spell by 2 as opposed to 3 opens our design options up a little more to create higher cost Rogue spells without having to balance so closely around the assumption that they’ll be cast alongside Preparation.

• Archivist Elysiana – Now costs 9 mana. (Up from 8)
  • Our goal here was to preserve the feeling and power level of Archivist Elysiana when it comes to general use, while making much more difficult to play her multiple times in the same game. Shaman will still be able to replay Elysiana through Shudderwock, but this is not as common or problematic as what we’ve seen in control Warrior decks. Now, playing Elysiana alongside cards like Baleful Banker or Youthful Brewmaster should be a less consistent strategy.

As with previous card changes, once these changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the updated cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.

Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you in the tavern!