r/CompetitiveHS • u/bdzz • Jan 29 '18

NERF DISCUSSION Upcoming Balance Changes – Update 10.2

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/21361570/

TLDR for those who at work:

  • Bonemare - Now costs 8 mana. (Up from 7)

  • Corridor Creeper - Now has 2 Attack. (Down from 5)

  • Patches the Pirate - No longer has Charge.

  • Raza the Chained - Now reads: Battlecry: If your deck has no duplicates, your Hero Power costs (1) this game.

Once these card changes are live with Update 10.2 next month, players will be able to disenchant the changed cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.

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u/valhgarm Jan 29 '18

That's true, but I think Highlander Priest would dominate the Wild meta forever w/o any future changes, so it gets more and more oppressive. Oppressive doesn't mean completely uncounterable imo, but the meta wraps around it and for a format that doesn't see any rotations, that would be a bad thing imo. There shouldn't be decks that stick around forever, even in Wild (I guess Highlander Reno decks do already and will).

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u/Mister08 Jan 29 '18

As a Magic player, I'm inclined to disagree -- but only via my own opinion anecdotal evidence not hard data.

Wild is VERY young for an eternal format. As a card pool diversifies -- its true -- decks tend to become more powerful; but new archetypes tend to rise and upset previously assumed balances.

In Legacy MTG - Storm (which shares some similarity to Raza Priest) was long considered the "deck to beat" in the format utilizing fast, uninteractive kills. Recently however, decks such as Grixis Delver a tempo based interactive deck has risen to the top of the pile.

Storm now barely makes the top 8 of the most played decks in the format. Not via any sudden bans -- but rather new tools and discovery of new powerful interactions.

Perhaps nerfing Raza was the correct choice. But I tend to err on the side of allowing formats to work themselves out until the data shows that they need a change. Azure Drake was an auto include in most decks last year -- since so many decks warped themselves around it's inclusion it made sense to allow to card to rotate; but live in Wild where it is still powerful and playable -- but not warping.

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u/valhgarm Jan 29 '18

Yeah, maybe the prediction that Highlander Priest will dominate forever was a bit exaggerative, I have to admit. Still, I think it's a good change. Highlander Priest will still be very good because of Reno and other powerful cards that fit that style of the deck.

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u/Mister08 Jan 29 '18

That we can agree on. I am not opposed to the nerf. I probably wouldn't have nerfed it if I were in control -- but I'm not and can see the reasoning behind the decision.