The Fire Lord has once again been too early to celebrate. A nerf may be on the way in Hearthstone .
Nerfs to various cards in Hearthstone are quite rare. The developers usually try to avoid changes to maintain a certain consistency. However, in an interview with PC Gamer, Ben Brode revealed some details about the philosophy behind the nerfs of certain cards and the problems they cause in design. For example, he mentioned Ragnaros, who has been seen in many decks at the World Championship at BlizzCon, even though he is technically a classic card.
The reason for this is that there are hardly any other cards in the “8-mana category” that have as much impact on the battlefield as the Fire Lord in the making. If you want to prevent power creep – that is, to create a card that is simply “better” in stats and effect – you have to limit such perennial favorites (Ha! Pun intended!) like Ragnaros in other ways. So, they’re considering either weakening Ragnaros in the future or simply banning him from the standard format and moving him into the Wild category. They are also contemplating this step for other cards.
Only then could it be ensured in the long term that new expansions bring real changes without cards becoming absurdly overpowered.
Another possibility would be to make a potential “new” legendary card better, but in such a way that it only really fits well in certain decks – as was the case with Reno Jackson and Kazakus, where players have to forgo duplicates. Generally, however, such evergreen cards limit the design options of the developers. Because an expansion is most fun when as many players as possible can experiment with the new cards, new decks emerge, and the meta is shaken to its core.
What do you think? Should the developers leave classic cards alone? Or are such changes good and meaningful to keep the game fresh and exciting?
Cortyn has already expressed her thoughts on power creep in Hearthstone in her Mecker Wednesday.
