Three classes have suffered serious nerfs in Hearthstone . Their strongest decks are now significantly weakened – or even unplayable.
The days following the release of the Hearthstone expansion “Journey to the Sunken City” were quite a wild ride. After a brief phase of experimentation, some extremely strong decks have emerged from the 135 new cards, which trample their enemies almost without chance.
Particularly outstanding have been the Warriors, who can complete their quest much faster with the new Pirates. Druids also dominate with their “Mana Cheats” and create some huge minions before they turn their deck into a treasure trove with Kazakusan. Lastly, a Priest has proven to be fatal, who was able to bring minions with a total value of 24/24 onto the battlefield by turn 3 – provided he has a bit of card luck.
All these combinations are now under threat in an effort to improve the balance a bit.
Big nerfs for Warriors, Druids, and Priests – What’s changing in Patch 23.0.3
The dragon “Kazakusan” has already been nerfed several times in the past, and now there is another change to its functionality. Instead of “If all minions in your deck are Dragons, create a new deck of treasures,” the Battlecry is changed to: “If you have played at least 4 other Dragons in this game, create a new deck of treasures.”
This change forces players to actually include Dragons in their deck. Previously, Kazakusan was mainly used to extend an already strong deck at the end without ever having used another Dragon.
Especially Druids are likely to suffer from this change, as Kazakusan was often played as the last minion – when the deck was already empty and its condition was thus always met.
The Druid spell “Miracle Growth” also receives a nerf. It was too easy for Druids to create a really powerful minion early in a match, which turned out to be a massive obstacle for many decks. The mana cost of the spell has been increased from 7 to 8. This should ensure that opponents have more time before Miracle Growth comes into play and as a result have more options to respond.
The quest “Storm the Docks” is the essential component of current Warrior-Pirate decks – and has been for several expansions. With the latest expansion, there are even more cheap Pirates, giving Warriors a faster quest completion than ever before.
That is exactly what is set to be slowed down. The final quest step before Warriors receive Captain Rokara has been extended. Instead of 2 Pirates, Warriors must now play 3 Pirates. Therefore, the requirement of the entire quest increases from 8 to 9 Pirates, which should also ensure that the quest will be completed a turn later.
Another nerf hits the Pirate “Pufferfish”, which is used in many Warrior and Demon Hunter decks. The Pirate deals 1 damage to all enemies each time the Warrior attacks and had a high health pool of 3 / 4, making it difficult to remove. Its health points have now been reduced to 3, making it die faster and less of a long-term threat.
The Priest spell “Switcheroo” receives an extremely hard nerf. Previously, the spell drew 2 minions and swapped their stats. This meant that the Priest could exchange the stats of a Murloc with 1 / 1 for those of a Dragon with 12 / 12 quite early. Now Switcheroo has been adjusted. It still draws 2 minions but only swaps their health points.
Moreover, Switcheroo has been banned in the wild game mode as it caused too many issues.
The final change concerns the legendary minion Kael’thas Sunstrider from the wild game mode. Previously, it caused every 3rd spell in a turn to cost 0 mana. In the future, the costs will only be reduced to 1 to prevent some “infinite” combos.
What do you think of these nerfs? Which class bothers you the most in Hearthstone right now, and where needs urgent adjustments?
