On February 5, four Classic and Basic cards will be nerfed along with one other card. The Classic and Basic sets are a part of Hearthstone’s “Evergreen” set meaning they will always be in the Standard rotation. The balance team thought these changes were necessary so that the cards did not feel like “auto-includes” in each of the classes’ decks. Here we look at how the February Card Nerfs will impact the near and far future metas.
Cold to Colder Blood
Cold Blood is one of the highest potential burst cards. It offers up to four damage for the cheap price of one mana. It is being nerfed from one mana up to two. Right away we see this is a hard hitting nerf to Odd Rogue.
Odd Rogue could easily abuse Cold Blood in the early game. As early as turn two, there could be a 5/3 Dire Mole alongside a Fire Fly thanks to the cheap cost of the spell. This will be possible no longer, and Odd Rogue’s power level will be severely decreased.
Cold Blood’s nerf does affect the other types of Rogue archetypes as well. It is very common in any form of Tempo deck and some Miracle decks. Surprising your opponent with Leeroy Jenkins and a couple of Cold Bloods was always a huge 14 damage threat. While the combo will still be possible, it will be a hefty nine total mana.
Odd Rogue was the go to deck for any aggressive lineup. This nerf could see it be substituted for some other decks should the loss of Cold Blood be too much. Cold Blood is definitely a huge loss to Odd Rogue as it is one of the top win rate cards within the deck. Expect to see a lot less Odd Rogue on ladder.
Equality Gets Equalized
Equality has always been an insanely valuable card in Paladin. It can be combined with Wild Pyromancer for the cheapest board clear in the game at just four mana. Equality is seeing a nerf all the way up to four mana.
This nerf effects Paladin heavily for any type of control gameplans in the long term, but also heavily nerfs two current meta decks.
The first of those decks being OTK Paladin. Most of the hard parts of navigating games with OTK Paladin is surviving aggressive early games. Having a guaranteed full board clear on turn four with Equality and Pyromancer made getting to that nearly unstoppable late game so much easier. This nerf should make the deck lose out to aggressive decks much more often without the ability to reduce the health of beefy early game threats like Scavenging Hyena or Hench-Clan Thug.
The other deck that this nerf might impact slightly less is Even Paladin. Even Paladin is another abuser of the synergy Equality has with Wild Pyromancer, as well as Consecration and Avenging Wrath. The nerf would make the very tempo oriented deck have much weaker tempo plays with Equality. At two mana Even Paladins didn’t have to sacrifice much board presence in order to play Equality. At four mana, some players may choose to run only a single copy of the card or not run it at all.
Flametongue Totem
The Flametongue Totem nerf seems similar to the Hex nerf of the past but has definitely been a likely target for a nerf. This card does fall into the “auto-include” category rather often for Shaman decks, especially Even Shaman.
This could also be a response to Wild balance as Even Shaman has been an oppressor in that meta. Nerfing Flametongue Totem to three mana takes the extremely powerful board fighting card away from Even Shamans and lowers its overall power for a token or board oriented gameplan.
Flametongue totem could very often be used as a two mana 4/3 and that is pretty insane value. A three mana 4/3 falls in line with some other cards like Bearshark and is much more balanced. However, Shaman is one of the worst classes in the Standard meta game right now. This nerf hurts but Shaman players hope they will get greater power in the near future. Players haven’t forgotten it recently had the overpowered Shudderwock Combo.
Two Big Hunter Nerfs
Hunter will receive two nerfs, one for a Classic card and one for a Kobolds and Catacombs card.
The initial nerf to Hunter’s Mark was at a time when Face Hunter ruled the ladder, and aggro decks were completely ripped apart by nerfs to many many cards. Hunter’s Mark went from zero to one mana and became a still very strong but much harder to squeeze in spell for Hunters.
The nerf to two mana comes at a time where the one mana expense is often not much for Hunters. Both Candleshot and Springpaw are one mana cards that can be paired with Hunter’s Mark to remove any single minion for two mana. The nerf to two mana might see the card be cut entirely as it was already very situational.
The Emerald Spellstone nerf is interesting as it comes from a set that will soon be rotating to Wild after the next expansion. This could mean that the balance team don’t want it to be oppressive in Wild like it was in Standard for so long with the rise of Hunter.
It nerfs probably the most popular competitive archetype for Hunter in the form of Hybrid Hunter. It aims to take advantage of both the early game tempo of cheap, valuable beasts available to Hunter and the Secrets package. Forcing the Spellstone to wait another turn gives aggressive game plans more of an advantage. It also lets control decks get an additional turn to find an answer.
Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via their official website.Â
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