Following from yesterday, here is my list of a total of eight cards from the neutral pool that I think should be changed in the upcoming balance shuffle that Blizzard announced is coming with Whispers of the Old Gods. For part 1 which covered class balance click here.
Abusive Sergeant
When talking about aggressive early game minions there are always two that come to mind: [card]Leper Gnome[/card] and Abusive Sergeant. They have equal stats deal 2 damage through their effect. Leper Gnome's goes straight to the hero, while [card]Abusive Sergeant[/card] has to deal this damage through another minion.
Now lets make it clear, this is an extremely generous package, and as such I am not surprised to see that a lot of other Balance passes have decided to tune down Leper Gnome. But the thing is that damage in equal amounts tends to be more dangerous when it can also be used to build board control, even when it is less consistent. It is for this reason that I think Abusive Sergeant should be the one downtoned. Leper Gnome is the better turn one play, but Abusive Sergeant tends to be stronger on any turn past that. Because of how cheap it is, it also downplays most other minions with attack buffs like [card]Dark Iron Dwarf[/card].
It is still certainly possible that Blizzard will address both. But I would prefer to have Abusive Sergeant become a little less abusive. Leper gnome as a 1/1 or only dealing 1 damage will simply be too low card value to be used.
Knife Juggler
Another card for which I basically shouldn't need to give any explaination. Knife Juggler has been over the top for so long it is not even funny and as such I would not be surprised if Blizzard goes nuclear on it. Being a low mana card, every point of stat matters. Any change to lessen Juggler's power should do it, whether it's a reduction in attack or health. I have seen suggestions to make his effect trigger only when you play minions from your hand, which is also not a bad idea.
For my suggestion I will remind you of an older article which still allows his effect to trigger off token summons, but only once for each instance of summoning. I honestly think this is all it will take.
Ironbeak Owl
Full disclosure: I hate this card. I have spent so much time ranting about how this is one of the worst designed cards in the game. Everything from the fact it has become an autopick, to how irrelevant it renders taunt, to how many card designs it vanquished from the meta due to its mere existence. Silence needs to be a choice, and Ironbeak rarely is.
I am not going to spent much more time talking about this bird. I have made plenty of suggestions in the past on how to fix it but here is another one. It utilitizes “Original attack” which is not a wording Blizzard have used before even though the Hearthstone UI gives excellent feedback on when this restriction would apply. Basically, Green attack means it works. Probably won't be too confusing… Probably.
Arcane Golem
Just to be clear the change I propose here is that if you play Arcane Golem while your opponent has 10 mana, then your opponent receives an excess mana card, giving them a draw power.
Arcane Golem is not a card seen too much these days but with various anti-aggro options like [card]Sludge Belcher[/card] being phased out of Standard, it is probably best to let aggressive players know that the power of this card comes at a price. It is still going to be the last thing the opponents see in the game a lot of the time, but with this change you want to make sure it is.
Big Game Hunter
This is a card which a lot of players hate. Suggestions include everything from +2 mana cost to shifting it to dragon-only which basically makes it an entirely different card. Ultimately I see this approach as flawed, especially because there have been plenty of big minions capable of existing within a meta even when BGH was a thing: [card]Ragnaros the Firelord[/card], [card]Mal'Ganis[/card] and, of course, [card]Dr Boom[/card]. Meanwhile there is not exactly a surge of minions just below this threshold that see play. [card]Kel'thuzad[/card] and [card]Chromaggus[/card], despite not being in BGH's sight have not seen significant use over the 7+ attack late game minions.
That said, it is easy to see by looking over the minions that having 7 attack exactly just hasn’t been cutting it. Minions at this attack other than Dr. Boom have all been punished too hard by being targetable by BGH. It is for this reason that my suggestion is simply to raise his attack threshold by one. Now that Dr. Boom is gone from standard I think the other 7 attack minions can be left alone and still be balanced.
Completely erasing Big Game Hunter is not something I see as a good option. Too many other cards would also have to be changed as a result, which is generally a bad sign. As I've said before, less is more when it comes to card changes.
Sylvanas Windrunner
Switching control of minions is one of the mechanics from other card games that's tricky to balance in Hearthstone. This is exemplified by the fact that almost every single instance of this mechanic has been nerfed at some point throughout Hearthstone's history. In Magic the Gathering all of these effects can be destroyed, reversing the process. This is not present in Hearthstone. Switching control is one of the silly few effects that cannot be silenced, and counter play in Hearthstone is too weak to reliably make countering the effect a viable option.
And yet here is Sylvanas, having this kind of effect like it is nothing. She remains one of the most obstructive cards in Hearthstone, having been such for over two years and seemingly without expiry date. This would be a prime time to give her one, by essentially taking half of her effect away, in exchange for a potential stat buff. When you can [card]Shield Slam[/card] or [card]Fireball[/card] your own Sylvanas and it is still value, something is off balance-wise.
Alexstrasza
Alexstrasza is just horrible design. She promotes stalling and rewards you for having done as little to your opponent as possible. That's not particularly interactive design.
This alone should be enough of a reason for a change and my suggestion is to strip away her offensive use in exchange of altering her effect to also work on friendly minions. Might sound too much of a buff, but I think this preserves her original design well. Health tends to be irrelevant around turn 9 with absolute removal flying around left and right, so I think this effect will be balanced.
Nozdormu
I don't know how Blizzard should change Nozdormu but I do know it is needed. In fact out of all the cards on this list, he is easily the one needed to be changed the most.
Confused? Well let me explain.
Bugs can be funny. Bugs can be entertaining. They give an insight into the fact that programming is hard and that programmers are not some almighty techno-deities.
Nozdormu stopped being funny a while ago. It is one of the buggiest cards in Hearthstone history, that for the longest time simply didn't work because your opponent would get way too much time. Then it got “fixed”, and half the time you'd have a case where one of the players gets way too little time. Or even worse, where a player loses their entire turn.
While the bug is too unreliable for Nozdormu himself to see competitive use, it is still an issue with the growing number of cards that randomly can allow for Nozdormu to pop, like the Golden Monkey. Granted, the other common card where this would happen, [card]Unstable portal[/card], is being phased out but we are still seeing new cards that can spawn him like [card]Forbidden Shaping[/card] and could see even more cards in the future. How long until we see effects like “Spawn a random dragon” or “Discover a Legendary”? Overall it is unacceptable to have such a bugged card in the game where the worst case scenario is that a player loses their entire turn.
The disaster would be if any sort of tournament match was to be decided by these bugs and this should be the time to look at some sort of final fix for Nozdormu. Whether it involves a bug-fix boot camp for the HS developers, some core change to Nozdormu or something else like removing him from standard entirely, something has to be done and the time for that is now.
That is it for my balance pass. We know from Blizzard that their changes won't be revealed until very close to the expansion release. So it won't be until sometime in April. Until then be sure to check out our Whispers of the Old God coverage hub for news and updates on the forthcoming expansion.
