Hearthstone nerfs 3 classes, ending druid’s reign of terror

Three classes have had to suffer really strong nerfs in Hearthstone. Your strongest decks are now significantly weakened – or even unplayable.

The days following the release of the Hearthstone Journey to the Sunken City expansion have been a pretty wild ride. After a short period of experimentation, some extremely strong decks have emerged from the 135 new cards, which stomp their enemies almost without a chance.

The warriors, who can complete their quests much faster with the new pirates, have particularly excelled here. Druids also dominate with their “mana cheats” and create some huge minions before turning their deck into a treasure trove with Kazakusan. Most recently, a priest who could bring 3 servants with a total value of 24/24 onto the battlefield in one turn has proved fatal – provided he has a bit of card luck.

All these combinations are now being scrutinized in order to improve the balance a bit.

Big nerfs for warriors, druids and priests – That changes in patch 23.0.3

The dragon “Kazakusan” has been nerfed a few times in the past, now there is another change in its functioning. Instead of “If all minions in your deck are dragons, create a new deck from treasure” the battlecry is changed to: “If you have played at least 4 other dragons this game, create a new deck from treasure.”

This change forces players to actually include dragons in their decks. So far, Kazakusan has primarily been used to extend an already strong deck without ever using another dragon.

Druids in particular 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 always met.

The druid spell Miraculous Growth also gets a nerf. It was too easy for the druid to create a really powerful minion early in a game, which proved to be a massive obstacle for many decks. The spell’s mana cost has been increased from 7 to 8. This should allow opponents to have more time before Miraculous Growth is cast and, as a result, have more options to respond.

The Storm the Docks quest is an essential part of current Warrior Pirate decks, and has been for a number of expansions. With the latest expansion, there are even more cheap pirates, giving the warrior faster quest completion than ever before.

This is exactly what should be slowed down a little. The last quest step before warriors get Captain Rokara has been extended. Instead of 2 pirates, warriors must now play 3 pirates. The requirement for the entire quest increases from 8 to 9 pirates and should also ensure that the quest is only completed one turn later.

Another nerf hits the pirate Puffer Fist, which is used in many warrior and demon hunter decks. The Pirate deals 1 damage to all enemies every time the Warrior attacks and had a fairly high life pool of 3/4 stats, making him difficult to remove. His health is now reduced to 3, making him die faster and less of a long-term threat.

The priest spell “Interplay” gets an extremely hard nerf. So far the spell has drawn 2 minions and swapped their stats. This resulted in the Priest being able to swap the stats of a 1/1 Murloc for a 12/12 Dragon fairly early on. Interplay has now been adjusted. It still moves 2 minions, but only swaps their life points.

Additionally, Interplay has been banned in wild game mode as it was causing too many problems.

The last change affects the legendary servant Kael’thas Sunstrider from the wild game mode. So far, this has ensured that every 3rd spell in a turn costs 0 mana. Going forward, the cost will only be reduced to 1 to prevent some “infinite” combos.

What do you think of these nerfs? Which class is bothering you the most in Hearthstone right now and where does it urgently need to be improved?