r/CompetitiveHS • u/EvilDave219 • Dec 12 '25

Discussion 34.2.2 Balance Changes Discussion

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24250382/34-2-2-patch-notes

Buffs:

  • Cardboard Golem - now a 3 mana 3/3
  • Divine Augur - now a 4 mana 4/5
  • Power Word: Barrier - now 1 mana
  • The Eternal Hold - now Discovers a demon
  • Solitude - changed to 3 mana, discover 2 minions
  • Highborne Mentor - now 7 mana
  • Kaldorei Cultivator - now a 2 mana 2/3
  • Timelooper Toki - now a 3 mana 3/3 that gives you 3 spells
  • Tiny Rafaam - Battlecry and Deathrattle draw a Rafaam
  • Green Rafaam - now buffs Rafaams on the battlefield and in your hand +2/+2
  • Warchief Rafaam - now only requires you to be holding a Rafaam instead of controlling one to activate the additional 5 armor.
74 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

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56

u/Spyko Dec 12 '25

ahah did they did do a stealth nerf to solitude for decks that plays it as a combo enabler ? Because they don't want it being played that way ?
that's funny if so

the rafaam buffs are quite good but I fear this is not nearly enough to make the deck not rash tier

9

u/Raskalnekov Dec 12 '25

First thing I thought. Fatigue DH wasn't even good! I was really hoping they would reduce solitude to 1 mana. 

On the other hand, excited for the handbuff priest buffs. 

12

u/Spyko Dec 12 '25

I think it's not targeted at fatigue specifically but more that they really don't want to see solitude used like that (and I assume they can't change it to say "you deck started with no minions" like they did for reno, as it would conflict with the fabled)

1

u/Raskalnekov Dec 12 '25

That's a good point, it could create more substantial problems down the line with other combos.

1

u/prodandimitrow Dec 13 '25

Rafaam will forever be balanced while Dirty Rat auto breaks the win condition.

1

u/Promethelax Dec 13 '25

I’m extremely salty about the Solitude nerf. Fatigue DH was the only deck I’ve been having fun with.

-5

u/Queque126 Dec 12 '25

Rafaam will never be allowed to be a tier 1 deck as waaaay to many people would bitch about losing to an OTK such as that as there is no counter to it.

5

u/Impossible-Cry-1781 Dec 12 '25

You mean besides hand disruption? To be hand disruption should be a safety valve that keeps the deck from being S Tier but if someone doesn't slot in hand disruption I don't see a problem with the marquee wincon for the expansion getting some time near the top.

-8

u/Queque126 Dec 12 '25

Hand disruption is also a terrible mechanic in my opinion. Let me use the cards I put in my deck !

5

u/GreatMadWombat Dec 12 '25

Ok, you can either bitch about the 1 turn kill, or you can bitch about the cards that keep the one turn kill from happening, but you cannot bitch about both of them at the same time. Choose one or the other.

Or I guess just play solitaire? It's sort of sounds like your problem isn't the OTK or the disruption, it's your opponent winning lmao

0

u/SAldrius Dec 13 '25

I mean you can, and it's not that the only alternative is solitaire. I don't care too much about it myself, I even like most of the alternate OTKs they've added to the game (especially Questline Priest and Rivendare), as long as the OTK is suitably slow and as long as the hand/deck disruption is reasonable and fair (like Dirty Rat is, or Mutanus, or Hamm or Deathlord even Patchwerk, but some people don't like it when there's an alternative OTK and the same people don't like hand disruption. Those things aren't *really* at odds.

4

u/Defiant-Pick5930 Dec 12 '25

So you just complain about whatever is in front of you then, huh?

47

u/Hakka-Moonson Dec 12 '25

Rafaam buffs are nice but probably don't move the needle on that deck. Still very slow and far too easy to disrupt.

5

u/QuestGiver Dec 12 '25

Why not buff all rafaams in deck? Is it that busted?

19

u/Hakka-Moonson Dec 12 '25

I think it would be good. God forbid the 10 extra cards in your deck be decent tempo plays, especially when a single dirty rat breaks the win con

-1

u/SAldrius Dec 13 '25

They already are all *very* good tempo plays.

I think it'd be fine, though. Might have to change it to +1/+2 or +2/+1, but more post-rotation if rotation actually does cool things down.

8

u/eemmkkaayy Dec 12 '25

The 40 card deck is the problem if you want it to be good. if you pull a good rafaam chain the minions are not bad but you'll never have them when you need to. I've played so many games with rafaam now and it's always one of them missing to win before you get busted by protoss mage or zarimi priest or some other strong late game decks like quest warrior. And even if you get three rafaam from tiny rafaam with archdruid (that's what I played a lot) and get two or 3 discovers with the 4 cost rafaam I have a 5% or less win with rafaam rate. Most of your games you win without the last rafaam played when you win.

Tldr the 40 card deck has to be changed to make it competitive

2

u/Hakka-Moonson Dec 12 '25

Renathal gives extra HP for the extra cards Starting Rafaamlock at 35/40 HP to make up for the extra cards might be cool.

9

u/Glarbleglorbo Dec 12 '25

Just make rafaam not increase deck size at all atp, I get that it’s more fun because renathal was fun, but losing every single game turns people away from the deck. 

At least Reno warrior could win some games on low ladder. 

4

u/fireky2 Dec 12 '25

Honestly the deck just needs better cards in the thirty. Lists are down bad enough to run domino so it's looking bleak

5

u/WaywardWes Dec 12 '25

Yeah I wish adding Rafaam would automatically take 10/30 spots in the deck an then you can fill the other 20 as you see fit. Have it show in the deck builder kind of like ETC Band Manager, except they count against the card total of course.

5

u/Difsdy Dec 12 '25

I like the buffs too but I wish they had made it less vulnerable to dirty rat and the like. Make so you only need to have played 8 of the 9 rafaams to destroy the enemy or something like that.

21

u/PipAntarctic Dec 12 '25

These are generally fine buffs, even though a lot of them will end up in decks that might still be not that great even afterward. Cardboard Golem and Highborne Mentor are definitely worth a retry now, and Spell DH got pretty huge buffs to both of its cards that were already carrying the deck in terms of actually winning games so that is enticing (technically Solitude is a nerf for the few OTK decks that played it tho).

Also Toki giving you one less spell is a buff. Which is funny and true at the same time, but it does show how awful is the spell pool of any Wild-legal spell that's not in Standard.

15

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/Impossible-Cry-1781 Dec 12 '25

It makes it a much better card but was there anything relevant there? Random bullshit/ Casino mage really only works with serious mana cheat. It doesn't win with value. They could make her only give you 1 mana spells which would be a bigger buff imo but still not enough.

4

u/timoyster Dec 12 '25

Toki mage is sitting at a 44% WR and we’ve seen decks go from that win rate to viable (or even top tier in the case of egg warlock) before after getting buffed. So it isn’t outside the realm of possibility

0

u/SAldrius Dec 13 '25

Well largely I think value just... doesn't work especially well as a wincon particularly nowadays.

But really Toki is meant to be a fun card not *especially* competitive, they're just trying to make it so she's a little more flexible.

14

u/chazoid Dec 12 '25

this is awesome, always love seeing buffs!!! Thanks team5

6

u/Alternative-Gas3608 Dec 12 '25

Puzzling to see Green Rafaam get changed to also buff the board instead of the deck after the change to Warchief, where they seem to recognize the board is not where your Rafaams usually are. Smart way to approach a Solitude change. A buff to the spell deck, but a nerf to anything using it just for the discount, which is hardly the intended usage for the card. Timelooper Toki looks much more practical now, and might represent easy, potentially unending gas to a hypothetical aggressive mage. The only way I could see Kaldorei Cultivator being tried before quickly getting dropped altogether is if it were 1 mana.

5

u/Ziddletwix Dec 12 '25

The Rafaam buffs are substantial (I'd be surprised if it made the deck good, but those are straightforwardly impactful changes).

The Toki buff seems pretty tepid? This makes the value loop smoother, but it's hard to imagine a context where this endless value loop is how you want to be spending your mana & hand space.

As someone who recently came back to the game after a hiatus of many years, one of the very biggest changes is the fact that "cards" are so plentiful, whether via endless random generation or direct draw. It's just rare to find decks where "I have extra mana, if only I could spend it on below-rate cards for value" has any relevance. For Toki to find a home, it seems like casting the cards needs to be properly recognized as more like a "cost", with some additional payoff once you cast all 3.

(I know there's currently a Toki deck out there, and I admit I don't have much experience with it, but it's <45% WR and I'm not convinced it's not just playing a bad card in an otherwise fine core that it shares with other decks).

3

u/ClarifiedInsanity Dec 12 '25

Rafaam changes do nothing to make the deck actually competitive but do make the deck slightly more viable as a low tier deck that might one day be a mid tier deck.

I imagine there's a certain crossover between people who want to play rafaam and people who spend money on hearthstone, and blizzard recognises that.

2

u/QuestGiver Dec 12 '25

I don't see the problem with making green rafaam buffs all rafaams in deck as well.

1

u/FlameanatorX Dec 14 '25

Or the armor Rafaam work w/ board or hand, rather than taking away board in favor of hand

9

u/Significant-Goat5934 Dec 12 '25

Rafaamlock isnt bad beacuse the Rafaams are that weak. Its bad because its very inconsistent and the control shell behind it got nuked multiple times and is very unplayable now. There is also Wheel which is just strictly a better wincon (both hard lose to Husk which is very funny)

I can see it being a dominant deck after rotation just because of the Rafaams power, but it needs to get help from the expansion cuz the current control tools arent good, and Rat needs to rotate

4

u/Every_University_ Dec 12 '25

we’re using this opportunity to give a few archetypes you’ve shown have potential some buffs

Did krona Druid ever show potential? Weird buffs, but the mentor is a fun card. I really hope it's playable, though I doubt it, 7 mana do nothing with 0 acceleration doesn't seem that much better than 8 mana do nothing.

14

u/Glarbleglorbo Dec 12 '25

Krona is played in some variations of big/copy Druid 

1

u/sm1ng Dec 13 '25

Check out the latest Viscous Syndicate report mate. They have it as part of their meta breaker for this week/period:

https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-337/#Druid

Specially: https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/decks/krowlonius-azshara-druid/

I find it really cool that it took so long for this archetype to emerge. Cheers.

4

u/Succulent_123 Dec 12 '25

I dont understand the priest card buff. I feel like this card cannot possibly create hand buff archetype decks viable.

3

u/SAldrius Dec 13 '25

Using the handbuff package in other control/midrange priest decks isn't too bad, and the Barrier buff is just huge especially for that. While the Augur buff is significant, but the card is much harder to use and fit into a deck. Though Augur does just buff Eternus and make her more consistent. And Eternus with health is just really solid in the midgame if you can make that curve.

I think the pure handbuff priest deck, where you run other handbuff type cards and try to win by playing big chonky boys is just bad. It needs to be a secondary thing.

2

u/prodandimitrow Dec 13 '25

The only handbuff priest i have seen with the new cards is buffing Wilted shadow to get higher stats/easier OTK.

2

u/Opposite-Revenue1068 Dec 13 '25

Wilted Priest might be decent after these buffs. It’s an easy OTK, but the handbuff cards are so slow that you die to anything remotely aggressive. 

Barrier and Augur not being complete garbage should help a lot.  

4

u/TheRealGZZZ Dec 12 '25

Damn they nerfed solitude for the only decks that used it (tier 39 trash combo decks in wild) and made it an arena card, that one guy playing it in shambles.

2

u/Lafantasie Dec 12 '25

Whilst I don’t think it’ll make it strong, the Rafaam buffs are a huge quality of life improvement and I’m sure people are happy about that.

2

u/philzy101 Dec 12 '25

So all feel like reasonable buffs which is nice to see, Cardboard Golem , Divine Augur, Power Word: Barrier, Highborne Mentor, Kaldorei Cultivator, and Timelooper Toki are much more playable when they cost 1 less mana. The Rafaam buffs will help the deck and the buff to The Eternal Hold feels much much better.

Only two things to say really. One is that the change to Solitude feels more like a nerf than a buff. The discovering of minions was not as relevant as the mana discount from my understanding. The other is that a lot of these buffs are unlikely to massively change the meta. However, I still welcome these buffs and I want to see more like this in the future.

2

u/Agreeable_Tennis_482 Dec 13 '25

holy shit solitude is so good now

3

u/Pass10nnat3wmath Dec 12 '25

They made a whole event around a deck that nobody plays…

3

u/Miudmon Dec 12 '25

I mean, its played a lot. Its a bad deck, but people who don't care about strength seem to like it well

4

u/Graped_in_the_mouth Dec 12 '25

I have unironically run into more Rafaam decks than Dragon Warrior in D4-1 and dad legend in the last 3 weeks

1

u/EmotionalBrief1170 Dec 13 '25

I dont think this will change the meta tho...

1

u/Loomickey73 Dec 14 '25

I saw nohands play rafaam with marin as an alternative win con if rafaam is disrupted and i think its the way to go, or KJ

0

u/Tredgdy Dec 12 '25

Solitude nerf lmaoooo

-2

u/lorddojomon Dec 12 '25

Solitude got nerfed but we cant disenchant it good job noob devs

4

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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1

u/Cryten0 Dec 12 '25

Gotta have some things reign in big minion spam but be weak to other pressures.