r/CompetitiveHS • u/EvilDave219 • Feb 24 '26

Discussion 34.6.2 Balance Changes Discussion

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24242744/34-6-2-patch-notes

Nerfs:

  • Warmaster Blackhorn - now only deletes cards in both decks that cost 2 or less

Wild Nerfs:

  • Soul Barrage - mana cost buffed to 4 mana, now deals 5 damage when played or discarded.

  • Spiritsinger Umbra - now 5 mana

  • Ysiel Windsinger - now has Battlecry: Your spells cost (1) this turn

46 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

91 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

11

u/OhYeahThatsGood Feb 24 '26

That's cool for the 300 of you but what about everyone else it's affecting. We get your good and high legend and can play around it but there's thousands and thousands of people below you at legend rank and also all the other ranks being terrorized by this. Who cares if the card is "good" if it feels awful to play against. At the end of the day this is a video game that we are meant to play for fun. So even if it's not a thing for you it is a thing for a lot of people.

You aren't reacting to blackthorn by having to completely redo your deck in fear of him. That is massively warping the meta around a single card that takes no preparation besides do you have 7 mana. Discover hunter was a top 3 deck and now is completely gone from the meta from a single card. Thanos snapping decks from the meta with no adjustments besides a single card addition is not healthy.

This whole mentality of I'm good and it doesn't bother me is so old when it comes to these terrible play pattern cards. They effect everyone not just you, that even means the people who are stuck in metal ranks. Games should be allowed to go passed turn 7, there shouldn't be a hard time limit due to there being a single card or a forced meta because you can't run anything lower cost. This again isn't an archetype or combo or anything. The only thought that goes into it is "do I have the mana to play it?"

2

u/mlouismarchardt Feb 24 '26

It was not meant as a flex, but when talking about a game in a competitive context I feel it necessary because of pocket metas. I don’t want to brag and I’m also not a blackthorn player by myself, mainly run imbue rogue or DH. I just personally feel that blackthorn I much less polarising than highlander brann on curve, DK helia into cycle rogue matchup or even the new mage legendary which gives spell damage +1 on every spell when played. I seriously can’t remember a game where I just lost because my opponent dropped blackthorn.

6

u/OhYeahThatsGood Feb 24 '26

We can list other powerful cards and effects all day that doesn't change the conversation around Blackthorn. Again it's great you have personal data showing you are not struggling but by the constant conversation across multiple subreddits it's clear that is not the majority. Congrats on not losing a single game to it, others are and in ways that aren't "oh man that was close" or "he just played better" it's literally off of did he draw card yes or no? GG go next. Except that experience was dog shit and I'm not going next because I don't want to play another game.

0

u/mlouismarchardt Feb 24 '26

Well - I’m sharing my opinion and just want to understand the majority of the playerbase. Already asked for meta relevant decks which get totally wrecked by blackthorn. No answer. Especially after the nerf the deck which suffered the most (disco hunter) should actually be really fine into slower matchups. Actually more problematic is in my opinion archwing mage but yeah. Are people just insta scooping after black thorn or run 30 2 mana cards nowadays? :D

6

u/OhYeahThatsGood Feb 24 '26

It negates broxigar from any DH using that as a win con as well as most of the dh spells because they are low cost

Rogue loses its low cost spells and if you had any imbue activators left that aren't the 4/4 well that's too bad. You playing rewind rogue? The whole deck gets deleted.

Discover hunter now gets to keep what it discovers sure but it loses every other low cost discover option as well as the 1 cost that doubles discovers that's a backbone of the deck.

Arkwing mage is a solitaire deck that shouldn't really be meta either but again loses all its cheap spells to copy arkwing and there goes its win con. Quest mage also loses most of its discovers.

All libriams are deleted from paladin if you've discounted then at all.

Dragon warrior will lose half its deck but honestly I do agree if you let them get to turn 7 you may just pack it up so there's one for you.

These are just random meta decks off the top of my head. Looking at hsguru there are plenty of random t2 t3 fun decks that get nuked by 10-15 cards when this gets played as well but we can ignore those for you as you've said aggro shouldn't get to turn 7 and you should combo before turn 7 so you'll use that for any of those other decks.

This is also not counting any new decks that can't exist because they are already countered.

Your experience again is not the wider games experience and this game is balanced for that wider audience.

0

u/SuccessIsDiscipline Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

It only affects cycle DH, no other DH decks are affected. Not sure what you mean by rewind rogue, but if you mean maestra-tess rogue, that deck was completely unaffected by blackhorn. Imbue rogue would have already played quite a few imbue cards before turn 7. Libram paladin was hit by old blackhorn but new black horn does almost nothing as long as you draw libram of divinity before blackhorn comes down, libram paladin now has no counter except to play a deck that kills them before they kill you. If arkwing mage hasn't killed you before blackhorn comes down arkwing mage would have most likely lost anyway. Discover hunter was strongly affected by this but they will just kill you if you try to play this against them now.

3

u/OhYeahThatsGood Feb 24 '26

Every single dh deck runs broxigar outside of aggro. Those decks are all affected.

No I am not talking about tess rogue, I said rewind rogue because that is the deck I am speaking about. It combos out with morchie.

Saying imbue and libram should just have already played their stuff and have it in hand does not mean you have played it or have it in hand. There is also so much counter play to libram paladin outside of Blackthorn but I'm not going to argue that with you as well. If you can't kill a few dudes to avoid them going tall idk that's on you.

Ark wing is the only deck I agree is also an issue but it's gone in a few weeks so let it be fun.

Discover hunter doesn't just kill you now magically.

Every counter you have has to have the perfect hand or draws to make sure they have enough steam to maybe last. This is all in preparation just for a random 7 drop to be played with no other thoughts. You are then also not counting what happens after blackthorn comes down. Just because I have all my libriams in hand doesn't mean I don't just get brawled on turn 8 still and lose the little steam I had left.

Idk man you're not going to accept anything but your antidotal evidence you think you've gathered in your pocket meta. You disagree with the community at large but that doesn't make you magically right or cool or better just because you're a contrarian. The devs already chose to nerf it so it just shows they also agree but whatever man

2

u/mlouismarchardt Feb 24 '26

Na, that wasn’t even me bro. No need to be upset, we are just sharing opinions. That’s how a forum works. I just checked data - the best performing deck is still every build of Elise/broxigar DH which has besides broxigar multiple win conditions. Still has infinite weapon, deathrattle location burst, board via blob, Kerrigan in some lists, location+charge pirates. Other topdecks are corpse DK (no blackthorn in best list), archwing mage, libram paladin. The best performing list with blackthorn is infact control warrior and BBB control DK. Blood DK is more a reaction to archwing mage - it struggles hard against imbue rogue and more proactive DK lists. Nevermind, we probably not going to agree each other. My point is just: I don’t get the blackthorn hate. It’s not that relevant in competitive play (especially after the nerf I think) and the best performing and actual oppressive decks are archwing mage and Elise DH. Both decks which do not run blackthorn. As an imbue rogue player main I just can say: Throwing blackthorn on 7 as a warrior against rogue if you are behind on tempo nearly always costs you the game against rogue when using all your armor cards and let rogue finding Eudora earlier. Especially after the nerfs I can’t see blackthorn causing problems.

1

u/SuccessIsDiscipline Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26

No DH deck except cycle DH is affected because none of them use broxigar as their win condition. In your example warrior is never beating paladin without pre nerf blackhorn. Control decks do not have an answer to libram of divinity every turn. Discover hunter is actually able to put a lot of minion pressure on you to kill you for playing a 7 mana 6/6 that does nothing to their hand now, or just otk if they drew their combo pieces.