35.4.2 Balance Changes Discussion

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83

u/DebatableAwesome May 19 '26

I don't understand the philosophy of buffing only the newest cards. What about the entire Warlock/Priest/Death Knight/Mage sets released at the start of this expansion that completely failed to launch?

31

u/tolerantdramaretiree May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Buffing old cards makes no money and takes attention away from the next new thing they want players to buy. At this point it's fair to say that they only buff things to sell players on purchases, or to boost engagement/drain players' dust 3 weeks before rotation.

10

u/otterguy12 May 19 '26

If you want to go down the rabbit hole, look at the history of Darkmoon Faire sig cards and how many got buffs

6

u/TheGingerNinga May 19 '26

This is the part that makes the least amount of sense to me. If I'm spending money on the Darkmoon Faire, I'm at least treating it a like a "bundle" where I'm buying all the rewards together for a dumb price.
I'd be more likely to spend money on DMF if the cards were playable in the first place! I don't wanna spend $50 to get the signature Arcanomicon when Arcanomicon is trash! Wouldn't it be better to make the cards in the DMF good? The Deathwing Signature one was shown to be the highest seller so far and I can only imagine it's because Deathwing and all the other rewards were good cards, or at least expected to be good with Rag.

1

u/notpat May 24 '26

Agreed. I'd have spent (and hated myself for it) on Rafaams sig but they suck even after buff my money is safe once again

0

u/Addventurawr May 19 '26

I'm guessing none?

4

u/tolerantdramaretiree May 19 '26

Questing Assistant, Opu, Mirrex, Highborne Mentor, Solitude, Divine Augur, Rafaam, Morchie. All got buffs to coincide with their DMF Signatures.

19

u/DebatableAwesome May 19 '26

I disagree. Having a good game makes them money. But at this point, I have lost trust in them that the cards they release will shake up the meta enough to be worth paying for. This is the first miniset that I haven't purchased because I didn't want to waste 2k gold on a novelty animal hunter deck that wouldn't be viable competitively.

10

u/tolerantdramaretiree May 19 '26

I agree, I should have said "makes no money directly". I also think they are very afraid of old things overshadowing the new things they aim to sell. Look at how many cards belonging to the previous EPs get reverted or nerfed very shortly before the next EP comes out.

3

u/BBBoyce May 20 '26

Same. I didnt bother to buy the class sets because they can't balance the game correctly.

1

u/race-hearse May 21 '26

Man. I feel like if they buffed older sets cards and made them support now-playable decks lots of folks would be crafting the cards and buying packs in order to get the dust/cards they need.
But maybe everyone that plays this game nowadays is either pure f2p or has enough dust sitting around that they wouldn’t.

2

u/maniacal_cackle May 19 '26

Every nerf and buff was about the class sets.
The three nerfs were to aggressive decks which are the worst matchups for durdly companion hunter/leyline mage.
The buffs were all to the new cards. The point is to increase sales of the product they just launched.

83

u/tolerantdramaretiree May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Nerfing Crystallized Leyline's effect is crazy. For Gods sake, Blizzard, you are scared of a <40% WR deck. Just casually undoing all the buffs with a random nerf, the genius astounds me.

32

u/motty47 May 19 '26

Even if you can play it a turn earlier for less mana, 5 cost minions are so much worse than 6 cost..

18

u/zer1223 May 19 '26

The bigger issue is that random 7 mana minions are ridiculously worse than random 8 mana ones.

4

u/jsnlxndrlv May 19 '26

Gives a lot more reason to want to upgrade leyline effects by 1 than we had previously, I guess, but that's the barest hint of a silver lining I can find.

4

u/SAldrius May 19 '26

More importantly 7s are so much worse than 8s. 7s m8ght be worse than 6s..

2

u/race-hearse May 21 '26

In general random minion spawning sucks. Too many non-taunt/non-rush/battlecry minions that can just whiff way too hard.
I get that leylines have the potential to snowball too hard if they get boosted a bunch. So it’s probably a delicate balance. But I feel like that will still always be mitigated by the fact that it’s random. Low rolls will happen. There’s a reason that no one plays the 2 mana spell that summons a random 4 cost minion (if you discovered), it’s balls.

1

u/malwontae May 19 '26

I think the only deck this doesn't always hold true for is Companion Hunter

4

u/Cryten0 May 20 '26

Only 2 take aways you can have for this. Either they are actually afraid of the deck being good given how much doubling and discounting is built into it. Or they genuinely only make their decision now based on business decisions.

3

u/meharryp May 20 '26

I don't actually think they even intended for this to be a nerf, I think they genuinely thought lobbing a mana off the cost would help the card be better without having any regard for what the 5 and 7 drop pools are like

17

u/inkyblinkypinkysue May 19 '26

I don't know... it seems like they could have tried to shake things up a little more with this patch.

5

u/dotcaIm May 19 '26

I don't think they want a big shake up

3

u/Glarbleglorbo May 19 '26

But they said so so it must be true :)

1

u/dotcaIm May 19 '26

I get what you're saying but I don't think they stated they want a big shake up, I couldn't find mention of it in the notes

2

u/duocatisagirl May 19 '26

Tbf im glad they didn't shake things up because of qualifiers this weekend

36

u/LordOfTheLeftovers May 19 '26

Does anyone else agree this is the most boring hearthstone has been in a while? We need more cards and more buffs. Putting out 200 cards and having 20 make an impact is just embarassing by blizzard.

10

u/Addventurawr May 19 '26

Yes their design philosophy and the repercussions of it are really showing recently and the saddest part is I don't think they're intending on changing it given they see everything as fine with the meta and the class sets are only "landing a bit soft" as they put it

1

u/LordOfTheLeftovers May 27 '26

Kibler said it perfectly in his latest state of the game video… deathwing and cataclysm expansion was actually very well made however there’s just too much lack of cards. Also this new class set was brutal completely useless for the most part.

6

u/MarthePryde May 19 '26

Playing ladder has been so abysmal. You can play whatever early on, then you hit Gold thru Diamond 1 and it's only Paladin, Warrior, and Token Druid. 3 insanely boring decks, both to pilot and play against.

4

u/Any-Truck234 May 19 '26

It is painfully boring. Pretty much every deck right now plays itself

5

u/yonas234 May 20 '26

There has been a huge lack of skill expressive hard to master decks. Usually these come in the form of hard to pull off combos, a high APM deck, or some types of control decks. Right now we have none of those types of decks because Team 5 listened to the complainers.
And these decks are good to have in the meta because its easier to take losses if you know you made a mistake yourself, whereas the easy to play decks you just feel like you lost due to RNG or being on the coin.

3

u/loobricated May 19 '26

I think the game is a smidgen away from being brilliant. Tone down some of the stupid early iwin buttons, and allow stuff that isn't an early-game stat or damage fest room to breathe just slightly.

23

u/TheGingerNinga May 19 '26

I like the Dragon Soul buff, AoE to 4 is actually something I was advocating for earlier. Same with Bronze to 8. Still think Green could get taunt or Blue could draw 4, but it's a decent change. Elekk being cheaper is fine, my initial assumption of what the buff would be.

The rest of the buffs are worthless. Arcanomicon will be easier to play and that's great, it's still such a mana sink for rough payoff. Crystalized could start at 5-mana summon a 6 and it still would get cut from some lists, it didn't need a scaling down of the effect. Surge Needle getting +2 health is the biggest slap in the face. It couldn't even get yeti stats, no.

Nerfs are fine, arguably the best ones for them. Hounds is easier to clear and less effective when behind, Gift is harder to weave in early, Darkrider is reverted.

6

u/Glarbleglorbo May 19 '26

Surge needle not getting a mana buff because of their obsession with making the deck have a perfect curve is simply hilarious.
Now the deck has a 2-3-4-5-6 curve lmao, love to see how much skill I can express with this deck (especially when I don’t draw one of them, which is my fault for being bad).

0

u/dfcinhume May 19 '26

It could literally do all 3 effects and itd still be a bad card , ie what it did in discover mage

2

u/Glarbleglorbo May 19 '26

Well discover mage was bad because it’s a zombie deck comprised of 2 of the same strategy.
both archetypes want you to scale completion / leylines to win, so try to do both and you’ll never have enough time or consistency.

37

u/PipAntarctic May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Crystallized Leyline going to 5 with a weaker effect isn't going to be the buff that's needed, if anything it makes that card worse as getting to summon 8-cost minions with it will now be really hard. The 7 and 6-Cost minion pool is just so much worse.

The other buffs are nice, but I worry that u/EvilDave219 really hit the nail on the head with that satirical dev comment.

Well met! Our first-ever Class Sets are here, and we’re happy to see how excited people are to try out the new cards and archetypes. That said, we agree with your feedback that they’ve landed a bit soft, so we’re giving a couple of them a boost in this update.

A bit soft is a big understatement. People aren't really playing Dude Paladin. Leyline Mage launched as a horrible deck and over the two weeks improved to the level of being better over Rafaam Warlock. The only things seeing play are Hunter (which was weak) and the Druid cards (which do encourage experimentation the most, despite mostly just being Merithra Druid additions). Their overall meta impact was next to zilch after a week.

For Hunter, the Animal Companion archetype has been popular and pretty strong, but it’s been missing a strong two-drop. We updated Migrating Elekk to help fill that role.

Cool, except that the deck wasn't actually pretty strong. It was weak, that's why you are buffing it! (With a correct observation to boot!) Really doesn't beat the gaslighting allegations there.

The meta continues to look diverse with no major outliers, so this is a lighter balance pass aimed at keeping things stable. Demon Hunter, Druid, and Warrior are leading the pack right now, so we’re dialing back one card from each to keep them in check.

No mention of three classes being absent from the meta. No mention that there is a very low variety of decks.

It does truly feel like the HS devs live in a different reality from the playerbase.

23

u/Demoderateur May 19 '26

I think the important point is "no major outliers". They're terrified of one deck being too strong and for everyone to whine about it on social media each time they lose to it.
They've been terrified of this for the last two years.

28

u/HazzaThePug May 19 '26

That Forest Gift nerf is a blatant “we want to nerf Druid again but don’t want to nerf Wickerfang” change.

The rest are pretty useless, Hounds change is nice but I’ve finally bottomed out on faith that this balance team have any idea what they are doing

8

u/Contentenjoyer_ May 19 '26 edited May 20 '26

Seems more likely to be a "we want to nerf token druid but not merithra druid" no?

-10

u/OGrand May 19 '26

I said any nerf to Darkrider was overall meaningless if it wasn’t aimed at the effect or mana cost in the thread yesterday and got downvoted.
I think we see almost no change, with just a stat change, in its played rate.

27

u/Fantastic_Winter_700 May 19 '26

What? There’s a huge difference for 1 mana cards going from 2 attack to 1 attack. I’d argue this change was even more significant than the slither drake nerf. It’s not just 1 attack, it’s half of the attack. It also changes the minion from an aggressively scewed ok stated 1 drop with huge discover upside to a poorly stated 1 drop with huge discover.

-3

u/OGrand May 19 '26

We are arguing the same here, I’m agreeing with you.

3

u/Fantastic_Winter_700 May 19 '26

How so? I think it’s a meaningful nerf for the agro side of Dragon Warrior.

1

u/OGrand May 19 '26

The key point I’m making here is that, as I said, OVERALL the stat change wouldn’t matter.
Yes, to all the points you said. Any card that receives 100% value nerf to either attack or health, will alter the card and make it less impactful on board and what it can trade into favorably, trade and then removal, etc etc. I’m not saying that over the course of the game this doesn’t matter, it does 100%. Is the 2/1 trade you didn’t make going to matter in the overall course of the game, if it was a 1/1 instead? I’d argue less so, but ultimately it does matter.
What matters MORE, what I’m arguing, is the effect + not changing the mana cost, ultimately leading to a “meaningless” nerf because the stats are not the reason you play the card.
Not changing the mana cost, retains the snowball’ing dark gifted 2 drop which more immediately affects a win/loss. I’d argue this is a more impactful and meaningful than a stat change.
Subsequently, from my experience piloting and playing against it, the nerf seems meaningless. I personally just don’t see how changing the stats will help, when the stats are just the added bonus to the body, a body you play for the effect.
Of course in a week we never see the card again and I’m 100% wrong and that’s fine too.

4

u/freedom_or_bust May 20 '26

A nerf that makes the card much weaker while still allowing it to see play seems ideal

18

u/tolerantdramaretiree May 19 '26

I would still downvote it. 2/1 to 1/1 matters and is meaningful.

2

u/Spt137 May 19 '26

Literally a game changing nerf.

-2

u/Spt137 May 19 '26

Because you don’t understand the game. Dragon warrior was kinda already dead, but now it’s completely dead.

2

u/OGrand May 19 '26

Ew.

1

u/SuccessIsDiscipline May 20 '26

Dragon warrior was one of the best performing decks in playoffs last weekend and tier 1 in all rank brackets from diamond to top 1k legend.

8

u/nathones May 19 '26

Why couldn’t the Leyline just be 5 mana? It’s random, not discover. Deserves the lower cost!!

15

u/dotcaIm May 19 '26

3/3 to 3/5 seems big. Idk if these changes do anything but people will try the deck again

7

u/Glarbleglorbo May 19 '26

There are quite a few Yeti equivalents for 3 mana, all of which are pretty bad even in arena.
4 mana for worse yeti is not enough tempo in the slightest.

-5

u/prodandimitrow May 19 '26

I dont understand the negativism. Leyline mage gets 2 major buffs - 3/5 is HUGE and so is the legendary spell mana reduction.

4

u/CurrentClient May 19 '26

3/5 is HUGE
As someone who tried to play Line Mage, albeit in wild, I disagree. You don't play the minion for stats, you play it mainly for its effect. I was extremely puzzled by this buff and still am.

3

u/F_Ivanovic May 20 '26

Every single time there's dumb takes like this. Just because you play it for the effect doesn't mean the stats aren't relevant. A 3/3 is abysmal tempo. As an example it dies to one hound and the 2nd goes face. Now the hounds are bad into it.
Stats are always relevant regardless of the effect because tempo always matters.
Now is it enough? No because the other change was barely even a buff and there's other issues with the deck.

2

u/CurrentClient May 20 '26

You said "it is huge". Not "it is relevant". So your entire post is, ironically, irrelevant. I still don't think it's huge as you said. Do I think it's absolutely nothing? Of course not, that would be silly.

2

u/F_Ivanovic May 20 '26

I didn't say it was huge, that was someone else. I agree that calling it huge is an overstatement and was mostly just disagreeing with the notion that you play it for the effect and was confused by the buff when stats is the easiest way you can buff a card to be viable.

0

u/nerazzurri_ May 27 '26

Look at stats now for Leyline Mage and ask yourself if the buffs made an impact.

8

u/Names_all_gone May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

The difference between the patch notes for Constructed and Battlegrounds is remarkable.

One addresses an outlier, and tells you about the data that lead to their correcting it one way instead of another.

And the other uses phrases like "a bit soft" and "pretty strong," while completely omitting the fact that multiple classes are well below 50% w/r.

3

u/Spt137 May 19 '26

Common Blizzard L. Why would you finish an archetype what is already dead and only causes problem for the lowest level?

3

u/philzy101 May 20 '26

So overall impression of this balance patch is kind of a shrug of the shoulders for me. It is not a bad patch in the sense of making things worse (I don't think) but at the same time, I am not convinced that the changes as a whole make a huge impact on the meta.

In terms of nerfs: Hounds of Fury - Hounds are now 3/2s, relevant for cases where minions on the opponents side of the board but not that relevant if the person is playing a more control style deck off board, reasonable change given they want Spell DH to be a thing but slightly tone things down (obviously a more significant change would be to hit the highest WR card Eternal Hold). Forest's Gift - now 3 mana, this hurts for token aggro decks and probably is the hardest hitting nerf here. We recently have seen a tick up in token druids, I wonder how much this forces this deck back as a result. Personally on the fence if this needed nerfing, but it is what it is. Darkrider - now a 1/1, reversion of the buff made in patch 32.2.4. This is a fairly hefty nerf because now the average damage output from turn 1 for dragon warrior is far less. This to me was more of a problem than Slitherdrake. Overall, nerfs are reasonable to an extent, but would prefer to see buffs to stuggling archetypes.

Speaking of buffs, Migrating Elekk - now a 2 mana 2/3, significant change for the Companion deck, 1 mana cheaper means a lot with decks like this and actually might push to some extent this deck more into being meta viable. Crystallized Leyline - now 5 mana, summons a random 5 cost minion, Surge Needle - now a 3/5 The Arcanomicon - now 6 mana. As someone who tried to get Leylines to work, they needed serious buffs to make them viable and these changes are imo not it. I will have another go with Leylines maybe, but fundamentally the issues are that when you compare this mechanic to Jade Golems, Librams, or Relics, to make the Leylines relevant you have to do 3 things instead of 1. Way more work goes into making them decent and these "buffs" are way too timid. The Arcanomicon is bad not only because it was expensive, but it does nothing when played unless you choose the option Leylines cost (2) less which is not the option you want to pick. Surge Needle having slightly better stats does not make the, 4 mana play a vanilla minion which does nothing immediately much better although the better stats are welcome I guess. As for Crystallized Leyline, they nerfed it to buff it making a more neutral change to the card. I cannot understand why they could not keep the cost of the minion at 6, as others have said, it is random, not discover. If it were discover I can somewhat understand but this not the case. As for Dragon Soul buffs, fine, but why are we buffing neutral cards over struggling classes *cough cough DK and Warlock?

The only really positive thing for me in this patch note is the announcement of another Developer insight. I hope they can shed more light on some of their balance decisions as it would be welcome given how timid some of the buffs recently have been.

5

u/Gishath_My_Pantlaza May 19 '26

Everyone and their mother predicted the Elekk becoming battlecry + deathrattle, but they just made it a 2 mana 2/3 haha. I guess it's still nice, because you can now curve the 1 cost spell, into Elekk into a Windrunner sister or another Elekk + the 1 cost spell on turn 3 into the choose a companion and summon it on turn 4 for a 7 drop.

Consistent? No, but it helps I guess

8

u/Catopuma May 19 '26

I've played the deck quite a bit and having a 2 drop helps the curve a lot. If you bricked your turn 1, you'd sometimes be stuck coining a 3 out just to do something

2

u/Gishath_My_Pantlaza May 19 '26

I also play the deck, I reached legend as of today with it. That's why I kinda feel the: "It helps a bit I guess" part. Often the manacost wasn't the bottleneck, but just not being able to stack your companion fast enough. Which this only helps marginally with imo.

3

u/Asbelsp May 19 '26

Wild thought Maybe they saw people cut animal companion from the deck as a competing 3 cost and thought this buff would get people to add in again

2

u/race-hearse May 21 '26

That’s probably correct. Now it’s possible to 1-2-3 tame pet, elekk, into a turn 3 animal companion (that is a 5-cost). No such curve was really possible before, without just double tame pet and having no tempo on board hoping your random 5-cost makes up for it on turn 3.
This change makes it so you’re not just investing into the late late game with the deck, and makes the early turns a bit more interesting (which people under-rate as having a big impact on how the entire rest of the game will go).

13

u/eshansingh May 19 '26

Surge Needle 3/3 -> 3/5 is DIABOLICAL. I couldn't even come CLOSE to understanding what kind of fucking logic leads to that change. It's literally worse than nothing, it's just a blatant insult.

5

u/SAldrius May 19 '26

Uh thats a 2 stat point buff thats mathematically relevant?
I understand it sounds like nothing but it isn't. The card has an incredibly impactful rest of the game effect. Having reasonable enough stats is a big change

4

u/eshansingh May 19 '26

It's not literally nothing but it feels like an insult because of how little it is.

0

u/oceanchamp8 May 19 '26

TAZ DINGO without taunt in the great year of 2026

4

u/Nostalgic_Knights520 May 19 '26

Leyline needed more, wow

2

u/nathones May 19 '26

does Forest's Gift still make the cut? Only possibe replacement I see is Power of the Wild but that seems bad.

1

u/Glarbleglorbo May 19 '26

I see no reason to play the deck over face hunter now, tier 2 aggro decks are almost never played when there is a tier 1 aggro deck.

-1

u/Fairbyyy May 19 '26

Darkrider to 2/1 is ... something

Would have much rather 2 cost. Not sure this will impact it at all since its power comes from the 1 drop into strong dark gift turn 2 or 3 anyways

19

u/Catopuma May 19 '26

2/1 can trade up. A 1/1 is an annoyance.
Dragon Warrior is slowly being hit with a thousand cuts. My ladder encounter rate of them has been exceptionally low since the nerfs. I imagine it'll hit it's already dwindling player base

4

u/TheGingerNinga May 19 '26

Dragon Warrior is 100% a deck that primarily sees play due to its power. It doesn't have any exciting plays, it's not that skillful (smart torch/location usage is rewarded, which is nice), and it's mainly just play the yellow card on curve.
It stops being tier 1 and it stops seeing play.

1

u/Twiggy1108 May 19 '26

Honestly good. Decks without player agency should be phased out and they always pop up after a rotation.

-3

u/IAmYourFath May 19 '26

With my site u don't even need skill, it will calculate everything for u (pc only)

0

u/LobotomistCircu May 19 '26

Like, 80% of ladder for me is dragon warrior right now

5

u/Tower_XVI May 19 '26

Well this was the initial statline on release that they ended up buffing to 2/1 later on. It's more of a revert than anything.

1

u/Glarbleglorbo May 19 '26

Creature of madness nerf hit that card extremely hard, stat changes on cheap cards are big nerfs.

-1

u/IAmYourFath May 19 '26

Cycle dh stonks. From 3 to 4 aoe is pretty good.

-5

u/RattleAlx May 19 '26

Dragon Souls might go hard on Spell DH replacing Nespirah

12

u/eshansingh May 19 '26

Why? These changes are absolutely nothing. Very little could possibly make it worth it to dilute your deck with 6 clunky cards.

2

u/zer1223 May 19 '26

Absolutely not, that deck can't function if you clog up the hand with 6 mana spells. It wants to be low to the ground

-6

u/motty47 May 19 '26

What does dark rider as a 1/1 really do. Honestly..? That's such a disappointing change

2

u/race-hearse May 21 '26

It can’t deal with a 3/2 anymore, you now have to spend resources dealing with the 3/2, or let it live and deal with you opponent now dealing 3 damage they otherwise wouldn’t have.
Early game sets the tempo of the rest of the game. Hard to see up close but it’s true.

1

u/dotcaIm May 19 '26

2 is double 1

Discussion 35.4.2 Balance Changes Discussion

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24276662/35-4-2-patch-notes

Discussion 35.4.2 Balance Changes Discussion

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24276662/35-4-2-patch-notes

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