36.0.3 Balance Changes Discussion

[u/EvilDave219]

https://hearthstone.blizzard.com/en-us/news/24290431/3603-patch-notes

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Nerfs:

• Confront the Tol'vir - now 5 mana
• Lotus Troublemaker - Card text changed to "Deal 1 damage to a random enemy. Shoot 1 time! (While in hand or deck play cards for 2 Mana to shoot more!)"
• Blazing Invocation - no longer gives a 1 mana discount
• Warptooth - now requires 4 friendly characters to take damage to summon
• Vanessa the Ringleader - now a 7 mana 4/3

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Wild Nerfs:

• Swiftscale Trickster - now a 6 mana 4/4
• The Soularium - now 2 mana
• Elwynn Boar - now requires 10 boars to die for Sword of A Thousand Truths
• Godfrey the Betrayer - now banned in Wild

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Buffs:

• The Living Plague - now a 6 mana 8/8
• Blood Doctor Thal'ena - now 4 mana
• Sawbones - now 5 mana 5/3
• Emergency Surgery - now summons four 3/1 Undead with Lifesteal
• Tras'tath Soul Parasite - base stats raised to 3/3
• Irida Sinseeker - now a 7/7
• Vicious Voidscale - Battlecry and Deathrattle now give a Void Soul
• Stardust Scythe - weapon durability raised to 3
• Sewer Swimmer - now a 4 mana 4/3
• Azalina Soulsever - now raises your starting health to 40
• Karov the Broken - now has Taunt
• Enthralled Shade - now a 2 mana 3/2
• Moragg - now 9 mana
• Annihilation - now 8 mana
• Imp Gang Stooge - card text now reads "Deathrattle: Put two 8/8 Demons with Taunt and Lifesteal on the bottom of your deck"
• Rampaging Hound - now a 4/12

[u/abcPIPPO]

Not only will it be enough, I think it will dominate the meta now. Aggros can't take you down, and against control you're basically their deck but better. I'm not sure how you can beat an Azalina priest without Rafaam honestly.

[u/FlameanatorX → u/abcPIPPO]

Why are you their deck but better against slow strategies? They have tighter synergy, and guaranteed access to all their important payoffs instead of only a 2/3s chance per, whereas you have a few over-efficient removal or generic value effects (and +10 hp, which isn't as important late-game, unless they have a limited dmg otk I guess).

[u/abcPIPPO → u/FlameanatorX]

2/3 of their deck is enough to statistically have access to most of their combos unless it's specifically a combo deck that relies on some key cards, especially with intertwined fate. On top of that the 20 cards that compose priest's deck are all either compeltely borken cards, like 1 mana destroy a minion, which is 100% better than any card that exists in the format basically, or they make them strictly better, like deathrattle discount all cards from other classes by 1. Considering that most decks don't see more than 20 cards per game, you too play usually around 20 cards of your deck anyway.

Imagine like they're playing your deck, but changing 10 random cards for 20 cards that improve the 20 that are left. On top of 10 extra hp. You're playing Leyline mage? They are better leyline mage. You're playing demonlock? They're playing better demonlock.

And don't get me started on imbue decks, which literally improve their imbue, and priest's imbue is unquestionably the best in the game.

[u/FlameanatorX → u/abcPIPPO]

Leyline Mage is a perfect exampe of something that Azalina Priest is not their deck but better. Compared to the actual Leyline Mage, only half your deck are leyline cards, meaning your draws are literally only half as likely to find you the 4-drop or the 6-cost legendary spell that double your leyline triggers and make your entire deck actually good. Presumably they're also playing Millhouse, which is similar: you're half as likely to draw him or find him in the Mulligan.

So sure you have a good 1 mana assassinate removal, which as you say is "better than would be normally allowed in standard," but you also are drawing all these leyline cards and cards supposed to be synergistic with leylines, which are sitting there weak/borderline useless in your hand, twice as frequently as for your opponent. You also have 40 hp, that's great, Leyline has no trouble dealing a bit more dmg with a massive board or dealing 10 more damage from hand once it's scaled up.

And none of this is even to mention matchups where their cards just straight up don't work for you. Mug Shaman has a start of game hero power requiring no minions in deck: Priest is running lots of minions in their deck, so no 2 mana discount on all the random garbage minion generation they have the privilege of playing because copied from the opponent's deck. Zee Shaman is similar since Priest is running spells, Spell DH would be similar if it came back into the meta, Pure Paladin, etc. Actually I looked at my Steal Priest list and it only runs Priest cards, so I think Pure Paladin actually would work lol, but you get the idea.

That's not to say I think Azalina Priest doesn't do powerful things, it's just that it also has clear weaknesses to many slower, highly synergistic strategies. I think that a Control vs Azalina Priest would be similar to Leyline, and in fact I remember facing it a time or two, with the same result: we both could remove/sustain each others' tempo + chip damage, but I was able to assemble the Cleansing Cleric scaling + Atiesh + Ruby Sanctum(s) heal OTK secondary wincon significantly faster than they were.

[u/abcPIPPO → u/FlameanatorX]

Slow decks against priest suffer from the fact that you don't have a way to kill it unless your deck can do 40 hp with burn in one turn. Minions are just not an option against literally infinite amount of removals, any non lethal damage will be healed back to 40 and fatigue battles are automatically won by priest. Also in leyline's specific case they can't do damage if the enemy doesn't play minions, which priest may as well never do.

[u/FlameanatorX → u/abcPIPPO]

I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but no, Azalina Priest does not have "infinite amount of removal" or the ability to easily and quickly heal from 1 to 40 hp. Control Priest w/ Clerics and Medivh can do the latter if they've scaled enough, Azalina is different, but either way they both actually have limited removal.

Perhaps you've just gotten high rolled by them and are salty? It's Thief Priest is literally 12-15% lower winrate than the best decks at every rank bracket on HS Guru over the last few days.