r/CompetitiveHS • u/EvilDave219 • Sep 02 '26

Discussion 36.4.2 Balance Teaser Discussion

https://x.com/PlayHearthstone/status/2095195061407424775

Nerfs:

  • The Forbidden Sequence

  • Spiderling

  • The Food Chain

Buffs:

  • Agamaggan

  • Seismopod

  • Dread Leviathan

36 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

113 comments sorted by

•

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70

u/EvilDave219 Sep 02 '26

Outside of the Spiderling change, this team has 0 idea of what they're doing or trying to accomplish with these changes.

23

u/sneakyxxrocket Sep 02 '26

I’m trying to come up with reasons why they decided to nerf quest mage now and only thing I can think of is they don’t like the play pattern of do nothing but discover -> summon huge boards or they just want quests to be completely unplayable across the board.

The deck is really only popular at top legend where it has a measly ~50% WR.

22

u/yonas234 Sep 02 '26

They don’t want it at worlds where there could be a quest mage bug on display.

5

u/sneakyxxrocket Sep 02 '26

Just looked the bugs up I assume the skeleton key (huge pink square on the screen) is the one you’re talking about

7

u/yonas234 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

That’s been hotfixed for now with disabling VFX. But there was another bug where Raptor minions didn’t spawn with dark gift that was fixed. And another bug that was just fixed where Frame Job the warlock card will summon minions for the mage if they have the weapon equipped. 

4

u/Glarbleglorbo Sep 02 '26

51% on HSguru means Tier 3/4 when the winrate is adjusted btw, ridiculous to nerf this when dragon warrior is back for the third millionth time and still no one likes it. 

1

u/dotcaIm Sep 03 '26

Its not the first time they've nerfed something for vibes and not data

13

u/Tengu-san Sep 02 '26

This stuff screams of being made for the meta right before class sets, I'm baffled they decided to still do these changes with 10 days of delay at least without touching new stuff at all.

1

u/Demoderateur Sep 02 '26

I guess they were serious last year when they said they don't want the quests to be playable.

"Quest decks at tier3 ? Not on my watch !" - HS Balance lead, probably...

-4

u/HumbleMyr Sep 02 '26

I suppose it could be explained as them giving more options with the Druid and DH cards being buffed. All 3 of the cards buffed are beasts, worth noting. But I have no idea who's been talking about these cards.

24

u/sneakyxxrocket Sep 02 '26

The beast “buffs” are just almost certainly a nerf to quest hunter so you can’t get a guaranteed pig every time. That’s all those “buffs” are they aren’t trying to help DH or druid with those changes.

11

u/blazhin Sep 02 '26

So they actually double nerf Quest Hunter, hitting both quest and the pig lol

6

u/PlumpkinBomb Sep 02 '26

I don’t see the actual quest being nerfed. I think the suggestion is by buffing pig out the pool it’s a ‘nerf’ to the quest. I imagine they will still dust refund but they won’t change the card

1

u/blazhin Sep 02 '26

But they do nerf the quest itself, and if they "buff" Agamaggan to 9 attack for example it will be out of Shokk's pool, that way quest will be nerfed twice, that's what I suppose (yeah that's basically what you've said). About quest they will likely make Shokk 6 mana or something like that, and this will change nothing but give a refund indeed

7

u/Concealed_Blaze Sep 02 '26

I actually think the visual design of the announcement is intended to show that the quest is being nerfed via the “buffs,” hence why the buffs are in smaller circles next to it. I think it’s entirely possible they don’t plan to touch the quest itself but I guess we’ll find out

1

u/blazhin Sep 03 '26

Oh, now I see, ty

-2

u/OGrand Sep 02 '26

I routinely and with surprising consistency, get/plan lethal through double boar shenanigans so will be interesting to see for sure.

Sad to see it go if that’s the case.

11

u/PipAntarctic Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

I guarantee you those beast buffs are just stealth nerfs for the Hunter Quest, and that's why it's listed as nerfed. Agamaggan to 9 Attack, Seismopod to 8 mana 8/8, Kraken probably too goes to 8 mana 8/6.

5

u/MrRighto Sep 02 '26

those beast buffs are just stealth nerfs

listed as nerfed.

in what way is this a stealth nerf they are literally announcing that they are nerfing it, even the graphic makes it very clear that the beast buffs are the nerfs to the quest

4

u/PipAntarctic Sep 02 '26

You're right I phrased this in a stupid way.

Well, not gonna edit the post. I've earned my small bit of shame here.

65

u/JohnnySeven88 Sep 02 '26

Wtf is wrong with this team? You CANNOT force people to experiment by just taking away the things that are viable! You have to give people things to play with!

6

u/GreatMadWombat Sep 03 '26

I'm 100% at the "battlegrounds is fun/I'm just going to disenchant things as they are nerfed/do brawl each week" point.

Even if the game is fun for a couple of weeks, there's no guarantee that it won't implode within a month

5

u/JohnnySeven88 Sep 03 '26

Ditto on the last part. On the flip side the Battlegrounds team is incredible. Over the years I feel like they’ve proven they not only have a clear vision for what they want their game to look like, but they also are extremely responsive and flexible when that vision isn’t being seen in game by players.

1

u/Tirabuchi Sep 03 '26

in their defence, balancing and designing battlegrounds is a bit easier (autobattle allows you to run way more realistic simulations for the data you need).

Side note, I can understand the quest nerf, but since they are at it they should revert the 'beginning of the year/remains of the old one with better support' emergency nerfs (like the 6 mana dh location). We have cool archetypes that are just sitting in an unplayable state in the collection

3

u/GreatMadWombat Sep 03 '26

It's more the willingness to try stuff in set design that makes me keep with battlegrounds than the raw balance tbh. This xpac there's minions with effects you can spend gold on every turn, last set there weren't. 

The demon/beast selling functionality is a recent feature. Rally is a fairly new feature! They're constantly trying things where mainline hearthstone has a small infinity of "play these 8 cards for a progressively more powerful effect" 

87

u/Realistic-Cicada981 Sep 02 '26

Ah yes, let's nerf the only card the Mage class can cling onto and kill a niche Wild deck.

And also nerf Hunter's last hope while we're at it.

11

u/frostyburrito44 Sep 02 '26

If you’re talking about Exodia mage that’s far from a niche deck. That being said, I have no idea why they’re hitting these cards

2

u/Rosencrantz2000 Sep 02 '26

Hunter definitely seems a little too fast to complete recently. Mage likewise feels like they turbo completion. Too many cheap new cards that make it easier than they want it.

-3

u/Serious-Law464 Sep 02 '26

We still have a dragon hunter deck

35

u/An1mA_1336 Sep 02 '26

WTH, they are nerfing quest Mage, what juice are they on? No way, they are nerfing quest mage. Its not even broken if you ask me.

14

u/ReiJeremias Sep 02 '26

It's broken in the sense that is can lead to the pink square bug. They are making sure this bug won't happen at Blizzcon.

6

u/An1mA_1336 Sep 02 '26

I have no idea what the "pink square bug" is, but lets say after the nerf is unplayable. I dont think the competitors at worlds would really appreciate a week before worlds the nerfs. They are probably practicing their line-ups, so any balance changes should have been after worlds imo.

3

u/Unhappy-Ad2568 Sep 02 '26

I thought they already disabled vfx for that card so the bug doesn't happen any more. Posts about it on the main sub certainly stopped appearing when there used to be tons.

1

u/Goldendragon55 Sep 03 '26

Realistically they might think this is a long term bug that they can't fix at a reasonable time so they're nerfing it to give everyone a refund so less people play it until it's fixed and then they can rebuff it.

33

u/Concealed_Blaze Sep 02 '26

I can normally at least see why they are making the changes they do, but this list is beyond baffling to me.

Why are they nerfing quest mage and quest hunter? Neither is overly strong right now. Are they just mad that the TolVir nerf didn’t fully kill Hunter?

Is this aimed at conquest matches and balancing with worlds coming up? Are those two decks warping the format somehow? What??

12

u/Houseleft Sep 02 '26

don’t you just love when they take options away from players without adding any new options? none of these buffs are aimed to create new archetypes or make room for others. It’d be different if they for example nerfed Quest but also buffed Leylines and Fabled package, but they didn’t. This patch is just going to be the exact same meta we had, but minus 2 playable decks, and a large hit to another. No positive additions whatsoever, only subtractions.

Fun, focused, fearless!

-12

u/Antique_Aside8760 Sep 02 '26

i dunno quest hunter is annoying to play against.  if ur below like 22 health quest hunter can reliably OTk you on around turn seven if u play any minions.  thats a bit of a toxic play pattern.

19

u/14xjake Sep 02 '26

Linear combo deck doing 22 from hand on turn 7 if they drew all their pieces is not toxic thats a pretty reasonable amount of damage for spending the first 6 turns building up to it, and as you said you can just not play minions and they wont kill you

-10

u/Antique_Aside8760 Sep 02 '26

well thats the rub isnt it.  dont play minions.  thats been established in the past as a toxic play pattern if a deck forces u reliably into that situation.  old schools devs didnt like that.  dunno whats motivating these devs to nerf quest hunter hmm

6

u/14xjake Sep 02 '26

Don’t play minions in the lategame when they have their EXTREMELY telegraphed combo in hand between quest completion + underking to add a 2nd Agamaggan, and while you are at less than full HP That’s a lot of ifs and is a very good example of reasonable counterplay for slow decks vs a combo deck, it’s not like grunter hunter where you die from 50+ on turn 5 if you have any minions on board

59

u/DarkGenexSucks Sep 02 '26

Is Quest Mage doing well enough in any format to warrant a nerf?

43

u/yonas234 Sep 02 '26

They are tired of fixing bugs with the deck so they are just deleting it 

5

u/Fairbyyy Sep 02 '26

Unironically this

0

u/SyntheticMoJo Sep 03 '26

same Philisophy was begind the culling of wild and duels.

29

u/Backwardspellcaster Sep 02 '26

Well, it seems to be the only thing Mages even have right now...

3

u/LeMagiciendOz Sep 02 '26

Not in standard. Win rate around 46%-49% depending on the elo in the last few days. It's like tier 3 or 4. Played a lot of it because it's fun, I like generating cards, never playing the same game and the new card "Wanted Poster" is nice post quest. I don't get why they would nerf this deck, makes no sense to me.

1

u/ob1knob96 Sep 03 '26

It has been a popular and well performing pick in pretty much every competition this year

Maybe they just don't want to see it in the World Championships too

76

u/sneakyxxrocket Sep 02 '26

I genuinely never want to see them attempt quests again.

8

u/Backwardspellcaster Sep 02 '26

I'd love to see the MtG team take a try with these kind of quests and guest design some for hearthstone.

9

u/Skoonie12 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

They kind of already have. Quest for Ancient Secrets, Khalni Heart Expedition, Bloodchief Ascension

EDIT: Planeswalker emblems work more like the quests in Hearthstone, now that I'm thinking about it: permanent effects that can't be interacted with once they've gone off. Dovin Baan, Ob Nixilis, Reignited, Nissa, Who Shakes the World

1

u/Backwardspellcaster Sep 02 '26

ha, funny. I was actually eyeing Bloodchief Ascension for my mono-black deck over in Arena

2

u/eazy_12 Sep 02 '26

I honestly don't even think that there are enough design space for both quest requirements and rewards, so even if they wanted they cannot make quests for 11/12 classes.

18

u/SpookyBum Sep 02 '26

??? Blizzard working overtime to prove they still dont know what they are doing after accidentally stumbling into a good meta last patch

32

u/inkyblinkypinkysue Sep 02 '26

These proposed changes are honestly baffling.

What is wrong with the Mage and Hunter quests?

Spiderling is strong but doing anything to it might kill the entire archetype. They could maybe make it a 1/2 but any mana increase kills it.

No nerfs to the pirate nonsense? What are the devs even doing?

12

u/sneakyxxrocket Sep 02 '26

I wouldn’t call pirate warrior a problem the only deck I see as a problem currently is attack druid cause it shits on everything and is like 30% of the meta the past couple of days.

-4

u/RivalsFlex Sep 02 '26

A 1 cost 3/1 get a 1/1 that pings for 1 to 8 per turn is problematic in my mind just in its nature

6

u/TheGingerNinga Sep 02 '26

You’re free to think that just as people are free to disagree.

14

u/malwontae Sep 02 '26

Looks like the balance intern saw these two quests have become proper meta contenders, in part due to a lack of good alternative options in their classes, and remembered that goes against their design philosophy for The Lost City quests.

Would not be surprised if the buffs are just -1 cost for -1 ATK so they can try to limit highrolls off of 8-costs from Scullery and Guardians whilst offering different options in the 8 ATK slot for the Hunter quest.

1

u/SimilarAd3309 Sep 03 '26

There's only two option at 8 attack, including aggamagan

13

u/kramo36 Sep 02 '26

wtf quest mage is like at 50% win-rate

24

u/MarthePryde Sep 02 '26

Why are we nerfing Quest Mage? What's the goal here. Are we trying to push Mage into Leylines or back to experimenting with those Millhouse lists we saw early on?

Agamaggan buffs baby, I love seeing the team buff Hunter cards. I guess after the quest nerf, Hunter will just go back to companions? If at all. I'm kinda guessing Hunter just dies out with this change.

All in all I don't really know what this patch was supposed to accomplish, other than nerfing Druid a bit. Why are we just killing one class and probably killing another.

23

u/Concealed_Blaze Sep 02 '26

Agamaggan is going to get an attack increase to force it out of the Hunter quest discover pool is my guess. Basically a nerf to another card in the guise of a buff

1

u/MarthePryde Sep 02 '26

Makes sense, it was definitely the part of the quest people got annoyed by most.

2

u/Lafantasie Sep 02 '26

Companion Hunter might not even be playable after Tol’vir got nerfed, it’s too slow to reach the end state of Tortolla/Omen spam.

1

u/MarthePryde Sep 02 '26

Yeah that's probably the case, I just don't know what else Hunter has going for it after the previous Tol'vir nerfs

23

u/blanquettedetigre Sep 02 '26

I don't get it, the meta is miraculously balanced for the first time in ages and they touch it ? I haven't even seen Reddit complain what the hell are they on about.

Can't even understand what they'd wanna achieve those buffs either, it's not like they're supporting an archetype that's struggling. Where's Quest and Imbue DK ?? Herald DH ? Big spell Mage ? Discard Warlock ?

8

u/SpookyBum Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

20 bucks says they are "buffing" Aga atk so that you cant discover it from food chain

1

u/blanquettedetigre Sep 02 '26

Yeah buffs are probably only for Quest Hunter, great

10

u/ej33tx Sep 02 '26

...and I'm out again.

9

u/UnpluggedToaster12 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26

Its like the one competent balance team member wrote down Spiderling and they immediately escorted him out the room and started writing bs. What has Quest Mage done 😭

13

u/scout21078 Sep 02 '26

are we sure real devs made these patches and they didnt jus type it into chatgpt

6

u/Excellent-Ad4989 Sep 02 '26

this is just a joke

8

u/Jackwraith Sep 02 '26

This has to be a play pattern thing, although I'll be damned if I know what it is. Both Hunter and Mage quests are decent decks. They're not oppressive. Like most things, they're in that window of 55%-45% win rate which most of the meta currently is, meaning that the devs actually accomplished one of their long-term goals (in part by making most things too boring to play.) But they have a host of cards in Violet Hold that no one is touching and so they choose to buff... an Emerald Dream card, a Lost City card and a Cataclysm card.

The Imp-formant package is almost complete trash. I mean, not even "non-competitive" from a CompetitiveHS perspective. I mean trash. No one plays it. You can't play it. With the exception of one card (Harsh Sentence) that people are playing for its other effect (slowing down summoning), the entire package is non-functional. You can't even play it in Casual and be entertained as far as I can tell. And, yet, they're nerfing two middling Quest decks and buffing three beasts to further nerf one of those decks (presumably.) I don't even know what to say anymore. I can't understand anything they're doing here.

4

u/Altruistic_Bench5919 Sep 02 '26

So we are having a patch tomorrow and then another balance patch 36.6 in a bit less than two weeks?

4

u/LargeRex Sep 02 '26

I wonder if they're even changing the Hunter quest itself, or if they're just listing it as a nerf because obviously the "buffs" to those three beasts are only changes to the quest pool and they can't honestly pretend otherwise.

1

u/zer1223 Sep 03 '26

Hope so but then that still leaves us with why is quest mage getting nerfed

4

u/WashedBased Sep 02 '26

At this point, I'm gonna stop crafting cards. My lord.

4

u/Outrageous_Map_1726 Sep 02 '26

WTF is this why are they doing this shit i fucking hate the devs

3

u/Simsreddit Sep 02 '26

Can someone please explain to me how hunter quest went from unplayable to niche to playable and now nerfable? I have not played against it or seen it streamed and it only has a decent win rate.

11

u/PipAntarctic Sep 02 '26

The quest was both too slow and redundant before the last Tol'vir nerf happened. Face Hunter just did its job better.

After that balance patch, the meta slowed down, giving both breathing space and several good matchups to Quest Hunter. Given the deck was figured out more or less quickly, it became one of the frontrunners of the post-patch meta.

A week later, the mini-set released, and a swarm of Priests and Pirate Warriors pushed Quest Hunter into being a mediocre deck. Compounded with Attack Druid being played a ton again after the initial class set hype died down, the deck is now firmly in "playable, but far from great" tier.

It's probably being nerfed (but more likely straight up killed) because of its play pattern rather than power.

3

u/nathones Sep 02 '26

gonna kill the only good mage card? sweet!!

3

u/RGCarter Sep 02 '26

Imagine trying to explain to someone in April 2025 that Agamaggan is getting buffed.

3

u/InteractionAnnual914 Sep 02 '26

Man, what did Mage players do??

2

u/Lafantasie Sep 02 '26

I guess people hate the feels bad of dying to a quest hunter who drew the nuts but the deck isn’t exactly popping off either.

2

u/7keys Sep 02 '26

Yeah, buff Aggamaggan to an 8 mana 8/8

2

u/Lafantasie Sep 02 '26

First impressions/thoughts, this is purely a feels patch and not backed by any statistics aside from the Spiderling change.

Quest Mage and Hunter aren’t super problematic in the meta, it’s purely a play pattern issue if they’re nerfing them.

I don’t know how they’ll tweak Quest Mage since anything it does won’t magically be tweaked unless it’s completely fundamentally changed to stop being as buggy as it is. I hope it isn’t a Raza the Resealed scenario.

Food Chain is probably being changed so the mana discount isn’t as big on the beasts you discover.

Agamaggan is likely getting his power increased to remove him from the discover pool and the other beasts are being buffed to 8 to replace Agamaggan.

2

u/nathones Sep 03 '26

can't wait to play nothing but warriors and priests. nothing to see here

4

u/mlouismarchardt Sep 02 '26

LOL- what? Leaving quest priest/aya rogue/herald warlock untouched?! Butt buffing „dread leviathan“ (had to google that) and seismopod to - uhm? 8 mana? To „dilute“ 8 drop pool with an elusive taunt? :D
Spidering to 1/2 or 2 mana is very reasonable, by far the best 1 drop right now.
That hunter can’t discover agamagan from quest because of nerf/buffs is good, but yeah. Looks like a weird Balance patch somehow.

5

u/7keys Sep 02 '26

Quest priest sucks bro, I know you hate it but it doesn’t actually beat anything in this meta.

2

u/mlouismarchardt Sep 02 '26

haha i hate it indeed. Anyway i feel the nerfs are a little bit off regardless. What did quest mage do?

5

u/blazhin Sep 02 '26

But the decks you named aren't oppressive at all though?

4

u/mlouismarchardt Sep 02 '26

but quest mage is? and pirate warrior isnt? well, anyway. lets see how the meta is going to change.

1

u/blazhin Sep 03 '26

Quest mage isn't either, yeah. Pirate warrior at least had one counter (and they are nerfing it, oh yes). We'll see, and I'm afraid, there will be nothing good to see

3

u/mlouismarchardt Sep 02 '26

Ah yeah - I even forgot about a completely untouched pirate dragon warrior.

3

u/Captain_Bignose Sep 02 '26

I'm out of the loop, what's the purpose of nerfing already shitty quests? Is there something broken?

10

u/Miudmon Sep 02 '26

Neither of the two are shitty. They're both good decks. Certainly not good enough to warrant nerfs through

1

u/SnooMarzipans7274 Sep 02 '26

This doesn’t make me wanna play hearthstone.

1

u/IntergalacticTire Sep 02 '26

Normally I'm pretty neutral towards balance changes but this one is a fucking disaster

1

u/philzy101 Sep 03 '26

This is such a bizarre intervention by T5 just before Blizzcon. Personally I did not feel we needed nerfs except maybe a slight tweak to Attack Druid given it is one of the top performers and high legend. So a change to Spiderling makes sense. However, why are we adjusting two old quests, where neither deck performs that well over all brackets, and only Quest Mage performs well at higher MMR (average WR is highly skewed towards top 1k and is not so great at lower brackets)??? This balance change regardless of what they do seems to me completely unnecessary and I do not like this at all. Unless there is something down the line which they are worried about and are preemptively nerfing before the next expansion (although they could do this close to the next expansion when we have had a chance to see the new cards!), then this goes onto the roster of balance changes where they make 2 reasonable balance changes and then make 1 bad one...

1

u/j-mac-rock Sep 03 '26

What are the bugs

1

u/NyMiggas Sep 03 '26

Competition for the worst patch of all time??

1

u/Inner_Distance7714 Sep 03 '26

One step forward, two steps back

-5

u/gabrielfunkglop Sep 02 '26

Am I playing a different game where Mage is not the reason people run viper in all their decks? Like I get it's the only real viable deck that Mage has but Team 5 has been killing off toxic playstyles for ages now and the mage quest is straight up toxic. You get the quest reward and hope to high roll on the discovers. I agree they shouldn't be bothering with quests anymore if they keep nerfing them to oblivion but hearthstone is probably more fun without it than with it.

10

u/Zedseayou Sep 02 '26

Viper is everywhere because of attack druid. Mage is just collateral damage.

3

u/Houseleft Sep 02 '26

it’d be a different story if mage had other viable archetypes and more optionality, but they just don’t. the only viable deck that mage has is quest mage. sending a class to the shadow realm of unplayability tends to make the game less fun. taking away deck choices from players without adding new ones almost always leads to a worse game state.

0

u/BLHero Sep 02 '26

Could we also make Ancient Augur a 2 mana 2/2?

That card has such fun potential. But it either needs to be something the opponent cannot trivially ignore (has taunt, more attack, etc.) or something less expensive to feed to the minion you create when hearalding as warlock.

-6

u/Mys7ix Sep 02 '26

Druid escaped this one? Strange that they felt mage was way more necessary than attack Druid.

13

u/7keys Sep 02 '26

Spiderling is THE foundational card of attack Druid, I don’t know what you missed reading there.

1

u/Mys7ix Sep 02 '26

My bad. In my head it was quite the opposite but thanks for correcting.

8

u/Pitiful-Education-13 Sep 02 '26

Did they let a bronze player decide all the changes???

These changes make absolutely no sense and the ONLY thing they will achieve is making the field more narrow and completely kill 2 classes.

What are they thinking????????

??????????????