Written by: Space Monkey and Nydra

Blizzard has just released more information about the upcoming Hearthstone patch. The update will aim to fix not just the problems discussed at BlizzCon but also meta-defining and meta-breaking minion cards in attempt to diversify competition.

In the new patch the following cards are going to be changed:

Argent Commander will become a 4/2 down from a 4/3, a small change urged by the overwhelming use of the Commander in the six drops slot.

Even with his new lowered toughness, however, Argent Commander will remain a top tier minion. He will still trade two for one, but at least now after the divine shield is removed it will be a lot easier to kill him. The lowered toughness is especially beneficial to Druids and Mages who can remove the Divine Shield with their hero power and finish the Commander with Starfall or Blizzard, respectively. Rogues will have easier time with him, too, since he will now die to Backstab and even though he remains in the golden anti-Priest 4-power middle ground, he will be Smite-able after a shield pop.

This is a good change overall but maybe we need another six drop to be buffed a little bit to shift the Commander out of his current place as top finisher for many decks.







​​The toughness of the Shattered Sun Cleric will also be reduced to 2 down from 3 and he will become a 3/2 for 3. The change is designed to make the Cleric easier to kill after he gives his bonus to another minion and be within range for most of the sweepers in the game (Blizzard, Starfall, Consecration and Holy Nova all deal 2 damage). Like the case with the Argent Commander, this nerf will balance out the value of the minions: a 4/3 for 3 is not as strong as 4/4 for 3 but it’s a good bargain still since one part of the card will retain the “charging” 1 damage.

Shattered Sun Cleric will see play even after the patch but maybe some three drops will have the opportunity to shine and he won't be mandatory in every deck ever.

For both Argent Commander and Shattered Sun Cleric some nerf was needed since they really prevailed in the current meta game. Their strength made them obligatory and forced players into choosing cards that they might not necessarily want to play but ones that they have to have because of their value. Making them easier victims to removals should also give control decks a better chance to shine, while not destroying the minion altogether.

While the above changes were expected, it’s surprising to some extent that there are no nerfs coming to the third most widely used neutral minion, Defender of Argus . Although a bit situational in the sense that you need two minions to extract full value out of it, the Defender of Argus is still incredibly strong even if it buffs just one minion and is considered to be the hard-counter to the Warrior go-for-the-face builds.

​Flame Imp ’s battlecry is going to deal 3 damage after the patch (currently it deals only 2 to the Warlock). This change is dictated by the dominance of the Warlock aggro decks in the top tiers.

The one extra damage will hardly remove the Imp from the meta – its stats are untouched and so he remains a 3/2 for 1. What the self-inflicted 3 damage drawback will accomplish is make Warlocks easier to deal with in general as they’re going to pay even more life to accomplish their goal for fast win.

According to Blizzard, they’re keeping a close eye on the Warlocks. Their ability to maintain early board advantage is acknowledged and additional changes might be applied in the future if the strength of the class remains the same.



The dominance of the Warlock aggro build is a growing problem for the competitive scene



Contrary to our expectations for a straight-down nerf (e.g. mana cost increase or toning down the bonuses it gives), Unleash the Hounds will be totally reworked instead. The new version will read: "(4) For each enemy minion summon a 1/1 Hound with Charge".

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This means that with the upcoming patch we will say good bye to the only combo deck in the game: the one-turn-kill Hunter that played a number of low-cost Beasts around T8 and unleashed them for lethal damage. The change was initially planned long ago when OTK Hunter was a meta staple but with it falling out of favor, straight up nerfing Unleash the Hounds made less sense. With that said, the new version is going to add some variety to Hunter decks and it’s somewhat similar to Druid’s Force of Nature.

At first glance, there are several combos that can take advantage of the revised UtH. You'll be able to draw a solid grip of cards when combined with Starving Buzzard, turning it into the anti-aggro version of Divine Favor. You'll have some additional AOE in your deck (think of it as “1 damage to all enemy minions”) with the added bonus of pumping your Scavenging Hyena. It will still be a mid to late-game card because of its mana cost but it will be a more flexible option than the old UtH. As a whole the new version of Unleash the Hounds sounds really fun and the Hunters out there should be happy to play with it and find more potential uses.



Builds like this one will no longer be viable because of the changed Unleash the Hounds

​The changes for Mind Control and Starving Buzzard will stay the same as Blizzard announced at Blizzcon but as the meta has changed since then they, too, deserve a commentary of their own.

Mind Control ’s nerf was necessary back in the days when low-minion control decks ruled the meta and the Priest was a top dog. At T8 the Priest would turn the game around (if he wasn’t already in the advantage) by stealing opponents’ finisher and that made Mind Control a serious problem so raising the mana cost to 10 was somewhat justified.

Nowadays, however, the card (and the class in general) has fallen out of favor in constructed play due to the heavy preference towards aggro decks built around smaller minions so spending 8 mana to steal a minion is no longer good value. Moreover, most of the Priest decks would be dead before T8 anyway, making Mind Control useless even at its current mana cost.

The increased cost will mostly affect the Arena meta where Priest is still a viable class but many writers and professional players consider this to be a bad idea nevertheless. Names like Ek0p and Nyhx have been advocates of making Mind Control a rare and not a basic card and turning Holy Fire into a basic to take its place. This would balance out the class by giving it a strong finisher/removal that’s easily accessible while limiting the chances for facing an Arena player who’s running a Mind Controls galore.



The change to Starving Buzzard is also questionable and that’s mostly because of the revised Unleash the Hounds. Seeing their card draw creature reduced to 2/1 from 2/2 made no difference to the old OTK Hunters since they’d often play Starving Buzzard on the killing turn so the opponent could not take advantage of the lowered toughness.

Future Hunters, however, will be forced to play the Buzzard on earlier turns so that they can extract maximum value over time (like beat-down Hunter decks are doing now) and having the bird at 1 toughness is a big problem. At 2/1, Starving Buzzard is within killing rage of 3 out of 9 hero powers (Druid, Mage and Rogue), making it a very easy prey. He’ll also trade unfavorably with the highly used Argent Squire (ran in almost every aggro deck in the current meta) so getting an early-game value from it will be almost impossible.

Even though card drawing is a powerful mechanic in every CCG, Starving Buzzard still looks weaker than other class-specific 2-drops like Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Argent Protector or Defias Ringleader. Overall, the Hunters will have to either play it in the late-game and use their remaining mana to play Beasts and draw cards, or treat it as a Knife Juggler and invent ways to protect it, e.g. buff it with Hound Master or play it behind a taunter/board controlling secret).

Overall, the changes look good and for the most part they were indeed necessary. The popularity of the buffing minions begged for attention from Blizzard and it's nice to see them being adjusted. This will not fix every problem with competitive Hearthstone, however. The most consistent tournament class in the Mage has received no changes whatsoever and we expect them to be even more dominant, especially with SSC and Argent Crusader now within Blizzard range.

It's also hard to see heavy control decks like Priests coming back into popularity. Even after nerfs, the aggro decks will retain their potency and by the time Priests can clear the board with Holy Nova they will be in too big a disadvantage already. Warriors will continue to have problems because their biggest counter in Defender of Argus is untouched and they still don't have a reliable method to clear the board while maintaining presence. Don't expect to see a completely revamped professional and 3* Master scene post-patch: this might've been a necessary step towards balancing the meta but there's a long way to go still before all classes and builds are made viable.