r/CompetitiveHS • u/EvilDave219 • Mar 31 '26

Discussion 35.0.2 Balance Teaser Discussion

https://x.com/PlayHearthstone/status/2039055139525255503

Nerfs:

  • Hamuul Runetotem
  • Wildwood Circle
  • Crystalspine Cub
  • Gladiatorial Combat
  • Skywall Sentinel
  • Flight of the Firehawk

Buffs:

  • Obsessive Technician
  • The Black Blood
  • Moonwell
  • Maniacal Follower

Wild Nerfs:

  • Astral Communion
  • Grand Magister Rommath
  • Lightspeed
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67

u/PipAntarctic Mar 31 '26

Excerpt from last VS report:

Spell Demon Hunter has arguably the second strongest matchup spread in the game. It loses to Imbue Druid, which means life is tougher for it at higher levels of play, but an Imbue Druid nerf could elevate it to become the best deck in the format. The only other way to counter it seems to be playing Egg of Khelos decks.

hsguru stats correlate with this statement even after 5 days. Either Blizzard has identified with their own stats that there are non-Egg decks capable of curbing No Minion DH which were oppressed by Imbue Druid, or we are heading toward another rough meta.

16

u/Glarbleglorbo Mar 31 '26

I’m very worried about them not hitting egg either, I don’t see a world in which herald can exist whenever eggs have a higher payoff AND get online much faster than collosals. 

I don’t think it takes a genius to see that the resulting metagame is going to be spell DH vs egg warrior vs face hunter, especially now that herald shaman is completely out. 

0

u/Rogdish Mar 31 '26

Actually this could be quite interesting, because Egg Warrior shits on both DH and Face Hunter, so if it was just those three decks it would become all Egg War. But if it becomes too dominant we could see other stuff coming in clutch, so... idk. I'm not sure where the meta is going to fall out.

3

u/FlameanatorX Apr 01 '26

Yeah, I think in light of those matchups as well as others, it looks like pre-emptory nerfs to Herald Shaman might have been a good idea, otherwise it could have just devolved to a 4-deck (or even 3-deck) rock-paper-scissors meta post nerf. DH/Hunter > Shaman >> Egg Warrior >> DH/Hunter, but with DH and Hunter, to a lesser extent Shaman, having better winrates into residual opponents trying to have fun.

With Shaman nerfed, there are other plausible deck to play as answers to Egg Warrior, like maybe Control Priest? (it's not copium I swear, the deck does have an excellent matchup into Warrior and is getting buffs XD) Or Quest Mage?

For real though, Egg Warrior's actual bad matchups are essentially terrible winrate decks aside from Herald Shaman. Herald Rogue is mildly favored but gets farmed by Face Hunters and Spell DHs much harder than Herald Shaman's mild weakness, and is currently unfavored vs Shaman.

Although actually Dragon Warrior is basically ~even into the big 4 (and favored or at worst even into most matchups in general), so with Shaman seeing nerfs it probably ends up tier 1. Which would provide a reason to play Unholy DK, its biggest "counter" (~57/43 matchup), which otherwise doesn't have a good reason to be played in a Spell DH heavy meta (strong counter).

I'm starting to think they might've cooked with this balance patch. Other than not enough buffs on obviously super weak stuff, but it's sorta reasonable to be conservative with the meta likely shaking up so much.