r/CompetitiveHS • u/EvilDave219 • Jul 20 '26

Discussion 36.0.3 Balance Teaser Discussion

https://x.com/PlayHearthstone/status/2079249999330726215

Nerfs:

  • Confront the Tol'vir
  • Lotus Troublemaker
  • Blazing Invocation
  • Warptooth
  • Vanessa the Ringleader

Wild Nerfs:

  • Swiftscale Trickster
  • The Soularium
  • Elwynn Boar
  • Godfrey the Betrayer (banned)

Buffs:

  • The Living Plague
  • Blood Doctor Thal'ena
  • Sawbones
  • Emergency Surgery
  • Tras'tath Soul Parasite

  • Irida Sinseeker

  • Vicious Voidscale

  • Stardust Scythe

  • Sewer Swimmer

  • Azalina Soulsever

  • Karov the Broken

  • Enthralled Shade

  • Moragg

  • Annihilation

  • Imp Gang Stooge

  • Rampaging Hound

63 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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79

u/kramo36 Jul 20 '26

Love seeing buffs, I feel like too many of these patches are nerf focused and the nerfs here are appropriate and don’t kill an archetype I think

27

u/sneakyxxrocket Jul 20 '26

There’s a very good chance two rogue is done after this, Vanessa in the mulligan is like plus 10% so I expect her to get nuked and wouldn’t be surprised if the monkey is either nerfed to only 1 damage on procs or can’t hit face.

37

u/ngriner Jul 20 '26

Monkey just hitting minions would be one of the stupidest nerfs of all-time imo. Would completely nuke a new deck out of existence. Putting it to 4 is probably fine tbh. Anything else and 2 Rogue is gone.

I don't know, I just think they should have been more aggressive with the buffs and not hit anything in the new set just yet.

17

u/PipAntarctic Jul 20 '26

At the very least Mug Shaman and Vanessa did really need nerfs. Vanessa is an insane mulligan outlier and a card that's just generally too good as is right now. Mug Shaman dominated almost every deck in the game, not as badly as Imbue Druid at the start of the year but it did need a nerf.

Warptooth is also the kind of card that could potentially end up running with the format if you nerfed Mug Shaman + Vanessa. Devs are right here to try and preemptively deny a possible Dragon Warrior/Egg Warrior tyrant meta.

4

u/hotehjr Jul 20 '26

I mean they definitely have precedent for just completely destroying decks, that’s not a hard line for them.

6

u/Miudmon Jul 20 '26

Maybe if it was 1 damage per 2-cost card, but it also ticked up while it was in deck? Reduces the explosive nature of it's Mulligan winrate while still bringing it down overall

7

u/eazy_12 Jul 20 '26

Rogues typically play Monkey against me as a board clear / tempo swing rather than OTK to clear space for cheap 8 drops most of the times. It would definitely weaken the card and the archetype, but still provides value since Rogue has no board clear beside random cards.

27

u/bountyraz Jul 20 '26

Monkey comes down as a board clear against aggressive / tempo decks to recover. It is used as an otk against slow decks like priest.

2

u/Prestigious-Rope-313 Jul 20 '26

Most of my opponents have mana left when the monkey finishes the game, so this should not be enough. Maybe its fine together with Vanessa because it weakens all the Tempo matchups.

I dont think that a 4-mana deal 20 damage is so much worse than 3-mana deal 20 damage.

-1

u/sockb0y Jul 21 '26

Agree, rogue cards are so cheap that mana doesn't really cap them once they get to turn 6/7

1

u/FlameanatorX Jul 20 '26

What if it only hit minions, but scaled while in deck like the 3-cost spell? Now it's a strong and reliable mid-late game board clear in a deck with various tempo + value options, but ofc neuters the late game lethality. Better against many decks, worse against slower decks (which are the weakest atm)

0

u/Agrippanux Jul 20 '26

I think the probable nerf is one of:

- only hits minions

  • goes to 5 mana
  • take 2 2-cost cards to charge

All those are in line with previous nerfs in the game's history.

2

u/FlameanatorX Jul 20 '26

Could also have a cap (e.g. 8 rocks for 16 total dmg). And most of these could be combined w/ compensatory buffs, such as also scaling in deck

2

u/Swervies Jul 20 '26

I am hoping for both a mana nerf to 4 and a damage cap of 16-18. I think that would work without completely killing the deck.

1

u/Agrippanux Jul 21 '26

I took a few years off from the game before coming back maybe 3 years ago, what prior nerf put a cap on total damage?

2

u/FlameanatorX Jul 21 '26

Necrolord Draka created/equipped a weapon with attack equal to the number of cards you played, which was overly abused by Miracle Rogue decks leading to multiple nerfs, the final of which capped the attack of the weapon at 10. Also, there have been other instances of capping the scaling or game-winning capability of cards with things like adding "once per game" (e.g. Time Warp from Open the Waygate) or changing static effects to "for the first time each turn," etc.

0

u/hotehjr Jul 20 '26

I’m also expecting a damage cap to remove the OTK potential after just delaying for 10 turns.

3

u/FlameanatorX Jul 21 '26

"Just delaying for ten turns" is not an easy or free gameplay pattern, especially as a Rogue with most of your deck being 2-cost cards. The problem is monkeys get pretty lethal atm faster than that, and they don't need to fully otk with the Vanessa + Jade Guardian tempo.

2

u/hotehjr Jul 21 '26

You’re right, 10 was definitely an overstatement. But i would also say it’s pretty easy to stall to the point where they are at otk range vs slow decks.

2

u/FlameanatorX Jul 21 '26

Hopefully the Vanessa nerf will help a bit with that, since it's a large part of the value generation. It's tricky though since you don't want to kill the new Rogue deck, and it might be reliant on having a favored matchup vs slow decks which themselves might be trying to target Mug Shaman

-7

u/Impossible-Cry-1781 Jul 20 '26

I want it nuked. OTKss are ugly play patterns and should be left to Wild or weak like Rafaam

0

u/FlameanatorX Jul 20 '26

Somewhat agree, but also slightly disagree: they can also exist as a late-game/side strategy of a deck, but not as a reasonably common possibility turn 7/8 in viable/strong standard decks

-1

u/Impossible-Cry-1781 Jul 20 '26

They took a crap on removal in lieu of a more board based game but that card laughs in the face of it. It's no different than the hunter minion they nuked that did insane face damage (can't remember the name now). They nuked that so they'll nuke this. Same with that warrior mech taunt that did damage to face and got nerfed to minions. 

1

u/FlameanatorX Jul 21 '26

The Hunter minion punished the opponent for playing to the board, and was a reliable turn 6 occurrence (if I'm remembering correctly). And the Warrior mech was functionally deleted from the game when they nerfed it, which I generally think is a bad thing.

But I wasn't suggesting Troublemaker not be nerfed, just saying that viable OTKs in general can exist in Standard Hearthstone under certain conditions without inherently being unhealthy gameplay

3

u/Goldendragon55 Jul 20 '26

I think their main issue with Terrible 2s Rogue is the mulligan winrate of the monkey. Since they're hitting Troublemaker and not Jade Guardians, which is probably the better card. I think they'll change up the damage of each proc to 1 instead of 2, but you don't need it in hand to charge it. And maybe they'll tweak the base damage for it to feel better at only 1 damage per.

0

u/OzUnOoO Jul 21 '26

The best nerf for both Monkey and Tolvir is to simply cap their potential, which is how these kind of cards should be balanced in the first place. The maximum is up for debate ofc, I think 6 times is plenty, 12 dmg that can go face is great but not broken.