LogFAQs > #945816959

Interesting changes. My initial take:

Rag: On average one turn later, and less impactful. My first reaction was wow, they nerfed him twice. This is probably not unreasonable if Rag has a good early game, though. If he doesn't, well, guess you die. Badly.
Maiev: Dunno a change was really needed, but it's minor. The stat boost isn't the appeal of Maiev's ability.
Chenvaala: Is still probably trash, but if you can save 12 gold and not have an awful board in the process, this might actually resemble value. That now takes 6 fewer minions. Plus there's some early elemental buffs.
Patchwerk: Oh go put him back to 60 like he began with. It's not like that was ever really overpowered, anyway.
Sindragosa: Is going to be dominant in the early game. The old version was always good for winning turns 3-5. Now those minions might carry over a pinch longer, letting the player tier up faster.
Mukla: We'll need to see how often the big bananas come down, but it's probably not enough to make a bad hero anything other than less bad.

Whirlwind Tempest: On one hand, I'm surprised they removed a minion so early. On the other, the stat buffing capabilities of elementals did make this guy ridiculous. No divine shield in ele's makes them very vulnerable to poison.
Pogo: Rip the memes. Obviously this was meant to hit Jandice, but it does hurt other heroes who are pretty junk otherwise...Shudderwock, Brann 2.0, Aranna.

Selfless Hero to 2: Why? To help everyone pick up tokens on turn 2? I guess in some cases this reduces the likelihood of naturally tripling it, but it's not really that much less likely to get in the late game if you're using it as tech. If the goal is to limit divine shields (see: Whirlwind Tempest) then this doesn't change much.
Deadly Spore to 5: Um, k. Aside from making tier 4 that much more worthless as a landing point, this is actually a bonus. Getting these in your store early on was a pain.
Pirate buffs: pretty minor. If pirates need help, I can't imagine that a buff that is subtly "buff when playing pirates including this one" and giving a throwaway battlecry minion one health really does much.
Party Elemental: Didn't really need help imo. I've heard elementals are weak pre-5, but the 2's and 3's aren't actually bad.
Arcane Assistant: comes closer to being in line with the murloc 4/4.
Executus: basically gets an extra +1/+1. Strangely, this might actually make him playable without elementals. It's very hard to get a controlled buff on an untyped minion. If Iron Sensei exists, I can't imagine this is actually that much worse. Executus was typically the odd man out from the elemental pool, but this makes him a card to actually value, even in a splash build.
Lil Rag to 6: Duh, we knew this was coming.
Gentle Djinni to 5: And obviously one of the 6's was coming down to match. I'm surprised they went with Djinni and not Garr. Djinni is very good at generating value, and is a pretty desirable 5, even with yeti stats.

Elementals overall: Got early game help. Don't think they really needed it. Rag will create ridiculous boards less often, but Nomi was just as bad, and went untouched. I won't be shocked if something is done to limit Nomi. Elementals *might* be less oppressive in the late game, now, or at least not a build you insta-pivot to from picking up a single Rag, but giving them help in the middle turns just means people won't eschew them as a starting build.

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