LogFAQs > #961902832

Wild balance changes have me excited, so I'm going to talk about them

The raid the docks nerf raises the number of pirates of one (all?) of the steps to 3 pirates. So...8 or 9 pirates total that need to be played, instead of 7. I'm assuming 9.

Expected to delete the deck from standard--you will run out of pirates in hand before completing the quest. Wild is a different story, since you get Ancharr in wild to draw 2 more pirates, but you will consistently need to play Ancharr now to complete your quest (no completing the quest on turn 5), and might need to do things like play Mr Smite for quest completion (or alternatively, cut mr smite so you never need to play him for quest completion).

I don't think the deck goes away, and would be surprised if it stops being tier 1. Just...still such a problem for all the old timey wild aggro decks like secret mage and odd paladin--they can't beat the quest reward. Raza priest has also historically struggled to beat the quest reward--one turn delay helps, but it's probably not enough to turn the matchup around. So like...if any of those decks resurface, quest warrior is still going to have massive favourables against those decks.

Rapid shot nerf is big for odd quest hunter, because it was basically like drawing 2 cards. You would put 1 mana deal 1 damage into that deck, so yeah. Costing 2 now means it's deleted from the odd version of the deck. Some people are hyping the non-odd version of the deck, but I've played a Reno quest hunter in wild, and in my experience is that the non-odd version sucks, so I'm not too worried about that. (Like...it has moments--Dragonbane is a hell of a card when you have 0 mana repeatable hero power, but...overall I lose a lot with that deck, in casual so lol, yeah, not worried). Which...basically just leaves odd quest hunter down their best card, with no actual replacement. (They would literally play 1 mana deal 1 damage if it existed, but they're already playing all the 1 mana and all the 3 mana damage cards. Fucking powershot is being played in wild, LOL).

That said, Odd Quest Hunter...might still be just fine. You can run the version that runs all the tradable beasts including Imported Tarantula, and then runs Master's Call to draw three tradeable cards (and sometimes baku, who is a beast). It's a slower version of deck, more focus on card draw, and can't run Auctionmaster Beardo so no surprise kills, but it will still have the same inevitability, and also still be a great anti-secret deck thanks to Flare being good in the deck as a 1 mana draw 1 spell.

Apprentice--so...there's someone on reddit who likes running computer simulations for ignite mage, and according to them, the average turn to kill of ignite mage has only been slowed down only by half a turn:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/s7m3it/leaked_balance_changes_for_222/htb5ed2/

Accounting for ice block (incl. Magister): wins on effective turn 5.71 at 2 mana and turn 6.2 at 4 mana.

Most of the other wild combo mages are largely deleted, of course--nobody is going to be using Drek'thar to pull out sorc apprentices and flamewakers anymore. (Although one other noteworthy mage combo deck that slipped away is quest mage using parrots to get lots of extra turns--keep an eye on that one).

The one thing I will say is that anti-secret tech like flare should be a pretty reliable way for aggro decks to counter ignite mage now.

(The other four balance changes are all for cards that are pretty irrelevant in wild).

So...honestly, despite how big these nerfs look, I don't think any of these decks has actually been deleted in wild. But...still these are not small nerfs, so maybe it's enough to bump these decks down to tier 2 or low tier 1.