Hearthstone Balance Change: Warsong Commander Gets Nerfed

In the video (embedded at the top of the page here) he reflects on the fact that Warsong Commander has always been a problem card, and the real mistake the design team made was not removing its charge-granting ability after it caused a previous problem with ludicrous Molten Giant-based one-turn-kills during the game’s beta.

Instead, it’s tempting to turn towards the Grim Patron Warrior’s dominating effect on tournament play for a clue as to why this is happening now. Sometimes, however, it does have to step in and do something, as is the case with the incredibly popular, incredibly cheap Patron Warrior deck that we wrote about in our cheap Hearthstone deck guide.

For the same reasons that have led to previous card nerfs in Hearthstone’s history – a lack of interactivity between players – this behaviour has caught Blizzard‘s concerned attention. This would basically give the player who holds the Warsong Commander and the Grim Patron endless defense and offense and rendering the enemy player useless against its might.

The Patron Warrior deck revolves around a particular combo of cards, namely the Warsong Commander (Gives minions with less than 3 attack Charge) and Grim Patron (Summons a copy of itself when it survives damage). With this, it’s likely we won’t see Patron Warrior hanging around much anymore. Now it reads: “Your Charge minions have +1 Attack”.

Blizzard has announced plans to alter one of Hearthstone’s cards, a move which will in turn drastically reduce the potency of one of the game’s most powerful and established decks. “The direction of gameplay and the metagame should be defined by our players, and as the meta is evolving, many different types of decks can emerge”. Introducing new cards to Hearthstone is our preferred method of changing the current state of the game. We haven’t even mentioned another card in the deck that grows in strength each time a minion takes damage – it’s perhaps superfluous to note at this point. Hearthstone thrives off of stories about enjoying a fast-paced, fun game with friends that’s full of delightful surprises.

Showcasing their hands-off approach to balancing their games Blizzard had this to say in their forum post about the change: “Going forward, we will continue to stand by our stance that we will only make adjustments to cards when we feel it is completely necessary and allow the injection of new cards into the game help our players define what the meta evolves into”.

Edit: The timeframe for this patch is now slated for a few time next week. Grim Patron, a five mana card with three attack and three defence, will spawn another Grim Patron whenever it is damaged but not destroyed.