Hearthstone: Balance Update May 22, Rogue nerfed

After evaluating game data and working internally as well as getting external feedback on the most popular decks in the current meta, Blizzard decided to tweak the strength of some Rogue decks along with the Archivist Elysiana card. Here are the changes that will roll out on May 22.

Blizzard decided to focus on Rogue in this update because the most popular decks in the meta revolve around this class. Currently, if you want to create a strong deck to confront Rogue, you only have one option: Warrior. However, if you compare Rogue with Warrior, you will see that Warrior has more counters, making it difficult for him to surpass Rogue in the current meta.

Of course, the game also has other strong and popular decks (like Token Druid, Conjurer Mage and Mech Hunter), Blizzard decided not to fix them in this update because they have many different counters. If any of the decks above stand out as a new strategy, there are plenty of decks to counter them, allowing the meta to continue to change.

Change the leaves

EVIL Miscreant – Now has 4 health left (down from 5)

EVIL Miscreant is considered a card that creates value for later turns, but having up to 5 Health for this minion means that Rogue players don’t sacrifice much to prepare for the next turns. Hopefully EVIL Miscreant will continue to be a great choice for Rogue decks, it’s just that its power will be more balanced with the other cards.

Raiding Party – Now costs 4 mana. (Up from 3)

Rogue already has strong draw cards, so one more option makes Rogue games too similar, not interesting anymore. Blizzard made this change to bring the strength of this draw card back to its correct group.

Preparation – The next spell you use this turn costs less (2) Mana

All changes in Basic and Classic sets to ensure Hearthstone can live healthy in the long run. Preparation is currently considered a strong card and appears in most Rogue archetype decks. As you can see, Blizzard decided to make a small change to Preparation. Although the team didn’t want the card’s power to decrease, they still thought Preparation was a reasonable choice, as it suits the Rogue class in general.

Preparation is usually used to reduce the Mana cost of cards like Sap or Eviscerate, and they stay the same. Reducing the mana cost of your next spell by 2 instead of 3, allowing the team to design higher mana cost Rogue spells without having to think too much about the balance when they combine with Preparation.

Archivist Elysiana – Now costs 9 mana (up from 8)

The goal is to keep Archivist Elysiana’s power in common use, while minimizing the chance of this card appearing more than once in a game. Shamans can still use Elysiana through Shudderwock, but it’s not as common or annoying as it is in current Control Warrior decks. Now, using Elysiana alongside cards like Baleful Banker or Youthful Brewmaster will become less common.

As usual, when these changes come out, players can dust the change cards to receive the full Arcane Dust for the first two weeks.