r/CompetitiveHS • u/sneakyxxrocket • 5d ago
Discussion Nerf Teasers for balance patch tomorrow 10/1/2026
Link to Twitter announcement:
https://x.com/playhearthstone/status/2105402313581945289?s=46&t=_QDfYE7HlPQG5AYZLF-WKw
Warriors WindPeak Wyrm and Druids Infest the scullery being nerfed.
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u/magicaldesks 5d ago
Predictions:
5/6 or 5/5 Wyrm, they're not gonna ruin the Slitherdrake -> Wyrm curve.
6 mana Scullery, I think revert to summon one is way too weak so they'll up the mana cost by one instead.
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u/burnedsmores 5d ago
I’m betting instead it’s Wyrm damage/armor down -1 (or -2 if they’re not complete cowards)
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u/HatefulEchoes 5d ago
Look a man can dream the nightmare duo of Prescient on 4 into Windpeak on 5 will be dead and buried
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u/MarthePryde 5d ago edited 5d ago
I don't know how I feel about Infest The Scullery being nerfed. D5 to legend is entirely a rock, paper, scissors between Warrior, Priest and Warlock. Infest is a strong card don't get me wrong, and early on in the patch it certainly felt like we traded one "summon two random idiots" card for another, but at this point Druid is entirely gone from the climb. Is this another Hearthstone Upper Society nerf?
As for Wyrm, sure. It's not lost on me that we nerfed all the good decks so we cycled back around to Dragon Warrior, but the aforementioned tri-partite matchup on the climb has been miserable. On the one hand I laugh because we're only here because we killed the good decks, on the other hand I'm so tired of the D5 ladder.
So overall idk. Whatever man. Wish we didn't get to this point I guess, Dragon Warrior being good is a recession indicator.
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u/epok3p0k 5d ago
I feel like I breezed through D5 to legend with Druid this month…
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u/MarthePryde 5d ago
It's definitely a strong deck, and if it was earlier in the month I can easily see the deck playing well into the post-nerf field. Not saying it isn't strong
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u/philzy101 5d ago
I reached legend at the start of last season with Attack Druid and the meta has not really refined itself more since the new cards except some extra combo/scam with Warlocks. My personal opinion is that Scullery is a tricky one, too strong and an early Spiderling can lead to some frustrating dump a load of stats on board on turn 4 - 5. However, Scullery at times is also one of the weaker cards to have early on... Therefore I do not know the meta solution. I hope that whatever they do that it is a light nerf, a 1 mana increase rather than for example a buff reversion. If it is the latter T5 will effectively kill Attack Druid and I guess people will try to move a bit back towards Merithra Druid if they want to play Druid.
As for Wyrm, I think Dragon Warrior is fine as is (probaly will get hate for this) so I am not sure they need to change anything... I hope this is a light nerf. Sadly this is probably a nerf aimed at satisfying the lower MMR players who see more Dragon Pirate Warrior on ladder because it is a more simpler deck to play with a lower skill expression (go as hard as you can for the face and hope to win). If I try to go beyond this point, maybe they are also worried about the synergy it has with Brassknuckle Brawler as a form of late game burst? However, who knows, will wait to see what the comments are and explanation to why they are making the changes they are.
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u/blazhin 4d ago
But isn't Druid 15% of the meta even at diamond through legend (even more in legend)? Not sure I got your "entirely gone" point correctly though. And it's the second best deck overall, which has no bad matchups and slightly falls off only in high legend, so the second nerf seems ok. I have no idea if scullery is the right card to nerf though
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u/TheGingerNinga 5d ago
Not bad nerfs, I would have probably targeted Broodkeeper if I wanted to nerf Warrior as it's typically one of the most impactful cards in the mulligan.
But man do I not have confidence in this upcoming meta pre-expansion. Really wish they would just do some risky buffs to proven underperforms (herald DK/DH, Mage, Paladin, Hunter) then just revert them if they over perform going into the expansion.
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u/14xjake 5d ago
Dont worry, we will get some buffs to a couple new cards 2 weeks after expansion launch and they will pretend anything from earlier expansions doesnt exist
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u/TheGingerNinga 5d ago
I really do worry that their overshooting of Void DH has dissuaded them from doing buff patches like that again. It would be really terrible for the game.
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u/14xjake 5d ago
I worry too and its honestly ridiculous because if they overshoot again they can just nerf again, the argument that they dont want to give out free dust doesnt even work because they are so nerf happy they clearly do not care whatsoever about the free dust, they are just scared of angry redditors
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u/Jackwraith 5d ago
The morbidly hilarious thing is that the meta was already shifting against Void Soul DH and the problem was being solved by the time they reverted the buff and the deck returned to only mildly competitive status.
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u/sneakyxxrocket 5d ago edited 5d ago
Pirate warrior will probably end up shitting on anything new and then they’ll nerf hook n heave and the 1 drop 2 weeks into the expansion.
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u/GreatMadWombat 5d ago
Same. It constantly feels like modern hearthstone skips the strength of a virtual tcg vs an online replica of a physical tcg; balance changes aren't a whole big deal so buff and nerfs are casual levers and not great and unthinkable tools that should never be used
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u/Cryten0 5d ago
This is coming off years of mocking Blizzard for constantly chopping and changing meta's. This last year has seen very light touch nerfs compared to previous years.
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u/GreatMadWombat 5d ago
The comment I replied to was talking about how while the nerfs were reasonable they wished blizzard was doing some buffs as well. I was agreeing with that comment and discussing how the ability to do nerfs AND buffs without it being as big a thing compared to a digital copy of a physical TCG was one of Hearthstone's biggest strengths.
A PB&j sandwich is delicious. If somebody serves you a peanut butter sandwich or a jelly sandwich you would be wondering why the sandwich is only half done. If they serve a sandwich with a ginormous amount of either peanut butter or jelly, and a miniscule amount of the other, the sandwich still isn't great.
If blizzard only does nerfs or only buffs(or does a 1 buff/5 nerfs ratio), Hearthstone is skipping the biggest reason to play it over the mobile versions of magic or pokemon
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u/Cryten0 5d ago
Certainly and I agree with your sentiment somewhat. I am just less hard on blizzard when I am not knee deep in the meta and feeling the burnout. They did put some buffs in several patches, but that failed to move the meta outside of druid briefly and void soul demon hunter more extremely.
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u/Glarbleglorbo 5d ago
My biggest gripe is how split every class is, most classes get their 1 cthun card (of which you can run max 3 AND only the class ones are pushed), their 1 assemble card, and then the rest is a control package
When you print 10 control sets (hunter isn’t control), the strongest 2-3 control decks will come out on top and the rest will be pointless to play. This is especially the case since they are all pretty much only built around Nzoth and Cthun as actual finishers with Y’shaarj as an afterthought.
Doesn’t help that the neutral pool is full of utter garbage because they are all in on assemble.
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u/Rocks_Can_Fly 5d ago
Time before new expansion is really not a good time for buffs.
Especially for risky buffs.
They’ve been and are play testing the new coming cards.
And doing it within a certain field.
If you change this field so drastically… not good for a new release.
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u/philzy101 5d ago
I hope that they do not go to hard on either of these cards otherwise there is the risk of the meta becoming narrower just before the new expansion instead of opening up space.
As it stands, there is a fine balance between 3 classes: Druid, Priest and Warrior imo. Other classes and decks exist and perform well but these 3 are the top performers. Sadly a somewhat rock, paper, scissors meta as well since Attack Druid is favoured vs Control Priest, Control Priest favoured vs Dragon Warrior and Dragon Warrior favoured vs Attack Druid.
These nerfs potentially enable classes like Warlock to shoot straight to the top since Dragon Warrior somewhat keeps Herald Warlock at bay. Herald Warlock is favoured vs a number of other strategies and despite there being some skill in management of hand etc. some of the play strategies, particularly combos involving M.O.T.H.E.R, Pig and or Bat Mask combos are less fun to play against, at least for me.
Therefore, in terms of nerfs, if Scullery goes up 1 mana and they slightly reduce the stats of Wyrm, then those sorts of changes are fine. If they go with reverting the buff of Scullery to summon 1 then that card and Attack Druid dies, and Wyrm can only target minions, then that is likely to kill Dragon Warrior.
As a final passing thought, I know there are people who despise these decks, particularly Dragon Warrior, mainly because a lot of its components are old and it is frustrating to lose to aggro by turn 6 - 7. Even if this is true, it is not worth killing a deck to make the meta more narrow. This is something we all need to keep in mind.
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u/Fiarmis 5d ago
control Priest is a meme deck and its 48%wr into dragon warrior lol hsguru
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u/philzy101 5d ago
Azalina Priest I thought was a meme deck too but before you dismiss it allow me to provide two bits of counter evidence:
I had a over 50% WR vs Dragon Warrior with Azalina Priest at ~1k EU and received 11 bonus stars thanks to Azalina Priest this season.
NoHandsGamer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpL4IJtna9s) recently demonstrated that you can do well at even higher MMR with Priest.
Is it the best deck in the game? No, but I think these two points provide a decent counter to your argument.
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u/Fiarmis 5d ago
My comment was about Control Priest, not Azalina. Stat sites track those as separate archetypes, and the 48% vs Dragon Warrior I linked is for Control Priest specifically.
Also, a personal WR around 1k legend and one NoHands video aren't really counter-evidence to aggregate legend data. Small samples swing hard in either direction.
That said, if you meant Azalina all along, I agree: Thief Priest is a Warrior counter(I think it has like 60% WR into Dragon?). It's just not the deck your original comment named.
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u/philzy101 5d ago
I think this is an issue of nomenclature, how you and I label decks. When I say Control Priest, I mean any type of slow playing Priest deck which is non Quest related and aims to win through attrition and not combo. I can see reasoning for why people want to lable Azalina Priest "Thief Priest" since it uses card copied from your opponent and is a way to differentiate between it and other decks; although I struggle to truly think of it as a Thief deck as you do not steal your opponents cards... at least not in standard, Wild is a complete different kettle of fish. Anyway, we clearly are thinking of different decks with Control Priest; Note I didn't check your link but that is because I am not a fan of hsguru which has a million pop ups and ads running around its website.
You are right on small sample size is not necessarily proof. I thought you were dismissing Azalina Priest as a meme which I somewhat treated it as prior to playing it, but that is why I provided some evidence contrary. Anyway, all a mix up of how you and I label decks.
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u/F_Ivanovic 4d ago
The last VS article shows that Thief priest has a 51.6% at top legend and is tied as the 3rd best deck with egg DK (but is a lot more prevalent) - calling it is a meme is laughable even if it was only 48% wr though.
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u/PipAntarctic 4d ago
A bit late of a post but I really wonder why Imp-formants got nothing. This entire deck was a totally safe buff even for a pre-expansion setting, but Blizzard appears to be more than content to have that package suck.
Really makes me hope we never get anything like that again tbh.
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u/Oscredwin 4d ago
It has a bit of a place even if it sucks. The same way everyone ran Viper when DH was 70% of the meta, if the meta gets 70% "draw your whole deck" decks the impformants get VERY good. Imagine if Drake Warlock (draws whole deck by turn 9) was a 60% win rate deck, this would become low tier 2.
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u/Glarbleglorbo 5d ago
Meta will become even more narrow and likely will be pirate shaman vs mug shaman and nothing else.
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u/philzy101 5d ago
Pirate Shaman? In Standard? There is virtually no Pirate synergy / cards in Standard currently for Pirate Shaman. If you mean Pirate Warrior, then that deck loses even harder to control Priest than Dragon Warrior which has at least burn... so the idea of a Pirate Warrior, Mug Shaman meta being dominant is highly unlikely
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u/Glarbleglorbo 5d ago
Quest priest is a 50/50 matchup for pirate warrior and everything that it doesn’t beat, mug shaman beats.
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u/philzy101 5d ago
Not Quest Priest, I was referring to Azalina Priest which I thought was a meme before playing it... but gave me 11 bonus stars this season... Mug Shaman is definitely a decent deck but given Dragon Warrior was unfavoured vs it, the nerf to Dragon Warrior should not improve Mug Shamans WR. Less can be said on changes to Attack Druid.
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