Evaluating some of the balance changes for 3.17

[Inevitable]

Its been roughly 6 months ago that the balance changes for 3.17 have been announced, now seems like a good time to evaluate some of these changes. I personally believe some nerfs went too far and others were spot on, so here goes. This is all my personal opinion, but I think many will agree on most of these. Feel free to discuss below.

Hunter's Gambit
Seems spot on as it only affected Victor. Was one of the only ways to effectively hurt Fat Vic.

Anmor's Call
Sees signifcantly less usage, but was probably too strong in its old form. fair nerf.

Overwhelm
With the above two cards nerfing the WC Fat Vic, I really don´t understand why this card also required a nerf. Already saw little use outside of Fat Vic and is now rendered useless. Would love to see this reverted to its old form.

Spirit Shuriken
Tough case. May or may not deserve a nerf. I personally feel that with Gambit and Anmor´s call nerfing fat Vic, this card could have been reevaluated before nerfing it.

Sorcerer of Endia
Seems like it got the same treatment as Vermin because of the same onsummon ability. Is that fair though? Vermin is a staple in shadow decks, but Endia certainly never was for humans. Was nerfed to endorse decks that required more items. The result? More stall and no new creative concepts to be seen. 4/4 to 3/5 is okay I guess.

Rapacious Vermin
Nerf didn't promote new deck concepts that required the use of 3 items/abilities. Gave some struggling shadow classes a better way to deal with abilities/items. I feel a reevaluation is required.


Those were some of the main cards that stood out to me. Feel free to discuss these or others from this thread down below.
http://www.shadowera.com/showthread....anges-for-3-17

[AmberFade]

Mostly agree with you, except your assesment on Gambit.

Hunter's Gambit - While it undoubedly hurt Fat Vic, the main victim of that nerf were slim Vic decks who have been well balanced before. Fat Vic can still throw in alot of different draw sources in like TH, TO and WotF. 40 Card vic however is now extremely inconsistent what results in no one playing those kinds of builds competitively or in high rating QM. So while this nerf hurt Fat Vic too, Fat Vic is now the only viable Vic build. Bad balancing in a nutshell.

Spirit Shuriken - As Predicted awfull nerf. Buffed decks with the wincondition of dropping fatty after fatty and had an overall negative impact on the meta, especially because it badly hurt Serena.

SoE/Vermin - Nerf proposed by people living in lala-land. As me and many other players predicted there have been 0 new deck concepts that have been "hold back" by those overwhelming cards. Now we have QM full with NPE Decks like Millpraxix what leads to less and less people actually playing. Good job there, not only did that nerf hurt many well balanced decks, it also hurt the game as a whole, nice one.

Exaltion - Made Elementalis not rly worth playing since most Human decks do his job better now. I understand that this nerf was aimed at MW Prax, but removing Steadfast actually hurt Elementalis way more than him.

Agree with you on Anmor and Overwhelm. Actually an Anmor nerf was all that needed to get rid of Anmor Vic if it have been done properly.

Instead Wulven decided to nerf everything that made the deck good, what ended up hurting many other well balanced decks.

[Wimbled]

Spirit Shuriken
Tough case. May or may not deserve a nerf. I personally feel that with Gambit and Anmor´s call nerfing fat Vic, this card could have been reevaluated before nerfing it.

It's one of the most underrated cards ATM. I think that it's still great, just a bit more balanced. In it's old form it had a bad effect on the game, hunters and rogues are among the best classes in any case so I don't see why it should be changed back. I always run it with Serena, Garth & company.

BTW the old Shuriken made heroes like GB unplayable.. They are still bad, I don't see the reason to cut them out completely again. Fatty roll definitely isn't op IMO.

And this isn't about nerfing only one hero: BB and Badu are still the best heroes probably, Ythan is very strong, all rogues are very strong, Gwen and Vic still competitive, Vox is good if you can play him... They definitely aren't among the classes that should be buffed. I think that the changes should effect mostly the heroes that rarely see play: this kind of change would just make them even more unplayable. AB is the best weapon in the game, rogues really don't need to have a buffed Shuri again, definitely wouldn't make the game more balanced.

Agree with you about Vermin and Sorcerer, would be nice to have them back in their old form.

[qwertzy]

All good except overwhelm.

[dejvo]

Well, Gambit change didn't only kill fat Vic, it was huge buff for Bane, Badu and Gwen partially and is one of the reasons Karash is gone. Now hunters dominate meta and slim Vic is T2
I think vermin and sorcerer nerfs were the biggest mistakes changing meta to stall cancer, thank you very much.
Overwhelm change was needless

[Kylt]

When you talk about gambit in Vic you can't ignore the impact of General's seek. I'd argue that General was what caused the hatred.
If General weren't able to bring gambits from the deck, Vic would have been forced to go with 40 deck.

[Veles]

Love Vermin/Sorcerer change. I can finally play wacky decks that would not be possible with those being in every midrange deck out there

[Veles]

Been messing a bit with some of the nerfed cards today. I am starting to think that with addition of some more cheap neutral wulven allies with possibly some better utility than current ones and some cool new attachments for control, a Lakmire/Anmors Call/Overwhelm deck will be possible to make. It may even be now.

Testing so far the cantrip from Overwhelm is being missed a lot, but I really think that it is more balanced now considering it is neutral card with potential of one sided board clear.

[mindy]

overwhelm can be still used for decks like human homunculus and in those deck it can be very op so the nerf was good. it is a one side supernova. vermin and endia nerf was good because i still use them and they help me win. sometimes u wait for the right time to remove enrage or full moon and kill to win. just because you can not abuse them anymore does not mean they are not good. learn to play more smart like destroy one ability or item at correct time to ruin your enemy. in card games surprise tactic is your best weapon. spirit shuriken was not a nerf just a change.

[jacelkos]

I think vermin and sorcerer nerfs were the biggest mistakes changing meta to stall cancer, thank you very much.

I agree with this.
No one enjoys playing against stall decks. Period.
You might enjoy playing it, but sitting on the other side is just painful.

Please, please, find a way to get rid of them in QM. It's seriously ruining the players / customers experience and driving people out of the game.

As a side note, I could of course play decks that handle stall decks. I did it for a while, but can't take the lack of variety.
Trying to allow items-heavy decks to be playable by nerfing Vermin was a worthy goal, but in it end I think that it actually reduced the viable options because of the number of stall decks out there.

I actually think that a more definitive way to kill stall in QM is needed. Not only a couple cards, but a game limitation / mechanic that will get rid of it permanently. This is, I believe, needed to remove the NPE aspect and have a healthier customer base.

Just my 2 cents.