Iksar wrote on Twitter that the Hearthstone team is planning to revert a number of old nerfs before the Standard rotation.
Currently, they expect to unnerf 10 cards: five from Wild, four from Year of the Raven, and one from Year of the Dragon.
I’m throwing my hat in the ring and will try to predict the ten cards that the team has chosen!
Year of the Dragon
The one card nerf from Year of the Dragon that will be reverted will be the only one that affects the Standard format. There were a lot of cards nerfed this year, but in choosing what to predict, I approach this from a meta point of view: which class needs help? For Standard, that’s Shaman.
Multiple Shaman cards were nerfed: Sludge Slurper, Mogu Fleshshaper, and the whole Galakrond synergy package. Which one to revert?
With Mutate still around, I think the boost will come in the form of returning Sludge Slurper to 2/1 stats from its current 1/1 stat line. This will help Shaman contest the board better in the early game, and the change will help all Shaman archetypes.
Year of the Raven
Four nerfs reverted? Seriously? From a year where only six cards were nerfed in the first place!
Dr. Boom Mad Genius, Extra Arms, Reckless Experimenter, Raiding Party, Giggling Inventor, and Luna’s Pocket Galaxy are the only Year of the Raven cards that were nerfed.
Now, these buffs will touch the Wild format, so I expect support for classes that are not doing too well there: Priest, Druid, Hunter, Rogue, and Warrior.
With those picks, I’d assume that the class cards for those classes will be buffed:
- Dr. Boom, Mad Genius from 9 mana back to 7 mana to buff slower Warrior decks
- Extra Arms from 3 mana back to 2 mana to buff Priest
- Reckless Experimenter back to making minions free now that Echo minions have their own limitations, thus making Mecha’thun an option again
- Raiding Party from 4 mana back to 3 mana to improve Pirate Rogue
Wild cards
The potential revert pool in Wild is a fair bit bigger, but I’ll continue with the assumption that the weaker classes will receive the buffs.
Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End was nerfed to stop casting spells when it dies. No more board clear followed by a newly generated board! With Puzzle-Box of Yogg-Saron already in Standard format, there is no reason to keep Yogg weak. Let the randomness begin!
Lesser Emerald Spellstone was nerfed to 6 mana and Call of the Wild to 9 mana to limit the power of Hunter in Standard. There are no similar issues in Wild, so they can easily be reverted to 5 mana and 8 mana to buff up Wild Hunter a little.
Spiteful Summoner was nerfed to 7 mana because the pool of 10-drops in Standard was so strong. This is not an issue in Wild, and Spiteful Druid can have its 6-mana minion back.
Druid can also receive a survivability buff with a 5-mana Spreading Plague. Yes, I’m serious. Spreading Plague was brokenly good back in the day, but the power level has increased since. Spreading Plague was also one of Iksar’s favorite cards, so now that he has a chance to unnerf it, why not?
We will get to know the final list in the coming weeks, but these are my predictions!
You can also check out my predictions on video if you enjoy that format better: