As rumors swirl on the next expansion for digital card game Hearthstone, Blizzard has announced a new patch that will shake up the meta and make it easier for players to climb up the rank ladder.
The current meta is awash with Pirate decks, Aggro Shaman builds, and Jade Golems, and with the new patch, Blizzard will try to address two of these three problems.
Small-Time Buccaneer And Spirit Claws Nerfed
In the official announcement of the upcoming Update 7.1 for Hearthstone, Blizzard revealed that it will be nerfing two overpowered cards that are featured in two of the most dominant decks in the game's Standard format.
The first card that will be affected is Small-Time Buccaneer, a rare neutral minion card from the latest expansion for Hearthstone, Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. The 1-cost, 1/2 Pirate minion gains +2 attack while the player has a weapon equipped. Small-Time Buccaneer is often paired with Patches the Pirate, a 1-cost 1/1 legendary neutral minion with charge from the same expansion that is summoned from the deck directly into play when a Pirate is played, to form the backbone of highly aggressive Pirate decks that are very hard to stop.
Small-Time Buccaneer will now be nerfed to have his health reduced from 2 to 1, which will make it much easier for opponents to answer the early rush of Pirate decks.
The second card that will be nerfed is Spirit Claws, a 1-cost common weapon card with 3 durability for the Shaman class that is acquired through the One Night in Karazhan adventure. The weapon gains +2 attack while the Shaman player controls a minion with spell damage, providing a huge boost to the damage output of the Aggro Shaman decks that have dominated the Standard meta.
The cost of Spirit Claws will be increased to two, which makes the weapon still a potent one for Shaman decks but slows it down to share the same spot as other Shaman turn-two plays such as Maelstrom Portal and Totem Golem.
Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and One Night in Karazhan will continue to be a part of the Standard format after Hearthstone's next expansion is released, which is probably why Blizzard decided to address the power level of these two cards, as they will be around for a long time.
Hearthstone Ranked Play Changes
In Update 7.1, Blizzard will also be making changes to Ranked Play to make the climb up the ranked ladders easier and less tedious for players.
Previously, there exists ranked floors for Rank 20 and Legend, meaning that once players achieved these ranks during the month, they are in no danger of dropping below them no matter how many losses they pile up.
With Update 7.1, additional ranked floors will be added to Rank 15, Rank 10, and Rank 5 so that once players achieve these ranks, they will not be dropping below them until after the monthly Ranked Play season ends.
According to Blizzard, the change was made to foster additional deck experimentation between climbing ranks, as losses from experimental decks will be less punishing than before.
