The Patch According to Discord: 0.27.0
Introduction
Welcome to the inaugural Patch According to Discord post. Like the Meta According to Discord, this is a crowdsourced endeavour from various players of mostly a fairly high level; thanks to everyone who filled out my survey.
How It Works
In the top row of the banner, the green plus indicates someone said it was buffed; a yellow dot, situational; a red minus, nerfed.
For the rest, the bars indicate how impactful the change was considered on a scale from 0-3.
I asked respondents to rate changes that weren’t clearly direct buffs on a three point “scale”: “Buffed”, “Nerfed”, or “Situational”, and requested a comment (especially for “situational” responses).
For the buffed cards, I asked respondents to rate the changes on a four point scale from “Not Impactful” to “Impactful”, without providing an explicit frame of reference but with the presumption (that seems to have been followed) that rating it as 1/4 implied the change did effectively nothing. To get an overall assessment, I took the mean of the responses – I’m not entirely happy with it as a representation, so I’ve included the median and mode in the breakdowns. The average felt too easily dragged down by one or two doom-and-gloomers awarding low scores to everything with little to no explanation.
For the faction standings, I asked players to rank the factions from best to worst, allowing ties if they felt they were equivalent. I then averaged the rank assigned to each faction and ranked the average. There are other ways of interpreting the data, which might produce different results, but this is close enough.
Faction Standings
- Lyonar (by a country mile)
- Songhai, Magmar (small margin favouring Magmar)
- Vanar, Abyssian (tiny margin favouring Vanar)
- Vetruvian (by a country mile)
Breakdown
Reworks
Divine Bond
3 mana spell: “Give a minion +Attack equal to its Health” -> 2 mana spell: “Set a minion’s Attack equal to its Health”
Bond is overwhelmingly considered nerfed. Comments range from “deleted from the game” to “its main strength was for burst [and now it’s much worse at that]”. The minor upsides noted are that it can be used defensively to reduce, say, a 5/1 to a 1/1, and the lower price does make it easier to play as a pre-buff, but that’s all.
Overall: Overwhelmingly Nerfed.
Syzygy
4 mana spell: “Give an allied minion +0/+3, another +3/+0, and another Blast this turn” -> 3 mana spell: “Give an allied minion +0/+2, another +2/+0, and another Blast this turn”
Every respondent had an opinion on every card… except Syzygy, which two people opted to skip.
Buffed: Blast is the most powerful effect on the card and making it cheaper to access that outweighs the stat loss, especially in terms of being able to play it less clumsily.
Situational: It’s easier to fit in efficiently, but going from +3 Attack to +2 Attack means missing damage breakpoints and losing potential to clear.
Nerfed: Its direct impact is reduced, despite the fact that it needs a pre-existing board to be useful anyway.
Overall: Situational (Positive)
Plasma Storm
5 mana spell: “Destroy minions with 3 or less Attack” -> 4 mana spell: “Destroy minions with 2 or less Attack”
Buffed: The combo with Metamorphosis and the move to 4 mana taking it out of competition with Metamorphosis and Spirit Harvester in the 5 mana AoE slot.
Situational: It’s substantially less effective as a board clear, but as before, no longer competes with other powerful 5 mana clears. It may have potential as a tech card for something like an Obelysk hate deck.
Nerfed: The Attack threshold drop makes it miss many early game targets, especially Lady Locke boards or boards buffed with Primus Fist.
Overall: Situational (Negative)
Silithar Elder
7 mana 8/8: “At the end of your turn, summon an Egg of this on a random nearby space” -> 7 mana 8/8: “At the end of your turn, summon an Egg of this behind it”
Buffed: Generally speaking, you’ll be on your side of the board (except perhaps against Vanar), and generally speaking, you want the egg to be further away from your opponent. Also means you can play the Elder anticipating the egg spawn, instead of having to pray you don’t get a specific unlucky spawn.
Situational: The only comment on it being situational was that this does make it a bad move to play the Elder against the wall or in front of a minion.
Nerfed: crickets
Overall: Overwhelmingly Buffed
Buffs
Cyclone Mask
4 mana artifact: “Your General has Ranged” -> 3 mana artifact: “Your General has Ranged”
Most people (21/23, in fact) rated this as a 1 or 2, citing that although the change may make the card substantially better, it’s still unplayable by dint of the current meta and lack of support for the archetype.
Average rating: 1.8, “Not Impactful” (Median 2, Mode 2)
Hamon Bladeseeker
5 mana 8/8: “At the start of your turn, deal 2 damage to your General” -> 5 mana 8/8: “At the start of your turn, deal 1 damage to your General”
Hamon’s buff had a spread of opinions, but most of the commentary focused on a similar problem to Cyclone Mask: Although the buff makes the card stronger, perhaps even substantially stronger, the 2 damage wasn’t the reason the card wasn’t played. When it is played, it’ll be stronger (leading to the evaluations as an impactful change), but it’s unlikely to make it played much more (leading to the evaluations as not very impactful).
Average rating: 2.3, “Not Very Impactful” (Median 2, Mode 2)
Panddo (Onyx Bear Seal)
3 mana spell: “Transform a minion into a [0/2] Panddo [that cannot be attacked]” -> 3 mana spell: “Transform a minion into a [0/1] Panddo [that cannot be attacked]”
Once again, a Songhai buff that received mixed reviews due almost entirely to the fact that although it makes the card better, it is unlikely to make it played more. Decks that want to play OBS may not want to play Ghost Lightning, which is the only spell practically affected by the change.
The comments from the people rating it as Impactful make me inclined to evaluate it lower than the actual average rating.
Average rating: 1.9, “Not Impactful” (Median 2, Mode 1)
Sand Howler
4 mana 3/4 “Nearby enemies have -1/-0” -> 4 mana 4/4 “Nearby enemies have -1/-0”
Sand Howler received mixed reviews landing it perfectly halfway between the options (despite the fact that I specifically avoided allowing people to sit on the fence…). Comments from those considering the buff impactful lean on its resilience as a minion (it’s hard to remove by hitting it, all things considered), while those on the other side think it’s still suffering from being a low impact play.
Ironically, this would have been a substantial buff against Plasma Storm and Nightsorrow Assassin, but neither of those kills 3 Attack minions any more.
Average rating: 2.5, “Somewhat Impactful” (Median 2, Mode 2)
Abyssal Juggernaut
4 mana 3/5 “When this damages an enemy minion, create a Shadow Creep tile on that space.” -> 4 mana 4/4 “When this damages an enemy, create a Shadow Creep tile on that space.”
Abyssal Juggernaut’s change received polarised reviews. Also, I realise now that I probably should have considered putting this up as a rework, not a buff.
Criticisms mostly revolved around how much more fragile 4 Health is than 5 Health (dying to a General attack + 2 damage, and to several common early game minions), while people anticipating an impact mainly noted the potential for a surprising amount of damage over time and the ability to threaten or directly deal massive damage with Shadow Nova, without having to cast it directly on the enemy General.
Average rating: 2.5, “Somewhat Impactful” (Median 2, Mode 2)
Mesmerize
2 mana spell: “Deal 2 damage to enemy minions on a row and Stun them” -> 2 mana spell: “Deal 2 damage to enemies on a row and Stun them if they are minions”
Similarly to Juggernaut, Mesmerize had a polarized reaction. The negative side revolved around adding limited extra utility, while the positive side revolved around that limited extra utility being exactly what it needed to push it into viability, as an anti-Jax tool or just a burn tool
Average rating: 2.5, “Somewhat Impactful” (Median 3, Mode 3)
Spirit of the Wild
4 mana spell: “Activate allied minions on your opponent’s starting side of the battlefield” -> 4 mana spell: “Activate allied units on your opponent’s starting side of the battlefield”
Spirit of the Wild was mostly well-received, revealing a potential flaw in my rating system, since it still averaged not-that-high. (Spoiler, which you’ve already seen from the infographic: it rated highest.)
A lot of people pointed out its potential with Snowpiercer, combining with the Mesmerise change to offer a substantial boost to Aggro Vanar. Less favourable commentary, where it existed, focused on the difficulty of maintaining the board presence, especially on your opponent’s side, to make it useful.
Average rating: 2.9, “Somewhat Impactful” (Median 3, Mode 4)
Piercing Mantis
2 mana 2/2 Frenzy -> 2 mana 1/3 Frenzy
Most people felt that the beige bug is still too weak to really see play, especially competing with the stacked neutral 2 drop field.
Average rating: 1.8, “Not Impactful” (Median 1.5, Mode 1)
War Talon
6 mana 8/6 “When this attacks an enemy minion, deal excess damage dealt to the enemy General” -> 6 mana 8/6 “When this attacks or counterattacks an enemy minion, deal excess damage dealt to the enemy General”
Most people apparently forgot this changed, since it mistakenly went out last patch. Nevertheless, War Talon is relatively squishy for its cost, and 6+ cost minions really want to do something when they’re played, not just die to removal. It is much more dangerous to clear with the board, of course, but compares unfavourably to something like a Spectral Revenant or even a Storm Elyx.
Average rating: 1.6, “Not Impactful” (Median 1, Mode 1)
Acknowledgements
Thanks to all the people who contributed:
| . | . | . | . | . |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| plzfixmatchmaking | Niklaren | Dragall | Jay | Kopiuyt |
| calvin | Stephanie | Ferocca | Navy Seagull (who asked for a shoutout to the manga Helck :thonk:) | Smarty |
| Grincherz | GoblinWarBuggy | Decoy | Daniel | Cranky |
| Coats | DeusAmoeba | ZeroUnderscoreOu | <- click that link at your own peril | I warned you |
And the four respondents who chose to remain anonymous.
Harvester Jumpscare
Did you find the Spirit Harvester?