eSports / patchnotes

Just came back from a week-long absence and I come to this wonderful news. It's really nice to see that Blizzard decided to go all the way with suggestions about the game from their players and BUFFED some unplayable cards! Yep, they are doing it, finally and we will see changes on 18 cards, 2 from each class in the Boomsday Project set. On June 3rd patch we will see some more changes in the game that will come with the upcoming Rise of the Mech Event and on top of that, we will be getting a new Neutral Legendary Mech card, SN1P-SN4P! To get this one (Free and Golden) you just need to login during the event, anytime between June 3rd and July 1st. This card will be considered a part of Boomsday Project. Meaning that it will rotate out at the same time as Boomsday Project set. Even though it is a part of the set you won't be able to pull it in the future Boomsday packs but if you missed this event you can craft the normal version of the card with the normal cost for legendaries of 1600 dust. To talk a bit about how good this card seems. A 3 mana 2/3 Mech that has Magnetic, Echo and Deathrattle to summon two 1/1 Mechs. Just on a first glimpse, this card looks strong, even without Magnetic and Echo part it is like a bit stronger Harvest Golem that is a solid looking card but just a bit too slow to see play. With Magnetic and Echo on top of that, this card is amazing, it can be played by itself in so many ways on almost any turn past turn 3. Can be played as up to three smaller minions with annoying Deathrattle or as a 9 mana 6/9 that will spawn six 1/1s when it dies and also it can get Magnetized to other Mechs of course. SN1P-SN4P is a good card, a bit too good to be exact. It even created a problem scenario that was quickly fixed after it was spotted by some of the players: Because this card exists and didn't have the now added text (Cost can't be reduced below 1.) players easily found a problem with SN1P-SN4P in a combination with this card that creates an OTK combo as early as turn 5. The combo would go like this, you play Coppertail Imposter (a 4 mana Stealth Mech) on turn four and on turn five play Reckless Experimenter and infinitely buff Imposter with Magnetic effect of SN1P-SN4P and boom, OTK. Of course, this added text removed this combo before it even came into existence but still there is some potential on turn ten to buff an Imposter to deal 14 damage which is an okay and definitely fairer combo but probably won't see play in this form. Okay, now let's take a look at those buffed cards from Boomsday expansion: Gloop Sprayer is going from 8 mana to 7 mana. That seems like a small buff, and if you just look at this card it is just a small buff that will help out in comboing other cards with this one, just like Faceless. Also, now being in a 7 mana slot it indirectly buffs Juicy Psychmelon, a Druid draw spell that draws a 7, 8, 9 and a 10 drop from your deck and this has been used in a Lucentbark deck to pull those higher cost minions. Now Gloop Sprayer doesn't share the 8 mana slot with Lucentbark so it gets better draws when played. This buff won't make this card amazing but more playable indeed. Mulchmuncher buff isn't impressive at all, maybe this could make difference but I doubt it. Getting a 1 mana discount on this card doesn't look like anything special at the moment. I don't expect too much out of it. Now, this 1 mana discount is something. Necromechanic was already a card worth considering but always a bit too slow to actually make a cut in the Hunter decks. Going from 5 to 4 mana is a huge deal because of its body size. 4 mana 3/6 is amazing stat line and on top of that, it has an effect that your opponent needs to get rid of as soon as possible and the 6 health usually makes it awkward to deal with on turn 4. Another good thing is that now it fits the curve so well after those 3 mana Deathrattles like Ursatron and Spider Bomb. Really strong card, definitely we gonna see this card popping up in Hunter deck now. Flark's Boom-Zooka, umm not really a change that will help this card. Yeah, a mana discount is great but since it is from 8 to 7 it isn't such a huge deal in terms of how impactful the discount is and the effect of the card still stays hard to utilize as before. Maybe if Hunter gets more powerful Deathrattle minions in the future expansions we will see this card at least in the experimental phase of the meta. Unexpected Results also got 1 mana discount and I gotta admit I didn't expect this (had to :P). 3 mana summon two random 2-drops is okay by itself, take for instance Landscaping from Druid that summons two 2/2s and it is seeing play in Token Druid lists. This card, on the other hand, has much more potential, even could start a new "Spell Damage Mage" archetype. Really good buff, making it on the edge of being OP. I like this one. Luna's Pocket Galaxy definitely needed a buff and a 2 mana discount is a good approach. At 7 this card usually took your whole turn and then getting back the tempo lost when playing it was really hard. Now at 5 mana, there is room to squeeze it into a half-decent turn and then later try to overwhelm the opponent or do some funky combo with 1 mana cost minions. Even though this is a bigger buff than some of the cards this will still remain sort of a meme card because of its inconsistency and funkiness. Still, it's nice to see it buffed. Crystology is the only card on the list that kinda puzzled me why did it get buffed. I mean, on 2 mana it was pretty good to thin out the deck and draw cards like Immortal Prelate and Crystalsmith Kangor. At 1 mana this card goes from good to broken, a 50% discount is a huge deal. Probably we will see this card in aggressive Paladin decks since spending 1 mana to draw two cards is well worth even tempo-wise. Maybe this is a compensation for Hall of Faming Divine Favor, I don't know but is a hell of a buff. This one was pretty much non-existent card since release but a 1 mana discount could make this card playable. The effect itself is for a minion heavy decks so that 6 mana 3/4 was just too slow for the amount of later tempo it gives. 5 mana is more suitable, even though this card is now much better, still, it will be a bit challenging to use it correctly as it's not clear how to approach deckbuilding with this one. Crystology buff goes well with this card so there could be some potential. For Priest, we get Extra Arms buff. This is actually really strong buff that could help Priest make some minion board-centric decks since it can have good turn to play to follow up their Northshire Cleric or Crystalizer or any other high health 1-drop, making a 3/5ish minion on turn 2, which is insane! If Priest manages to build a deck with this card it might create a new playable archetype other than those gimmicky Nomi decks. Not really much to say about this one, it is clearly much better with that 50% discount but still it doesn't really help to discover opponents minions because it will most likely lack synergy with your deck. Maybe it finds it use in conjunction with Auctioneer or something like that but I doubt it will make some higher tier lists. Glad to see this one buffed since it is a single card worth building a deck around. Can't really say how strong it will be but can say that this discount is a hell of a lot more than 1 mana if you consider that you will be bouncing and playing this card as much as you can. So maybe there is a reasonable chance to see this deck emerge in the new meta. Is it busted? Naah... But I'm definitely gonna give it a try to see how well will it perform. Another card that I don't have to talk about really. Random Deathrattle cards are on average really bad and this discount will only help out when you are discovering this or getting it in some RNG card generation. Better for arena though. This is another nice buff. Going from 7 mana to 6 does give much power to this card because of how nicely it will fit in something like Murloc decks and also it will be more easily playable when gained through Hagatha's Hero Power. The Storm Bringer is quite good now, not the best but it has potential to make some Shaman lists that need that power play going into the late game. Thunderhead has an interesting buff, just gaining 1 health point. This is actually quite a strong buff. Not like amazing but really solid because it now falls in line with Water Elemental and new Necromechanic and has the effect that kinda pressures your opponent to get read of it and makes it awkward to do it. The best thing is that you won't even need most of the time to have any Overload cards in your hand to follow it up because your opponent doesn't know that you don't and still proceeds to remove this minion, even if they are doing it inefficiently and that can by itself give you an edge in the game. Even after the buff, this card is unimpressive. It at least feels playable but still falls short in comparison to Soulfire in most cases. Could be played in some tempo-oriented deck like Zoo, but I wouldn't expect it to become a staple any time soon. Basically untouched card since release because how slow was it and the constraint it puts on deckbuilding choices when trying to make it work. With a nice 2 mana discount, we just might see it get played. A 6 mana 5/5 is like ten times better than 8 mana one and now this effect feels less constraining to fully build around and that could possibly make it a viable choice. Security Rover is really a weaker card and even after this buff it will stay weak but on this type of effect it is quite a nice boost, possibly making an extra 2/3 Mech Taunt is always nice. This card will still remain out of Warrior lists but you will be a bit happier when you see it randomly generated by Boom's Hero Power or Omega Assembly. Much like Security Rover, a minor buff but this time it is 1 extra attack point. I suppose that this card will also stay out of the Warrior lists but nevertheless this buff is stronger just because it is on the right minion. Usually, when you Magnetize something with Beryllium Nullifier it gets really hard to remove. Getting an extra attack makes it trade a lot better. Guess that these two cards were actually a buff to Omega Assembly haha. The last thing that will come with the Rise of the Mech patch is a new Arena set rotation and the playable sets with Classic and Basic will be:Goblins vs. GnomesThe Grand TournamentOne Night In KarazhanThe Boomsday ProjectRise of Shadows This is it for this patch preview. It is so nice to see that Blizzard is so active and once more delivers some changes to avoid the game getting stale. Guess they finally understand how games with so many players share the most relevant information about the game and that leads to the exploration phase of the set being really short, also, shortening games fresh feeling. Hope to see this continue as it is for the past 6-8 months. Thank you for reading! , z3ll