Hearthstone's Druid Power Level: IT'S OVER 9000!!!

Right now in Hearthstone, the Druid class is absurdly powerful, and it's actually a very bad thing for the health of the game. It's not just a single deck either, as both Token Druid and Jade Druid are equally strong. Unlike other decks that have stabilized over time, as new strategies and counters have arisen, the Druid problem is so severe that it's actually effecting the meta. Unconventional decks like Exodia mage, which were fun gimmicky decks, have actually become viable in the meta because they are so effective at beating druid. We've really got a whole "Grim Patron" situation on our hands now: every single deck is either A) Druid, or B) deck that is specifically good against Druid, and that's bad because it limits creativity, and lessens the impact of a lot of cool cards and archetypes.

Blizzard should not take a "wait and see" approach to this problem. The time for wait and see has passed, especially when you consider that 41% of all games being played are against Druids. They need to act right now.

How did Druid get so powerful?

Druid has always been a popular, powerful class in Hearthstone, but the latest patch has given it the exact tools it needed to propel it into the unstoppable monster it is right now. Specifically: Spreading Plague and Ultimate Infestation. To understand why these cards are so powerful, you first need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the class.

Ramp it up

Ramp effects let you cheat out mana ahead of the usual curve, allowing you to play bigger minion and spells earlier in the game. They are countered by the fact that they cost a card, and have minimal effect on the board state. Playing Wild Growth on turn 2 means that you have one less card and no two drop on the board. Ramping has always been a gamble because it leaves you vulnerable, but Ultimate Infestation negates all of those negatives.

A Druid player can spend the first four turns ramping up (Wild Growth, Jade Blossom, Nourish), and then just innervate out an Ultimate Infestation. He now likely controls the board, has healed, has replenished all the cards he spent ramping, and is a full six mana ahead of you. Just watch this clip to understand how stupid this combination is.

Wall of Scarabs

Traditionally, Druid's weakness has been big boards. It lacks the hard removal of Rogue and Priest, and the AOE removal of Mage and Warlock. The best way to play against a Druid is to put down multiple, high health creatures. Once the board has been flooded, its quite hard for them to regain control. This is a natural counter to both Jade/Ramp Druid AND Token Druid. Against Jade/Ramp Druid, it stops them from being too greedy. They have to play minions and fight for board control or they will be overwhelmed. Against Token Druid, it helps control their own waves of minions it tries to flood the board with.

But here comes Spreading Plague, which a lot of the time reads: 5 Mana - Summon 7 1/5 Scarabs With Taunt. Not only does this card negate Druid's most major weakness by cockblocking the whole board, it also combos exceedingly well with cards like Power of The Wild, Mark of The Lotus and the new Bolster Bear. It's not uncommon for those 1/5's to become 2/6's, or even 3/7's within the same turn. Imagine a card that read: 6 Mana - Summon Seven 2/6 Scarabs with Taunt. Discard a card.

Innervation Intervention

All of these new tools circle back to Innervate, a card that has been a part of the core Druid kit since the beginning, and limits card design space more and more the longer it remains a part of the game. Again, Innervate is a card that was limited by the fact that it cost you a card. Yeah, you could cheat out a big drop on an early turn, but then you were down a card, and could get fucked over by hard removal. Now, Druids can use Innervate to cheat out Ultimate Infestation, which instantly replenishes their hand, negating its detrimental effect. Reynad made a strong case on the removal of Innervate from Standard, which is a possible solution to the Druid problem.

What's the solution?

Whatever Blizzard decides on doing, it needs to happen now, before we have another Grim Patron/Undertaker Hunter situation on our hand. Shifting Innervate to Standard is a good solution, but I honestly believe that the two most offensive cards: Spreading Plague and Ultimate Infestation need to additionally be directly nerfed. Possible solutions:

• Ultimate Infestation: 8 Mana - Deal 5 Damage, Summon a 5/5 Ghoul, Gain 5 Armor - This completely removes the card draw from the card, but still keeps it as a decent card, considering that Firelands portal is basically "Deal 5 Damage, Summon a 5/5", and is considered a good card for 7 mana. 
• Ultimate Infestation: 10 Mana. Deal 4 Damage, Summon a 4/4 Ghoul, Gain 4 Armor, Draw 4 Cards - This keeps the card draw but reduces all of the effects by 1. Honestly, I think it needs to go even further and reduce card draw to 3, but that would be a bit of overkill.
• Spreading Plague: 5 Mana. Summon a 1/5 Scarab with Taunt. If your Opponent Has More Minions, Repeat up to Two Times - This caps out the number of Scarabs that can be summoned at 3, which still provides a tool for defensive druid decks, but doesn't become absurdly powerful when combo'd with board buff spells.
• Spreading Plague: 4 Mana. Summon a 1/2 Scarab with Taunt for each enemy minion - Sound familiar? This is basically Protect the King, a Warrior card that never saw play. 1/1 Tokens are pretty terrible, so buffing them up to 1/2 means that they can't just be whirlwinded away, but still die to big AOE effects like Flamestrike or Holy Nova (as they should).

C'thun and You: What Whispers of The Old Gods Means For Hearthstone

The ancient ones are upon us. C’thun, Yogg-Saron and the rest of their Old God buddies have infested Hearthstone, and with the release of their expansion: Whispers of The Old Gods, are bringing some big changes to the game. It’s easily the most significant update to the game since launch, and both new and old players alike will have to familiarize themselves to what’s new. Let’s have a look at what the arrival of the Old Gods mean for the game.

First and most significantly, when Whispers of The Old Gods launches on April 26, it will kick off the “Year of The Kraken”, splitting Hearthstone into two distinct formats of play: Wild and Standard. Wild will essentially be “classic” Hearthstone, allowing players to make decks from all cards that have ever been released for the game. Standard, on the other hand, will restrict players to making decks only out of cards that have been released in the last year, as well as the base and classic sets. In the case of this year - The Year of The Kraken - only cards from Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, League of Explorers and Whispers of The Old Gods will be legal.

Both formats will have access to the ranked, casual and practice game modes, while The Arena will only be available in the Wild format. Additionally, “retired” cards - in this case cards from Naxxramas and Goblins vs. Gnomes, will no longer become purchasable with money. The only way to obtain them will be to craft them with arcane dust.

“Yes Steven, we understand, new formats, now hurry up and get to the new bloody cards!” I hear you screech. Hold on a minute! Before we look at the new cards, we have to check out the nerfs. Whispers of The Old Gods introduces more nerfs to old cards than the total number of nerfs the game has received since launch. Wowza! A whopping twelve cards from the classic and basic sets have been nerfed, including old staples like Ironbeak Owl, Big Game Hunter and Mountain Giang, as well as some class specific cards like Force of Nature and Hunter's mark. A lot of these nerfs were to cards that limited future design space, and indeed, quite a few of Whispers of The Old Gods coolest cards couldn’t exist with these cards in their current state!

R.I.P Combo Druid

Check out the official website for more info on the nerfs. As a note, when the nerfs go live, you’ll be able to disenchant all of the affected cards for their full dust value. I highly recommend doing this if you aren’t going to immediately use the cards, as you’ll always be able to craft them back if you need them!

Right, moving on. Easily, the most interesting cards of WotoG are the Old Gods themselves. Each has a very unique effect, are supplemented by supporting minions, and have a very specific deck archetype in mind. C’thun for example, is built around his “followers”, who will buff up his stats whether he is in your hand, your deck, or even in play. A lot of these minions are “understatted”, meaning that C’thun decks will be very slow decks that sacrifice their early game in exchange for unleashing a devastating C’thun finisher. He is sure to be a favourite for control priests and warriors!

Yogg-Sarron casts a random spell (at a random target) for every spell you have cast that game. Mages and Rogues, who build decks based on having lots of cheap, frequent spells, will be able to drop this Old God as another finisher, although he is a lot less reliable than his buddy C’thun…

Each of the four old gods has a very unique effect.

Y’shaarjis much more of a general use type Old God, and is the kind of card that can be put into control heavy decks without having to worry about being supplemented too much. He brings out a minion every turn he is in play, and has a devastating attack, making him a big-bodied threat in the same vein as Ysera.

Finally, N’zoth, rather than creating something completely new, simply supplements the “deathrattle” playstyle. Even with only a handful of powerful deathrattle minions, like Sylvanas and Tirion Fordring, he has considerable value.

The general theme of this expansion is slow. While prior expansions have favored fast, “rush” or “aggro” style decks, the Old Gods are clearly about biding your time to build up a massive, killer finisher. Many of the neutral and class legendaries, like Deathwing, Dragonlord, Malkorok and Cho’gallalso support control-heavy playstyles. Hunter in particular, which has always been a very aggro-oriented class, has been given quite a few tools to make a sort of control deathrattle N’zoth hunter viable, like Forlorn Stalker and Infest.

In terms of the overall “winner” of the expansion, I’m gonna have to go with Shaman, Only two cards with “overload” were introduced, and they are actually quite sensibly statted. They were given an overload unlock alternative to Lava Shock with Eternal Sentinel and Hallazeal The Ascended will make lightning storming a full board also give you a considerable heal.

Finally an "underload" alternative to Lava Shock!

Warrior also got some super interesting cards like Blood Warriors and Blood to Ichor, while the Paladin’s Vilefin Inquisitor makes an all-murloc deck somewhat viable. Druid’s legendary, Fandral Staghelm makes the nerfs to Ancient of Lore and Keeper of The Grove make sense, and is an incredibly powerful card. Even Mage got some crazy good cards like Faceless Summoner, and Warlock got the hilarious “Warlock is too hard, let me play another class”-card: Renounce Darkness.

The two classes that got the shaft were Rogue and Priest. Both of these classes lost a lot of their most powerful tools with the expansion, either in the change to standard format (Velen’s Chosen and Lightbomb for Priest) or the base and classic card nerfs (Blade Flurry for Rogue), and neither were given what they need to compensate. I predict that these two will be the weakest classes in the upcoming new meta, while Mage, Shaman, and Warrior should take the top spots.

As for the expansion’s neutral cards, there are way too many to list here, but they include a lot of interesting ideas, such as Blood of The Ancient One - a kind of win condition in of itself, Shifter Zerus - Unstable Portal: the minion, and Eater of Secrets- a hard counter to those pesky secret Paladins!

Will either win you the game or be completely useless...

The folks over at Hearthpwn have put together a full list of all the new cards if you want the full rundown. Whispers of The Old Gods is probably the most interesting thing to ever happen to Hearthstone, and will hopefully be the jolt the game needs to kickstart its rather stale competitive meta. I’m excited, and you should be too!

I'll leave you with some of my favorite cards from the upcoming set, in no particular order:

Thanks for reading guys! I would really appreciate if you could, share, Tweet, reddit or just get this article out there to as many folks as possible; I want people to know that even though I don't work at The Escapist anymore, I'm still honing my craft, and willing to put out freelance articles to wherever is needed.