Blizzard announced yesterday that the 27.2.2 patch will bring 3 nerfs to Hunter. Let’s go over the patch notes.
Hearthstone has just released the 27.2.2 patch, including the three teased Hunter nerfs. While balance patches usually happen on Thursdays, the Caverns of Time set releasing tomorrow made them speed up the update.
The 27.2.2 Hearthstone Patch Notes bring the first wave of balance changes for Battlegrounds Season 5 as well as some minor constructed adjustments. In this article we will focus on the constructed side, you can check out the full list of BG changes in the official blog post.
When we made our last round of changes, we knew this balance window was coming soon, so we took a lighter touch on Hunter. Now that we’ve seen the results of our last changes, we’re happy with how the meta is shaping up, but it’s clear that we need to give Hunter a bit more of an adjustment to give other classes some room to breathe.
Hearthstone 27.2.2 Patch Notes
While the 27.2 patch came early, according to the usual Hearthstone cycle, it was somewhat expected to have an extra minor patch within a week to finish fine-tuning some archetypes. Well, when I say some, I might just say two, Arcane and Hound Hunter.
The teaser shared on social media yesterday featured 3 Hunter cards, and while some players think this was unwarranted, others disagree.
Nerfs and Dev Comments
The idea behind the Faithful Companion nerf is to address the un-interactivity created when two King Krushes hit you for 16 or even 32 out of the blue. On top of that, the Fox Spirit Wildseed change will make it harder for the deck to stabilize against more aggressive strategies.
Old: Discover a Beast from your deck and summon it. Manathirst (10): Also summon a copy of it.
New: Old: Discover a Beast from your deck and summon it. Manathirst (10): Summon a Beast from your hand.
We wanted to hit the deck’s early game and its explosive endgame. The adjustment to Faithful Companions should cut down on that finishing potential while also letting the deck operate on another axis with more interesting late-game decisions.
Old: 3 Attack, 1 Health
New: 2 Attack, 1 Health
Finally, Halduron Brightwing's change responds more to the amount of burn it adds to an already performing archetype such as Arcane Hunter. Once again, attacking damage-from-hand strategies, that create unfun experiences.
![Halduron Brightwing<br>Old: [3 Mana] 3 Attack, 4 Health<br><strong>New: [4 Mana] 4 Attack, 4 Health</strong>](https://admin.esports.gg/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Halduron-Nerf-Hearthstone-Patch.png)
Old: [3 Mana] 3 Attack, 4 Health
New: [4 Mana] 4 Attack, 4 Health
Halduron is a card we previously buffed to give the Arcane package a chance to shine. We’re happy with our prior change to the effect, but just need to adjust the numbers slightly to keep the power in line.
These cards will offer full dust refunds for two weeks after the 27.2.2 Hearthstone Patch, but in the case of Fox Spirit, since the card is a token, the refund extends to all the cards that can generate it. So, Spirit Poacher, Stag Charge, Wild Spirits, and Ara’lon will also be eligible for full dust refunds.
Secret buffs that came to stay
On top of the changes described in the 27.2.2 Hearthstone patch notes, there were others less documented. With the 27.2 Hearthstone patch, Blizzard mysteriously buffed six cards, and no one knew if it was a bug or just an intended change.
"Some of you have noticed that there were a few Hearthstone balance changes that weren’t announced before the patch went live. These changes were things we tested for the patch, but had decided not to ship—or, at least, we didn’t mean to ship."
This week the team gave some clarification in a forum post. In it, they mentioned that 3 out of the 6 secretly buffed cards will keep their enhanced stats.
"We’ve seen your excitement about these surprise changes and we’ve decided that some of them would be fine to keep in the game. We’ll be letting three of them keep their newfound buffs: Timber Wolf, Jinyu Waterspeaker, and Firelands Portal."
On the other hand, the Hearthstone team mentioned that the 27.2.2 patch would revert the buffs to Dragon’s Breath, Swipe, and Glaivezooka.
That's all for now, but stay tuned to esport.gg for more Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time, in the tavern.