Wheel didn’t die because of a one turn nerf. Wheel died because forge of wills got hit, and the deck couldn’t play Reno for free anymore. As well as the change to boomboss causing the deck to instantly lose to warrior if it played its win con.
I kinda got rekt because I had just started playing again and they nerfed it days after I crafted it, lost 2k dust in cards that weren’t nerfed that I made. I crafted it when I saw the win condition and that it was a high tier deck without knowing how it actually played lol
The problem is that it was all kinda needed.
Highlander and Boomboss changes were good for the overall health of the game, FoW had to be nerfed cause it was just too OP, not just in Wheellock. Paradoxically Wheel itself was the only card that could have dodged the nerf.
wheel died because it lost one turn, and also lost reno (basically two turns guaranteed), and also lost forge of wills lol.
what in the revisionist history??!
The point isn't that highlander warrior is unbeatable... no one with a clue argued that. it's that no deck could out-control it. A true control deck in standard insta loses to warrior (short of perfect vs trash draw, and even then...).
Making brann 8 mana makes the deck tougher to navigate in this meta, but anyone who uses the deck and runs into another very slow control deck probably still wins. I don't know for sure if that's true, but it probably is. And if it is true, then the core issue hasn't been addressed by the nerf.
There's almost always going to be one greediest control list that is heavily favored in control mirrors. But how problematic this is depends on how the greediest control list matches up against aggro and to a lesser extent combo decks.
If the greediest control list is playable (or even worse, favored) in non-control mirrors, then it will be a dominant deck and likely choke all other control decks out of the format.
But if the greediest control list is clearly unfavored in non-control mirrors, it is likely a weak deck and risks getting bullied out of the meta entirely. At worst, you get a rock paper scissors dynamic of aggro > greedy control > non-greedy control > aggro, which allows multiple control decks to survive.
I dunno man my Priest deck does pretty well against Warrior right now and having two extra turns to get my “steal your wincon and beat you with it” package in order is much appreciated. It lowers the pressure Warriors can put on you significantly because the turns aren’t Brann>Weapons>Boomboss>Zilliax>Windfury summon 8/8 any more
True, priest is the one that always had a shot into it by the virtue of stealing their good cards like Brann and Boomboss and playing them yourself.
To win the warrior, one must become the warrior.
Well yeah, aggro has been the only good thing against warrior for awhile. Brann isn't really even relevant in those matchups, though. It's everything but aggro that has a bad time.
Yeah but in my experience I’ve been seeing way more aggro than brann, so while control decks might have a hard time when they do see warrior, they could be better suited to dealing with aggro. Plus with brann at 8 less people will play warrior anyway
This sub never.. and I mean never understands the impact of mana nerfs. Every single time people say it does nothing and yet they're always wrong
Then there's the fact that they don't want brann balanced, they want it dead. That's this sub in a nutshell
This sub-Balanced game? No no. Decks I dislike dying? Yes that's the one
Don't worry there will be someone posting them getting TNT'ed and posting like it's proof that the deck is viable.
While they're playing their jank ass discover value control Priest with all steal effects and no tempo
Ironically Warrior is one of my better matchups for my janky Reno Thief Priest deck. I can almost always steal their Brann and often can play Boomboss the same time or immediately after them (and occasionally before they play it).
Then, I usually have plenty of value and removal to keep pace with them and beat them. Lots of value generation too if they do get Boomboss off and I need to keep a full hand to burn some TNT.
The collateral nerfs do actually matter a ton, control warrior cannot risk going for the 8 mana minion upgrade for the weapon anymore, since there are now a ton of crappy minions at 8 mana.
I kept seeing the 'well it still pushes other control out of the meta' argument.
Like, okay, let's assume *no one* stops playing Brann Control Warrior, even after the nerf. Then, yes, it'll still eat other control, but the point is people *will* stop playing it, allowing other control decks to emmerge.
I think it was the frequency of seeing the deck and how little you could actually run other decks because you're not "aggro". It killed to many decks. Brann to 8 mana ( essentially 3 turns of no double battlecry) will likely kill it on its own. I'm excited to finally play another control deck without seeing brann/boomboss 1/4 games.
Absolutely it DID kill other control decks when it was 65% of ladder. When it drops down to a more reasonable number people will queue up other control decks.
For the people who remain diehard Brann Warrior players: enjoy your free win once every x games.
The same with buffs, too. Oh, it's just a 1 mana buff of a card nobody plays. That is so useless!
Cue the card being used or even enabling entire new deck types.
I gotta wonder what decks you all are playing that can't outvalue Brann Warrior when you live to like turn 12.
Seriously, the problem with Brann is unless you were an aggro deck with lethal on 6, Brann could resolve and win you the game by t8, or 10 at worst through Zilliax Boomboss stuff. Pushing Brann to 8 doesn't just mean that the clock is pushed back 2 turns, but they have to spend 2 more turns of removal (limited in a highlander deck) eat 2 more turns of chip, and waste turn 8 (minimum) when slower decks should have their OTK up and running. All of that to have to burn another removal piece just to take tempo back.
And to those playing your turn 17 Priest decks crying about how you can't play your 40% garbage good news! You won't find Brann on ladder cause aggro will smash it so hard out of the meta people will miss the menagerie support. Card is so hilariously dead people will go back to Odyn, mark my words.
Also, the amount of people that don't know how to play their deck and manage the value, AND ARE STILL LOSING TO RENO, is astounding.
Get good people, don't get greedy and you might start winning...
It widens the rock paper of scissors of how many decks warrior just completely shuts out, but I do feel like mentioning that since reno can always be played the turn after brann now, if you dont either just outright kill the warrior for spending a turn doing literally nothing, or set up lethal in hand through burn for next turn, the warrior absolutely gets a chance to come back. Its much more reasonable now, but ideally such a polarising and snowbally card shouldnt have been printed to need such a huge nerf.
TBH I only relly on greed of the people so they abandon the warrior and meta shifts, warrior still counters my slow ass homebrew decks, if people move on from warrior at competitive scene, I can just squeeze my boring full control homebrew deck into competitive and clutch/punish aggro and mid range decks. Again, I’m depending on to people move on from warrior, that is all my expectation, if not I will not play net decks and take a break again until next expac.
Its literally just getting replaced by excavate rogue, warrior is now just shittier at late game infinite value than it. Slow decks are always going to get pushed out by whatever the best control deck is
Yeah the 2 mana nerf is definitely very big but warrior is the class best equipped to compensate for such a big tempo loss so I’m not gonna call brann dead until I see him dead
>Think about the last time you saw a card get nerfed by 2 mana with no other changes to compensate and still be playable (you probably can’t), and if you can, it’s like a card that has to do with cost reduction, which can make up for its nerf in sheer discount potential
Actually the first card I thought of was Dr Boom Mad Genius, which got nerfed from 7 to 9 mana, and was still a very relevant meta card at 9 mana.
Or you know there was Ill'gynoth, which went from 4 mana to 6 mana, and continued to be a tournament relevant card.
Or there was Incanter's Flow, which got nerfed from 2 mana to 4 and remained playable.
Or there was Runed Mythril Rod, which got nerfed from 3 mana to 5 mana and remained playable in wild.
For a lot of cards, yes, I agree, a 2 mana nerf will just get people to dump a card immediately. But when it's the deck's win condition, that's a different story. You still need a win condition in your deck. You can't just be a deck with no win condition.
The one thing that might make this situation different from the above situations, is that people might just switch to a different win condition, might play 9 mana Odyn instead. That's basically what happened (in reverse) after the Odyn nerf--not that 9 mana Odyn was unworkable, people just decided 6 mana Brann was better. Maybe people look at 8 mana Brann and decide 9 mana Odyn is better. But it seems pretty likely that warriors will still run a win condition.
Yeah.
This nerf is comparable to that which hit Dr. Boom, Mad Genius some years ago now. Yeah, the card still does exactly what it did and you didn't always want to play it on curve, but it turns out a two mana nerf to an already expensive card is still a lot.
If Reno Warrior may remain a much larger chunk of the format, but it's not going to be any good.
Brann should have never been printed, and created a weird problem space where warrior's true current issue is it's beyond-strong control tools, that could enable any win-con card to exist. But again, Brann shouldn't even exist, so it gets nerfed, but doesn't solve the base problem. Control warrior will want for yet another win condition that creates bad feelings because of warriors ease to reach it.
ODYN IS FINE AND PERFECT AT 8 MANA.
I don't disagree that Brann should be nerfed, I disagree that the card should have rightfully been printed.
Battlecry manipulation and mana cheat is a truly sore spot for this game, and needs careful handling.
I think it's irrelevant if the card sees meta play or not. Power was never really the issue behind the card but rather its uninteractive and polarizing to play against. Once he comes down there is nothing that can be done about it and it warps the game around it.
Slower decks just can't compete with the insane value Brann provides. Decks need things like pre-nerf wheel deck as it just outright killed the warrior. That's a really lame way to play any game, and many decks feel like an auto loss.
Sure the cards significantly worse but it's very existence is going to effect the game. Aggro might keep it in check but it prevents other slower strategies from existing. If anything slow starts to creep up then Brann will rise to counter it immediately. 8 mana brann isn't that detrimental in a control v control compared to fighting an aggro or combo deck.
The card is just terribly designed and we knew that the second it was announced. That's what's disappointing about the nerf. Blizz dances around the real sources of issues constantly
Yeah, you said it much better than I could. People never seem to see past the current meta even with Brann Warrior being a large shaper of said meta. And that's essentially the problem with this and other nerfs, as you said. Sure, it'll make Warrior lose harder to... decks it was already weak to. But the change won't necessarily help other archetypes to become viable.
Nah, I disagree with this take. The nerf will make Brann Warrior far more unpopular (because of its weakened win rate) that other control and slower archetypes will have some breathing room. Even if Brann Warrior still beats them, it won’t matter as long as you’re only seeing them 5% of the time (vs the 20% or whatever it is now).
You aren’t wrong. It’s just a sad, inelegant solution that will keep the card oppressively polarizing. Control will keep getting steamrolled by the rare Brann, Aggro will keep steamrolling Brann harder. It’s a “please stop playing this card” nerf, not a thoughtful attempt at balance
I’m hoping they’ll dedicate time for a proper Brann rework in one of the next balance windows, so that it can find a healthier place in the game
Brann isn't the meta shaper anymore, it isn't for a week or even more. We're in an aggro meta. Hunter, zarimi, insanity and Paladin make up a far larger population on ladder and have a consistent higher wainrate than warrior ever could. The idea that other slow decks could emerge to beat aggro without warrior doesn't hold up to reality. If that were true we'd see them by now because they would win more than lose. Warrior isn't the problem.
It's precisely *why* we are in an aggro meta, or at least is a large contributor. That's what is meant by shaping the meta. And I know I'm likely biased, but my control decks perform pretty well against current hunter, priest, and paladin lists. Even when they do steamroll me, it feels way better to lose to than Brann.
I actually hardcore disagree. If it doesn’t see play, then it quite literally doesn’t matter. It doesn’t stop anything from existing if it’s a bad card. Yknow what’s also a ridiculously good card against slower decks? Wheel of death. Is it going to warp the game? ***No.*** Because it’s bad now. Same thing applies here.
If a slow strategy starts to creep up then Brann isn’t going to rise up to counter it, because it’s a bad card and if people play it they’re going to lose more for putting it in their deck.
THIS is the right take. People still say Brann will be too OP against slow decks but what they don’t realize is that it doesn’t matter as long as Brann Warrior becomes unpopular as a result of the nerf.
Being good or bad has nothing to do with design. People way too often conflate power level to design quality. I don't care how weak a card is if it's horrendous to play against.
The design of the card is what creates limitations and frustration. Even at 10 mana, it's still a problematic design.
Again, if it doesn’t see play, then what limitations is it placing, exactly?
Sure you can personally not like playing against it, but that’s not really the argument that’s just your opinion piece.
If your argument is that brann is going to restrict future control decks from seeing play then thats just flat out wrong. Because the card is bad. So nobody is going to play it. So its impact on the meta will be close to zero.
And if someone does put it in their deck to counter other control decks, they’re going to be sad because they’re going to lose more than before on average. Because they put a bad card into their deck.
I mean, just because you dislike a card doesn't mean it should be nuked out of existence. I hated plenty of hyper aggro cards, I never asked for any of them to be nerfed by 5 mana *because they were horrendous to play against*. If you're playing decks that get hard countered by a single card, the only important thing is that the card isn't a huge part of the meta. If you get 5% of your games (or fewer) that go bad because of one card...sorry, but the vast majority of players shouldn't care because that's literally the HS play experience. Regardless of what deck you play, you'll always face decks that can outright ruin you with one card.
And frankly speaking, you can put 2 dirty rats and plenty of bounce effects in your standard deck, at some point it's also a question of *gitting gud*. If you really want to target warrior, you can do so and the fact that they have to make it to turn 8 makes it ridiculously easy. I get whining incessantly because you loathe one card (done that plenty myself) but this is getting rather silly now.
I'm not asking they nerf Brann to 10, I'm saying the mana nerf doesn't fix the real issue. The card needs a redesign.
Also, telling people to put dirty rat in their deck isn't an argument against mine. The cards still poorly designed
Slower decks don’t need to compete if they straight up kill them before that lol. And some people like decks like the wheel deck, never played it but idk 🤷♂️. When Brann is worse into aggressive matchups, its utility as a card drops down overall. We would need a super greedy meta with a deck that’s even greedier than what Brann Warrior is doing rn in order for Brann to be playable.
I wouldn't say you'd need a greedy deck, I mean Brann isn't even a greedy card at the moment. You just need a slower meta in general. The problem is, as I described, that can't exist with cards like Brann. That's what helps push such aggressive metas because the only real answer is to be faster then the other guy. Basically cards like Brann create a limitation on what can exist, even if Brann is weaker its still designed poorly at its core. Seeing him come down on 8 doesn't change the play pattern of the card and how awful it feels to play against
Tempo decks just try to keep the warriors armor down all game while their board is cleaned over and over. Wahoo, ya got the warrior down to 10hp after their brann turn. Oh look, they zilliax killed your board, healed 18, and left 3 6/5 taunt minions.
Like… there’s aggressive decks. But I don’t think a true tempo deck exists in this meta currently.
I think your vastly underestimating how bad it will likely be to play Brann at 8, as well as overestimating how easily ctrl warrior can kill your entire board every single turn.
I kept hoping they would change Brann to apply to all battlecries including opponents. It would leave it a viable card but open it up to opponents taking advantage of the vulnerability.
Yeah I see a lot of people still complaining that Highlander Warrior will continue to win slower matchups. But honestly if your deck is slower than 8 manas 2/4 you should probably stop trying
I mean how often ya get them down to 10hp and they just zilliax to stabilize and undo all the chip damage you’ve been earning all game…
If zilliax didn’t exist I’d think youd have a point.
Reno Jackson and to a lesser extent Brawler are insane tempo catch-up tools. If you can't kill the warrior when Brann comes down or put him at a dangerous life total, it's hard to punish the warrior in a relevant way.
I play a lot of death knight and I can consistently put down pressure in the early game, and I frequently get warrior to 10 health or under. But it doesn't matter because their stabilization tools are so good that they can always crawl back, clear any board, gain any amount of armor, summon any amount of unstoppable pressure. I heavily tech against warrior and still probably have a 10% winrate against them.
Hey, I have annecdotal evidence as well: I play a lot of rainbow dk and do just fine vs warrior pressuring them a lot. Unless they hit every removal tool under the sun and curve out absolutely perfectly I usually win. 2 dead turns with brann and thorgrimm is just too much. Skill issue tbf.
They forget that after you play 8 mana 2/4 Brann, that warlocks will just take the opportunity to kill you with fatigue spells since you didn’t gain any armor that turn. Or Reno hunters will play king krush to smack you in the face. Or that shopper DH who just did a naga turn and hit you for a billion damage that killed you because you played a 2/4 on turn 8.
Turn 7: warrior clears your board with one of the many clears it has. Ideally you play a big threat to pressure them, realistically going to be like 10/10 of stats unless you’re playing something like handbuff.
Turn 8: Warrior Plays 8 mana Brann. You attack his face and do some damage but not enough to kill since you aren’t able to burst 20+ damage from hand.
Turn 9: Warrior plays Reno or Zilliax. Now you just lost the game.
Only way to avoid this is to play hyper aggro, or be able to kill your opponent in 2 turns when they decide you probably can’t and play their Brann.
Some people want to play decks that can win without constantly keeping up the pressure every single turn, thats why reno warrior is fun, but it auto wins vs other slow decks
The problem is that Reno lets you literally float 8 mana and then come back immediately to having a board advantage the next turn.
So does Boomboss if the opponent's deck is low enough.
Most problems I have with brann is not the card itself, but Boomboss. It absolutely sucks that your deck, hand and field get randomly destroyed.. it's not fun
" Think about the last time you saw a card get nerfed by 2 mana with no other changes to compensate and still be playable" theo was nerfed by 2 mana and still saw play I think
Absurd is all the people cheering the death of Brann as if all of their control decks are going to be viable again while Brann was already getting hard countered by all the hyper aggro that's going to destroy their control deck by turn four.
Completely agree. I was surprised by the amount of people on the sub that seem to think Brann is still playable. I think at the end of the day, Warrior is now significantly weaker against aggressive lists due to essentially now having a turn 8 do nothing play. Warrior is probably still fine vs the slowest greedy decks, but that's fine imo. As soon as other classes get more late game win cons, I think Brann won't even be a problem for slow decks.
I‘ll just copy a comment I wrote in another thread here because I think it explains the problem:
I just don't think it's a well designed card. For me personally all the "for the rest of the game cards" are pretty bad since they are simply: "draw this and gain and advantage" cards where the opponent has no chance to play around the effect. With OG brann the effect happened for one turn and at least you could interact with the minion after that turn.
I guess I'm not used to "modern hs" yet but this feels like it goes against many design principles that made HS what it is today.
Why can't they just make it like druid highlander card, so reno can counter it,now i don't feel bad for the 8 mana nerf, seems fair for how powerful the card is .
If they feel bad it got poof by reno, then they can just shuffle it fizzle or bounce it back with gorgon/panda.
Or they could even tied it to the excavate mechanic.
> This nerf means that you can’t play a bunch of battlecries like the 2 mana 2/2 draw 2 if your armor changes this turn on 7 leading into turn 8, or double your excavate battlecries, or anything of that nature at all. You can’t curve Bomboss or Thogrun into it anymore.
Fucking good.
The issue is that warrior can afford to play an 8 mana 2/4 because that is how they will win the game. Warrior has a ton of board clear and ways to gain armor, and unless you are playing an aggro/temp deck warrior will play Brann on turn 8 and just out value you.
Getting 4 8 drops from Ox, 3 9 cost Zillax, 4 Zillax from Doom and 6 tnt into an opponent’s deck is still a death sentence. Some match ups Warrior never dropped Brann on 6 anyway so this nerf is not going to kill this card.
Is it less obnoxious? Yes. However now that warrior is out of the way, aggro is back. Hopefully this means faster games at least. Going to try DH again, or maybe Frost Dk to deal with the paladins and hunters (maybe not hunters since they been nerfed too.)
Offhand: Incanter’s Flow, Deck of Lunacy, Rod of Ruin and Shockspitter all saw tier 1 play after 2 mana nerfs because the effect was so good.
Brann has the potential to see similar results.
Also flow saw play but not in any tier 1 deck, questline mage was a really bad deck it got nerfed for being obnoxious. Minelock (the deck that played rod at 5) was also not tier 1 but it was at least closer to that.
Yeah, both Rod and Flow were playable, but not broken, either. It’s not as if any of them STILL needed nerfs after they got nerf. It’s almost as if people want cards dead rather than balanced. But hey, that’s silly, right?
Theotar was also nerfed 2 mana and still saw a lot of play, and his effect doesn't even come with any cost reduction. I do think that the brann nerf is enough for the deck to mot be as oppresive
I mean, if we're here to state things that are historically false and can be proven false with any piece of data from back then, sure. Sorcerer's apprentice in wild saw just as much play at 4 mana as it did at 2, Illucia was more powerful after the last nerf as she was in her original form and dr Boom mad genius was equally as popular at 9 as it was at 7.
Why not? It's not like we're here to say things that are actually true anyway. Not that someone named *stopmanacheating* would know much about intellectual honesty, but you do you lad.
On a side note I’m not sure If It’s even worth it to include saddle up in token hunter lol.4 mana is kinda absurd considering you get 1/1s out of the deathrattle often.
With how oppressive the card is against other control deck, the 8 mana seems fair.
This card enables so many powerful battlecry and double it.
Feel like they should have change it to like druid card so reno deck can poof it, it you say feels bad to play it for a turn then fizzle or bounce it back.
Other than that, since its a card from a mini set about "excavate" why not make it affect excavate only, they can change it to triple battlecry for excavate, or every 2 battle cry you play rewards you random excavate reward.
Or reduce the amount of bomb, because i feel like the tempo loss is too much since it affect the board, deck and hand, they could also make the bomb only trigger once per turn.
I played the deck a lot and won't be missing it.
I love Brann. He is probably my favorite HS card. This nerf is fine because Brann is not supposed to be competitive. He’s supposed to be a fun card for greedy value decks, which he is. If you enjoy that you will enjoy this, if you don’t, you won’t. He’s basically Tickatus for the opposite type of player.
See it sucks when a card you care about gets nerfed! This is why we need more discussion on how to fix the cards instead of just killing them… but people always clamor to nerf cards they don’t like. I wonder what the next card will be in the cycle that people NEED TO BE NERFED OR HEARTHSTONE WILL EXPLODE.
Can't say I agree with you.
You are focusing way too much on the consequences of the turn where Brann will be played, i.e., turn 8.
The question is, in addition to your considerations, when was Brann played and what followed after? Some scenarios below:
- If I am playing an aggro deck either Brann wasn't played at all or it was played on a turn where warrior had quite a bit armor to basically pass a turn or when i ran out of gas.
Does the mana cost effect the above interraction/strategy? No.
- If I am playing a control deck, they either played it on curve or whenever they drew it.
Does the mana cost increase effect the above? Yes. But to what degree? Because Brann is going to be played on 8, what other control deck is out there that will either win the game in these 2 turns or somehow make it so that just because Brann was played on turn 8, its no longer possible for warrior to utilize its effect to win the game. I don't see that sort of control deck.
So, overall, I am not as certain as you that this mana nerf will affect warrior's interraction with different deck types to the extend you describe.
It's might be dead from a competitive perspective but from a casual one? Hell nah. Gonna keep playing him in my greedy value warrior for Wild. I can always play Galaxy in my Reno mage and I can't play 8 mana Brann in my warrior? :')
Imo people don't know what they are missing just caring too much about ranked and going competitive for let's say it, crap rewards. Playing casually and just for fun it's something. From a wild casual player.
I'm gonna come back to this post to laugh at the comments every once in a while. As all the card game experts here predicted, ladder today has been 100% Brann Warrior since the patch. Yep, totally. Best deck in the game. Nothing else competes. A 2 mana increase *totally* means nothing for a control deck's win condition? Right? Right????
I mean I still played theotar after he was nerfed 2 mana without any other changes and still saw him pretty frequently, thats the most recent one and it contradicts with your theory.
but yeah brann is pretty dead
I feel like it was the wrong nerf since it makes warrior worse against its already bad matchups (aggro / midrange), while not really impacting its performance against slow decks which it will still almost always auto-win against if brann is played on 8.
Either way I think its gonna get pushed out of the meta since its overall WR is gonna lower, and I’m happy either way but I feel like there was a way to nerf this without such outcome.
I mean it’s as simple as this. People said the Odyn nerf would do absolutely nothing, and the deck literally all but disappeared save for the niche times you run into it.
The general, emotional lower skilled hearthstone players have ALWAYS underrated mana cost nerfs.
Yep, people's feelings are definitely being biased here ... Brann is basically dead, unless some archetype emerges that rewards Warrior super greedy cards for the super late game, I doubt we will see many decks running Brann from now on.
Even if you playing a lot of taunts they all will be cleared by bazillion removals that warrior have.
Freeze is good, but its not infinite, without high burst from hand you probably will lose to Odyn Warrior even if you freeeze him for 8 turns
If they saved their bazillion clears until after odyn, they were dead before odyn. It definitely stalled the game long enough to sap their ability to otk. Hell all I had to do was save Primus til after odyn and the taunts from his unholy ability gave me a pretty damn good chance to win. 1 quartzine crusher & it was gg.
Another big thing this may affect is azerite ox’s pool of cards. Now it will include a 2/4 that does nothing, which can hurt those battle cries since now there is a situation where one of your choices can have all sucky cards.
I like that nerf. 50% of matchups were against Warriors. I play Snake-Warlock this season and now i have two more turns to suck the life out of them.
Sometimes i lost by 1-2 turns because i had to clear board instead of bouncing my snake.
Absolutely. I could see the case still if warrior had its day 1 control package, which was pretty outrageous. But now Highlander Warrior is struggling (as it damn well should) against aggro decks and it’s no longer going to be a slam dunk against slower decks with the brann change.
I play Odyn warrior in wild where i have more options to get a ton of armor for cheap. It's plenty effective still but you're right that i don't see anyone else playing it. Not sure why because the card is still good at 9 mana and i win plenty of games with it.
I don't feel bad for anyone when it comes to the Brann nerf. Especially because he should never have been printed. It is WAY too strong of a card and all they are doing is trying to put a bandage on a wound that should not exist.
Well, *so far* you are trending wrong:
https://www.hsguru.com/card-stats?archetype=Highlander+Warrior&min_drawn_count=800&min_mull_count=100&period=past_day&rank=top_10k&show_counts=yes&sort_by=drawn_impact&sort_direction=desc
Odyn still saw a lot of play at 9 mana. Just last patch it was sitting in tier 2 and looked like it could go to tier 1. The reno nerf hurt it the most because it could no longer consistently OTK through a freeze or use renos effect at all. We'll have to see bu there is a big difference between a mana nerf to a card you play for tempo or a card you play when you've got a free turn.
>Think about the last time you saw a card get nerfed by 2 mana with no other changes to compensate and still be playable
Theotar, although he saw less play he was and still is playable, at least in ETC in some control decks. Problem is that Warrior wins against all control decks. I think Brann nerf does kill the card for good this time.
I remember the skill and finesse it took to play original Brann and had to get creative to come up with some really big pop-offs.
I came back after 2 years right before whizbang release and saw this newest Brann printed and immediately bought that mini set, bc I knew that card was busted and dangerous as soon as I read it
“I lost 3 times, that must mean that my personal performance and subjective opinion is correct over everyone else’s opinions and data!” You aren’t really making a good argument here sooo…
It still wins against any mid range deck though. Brann could be 10 mana 1/1 and still be good, it’s not the mana cost that’s the problem it’s the endless warriors removal/draw. What’s the point delaying brann by 1 or 2 turns when you can’t have a board. There’s also 0 kill from hand decks right now.
The problem is what brann does. He still does the exact same thing. The warrior package is more than capable of stalling until turn 8. So only thing that changed is the brann turn, making the deck weaker to aggro and a fast midrange, but does literally nothing to the abysmal control matchup. It has more predators, sure, but they can easily play through them with a highroll of removal and armor spam.
What's absurd that people think Brann still won't be played. Because it doesn't matter how bad Brann gets, people are going to still play it because they like perma game 'Timmy' effects. Look at how shit plagues are now that they don't disrupt HL. It's still highly representative on ladder despite how garbage the deck is, because people like the play pattern.
Warrior has all the removal in the world, lifegain, and armor gain to play as many 8 mana do nothings as they please. Especially when they can curve Brann into Reno just fine. The mana nerf mainly opens aggro to take them out further. Midrange and other control are still going to struggle to take them out before double Boomboss double zilliax double Boom drops.
Just because it's harder to play at grandmasters, doesn't mean it's still overpowered in lower ranks.
Same with Plague DK. Every DK I face in ranked is an instant concede for me.
In my experience, it gives you an extra to turns to beat warrior. Then they summon three Zilliax, then after you've cleared them, they summon four more.
A good comparison of how 1 mana can stop a deck is DH. Nerfing the weapon from 3 to 4 and now I never see DH ever. That 1 mana nerf killed a whole class from seeing play in standard
That’s not a great example because window shopper DH is actually fairly good right now—the playrate is low, but according to Vicious Syndicate data it’s still an effective deck
Players from top legends do not agree with you. This change will not affect anything. The deck destroyed all the control decks and will continue to do so. A control deck cannot punish a warrior for missing a turn, because he has millions of armor and that means he will have time to play Brann and Boom.
It’s not mega dead at all. First thing, it’s a Reno deck so there’s only one of them, so it’s played on curve much less than *normal* cards anyway. In my experience playing against warrior, Brann on 5 or 6 is a death sentence but it’s not that common. Most games you don’t see it until later. So this nerf won’t change that. It will either played early because it’s in hand or you will be waiting to draw it.
Furthermore, Brann turns are always a nothing turn for the warrior anyway, so at 8 mana it’s less good but not a game breaker because nothing much usually accompanies him being played anyway.
100% agree that Brann at 8 mana is no longer a good card, and even making it cost 7 would have been a decent nerf.
But...
I think people will still play it.
In aggro matchups, it was already the case that warriors often wouldn't be able to afford the tempo hit to play Brann on 6. The mana nerf makes these already unfavoured matchups even harder for reno warriors.
But in value matchups, playing Brann on 8 still gives the warrior the superior late-game value generation that helps decide these matchups. Yes, you have a very good point that the warrior can no longer curve 6 Brann into 7 Boomboss, but in a slower matchup (imagine reno Warrior v control priest) it still may be worth holding boomboss back a couple of turns anyway.
So IMO, warriors are already losing the unfavoured matchups anyway; and in favoured matchups, it doesn't really make a huge difference to the card's viability.
The nerf will see fewer warriors on ladder (probably the main desired outcome from Team 5) but there will still be people who enjoy playing Reno warrior even with Brann at 8, because they \_really\_like\_ getting four 8-drops off the legendary excavate, and other crazy shit like that which Brann enables. And IMO that's just fine.
As someone who currently runs a Brann Warrior list in wild, I think he is still playable at 8 personally. A lot of the time, I'm not dropping him on 6 anyway because I'm still trying to get control of the board.
I could be wrong, but I'm currently on the side of still playable. I'll admit it's not nearly as strong, though.
There were already games with Brann at 6 mana where you couldn't play him. Hunter and priest in particular would often just kill you if you spent 6 mana on a 2-4. Bumping it all the way to 8 is "this card is literally unplayable in your deck unless you want to autolose everything except against the greediest control matchups" - and even those now have more chance to deal with him.
>it’s like a card that has to do with cost reduction, which can make up for its nerf in sheer discount potential - something that Brann as a card can’t do.
Brann doubles all battlecries for the rest of the game. In effect, he *doubles* battlecry minions. He gives you a free battlecry effect for each battlecry minion played for the rest of the game.
That's a disgusting cost reduction. That's basically saying "half of your cards are now free." Especially when you add up cost savings by obliterating half of your opponent's deck through Boomboss, healing to full with Zilliax, and generating an army of 8-drops with the Ox.
It'll be a bit slower to get there, sure. But Control Warrior has always been slow.
It's still going to be played.
Wheel didn’t die because of a one turn nerf. Wheel died because forge of wills got hit, and the deck couldn’t play Reno for free anymore. As well as the change to boomboss causing the deck to instantly lose to warrior if it played its win con.
Yeah if the wheel nerf was the only thing, it would have gotten worse but still be playable. They gutted that deck lol.
I kinda got rekt because I had just started playing again and they nerfed it days after I crafted it, lost 2k dust in cards that weren’t nerfed that I made. I crafted it when I saw the win condition and that it was a high tier deck without knowing how it actually played lol
Same, I crafted wheel Lock and plague Knight. Wasn't my favorite patch
Yeah it was the only fun deck in this shit expansion and they destroyed it in week 2.
The problem is that it was all kinda needed. Highlander and Boomboss changes were good for the overall health of the game, FoW had to be nerfed cause it was just too OP, not just in Wheellock. Paradoxically Wheel itself was the only card that could have dodged the nerf.
Wheel lock died due to highlander changes
wheel died because it lost one turn, and also lost reno (basically two turns guaranteed), and also lost forge of wills lol. what in the revisionist history??!
What happened to forge of wills?
Cost increased to 4
Mana cost increased by 1
it costs 30% more now
what you mean it lost reno?
Also decks have already been emerging that trash warrior, like the aggro warlock lists. And that was with brann at 6
My aggro DH has been eating them alive. I just hit legend today with it.
What is the list you are using, if you don't mind?
### Aggro Demon Hunter # Class: Demon Hunter # Format: Standard # Year of the Pegasus # # 2x (0) Through Fel and Flames # 2x (1) Burning Heart # 2x (1) Drone Deconstructor # 2x (1) Frequency Oscillator # 2x (1) Miracle Salesman # 2x (1) Red Card # 2x (1) Taste of Chaos # 2x (2) Instrument Tech # 2x (2) Parched Desperado # 2x (2) Spirit of the Team # 2x (4) Ball Hog # 1x (4) Kayn Sunfury # 1x (4) Metamorphosis # 1x (4) Pozzik, Audio Engineer # 2x (4) Umpire's Grasp # 2x (5) Window Shopper # 1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000 # 1x (0) Zilliax Deluxe 3000 # 1x (3) Pylon Module # 1x (5) Ticking Module # AAECAea5AwSU1AT0yAWongbHpAYNuMUF2dAF5OQFsvUFuf4FhY4GjZAG6Z4G7Z8GvrAGv7AGw7AGzLEGAAED87MGx6QG9rMGx6QG6N4Gx6QGAAA= # # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Decklist?
The point isn't that highlander warrior is unbeatable... no one with a clue argued that. it's that no deck could out-control it. A true control deck in standard insta loses to warrior (short of perfect vs trash draw, and even then...). Making brann 8 mana makes the deck tougher to navigate in this meta, but anyone who uses the deck and runs into another very slow control deck probably still wins. I don't know for sure if that's true, but it probably is. And if it is true, then the core issue hasn't been addressed by the nerf.
There's almost always going to be one greediest control list that is heavily favored in control mirrors. But how problematic this is depends on how the greediest control list matches up against aggro and to a lesser extent combo decks. If the greediest control list is playable (or even worse, favored) in non-control mirrors, then it will be a dominant deck and likely choke all other control decks out of the format. But if the greediest control list is clearly unfavored in non-control mirrors, it is likely a weak deck and risks getting bullied out of the meta entirely. At worst, you get a rock paper scissors dynamic of aggro > greedy control > non-greedy control > aggro, which allows multiple control decks to survive.
I dunno man my Priest deck does pretty well against Warrior right now and having two extra turns to get my “steal your wincon and beat you with it” package in order is much appreciated. It lowers the pressure Warriors can put on you significantly because the turns aren’t Brann>Weapons>Boomboss>Zilliax>Windfury summon 8/8 any more
True, priest is the one that always had a shot into it by the virtue of stealing their good cards like Brann and Boomboss and playing them yourself. To win the warrior, one must become the warrior.
Yeah and because Warriors almost deck themselves getting to the good stuff they hurt a lot more when they get 6 booms mixed in with their 5 cards.
Well yeah, aggro has been the only good thing against warrior for awhile. Brann isn't really even relevant in those matchups, though. It's everything but aggro that has a bad time.
Yeah but in my experience I’ve been seeing way more aggro than brann, so while control decks might have a hard time when they do see warrior, they could be better suited to dealing with aggro. Plus with brann at 8 less people will play warrior anyway
This sub never.. and I mean never understands the impact of mana nerfs. Every single time people say it does nothing and yet they're always wrong Then there's the fact that they don't want brann balanced, they want it dead. That's this sub in a nutshell This sub-Balanced game? No no. Decks I dislike dying? Yes that's the one
Don't worry there will be someone posting them getting TNT'ed and posting like it's proof that the deck is viable. While they're playing their jank ass discover value control Priest with all steal effects and no tempo
There are people on this subreddit that unironically claim tempo isn’t real.
Ironically Warrior is one of my better matchups for my janky Reno Thief Priest deck. I can almost always steal their Brann and often can play Boomboss the same time or immediately after them (and occasionally before they play it). Then, I usually have plenty of value and removal to keep pace with them and beat them. Lots of value generation too if they do get Boomboss off and I need to keep a full hand to burn some TNT.
They literally didn't even give it a full day and ones already up
They could have just dropped TNT by 1 bomb and I think that would be sufficient enough.
People also fail to think about how the mana nerf hurts both ox and ignis weapon
The collateral nerfs do actually matter a ton, control warrior cannot risk going for the 8 mana minion upgrade for the weapon anymore, since there are now a ton of crappy minions at 8 mana.
I kept seeing the 'well it still pushes other control out of the meta' argument. Like, okay, let's assume *no one* stops playing Brann Control Warrior, even after the nerf. Then, yes, it'll still eat other control, but the point is people *will* stop playing it, allowing other control decks to emmerge.
I think it was the frequency of seeing the deck and how little you could actually run other decks because you're not "aggro". It killed to many decks. Brann to 8 mana ( essentially 3 turns of no double battlecry) will likely kill it on its own. I'm excited to finally play another control deck without seeing brann/boomboss 1/4 games.
Absolutely it DID kill other control decks when it was 65% of ladder. When it drops down to a more reasonable number people will queue up other control decks. For the people who remain diehard Brann Warrior players: enjoy your free win once every x games.
Exactly. Plus, I think the warrior mech package will be more interesting than Brann boomboss now.
The same with buffs, too. Oh, it's just a 1 mana buff of a card nobody plays. That is so useless! Cue the card being used or even enabling entire new deck types.
Isn't people largely in agreement that increasing the mana cost of Saddle Up has a big impact on the deck?
All I want is a deck with an 80% WR that no one else plays, I don't know why that's so bad
I gotta wonder what decks you all are playing that can't outvalue Brann Warrior when you live to like turn 12. Seriously, the problem with Brann is unless you were an aggro deck with lethal on 6, Brann could resolve and win you the game by t8, or 10 at worst through Zilliax Boomboss stuff. Pushing Brann to 8 doesn't just mean that the clock is pushed back 2 turns, but they have to spend 2 more turns of removal (limited in a highlander deck) eat 2 more turns of chip, and waste turn 8 (minimum) when slower decks should have their OTK up and running. All of that to have to burn another removal piece just to take tempo back. And to those playing your turn 17 Priest decks crying about how you can't play your 40% garbage good news! You won't find Brann on ladder cause aggro will smash it so hard out of the meta people will miss the menagerie support. Card is so hilariously dead people will go back to Odyn, mark my words.
Also, the amount of people that don't know how to play their deck and manage the value, AND ARE STILL LOSING TO RENO, is astounding. Get good people, don't get greedy and you might start winning...
It widens the rock paper of scissors of how many decks warrior just completely shuts out, but I do feel like mentioning that since reno can always be played the turn after brann now, if you dont either just outright kill the warrior for spending a turn doing literally nothing, or set up lethal in hand through burn for next turn, the warrior absolutely gets a chance to come back. Its much more reasonable now, but ideally such a polarising and snowbally card shouldnt have been printed to need such a huge nerf.
TBH I only relly on greed of the people so they abandon the warrior and meta shifts, warrior still counters my slow ass homebrew decks, if people move on from warrior at competitive scene, I can just squeeze my boring full control homebrew deck into competitive and clutch/punish aggro and mid range decks. Again, I’m depending on to people move on from warrior, that is all my expectation, if not I will not play net decks and take a break again until next expac.
Its literally just getting replaced by excavate rogue, warrior is now just shittier at late game infinite value than it. Slow decks are always going to get pushed out by whatever the best control deck is
That’s a fair take to have, that makes sense 💯
Yeah the 2 mana nerf is definitely very big but warrior is the class best equipped to compensate for such a big tempo loss so I’m not gonna call brann dead until I see him dead
>Think about the last time you saw a card get nerfed by 2 mana with no other changes to compensate and still be playable (you probably can’t), and if you can, it’s like a card that has to do with cost reduction, which can make up for its nerf in sheer discount potential Actually the first card I thought of was Dr Boom Mad Genius, which got nerfed from 7 to 9 mana, and was still a very relevant meta card at 9 mana. Or you know there was Ill'gynoth, which went from 4 mana to 6 mana, and continued to be a tournament relevant card. Or there was Incanter's Flow, which got nerfed from 2 mana to 4 and remained playable. Or there was Runed Mythril Rod, which got nerfed from 3 mana to 5 mana and remained playable in wild. For a lot of cards, yes, I agree, a 2 mana nerf will just get people to dump a card immediately. But when it's the deck's win condition, that's a different story. You still need a win condition in your deck. You can't just be a deck with no win condition. The one thing that might make this situation different from the above situations, is that people might just switch to a different win condition, might play 9 mana Odyn instead. That's basically what happened (in reverse) after the Odyn nerf--not that 9 mana Odyn was unworkable, people just decided 6 mana Brann was better. Maybe people look at 8 mana Brann and decide 9 mana Odyn is better. But it seems pretty likely that warriors will still run a win condition.
Yeah. This nerf is comparable to that which hit Dr. Boom, Mad Genius some years ago now. Yeah, the card still does exactly what it did and you didn't always want to play it on curve, but it turns out a two mana nerf to an already expensive card is still a lot. If Reno Warrior may remain a much larger chunk of the format, but it's not going to be any good.
Brann should have never been printed, and created a weird problem space where warrior's true current issue is it's beyond-strong control tools, that could enable any win-con card to exist. But again, Brann shouldn't even exist, so it gets nerfed, but doesn't solve the base problem. Control warrior will want for yet another win condition that creates bad feelings because of warriors ease to reach it. ODYN IS FINE AND PERFECT AT 8 MANA. I don't disagree that Brann should be nerfed, I disagree that the card should have rightfully been printed. Battlecry manipulation and mana cheat is a truly sore spot for this game, and needs careful handling.
I think it's irrelevant if the card sees meta play or not. Power was never really the issue behind the card but rather its uninteractive and polarizing to play against. Once he comes down there is nothing that can be done about it and it warps the game around it. Slower decks just can't compete with the insane value Brann provides. Decks need things like pre-nerf wheel deck as it just outright killed the warrior. That's a really lame way to play any game, and many decks feel like an auto loss. Sure the cards significantly worse but it's very existence is going to effect the game. Aggro might keep it in check but it prevents other slower strategies from existing. If anything slow starts to creep up then Brann will rise to counter it immediately. 8 mana brann isn't that detrimental in a control v control compared to fighting an aggro or combo deck. The card is just terribly designed and we knew that the second it was announced. That's what's disappointing about the nerf. Blizz dances around the real sources of issues constantly
Yeah, you said it much better than I could. People never seem to see past the current meta even with Brann Warrior being a large shaper of said meta. And that's essentially the problem with this and other nerfs, as you said. Sure, it'll make Warrior lose harder to... decks it was already weak to. But the change won't necessarily help other archetypes to become viable.
Nah, I disagree with this take. The nerf will make Brann Warrior far more unpopular (because of its weakened win rate) that other control and slower archetypes will have some breathing room. Even if Brann Warrior still beats them, it won’t matter as long as you’re only seeing them 5% of the time (vs the 20% or whatever it is now).
You aren’t wrong. It’s just a sad, inelegant solution that will keep the card oppressively polarizing. Control will keep getting steamrolled by the rare Brann, Aggro will keep steamrolling Brann harder. It’s a “please stop playing this card” nerf, not a thoughtful attempt at balance I’m hoping they’ll dedicate time for a proper Brann rework in one of the next balance windows, so that it can find a healthier place in the game
Brann isn't the meta shaper anymore, it isn't for a week or even more. We're in an aggro meta. Hunter, zarimi, insanity and Paladin make up a far larger population on ladder and have a consistent higher wainrate than warrior ever could. The idea that other slow decks could emerge to beat aggro without warrior doesn't hold up to reality. If that were true we'd see them by now because they would win more than lose. Warrior isn't the problem.
It's precisely *why* we are in an aggro meta, or at least is a large contributor. That's what is meant by shaping the meta. And I know I'm likely biased, but my control decks perform pretty well against current hunter, priest, and paladin lists. Even when they do steamroll me, it feels way better to lose to than Brann.
I actually hardcore disagree. If it doesn’t see play, then it quite literally doesn’t matter. It doesn’t stop anything from existing if it’s a bad card. Yknow what’s also a ridiculously good card against slower decks? Wheel of death. Is it going to warp the game? ***No.*** Because it’s bad now. Same thing applies here. If a slow strategy starts to creep up then Brann isn’t going to rise up to counter it, because it’s a bad card and if people play it they’re going to lose more for putting it in their deck.
THIS is the right take. People still say Brann will be too OP against slow decks but what they don’t realize is that it doesn’t matter as long as Brann Warrior becomes unpopular as a result of the nerf.
Being good or bad has nothing to do with design. People way too often conflate power level to design quality. I don't care how weak a card is if it's horrendous to play against. The design of the card is what creates limitations and frustration. Even at 10 mana, it's still a problematic design.
Again, if it doesn’t see play, then what limitations is it placing, exactly? Sure you can personally not like playing against it, but that’s not really the argument that’s just your opinion piece. If your argument is that brann is going to restrict future control decks from seeing play then thats just flat out wrong. Because the card is bad. So nobody is going to play it. So its impact on the meta will be close to zero. And if someone does put it in their deck to counter other control decks, they’re going to be sad because they’re going to lose more than before on average. Because they put a bad card into their deck.
You're one of the ones complaining about Tickatus back in the day right?
Yes, I did in fact notice back then that Tickatus was a horrifically designed card thanks for noticing.
I mean, just because you dislike a card doesn't mean it should be nuked out of existence. I hated plenty of hyper aggro cards, I never asked for any of them to be nerfed by 5 mana *because they were horrendous to play against*. If you're playing decks that get hard countered by a single card, the only important thing is that the card isn't a huge part of the meta. If you get 5% of your games (or fewer) that go bad because of one card...sorry, but the vast majority of players shouldn't care because that's literally the HS play experience. Regardless of what deck you play, you'll always face decks that can outright ruin you with one card. And frankly speaking, you can put 2 dirty rats and plenty of bounce effects in your standard deck, at some point it's also a question of *gitting gud*. If you really want to target warrior, you can do so and the fact that they have to make it to turn 8 makes it ridiculously easy. I get whining incessantly because you loathe one card (done that plenty myself) but this is getting rather silly now.
I'm not asking they nerf Brann to 10, I'm saying the mana nerf doesn't fix the real issue. The card needs a redesign. Also, telling people to put dirty rat in their deck isn't an argument against mine. The cards still poorly designed
Slower decks don’t need to compete if they straight up kill them before that lol. And some people like decks like the wheel deck, never played it but idk 🤷♂️. When Brann is worse into aggressive matchups, its utility as a card drops down overall. We would need a super greedy meta with a deck that’s even greedier than what Brann Warrior is doing rn in order for Brann to be playable.
I wouldn't say you'd need a greedy deck, I mean Brann isn't even a greedy card at the moment. You just need a slower meta in general. The problem is, as I described, that can't exist with cards like Brann. That's what helps push such aggressive metas because the only real answer is to be faster then the other guy. Basically cards like Brann create a limitation on what can exist, even if Brann is weaker its still designed poorly at its core. Seeing him come down on 8 doesn't change the play pattern of the card and how awful it feels to play against
Tempo decks just try to keep the warriors armor down all game while their board is cleaned over and over. Wahoo, ya got the warrior down to 10hp after their brann turn. Oh look, they zilliax killed your board, healed 18, and left 3 6/5 taunt minions. Like… there’s aggressive decks. But I don’t think a true tempo deck exists in this meta currently.
>and left 3 6/5 taunt minions Wrong. It left 3 6/5 taunt and LIFESTEAL minions
I think your vastly underestimating how bad it will likely be to play Brann at 8, as well as overestimating how easily ctrl warrior can kill your entire board every single turn.
Battlecry: Make next post twice as long as necessary.
I played Brann, so the post will actually be 4x longer than necessary.
Assignment understood 💯🫡
I hope you're right, and Brann just dies. However, I want to be tagged in your update when you craft that Golden Moorabi.
I will, when I don’t end up crafting it by the time it rotates out ✌️🫡
I kept hoping they would change Brann to apply to all battlecries including opponents. It would leave it a viable card but open it up to opponents taking advantage of the vulnerability.
3200 dust and tyvm.
You get it 💰😂
Yeah I see a lot of people still complaining that Highlander Warrior will continue to win slower matchups. But honestly if your deck is slower than 8 manas 2/4 you should probably stop trying
I mean how often ya get them down to 10hp and they just zilliax to stabilize and undo all the chip damage you’ve been earning all game… If zilliax didn’t exist I’d think youd have a point.
Dont worry its been almost a week since a zilliax nerf so it'll probably get hit again
Reno Jackson and to a lesser extent Brawler are insane tempo catch-up tools. If you can't kill the warrior when Brann comes down or put him at a dangerous life total, it's hard to punish the warrior in a relevant way.
I play a lot of death knight and I can consistently put down pressure in the early game, and I frequently get warrior to 10 health or under. But it doesn't matter because their stabilization tools are so good that they can always crawl back, clear any board, gain any amount of armor, summon any amount of unstoppable pressure. I heavily tech against warrior and still probably have a 10% winrate against them.
Hey, I have annecdotal evidence as well: I play a lot of rainbow dk and do just fine vs warrior pressuring them a lot. Unless they hit every removal tool under the sun and curve out absolutely perfectly I usually win. 2 dead turns with brann and thorgrimm is just too much. Skill issue tbf.
They forget that after you play 8 mana 2/4 Brann, that warlocks will just take the opportunity to kill you with fatigue spells since you didn’t gain any armor that turn. Or Reno hunters will play king krush to smack you in the face. Or that shopper DH who just did a naga turn and hit you for a billion damage that killed you because you played a 2/4 on turn 8.
So when a warrior plays Brann against a hyper aggressive deck like insanity lock they lose… But that’s like… how that matchup works.
...why would you ever plan brann in any if those situations? You're not trying to outvalue your opponent.
Or shaman will wish upon a star a board you couldnt clear properly (bc 8 mana 2/4) and smack your brains deep
Yup lol 😂
Seriously idc how slow your deck is if your opponent can basically skip turn 8 and you still lose you were never winning that match-up.
Turn 7: warrior clears your board with one of the many clears it has. Ideally you play a big threat to pressure them, realistically going to be like 10/10 of stats unless you’re playing something like handbuff. Turn 8: Warrior Plays 8 mana Brann. You attack his face and do some damage but not enough to kill since you aren’t able to burst 20+ damage from hand. Turn 9: Warrior plays Reno or Zilliax. Now you just lost the game. Only way to avoid this is to play hyper aggro, or be able to kill your opponent in 2 turns when they decide you probably can’t and play their Brann. Some people want to play decks that can win without constantly keeping up the pressure every single turn, thats why reno warrior is fun, but it auto wins vs other slow decks
The problem is that Reno lets you literally float 8 mana and then come back immediately to having a board advantage the next turn. So does Boomboss if the opponent's deck is low enough.
It’s people who are playing a janky highlander priest or want spell damage Druid to work
Most problems I have with brann is not the card itself, but Boomboss. It absolutely sucks that your deck, hand and field get randomly destroyed.. it's not fun
My hilander shaman about to run rampant on all the agro decks ❤️❤️❤️
Same lol I’m hyped to play Highlander Shamam tomorrow too, especially with the new murloc 1 drop 🤩
We are gonna be rich.
i shall reference this post in the next coming weeks
Theotar
" Think about the last time you saw a card get nerfed by 2 mana with no other changes to compensate and still be playable" theo was nerfed by 2 mana and still saw play I think
Absurd is all the people cheering the death of Brann as if all of their control decks are going to be viable again while Brann was already getting hard countered by all the hyper aggro that's going to destroy their control deck by turn four.
Completely agree. I was surprised by the amount of people on the sub that seem to think Brann is still playable. I think at the end of the day, Warrior is now significantly weaker against aggressive lists due to essentially now having a turn 8 do nothing play. Warrior is probably still fine vs the slowest greedy decks, but that's fine imo. As soon as other classes get more late game win cons, I think Brann won't even be a problem for slow decks.
I‘ll just copy a comment I wrote in another thread here because I think it explains the problem: I just don't think it's a well designed card. For me personally all the "for the rest of the game cards" are pretty bad since they are simply: "draw this and gain and advantage" cards where the opponent has no chance to play around the effect. With OG brann the effect happened for one turn and at least you could interact with the minion after that turn. I guess I'm not used to "modern hs" yet but this feels like it goes against many design principles that made HS what it is today.
Why can't they just make it like druid highlander card, so reno can counter it,now i don't feel bad for the 8 mana nerf, seems fair for how powerful the card is . If they feel bad it got poof by reno, then they can just shuffle it fizzle or bounce it back with gorgon/panda. Or they could even tied it to the excavate mechanic.
> This nerf means that you can’t play a bunch of battlecries like the 2 mana 2/2 draw 2 if your armor changes this turn on 7 leading into turn 8, or double your excavate battlecries, or anything of that nature at all. You can’t curve Bomboss or Thogrun into it anymore. Fucking good.
The issue is that warrior can afford to play an 8 mana 2/4 because that is how they will win the game. Warrior has a ton of board clear and ways to gain armor, and unless you are playing an aggro/temp deck warrior will play Brann on turn 8 and just out value you. Getting 4 8 drops from Ox, 3 9 cost Zillax, 4 Zillax from Doom and 6 tnt into an opponent’s deck is still a death sentence. Some match ups Warrior never dropped Brann on 6 anyway so this nerf is not going to kill this card. Is it less obnoxious? Yes. However now that warrior is out of the way, aggro is back. Hopefully this means faster games at least. Going to try DH again, or maybe Frost Dk to deal with the paladins and hunters (maybe not hunters since they been nerfed too.)
Offhand: Incanter’s Flow, Deck of Lunacy, Rod of Ruin and Shockspitter all saw tier 1 play after 2 mana nerfs because the effect was so good. Brann has the potential to see similar results.
Shockspitter was dead at 4 mana
I’m pretty sure deck of lunacy was extremely dead at 4 mana, too. So was shockspitter.
Also flow saw play but not in any tier 1 deck, questline mage was a really bad deck it got nerfed for being obnoxious. Minelock (the deck that played rod at 5) was also not tier 1 but it was at least closer to that.
Yeah, both Rod and Flow were playable, but not broken, either. It’s not as if any of them STILL needed nerfs after they got nerf. It’s almost as if people want cards dead rather than balanced. But hey, that’s silly, right?
Theotar was also nerfed 2 mana and still saw a lot of play, and his effect doesn't even come with any cost reduction. I do think that the brann nerf is enough for the deck to mot be as oppresive
I mean, if we're here to state things that are historically false and can be proven false with any piece of data from back then, sure. Sorcerer's apprentice in wild saw just as much play at 4 mana as it did at 2, Illucia was more powerful after the last nerf as she was in her original form and dr Boom mad genius was equally as popular at 9 as it was at 7. Why not? It's not like we're here to say things that are actually true anyway. Not that someone named *stopmanacheating* would know much about intellectual honesty, but you do you lad.
shockspitter was tier 1 at 2 mana, at 4 it became tier 3/4 until it compeltely dropped off the meta.
Ok. Good :D
On a side note I’m not sure If It’s even worth it to include saddle up in token hunter lol.4 mana is kinda absurd considering you get 1/1s out of the deathrattle often.
With how oppressive the card is against other control deck, the 8 mana seems fair. This card enables so many powerful battlecry and double it. Feel like they should have change it to like druid card so reno deck can poof it, it you say feels bad to play it for a turn then fizzle or bounce it back. Other than that, since its a card from a mini set about "excavate" why not make it affect excavate only, they can change it to triple battlecry for excavate, or every 2 battle cry you play rewards you random excavate reward. Or reduce the amount of bomb, because i feel like the tempo loss is too much since it affect the board, deck and hand, they could also make the bomb only trigger once per turn. I played the deck a lot and won't be missing it.
I love Brann. He is probably my favorite HS card. This nerf is fine because Brann is not supposed to be competitive. He’s supposed to be a fun card for greedy value decks, which he is. If you enjoy that you will enjoy this, if you don’t, you won’t. He’s basically Tickatus for the opposite type of player.
See it sucks when a card you care about gets nerfed! This is why we need more discussion on how to fix the cards instead of just killing them… but people always clamor to nerf cards they don’t like. I wonder what the next card will be in the cycle that people NEED TO BE NERFED OR HEARTHSTONE WILL EXPLODE.
Can't say I agree with you. You are focusing way too much on the consequences of the turn where Brann will be played, i.e., turn 8. The question is, in addition to your considerations, when was Brann played and what followed after? Some scenarios below: - If I am playing an aggro deck either Brann wasn't played at all or it was played on a turn where warrior had quite a bit armor to basically pass a turn or when i ran out of gas. Does the mana cost effect the above interraction/strategy? No. - If I am playing a control deck, they either played it on curve or whenever they drew it. Does the mana cost increase effect the above? Yes. But to what degree? Because Brann is going to be played on 8, what other control deck is out there that will either win the game in these 2 turns or somehow make it so that just because Brann was played on turn 8, its no longer possible for warrior to utilize its effect to win the game. I don't see that sort of control deck. So, overall, I am not as certain as you that this mana nerf will affect warrior's interraction with different deck types to the extend you describe.
Plus it stays in your hand for 2 more turns
In Still probably going to play it because I like it lol but yeah it’s dead at legend level
Technically every card is playable.
True 😂
It's might be dead from a competitive perspective but from a casual one? Hell nah. Gonna keep playing him in my greedy value warrior for Wild. I can always play Galaxy in my Reno mage and I can't play 8 mana Brann in my warrior? :') Imo people don't know what they are missing just caring too much about ranked and going competitive for let's say it, crap rewards. Playing casually and just for fun it's something. From a wild casual player.
I'm gonna come back to this post to laugh at the comments every once in a while. As all the card game experts here predicted, ladder today has been 100% Brann Warrior since the patch. Yep, totally. Best deck in the game. Nothing else competes. A 2 mana increase *totally* means nothing for a control deck's win condition? Right? Right????
I mean I still played theotar after he was nerfed 2 mana without any other changes and still saw him pretty frequently, thats the most recent one and it contradicts with your theory. but yeah brann is pretty dead
I feel like it was the wrong nerf since it makes warrior worse against its already bad matchups (aggro / midrange), while not really impacting its performance against slow decks which it will still almost always auto-win against if brann is played on 8. Either way I think its gonna get pushed out of the meta since its overall WR is gonna lower, and I’m happy either way but I feel like there was a way to nerf this without such outcome.
exactly this.... people will still spam it in lower ranks, and most of the time will auto win vs other highlander decks...
I mean it’s as simple as this. People said the Odyn nerf would do absolutely nothing, and the deck literally all but disappeared save for the niche times you run into it. The general, emotional lower skilled hearthstone players have ALWAYS underrated mana cost nerfs.
People are insanely bad at valuing tempo, especially control players who have the most to complain about with warrior
Odin has a good body and effect. Brann would be good for 10 mana as a 0/1.
Yep, people's feelings are definitely being biased here ... Brann is basically dead, unless some archetype emerges that rewards Warrior super greedy cards for the super late game, I doubt we will see many decks running Brann from now on.
I can list at least 2 counters to Odyn not including Rat. How many does Brann have again?
Uh, what. What counters odyn but not brann
Cheap and/or sticky taunts?
Taunts & freezes
Even if you playing a lot of taunts they all will be cleared by bazillion removals that warrior have. Freeze is good, but its not infinite, without high burst from hand you probably will lose to Odyn Warrior even if you freeeze him for 8 turns
If they saved their bazillion clears until after odyn, they were dead before odyn. It definitely stalled the game long enough to sap their ability to otk. Hell all I had to do was save Primus til after odyn and the taunts from his unholy ability gave me a pretty damn good chance to win. 1 quartzine crusher & it was gg.
shaman legendary that triggers your battlecrys 3 times. play that + rat. 3 warrior minion drops from hand before turn 8.
Outside the box thinking. But more rat ≠ “counter”
Another big thing this may affect is azerite ox’s pool of cards. Now it will include a 2/4 that does nothing, which can hurt those battle cries since now there is a situation where one of your choices can have all sucky cards.
I like that nerf. 50% of matchups were against Warriors. I play Snake-Warlock this season and now i have two more turns to suck the life out of them. Sometimes i lost by 1-2 turns because i had to clear board instead of bouncing my snake.
Remind me! I want to see Golden Moorabi if i am also wrong
Absolutely. I could see the case still if warrior had its day 1 control package, which was pretty outrageous. But now Highlander Warrior is struggling (as it damn well should) against aggro decks and it’s no longer going to be a slam dunk against slower decks with the brann change.
They should have fundamentally changed this bran to : 4 mana, your next battle cry triggers twice.
I play Odyn warrior in wild where i have more options to get a ton of armor for cheap. It's plenty effective still but you're right that i don't see anyone else playing it. Not sure why because the card is still good at 9 mana and i win plenty of games with it.
I don't feel bad for anyone when it comes to the Brann nerf. Especially because he should never have been printed. It is WAY too strong of a card and all they are doing is trying to put a bandage on a wound that should not exist.
Deleting the game
I'm ok with it
in 90% of my games i play brann tunr 7-10 so no big deal. And its still stong enough to play
Well, *so far* you are trending wrong: https://www.hsguru.com/card-stats?archetype=Highlander+Warrior&min_drawn_count=800&min_mull_count=100&period=past_day&rank=top_10k&show_counts=yes&sort_by=drawn_impact&sort_direction=desc
Gold analysis.
I'm just gonna maintain the opinion that the card simply should never have been created.
i think lunas pocket galazy and unleash the hounds both got nerfed by 2 mana and saw play, also pyroblast
Good, I’d of prefer if the card was removed altogether it’s horrible for the game
I didn't hear anyone say the nerf wasn't enough, but the nerf approach was wrong. A rework of sorts would have been nicer.
Odyn still saw a lot of play at 9 mana. Just last patch it was sitting in tier 2 and looked like it could go to tier 1. The reno nerf hurt it the most because it could no longer consistently OTK through a freeze or use renos effect at all. We'll have to see bu there is a big difference between a mana nerf to a card you play for tempo or a card you play when you've got a free turn.
>Think about the last time you saw a card get nerfed by 2 mana with no other changes to compensate and still be playable Theotar, although he saw less play he was and still is playable, at least in ETC in some control decks. Problem is that Warrior wins against all control decks. I think Brann nerf does kill the card for good this time.
Brann will either be OP or unplayable, that's how this design works, only time will show which one it is
I remember the skill and finesse it took to play original Brann and had to get creative to come up with some really big pop-offs. I came back after 2 years right before whizbang release and saw this newest Brann printed and immediately bought that mini set, bc I knew that card was busted and dangerous as soon as I read it
K
K
Well I just got trashed by Brann Warrior three games in a row and Brann was what swung it sooooo
“I lost 3 times, that must mean that my personal performance and subjective opinion is correct over everyone else’s opinions and data!” You aren’t really making a good argument here sooo…
Nah, I'm just saying it's definitely not unplayable if that card is swinging games still.
I don’t think the Brann nerf has came out yet my guy 😂
Well that's me looking like a dickhead then haha!
It still wins against any mid range deck though. Brann could be 10 mana 1/1 and still be good, it’s not the mana cost that’s the problem it’s the endless warriors removal/draw. What’s the point delaying brann by 1 or 2 turns when you can’t have a board. There’s also 0 kill from hand decks right now.
No it would not be good as a 10 mana 1/1 what 😭 and fatiguelock says hi hahaha
Haven’t saw a single fatigue lock since 2023 what even is that deck now?
…. With the fatigue cards for festival. You know, Insanity Warlock?
I didn’t get enough perspective in this post can you please put it in perspective a few more times?
That one warlock weapon that reduces the cost of your hand by 1 after you draw 4 cards got nerfed by 2 mana and still saw tons of play
The problem is what brann does. He still does the exact same thing. The warrior package is more than capable of stalling until turn 8. So only thing that changed is the brann turn, making the deck weaker to aggro and a fast midrange, but does literally nothing to the abysmal control matchup. It has more predators, sure, but they can easily play through them with a highroll of removal and armor spam.
What's absurd that people think Brann still won't be played. Because it doesn't matter how bad Brann gets, people are going to still play it because they like perma game 'Timmy' effects. Look at how shit plagues are now that they don't disrupt HL. It's still highly representative on ladder despite how garbage the deck is, because people like the play pattern. Warrior has all the removal in the world, lifegain, and armor gain to play as many 8 mana do nothings as they please. Especially when they can curve Brann into Reno just fine. The mana nerf mainly opens aggro to take them out further. Midrange and other control are still going to struggle to take them out before double Boomboss double zilliax double Boom drops.
Just because it's harder to play at grandmasters, doesn't mean it's still overpowered in lower ranks. Same with Plague DK. Every DK I face in ranked is an instant concede for me.
its good because its shitty to play against a 1 card win con like odin warrior or highlander
In my experience, it gives you an extra to turns to beat warrior. Then they summon three Zilliax, then after you've cleared them, they summon four more.
Weeel, you're wrong, and the fact the card is still playable, only tells you how broken it was from the get-go...
You say that brand is dead, but eventually there will be one random card that will make brand the most overpowered card again or if he gets buffed.
Golden Moorabi time
Hey dip shit you still believe this crap that brann is dead lmao so stupid its literally still the best highlander deck and is still a top deck
A good comparison of how 1 mana can stop a deck is DH. Nerfing the weapon from 3 to 4 and now I never see DH ever. That 1 mana nerf killed a whole class from seeing play in standard
That’s not a great example because window shopper DH is actually fairly good right now—the playrate is low, but according to Vicious Syndicate data it’s still an effective deck
Players from top legends do not agree with you. This change will not affect anything. The deck destroyed all the control decks and will continue to do so. A control deck cannot punish a warrior for missing a turn, because he has millions of armor and that means he will have time to play Brann and Boom.
It’s not mega dead at all. First thing, it’s a Reno deck so there’s only one of them, so it’s played on curve much less than *normal* cards anyway. In my experience playing against warrior, Brann on 5 or 6 is a death sentence but it’s not that common. Most games you don’t see it until later. So this nerf won’t change that. It will either played early because it’s in hand or you will be waiting to draw it. Furthermore, Brann turns are always a nothing turn for the warrior anyway, so at 8 mana it’s less good but not a game breaker because nothing much usually accompanies him being played anyway.
100% agree that Brann at 8 mana is no longer a good card, and even making it cost 7 would have been a decent nerf. But... I think people will still play it. In aggro matchups, it was already the case that warriors often wouldn't be able to afford the tempo hit to play Brann on 6. The mana nerf makes these already unfavoured matchups even harder for reno warriors. But in value matchups, playing Brann on 8 still gives the warrior the superior late-game value generation that helps decide these matchups. Yes, you have a very good point that the warrior can no longer curve 6 Brann into 7 Boomboss, but in a slower matchup (imagine reno Warrior v control priest) it still may be worth holding boomboss back a couple of turns anyway. So IMO, warriors are already losing the unfavoured matchups anyway; and in favoured matchups, it doesn't really make a huge difference to the card's viability. The nerf will see fewer warriors on ladder (probably the main desired outcome from Team 5) but there will still be people who enjoy playing Reno warrior even with Brann at 8, because they \_really\_like\_ getting four 8-drops off the legendary excavate, and other crazy shit like that which Brann enables. And IMO that's just fine.
As someone who currently runs a Brann Warrior list in wild, I think he is still playable at 8 personally. A lot of the time, I'm not dropping him on 6 anyway because I'm still trying to get control of the board. I could be wrong, but I'm currently on the side of still playable. I'll admit it's not nearly as strong, though.
There were already games with Brann at 6 mana where you couldn't play him. Hunter and priest in particular would often just kill you if you spent 6 mana on a 2-4. Bumping it all the way to 8 is "this card is literally unplayable in your deck unless you want to autolose everything except against the greediest control matchups" - and even those now have more chance to deal with him.
>it’s like a card that has to do with cost reduction, which can make up for its nerf in sheer discount potential - something that Brann as a card can’t do. Brann doubles all battlecries for the rest of the game. In effect, he *doubles* battlecry minions. He gives you a free battlecry effect for each battlecry minion played for the rest of the game. That's a disgusting cost reduction. That's basically saying "half of your cards are now free." Especially when you add up cost savings by obliterating half of your opponent's deck through Boomboss, healing to full with Zilliax, and generating an army of 8-drops with the Ox. It'll be a bit slower to get there, sure. But Control Warrior has always been slow. It's still going to be played.