There are cards that we know that need a nerf, but there are some the balance team takes way too far.
These are my top 5 core cards "killed" in 2022 by the balance team, what are your picks?
TOP 5 - Singsong Satyr
From: Give +1 strength to each friendly creature.
To: At the start of your opponent's turn, their goes to sleep
We all agree Nature was a problem, with Howler, followed by Singsong Satyr and then Wildfire, Nature curve was a big problem. this being said, I loved the Howler nerf, but the Singsong Satyr rework was way too much.
First I wouldn't change it, I would change howler first and see how the all meta changes.
If still too strong, I would go with one of these options:
-Make no changes to text I would just make it a 4 mana.
-Change it to friendly from a specific tribe only.
-Give +1/-1 to each friendly creatures.
TOP 4 - Faithbreaker
From: 4/4 stats
To: 1/4 stats and then 1/1 stats
This was a controversial one, from the moment it was announced this was a "crazy" card to introduce in the game.
As a 4/4 this was easily a game winner if the player was already ahead and a game changer if was behind for a short amount, I remember having to play with 2 ratify in magic, saving my hunting trap with deception and my lighting strike, with nature, was often not enough.
Zombies deck went from ok, to super charged with such a strong card that could easily go to a 6/6 in the turn was played.
Eventually it got nerfed, but the problem was always being able to remove it, so the 1/4 end up helping against deception's hunting trap.
In the end the team went to far and made it a 1/1,
In my opinion it should be a 1/2, allowing it to go to 3/4 with the use of a bag and god power and more if any creatures on the board.
I believe it would still see play if was a 1/2.
TOP 3 - Metamorphisis
From: Delving a creature, in any side of the board 1 mana higher (Aka the Poly killer)
To: Transform a friendly creature into a random creature 1 mana higher (Aka the gambler)
Mana change: from 1 to 2.
Oh boy, this one hurted me so much, as a Ctrl Magic player I loved this card, it was fun to play.
I agree with the first nerf, it was way too good, so mana 2 seems fair, probably still too good, but making it random and only to friendly creatures was way too much.
I would be fine to keep the delve and making it only friendly creatures, but the random just killed the card.
It was such a fun card, I miss it!
TOP 2 - Prayer of Desperate
From: Giving +2/+2 to every friendly creature.
To: Heal 4 and protect god. (Aka to crap)
Mana change: from 4 to 5 and then to 1, because lets be honest, they didn't want to make it mana 0 where it should be.
Agro light, Agro light, Agro light!!!
Like today with Agro War, at some point we couldn't get enough of Agro Light.
I was on the other side of this, I rarely played Agro light when this card was available and I was one of many pushing it to be nerfed.
Thinking this was a mana 4 at some point...
I would prefer to make this a mana 6 card, I know we can have the argument that Asterius is available, but you can have 2 of these in your deck and there is no condition of 2 strenght or less.
The rework made this card almost useless, almost because you still see it in Coronet light sometimes and other meme decks, but none in consistent meta decks.
TOP 1 - Skeleton Heavy
And now the one that a lot of people might not remember, very early in 2022 there was such a thing as a F2P Pyramid Warden, called Skeleton Heavy without frontline with less 2 health.
This was in all F2P decks, it was neutral, it was 2 mana cost and was just that good. Today is just a bad card!
I was upset with a bunch of nerfs this year, mostly because I want to see the game as a F2P option, core cards are essential to that point.
So if a new player can't get a Piramid Warden, they could get this skeleton Heavy, it doesn't have frontline, but we can't also make it as good as a PW or it wouldnt be such a desired card.
We need cards like this brought back and other buffed.
I hope a CSR is in the plans for the next couple of months to shake up the meta, but without killing more cards, F2P need to believe they can get to where P2W players are right now.
Honorable Mention
I had to put it in here, It wasn't killed, but was a hard beatdown. I loved to play it in my magic deck, was such a good card, today is just an ok card.
I still think the way to nerf it would be to keep the ward and for each 2 cards in hand u get +1/+1, making it at most a 5/5 with frontline and ward, easy kill for most decks, but still good.
The ward was everything in this card.