The newest Hearthstone class, Demon Hunter, is seeing its first card nerfs less than 48 hours after release. Currently, four cards will see changes made to them, but more could join them in the coming weeks. Besides the card nerfs for the constructed version of Hearthstone, a total of 15 cards will see their offering rates reduced in the Arena Drafts.
Nerfing Demon Hunter
There are a total of four Demon Hunter cards nerfed in today’s update. The first, Skull of Gul’dan, sees its mana cost increased from five to six. Skull of Gul’dan is still one of the most powerful cards of the Demon Hunter class due to the Outcast keyword. For those unfamiliar, Outcast becomes active when you cast a spell or minion from the far-left or far-right position of the players’ hand.
Another card that sees its cost increased from five to six mana is Imprisoned Antaen. There isn’t much to say about this card, besides the fact that it should have never existed in its old form. From the moment the Ashes of Outland expansion launched, the Hearthstone community was vocal about it being too overpowering.
The third is Eye Beam; this one sees a far smaller nerf than the other cards on this list. Eye Beam now costs 1-mana instead of 0-mana when Outcast is active. This should make it more challenging to chain together a series of spells with Outcast active, significantly reducing the number of unbeatable combinations Demon Hunter can pull off.
The last card seeing a change is Aldrachi Warblades. Aldrachi Warblades is one of the more vital cards in the Demon Hunter’s arsenal. The basic card has synergy with many tools available to Demon Hunter, such as with its hero power, Demon Claws, which grants it one Attack for 1 mana. This synergy allows it to trade highly efficiently throughout the first turns of the Hearthstone match. The card loses one durability this update, reducing the total durability from 3 to 2. The nerf to Aldrachi Warblades is possibly the most significant nerf in this update.
Arena card adjustments
The following list of Demon Hunter class cards will now show up less frequently in Arena drafts. However, once more data is available to the developer team, more changes will no doubt come to the offering rates of Arena.
For more Hearthstone news, be sure to read all about the recent set rotation of the Year of the Phoenix update.
