Intro
Gods Unchained has a balance update in PTR right now addressing some decks that people have been complaining about. I organized the changes by god and give some thoughts on the changes. You can read the proposed changes here https://blog.godsunchained.com/2022/09/08/balance-update-september/
Death:
Nerfs
Land of the Dead – Text Changed
- Change text from
“Select up to six 1 mana Anubians from your void and summon them to the board.“ to
”Summon up to five 1 mana Anubians from your void, and give them soulless.”
A moderate hit to Anubians. They still can burn you down with their guys most of the time. The change means that LoTD needs to be played at the right time, pushing for lethal or have enough Anubians in void not to worry, otherwise you’re going to exhaust your void and not have any follow up. This gives people the leeway to keep out of lethal range and force Anubians to exhaust their resources to get them low or try to whittle down the opponent’s health before LoTD is lethal.
Deception:
Nerfs
Ronellan Sparrow – Stats reduced
- Change stats from
2/1 to 1/1
Selfless Guildmate – Text changed
- Change text from
“Hidden for 1 turn. Roar: Give +2 strength to another friendly Guild creature.“ to
”Roar: Give +2 strength to another friendly Guild creature.”
Switch Duelist – Text changed
- Change text from
“Hidden. At the end of each turn, swap this creature’s strength and health.” to
”Hidden for 1 turn. At the end of each turn, swap this creature’s strength and health.”
Changes
Alika, Scarlet Thief & Echo – Text Changed
- Change stats from
1/4 to 3/4 - Change text from
“Echo. At the end of your turn, this creature steals 1 strength from the strongest creature and gives it to the weakest creature.“ to
”Echo. At the start of your opponent’s turn, they pick one:
— Delve a relic or a rune and give it to your opponent.
— Your opponent draws a card.
— Discard a card. ”
They nerfed a bunch of the hidden threats to hit Aggro Deception, ranging from barely touched to dead on arrival. They left the buffs, Dark Knives and Assassin’s Aim, alone which I feel are the bigger problem. There’s plenty of hidden creatures, but the buffs are in short supply and where most of the damage come from. You’re still going to get sacked by Assassin’s Aim on Pyramid Warden. Aggro Deception is going to be the same, albeit less consistent with weaker 1 drops. Might be worth transitioning away from Guild and just jamming hidden guys.
Ronellan Sparrow is dead as a 1/1. AFAIK there are no 1/1s that see play other than if they have protected, roar, or afterlife. The statline is just not impactful enough to do anything.
Selfless Guildmate lost the Hidden for 1 turn. It will still see play as a buff spell effectively. It’s strictly worse than Battlebard now, aside from the Guild synergy. Having 1 less hidden guy makes trying to stick a board harder and makes your buffs less consistent.
Switch Duelist will only stay hidden for 1 turn now. This makes it easier to remove, but most of the time you were hitting in with it, anyway. It takes away some skill in holding Switch Duelist hidden until the right opportunity.
Alika is busted looking, 3m 3/4 with an upside that gives you card advantage, on top of that you are getting the echo for even more cards. This card is going to see play in every deception deck. The effect is not as broken as you think, since giving your opponent the choice means you’ll always get the worst option, usually a bad relic that will gum up your hand. She’s definitely not going to make out of PTR as is, though. You would normally discount the vanilla statline down from 3m 3/4 -> 2/4 if you give a card upside, but I’m told that legendaries get a +1 to statline since you can only run 1.
Magic:
Changes
Nythos, Mage-Weaver – Text Changed
- Change stats from
1/2 to 2/2 - Change text from
“Ability: Unlock a mana lock for this turn, then refresh 1 mana.
Empower 2: Deal 2 damage to the weakest enemy creature.“ to
”After you play a spell, draw a creature of the same mana cost. After you play a creature, draw a spell of the same mana cost.”
Metamorphosis – Text Changed
- Change text from
“Target a creature. Delve a creature that costs 1 more mana and then transform the target creature into that creature.“ to
”Transform a friendly creature into a random creature that costs 1 more mana.”
Nythos goes from unplayable junk to busted. On 5 mana, you can chain 1 drop into 1m spell into another 1 drop and draw 3 cards. Nythos will push Card Draw Magic into the meta, being another swing card like Pallas’ Wand. He’s currently a 1/2 in PTR despite the blog, but it doesn’t matter. It won’t likely make it out of PTR as is, probably getting a once per turn restriction or a mana increase.
Metamorphosis is dead now, only randomly transforming your own creature. It’s gone through so many changes from 1m random friendly, to 1m delve any, to 2m delve any, now to 2m random friendly. Transforming your creature up 1 mana is too busted, letting you cheat mana and skip the extra mana locks so they made it random. Random makes it unplayable, it can be salvaged by having it be at 1m and delve something of the same mana cost so it still can upgrade damaged or understatted creatures.
Light:
Nerfs
Inescapable Duty
- Change text from
“Pull a creature from your void to your hand and give it +2/+2.
Empower 3: Pull another creature from your void to your hand, and give it +2/+2.“ to
”Pull a creature from your void to your hand, and give it +2/+2 and soulless.
Empower 3: Pull another creature from your void to your hand, and give it +2/+2 and soulless.”
Changes
Enlightenment – Text Changed, Mana cost changed
- Reduce mana cost from 4 to 3
- Change text from
“Give -5 strength to a creature and remove frontline from it.“ to
”Discard two cards. Look at your deck and pull two cards to your hand, then shuffle your deck.”
No more infinite loop with embalmer. It still is a strong value card getting back tech cards or threats. You just have to be careful with your choices.
Enlightenment looks very strong. Control can tutor their silver bullet tech cards, Gleamweaver for void hate, Iron-tooth Goblin for relics, Eucos in Eclipse for Hidden Rush, or Odessa for combo, then recur them with Radiant Embalmer or Inescapable Duty. Aggro can draw their best 2 cards and go up in cards if they’re empty handed. You go neutral in card advantage if you’re not empty-handed, but being able to choose your best cards is worth it.
Nature:
Buffs
Dalia, Night Gardener – Stats Change
- Change stats from 3/3 to 3/5
Goes from horribly understatted to decent. It doesn’t fit into current Regen Aggro Nature decks with Wildfire and Trial of the Hydra. I don’t think it’s good enough to push the Heal Nature archetype either. The Injured Sprouts aren’t exactly a huge payoff and can gum up your own board with small creatures.
War:
Buffs
Hector, Prince of Troy – Text changed
- Change text from
“Roar: If any of the creatures in your void have blitz, protected, twin strike or ward, this creature gains those.“ to
“Roar: If any of the creatures in your void have blitz, leech, protected, twin strike, or ward, this creature gains those.“
Nerfs
Unrestrained Power – Text Changed
- Change text from
“Give +2 strength to your relic.
Empower 3: Then, double the strength of your relic.“ to
”Give +2 strength to your relic.
Empower 3: Double the strength of your relic instead.”
Hector gets back leech. Another big 7 drop for control. I don’t think it will revive Control War. Control war doesn’t have a spot in the meta. It gets run over by aggro like Heirloom Death or Aggro Deception, ; by combo decks, Dralamar, Schoolteacher, Over the Line, Big Relic War; can’t out grind Control Magic or Control Light.
Unrestrained Power gets a moderate hit, losing the extra +4 strength after doubling. This can delay your lethal clock by a turn and changes the lethal ranges a bit. The deck still has the power to one shot you with 2 Whetstones or Power into Power.
Meta Changes:
There weren't any huge shakeups in the balance changes. Most of the top meta decks got some kind of hit but they all remain relatively powerful. Control War might pop up as people try it but Hector getting leech back won't push it into the spotlight. Depending on how Nythos comes out of the PTR, Card Draw Magic might be the flavor of the month. Enlightenment is the most interesting change, Light doesn't have any combo decks to use it but being able to tutor tech cards in Control Light could put it as the top deck.
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You might be right about shifting to hidden rush from guild deception, but I'm on the fence about Sparrow. It's still nearly guaranteed to survive turn one (main exception being boar) and then it can be buffed and go face. At that point, it will require trading, a relic swing, or 2 spells to deal with. But that's only if you can buff it and still that's 2 cards for 2 cards. It's still got the stick for frumentari, though.
I think Dalia in a deck with Charm, Sudden Bloom, and Dagan could be bonkers. Maybe swap out charm for other buffs like Sip that don't care about tribe if charm is too slow. In PTR, playing her and then using Charm makes her 5/7 - even out of LS range. Even if all she does is soak resources removing, the hope would be to have regen characters on board and play the echo next turn. From just a sheer value standpoint, I think she's over the line for a single card. You mentioned leggies get +1 stat, but she has the same stats as Underbridge plus all that card text combined with echo.
Pretty much in agreement with everything else. Nice write up!
For me war is still the best
Card Draw Magic is already meta ;)