Tess Greymane & Lynessa Sunsorrow Nerfed In Hearthstone Update 11.2

Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End was released in the Whispers of the Old Gods expansion in April 2016, and was the first card to have an effect that re-played cards that were seen earlier that game. It was nerfed shortly after release to cancel its battlecry effect if it was destroyed, silenced, or removed from the battlefield, but it was still seen in numerous decks despite being considerably weaker. It became a meme, with many players praising Yogg before playing the card. Shudderwock is another card that had a similar effect, re-playing all battlecries the player had cast that game, and again, it was very slightly nerfed to cap the amount of battlecries at 20 and reduce the animation times. Tess Greymane and Lynessa Sunsorrow are two other cards that have very similar effects, but aren’t considered anywhere near as powerful as Yogg-Saron or Shudderwock. Therefore, the community is baffled as to why the cards have been nerfed so heavily.

Before The Witchwood was released, Blizzard explicitly said that Tess Greymane would work the same way as Yogg-Saron did before he was nerfed. That means that even if she silenced herself, or was removed from the battlefield in some way, her battlecry would continue. That isn’t the case anymore, and she is also capped at 30 cards. The other important difference to distinguish is that when Yogg-Saron was nerfed, players were offered full dust refunds by Blizzard. Tess Greymane’s changes have been placed under the ‘bug fix’ category, despite not being a bug whatsoever, meaning players will not receive any compensation for the legendary card many crafted.

Lynessa Sunsorrow on the other hand, has had a slightly different nerf. She replays all effects cast on your minions onto her, and as a Paladin, that includes things like Dinosize, Blessed Champion, and Spikeridged Steed. Rather than replaying these effects in the order they were cast, they’re now replayed in a completely random order, meaning there is now no strategy behind when players decide to use their targeted minion buffs. Spikeridged Steed could go off twice followed by four Sound The Bells!, but if it’s then followed up by a Dinosize, Lynessa would go from a 9/21 to a simple 10/10 which is considerably worse. Reddit user /u/alphawhale12 explains why these changes are so brutal in much more detail here.

It’s safe to say the community is outraged, and Blizzard is yet to comment or explain the decision behind these nerfs. You can read the full patch notes here. In other Hearthstone news, Amnesiac won the Hearthstone Grand Prix at DreamHack Austin 2018 last week.

(All images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.)