For quite some time now, there has been a lot of buzz in the Hearthstone community regarding the Grim Patron Warrior deck. It feels like the vast majority of players (at least, the vocal ones) feel the deck is over-powered, capable of punishing almost any board state for massive amounts of damage. Counter-play can also be difficult at times, and with how long the deck has been the #1 archetype in the meta, many are tired of seeing it be so popular. With this much distaste for the deck going around, ideas for how to balance it have been plentiful. However, a lot of suggestions wouldn’t ultimately make a lot of sense, so I’m here to break down what’s really causing the issues, and how we can solve them without completely removing the deck from the game.

I’ll start by stating that Grim Patron Warrior is actually not quite as “over-powered” as a lot of players seem to believe. Blizzard themselves have come forward and stated that while the deck is very strong, its win rates in both ladder and tournament play are not as out of line as decks that they’ve nerfed in the past. This is a very important point; while the deck is capable of doing some truly astounding things (see: “OMG he killed me even though I had two huge Taunts and 40 life!!!”), it isn’t so overbearing that it just wins against every other deck. Furthermore, while the skill floor to pilot the deck effectively is somewhat high, the skill ceiling is one of the highest we’ve seen in the game. Playing this deck consistently and effectively is actually quite challenging, to the point where a fair number of pros won’t even bother with it.

With all of that said, let’s take a look at a few of the key cards in the deck, whether or not they need to be changed, and if so, what the change should be.

The scapegoat – Grim Patron

The namesake of the deck, Grim Patron can cause headaches for unprepared players. The endless shouts of “EVERYONE, GET IN HERE!” have haunted the dreams of many players, and for good reason. Patron has the ability to flood the board like no other deck, able to trade effectively against a lot of minions, threaten a ton of damage, and just be a general pain to deal with.

Does it need to be nerfed?

Short answer: no. This is a combo deck, and Grim Patron is a big part of that. Although some games are won with “Patron flood”, this, by itself, is not over-powered. It’s one of the main goals of the deck, and often isn’t even an automatic win. If the game isn’t over, many decks have ways of clearing the board on the following turn. So, while Patron flood is a strong play, it’s not demonstrably stronger than what many other decks can do. There have been suggestions of “buffing” Grim Patron to be a 4/3, so that it no longer interacts with Warsong Commander. That would be a tremendous hit to the deck’s power, and we’re only looking to weaken it by a small amount. This isn’t the real problem, nor is it the right solution.

I’ve seen complaints that it means that the opponent simply can’t play minions under 3 attack for fear of Warsong Commander + Grim Patron wiping their board while spawning a bunch of Patrons, but that isn’t actually a problem. In the same way you don’t want to have bunch of minions with 4 or lower health on turn 7 against Mage for fear of Flamestrike, or you need to play around Priest with turn 5 Holy Nova and turn 6 Lightbomb, or need to be aware of Warlock’s 4 mana Hellfire…you get the idea. Many classes have specific turns you need to be wary of, and force you to play your minions accordingly. This is no different with Patron, and I don’t think it’s the real issue.

The accomplice – Warsong Commander

Without Warsong, the rest of the deck wouldn’t be nearly as strong. The ability to have Patrons and Frothing Berserkers (we’ll get to that in a moment) have Charge is what makes this deck tick. Otherwise, no matter how many Patrons were made, or how big Frothings got, the opponent would always have a chance to respond before an attack could be declared. Without Warsong, this deck would be significantly weaker, or possibly not even played.

Does it need to be nerfed?

Based on the way this article is progressing, you can probably guess that my answer here is “no.” First off, I’ll remind everyone that there was a time when Warsong Commander simply granted ALL of your minions Charge, not just those with 3 or less attack. Aside from that, I’ve seen suggestions that this card’s ability be re-worded to simply be an aura that grants your minions with 3 or less attack Charge, which means a minion would lose Charge as soon as it goes above 3 Attack. This is problematic for 2 reasons.

First of all, it makes Frothing Berserker worthless. Magma Rager is a bad card because despite having a high attack value for low mana cost, it only has 1 health, making it easily removable before it can even attack once. Without Charge, Frothing essentially becomes Magma Rager.

Secondly, cards like Inner Rage and Cruel Taskmaster are key cards to activating Grim Patron. This would immediately push that Patron out of Charge range, which would be a big hit to the “Patron flood” turn. Overall, with this change to Warsong, the deck wouldn’t even be worth playing. As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, that isn’t our goal here.

So, if we want the deck to still be viable, but just slightly less powerful, what can we do? It’s time to take a look at…

The real culprit – Frothing Berserker

That this is where ended up shouldn’t be entirely shocking. Grim Patron can be strong, but Frothing Berserker is the card that breaks through 40 health, shatters dreams, and causes players to rage uncontrollably. Paired with Warsong Commander and some Whirlwind effects, Frothing’s attack can get to astronomical levels.

Does it need to be nerfed?

Finally, the answer is yes. Frothing Berserker is the card that, more than any other, punishes the opponent for playing minions, no matter how strong they are. Grim Patron can punish minions under 3 attack, but Frothing just wants the opponents to have minions, regardless of attack strength. Punishing your opponent for having board control, complete with huge Taunts, is probably where we should be drawing the line.

So how do we change Frothing Berserker, without killing the deck entirely?

That’s the real question here, and the entire purpose of this article. We want to shave off a bit of power from the deck, while keeping it viable. With that in mind, I present to you the simplest, and most effective way of doing just that:

Make Frothing Berserker a 2/3

By simply removing one health from Frothing Berserker, we’ve accomplished what we came here to do. If the opponent plays a huge board, the Patron Warrior player can still punish them heavily for it with a huge Frothing Berserker play. The Grim Patron card itself, as well as Warsong, are completely un-changed, leaving this deck in a very playable state. However, we’ve now made it so that one less Whirlwind effect can be activated with Frothing in play. This means it can still get huge, but is now more limited in just how huge.

One of the things that makes this deck even close to “balanced” is that it is quite difficult to play consistently at a high level. There are a lot of small decisions to be made, and messing up even once can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Removing one health from Frothing will make the decision-making process that much more intense, while still being very rewarding for the top-level Patron Warrior players. Will it still be possible to lose behind big Taunts and a high life total? Probably, but that’s part of the deck. This change will make that happen less frequently, so some of the deck’s power is cut down, while still keeping the archetype strong and 100% playable.

You’re welcome, Hearthstone. The solution to all of your Patron Warrior problems has arrived: