User blog comment:Smarty Pants 264 Clash Royale/My Thoughts on the Balance Changes Coming (8/11)/@comment-25856498-20170810160443

I hear Executioner will be used less following Night Witch nerf as Executioner was hard counter to Night Witch. It can be entirely speculation, who knows? People might still use Exenado to shut down Golem beatdown.

Anyways, Heal will be dead in 1v1 but the balance might be useful for 2v2.

My thoughts on other buffs/nerfs:

Battle Ram: Ram is a good card and it could probably still be after the update. But the nerf could very well curb its power and make Lightning/Zap timing easier. Giving 1 extra tile of room could mean the difference between a charged hit and a regular hit.

Graveyard: Graveyard is pretty powerful when left unattended and hence requires counters in the form of strong, fast troops (or many weak troops, if you prefer to risk losing them). The Night Witch is a great counter to Graveyard primarily because the Bats could pick off Skeletons without trouble. With Night Witch taken pretty much out of the equation, there are less choices for counters. If we go by the Night Witch nerf alone it could be seen why Graveyard got a nerf. But also considering the Dark Prince, Ice Wizard and possibly even the Bats buffs, the nerf could be a bit too much.

Electro Wizard: Meh, this one got nerfed just to change interactions with Mini PEKKA. Maybe also a few other interactions such as X-Bow (Ewiz will survive one less shot) but who really cares about such interactions anyway?

Mini PEKKA: The buff could be useful as indirect nerfs on Musketeer, Wizard and EWiz. While the buff will be appreciated by the 3M haters, there's not much else to say.

X-Bow and Mortar: Can't say much about the deploy times. Competitive players could very well anticipate a X-Bow/Mortar placement and shut it down quickly regardless. Though it will help the less skilled players get in a X-Bow/Mortar - depending on your view (i.e. if you are a siege user), it could be good or bad.

Dark Prince: Another buff, this time it seems to be pretty useful. This time I feel that it could be entirely justified and it's nice to see an underused card get some love.

Ice Wizard: Speaking of underused cards, this card finally got a long-deserved buff (by long-deserved I mean ever since Ewiz's buff). While I think a 10% damage buff would be pretty insane on its own (I thought no more than 8% would be necessary), the hit speed reduction could be pretty interesting, reducing overall DPS (which wasn't really important to begin with). Nonetheless the 10% damage buff changes tons of interactions, not only with Skeletons and Bats but also with Minions, Archers, Guards, etc. which are all indirect nerfs to these cards (if IW ever gets high usage again). One drawback is that it further cements Goblin Gang's position over Skeleton Army.

Bats: Another underused card, it lost its shine before it even entered the Arena. The restoration of said shine will bring new light to the Bats, especially considering corresponding balances (e.g. IW buff). That being said, if IW sees a higher use (which it could end up competing with Ewiz for) then the Bats' buff could be all for naught.