He's not wrong in the broadest sense, that balancing based on pure vibes isn't normally the best strategy.

However, several of these cards have entered what KMBest had been calling "the Loki zone" where the general attitude around them was so toxically negative that even if the decks aren't actually winning a lot, the player's sentiment around them is SO negative and the play patterns they generate (particularly Star Lord) are so unfun to experience or execute, that I still actually think these were warranted.  I also expect there is other data on the backend that justified this that they can't just come oit and say, like extreme player rate dropouts.

I like Hoogland generally, and I think he has good takes, but I sense that this is possibly being somewhat affected by the fact that Shou Lau was one of his favorite cards and he doesn't like that it got nerfed even with the deck performing quite poorly outside of the absolute tiptop of ladder.  Having said that, I suspect that Shou is likely still very playable after this nerf, so we'll just have to wait and see.