While this whole ordeal is a head-scratcher, I wouldn’t overreact the other way and say the nerf makes Cedric medals useless either. Per the math (which Mithran provides here), you’re looking at a 27% chance first-turn chance to break out of any non-stun status with 3 medals. That becomes about 52% cumulatively on the second turn (1-.73*.73*.9, please correct me if I’m wrong), vs 10% chance to cleanse naturally without any medals. That’s valuable.
Where it gets interesting, is how much this affects status-dependent troops. Pre-Cedric nerf, they were all set for quite the drop. With the nerfed Cedrics in effect, can they be used to help offense teams kill a team before the enhanced cleanse chance can be a factor? Interesting times ahead.