Hearthstone update 10.2 is due out next month, and in advance of the update’s release, Blizzard has announced their planned changes to some of the game’s most commonly-used cards.  With the arrival of the update, four of the game’s stronger minion cards will be seeing nerfs, some harsher than others, to bring them to a more reasonable level and hopefully keep the metagame fresh.

Bonemare now costs 8 mana to play, up from 7

A somewhat light nerf in some players’ opinions, the additional mana cost for Bonemare will give an opponent just a touch more time to get powerful minions on the board before the spooky skeleton horse can arrive and turn an allied minion into a beefy blocker with taunt.

Corridor Creeper’s damage nerfed from 5 to 2

Coming in as one of the more brutal hits in the patch, Corridor Creeper sees its offensive potential absolutely neutered, dropping to less than half of its previous value.  While the card’s special ability does mean that it can potentially find its way onto the battlefield very early in a match when it will be at its greatest relative strength, most players are agreeing that this nerf may have been just a touch overdone, some seeing it as the end of the card in competitive play.

Patches the Pirate loses the Charge ability

Most players seem to agree that this is a reasonable change, as Patches’ raw power and neutral status was causing a ton of players to add him to their decks.  And, since Patches’ ability necessitates being played alongside a good handful of other pirates for maximum effectiveness, this was leading to a somewhat stale “pirate meta”.  With the removal of Charge, Patches will only be a worthwhile card in decks that fully commit to the pirate playstyle.  A certain punny voice line that the character had previously will have to be changed, though.

Raza the Chained’s Battlecry effect is softened

Previously, Raza’s Battlecry effect completely removed the mana cost of your hero’s ability for the remainder of the game, which was tremendously powerful, especially in conjunction with special strategies like Shadowreaper Anduin.  The new Battlecry effect will still have a notable overall effect on a hero’s game, but will be less devastating in specific pocket strats and like likely spell the end of the “Raza Priest” build.

These card changes will all go live when Hearthstone Update 10.2 arrives next month.  Once the changes are live, players will have two weeks to disenchant the changed cards for their full Arcane Dust value if they so choose.