Blizzard announced today that there will be upcoming card changes in Hearthstone. In an attempt to better balance out the game, mana costs on certain cards have been upped. Blizzard released a news article on their Hearthstone blog detailing the changes to come, which are expected to take effect just a few days from now.
The cards getting a bump in mana cost will be Giggling Inventor, Mana Wyrm, and Aviana. Each card, when played in an appropriate deck, were deemed either too powerful for their existing mana cost or synergized just a little too well with other cards often built into the same deck. With the changes, Blizzard hopes to narrow the scale of use for each card and tailor them for more specific deck builds.
First up on the nerf list is Giggling Inventor. Originally sitting at a five mana cost, it has now been bumped to seven. When playing the card, it summons two 1/2 mechs with Taunt and Divine Shield. Both abilities are incredibly useful as Taunt requires enemy minions to target it before friendly minions without Taunt, and Divine Shield basically negates the damage of the first attack to it. According to the article itself, “Giggling Inventor is one of the most powerful and popular cards we’ve ever created. There’s virtually no downside to including it in a deck, and because it’s neutral, it’s played in almost every deck.” Upping its mana cost will give players serious pause whether to include it in decks such as Quest Rogue while not completely diminishing its value.
Next up is Mana Wyrm, a powerful addition to spell-heavy decks. It’s a 1/3 that only costs a single mana and can be boosted +1 attack for every spell played. The days of regularly seeing Mana Wyrm on the field turn-one are coming to a close, as the mana cost will be bumped to two. This should greatly reduce the prevalence of the card in decks that are not built with low mana cost spells in mind.
Finally, it’s Aviana’s turn for a bit of a nerf as well. Aviana’s mana cost goes from nine to ten with the main reason for the increase being to lessen the likelihood of Aviana being played on the same turn as Kun the Forgotten King. Since Kun and Aviana now both cost ten mana, it will also be impossible to draw both with Juicy Psychmelon, reducing the prominence of the combo even more, while still allowing the duo to be played in decks.
With the upcoming changes expected to take effect October 18, Blizzard hopes the changes will better balance the game and taper down cards that have been performing better than originally intended. Only time will tell how these changes will be received by the player base and what effect, if any, it will have on the current meta.