Hearthpwn

Disgustingly strong, though to claim that Blizzard intended for the card to be used the way it has been abused is dubious at best. Note: Anything written in this post will only be considering Standard, as I do not play Wild, and therefore it would be stupid for me to write about this card’s viability in Wild.

The incredible synergy with a 3 mana Mountain Giant and this card grants you, at minimum, a combined stat total of 14/16 (2 Grave Horrors, each with Taunt, or 16/16 (2 Mountain Giants), which can also be given Taunt later with cards like Sunfury Protector (though by no means am I suggesting Sunfury Protector is an absolute must with Hand Mage).

This card has especially shone in Decks like Dragon Mage, which has garnered an average win-rate of 53.7% (source: HSReplay), which by itself is nothing to scoff at and the Deck itself has landed its much deserved (or underserved, if you prefer) spot as a tier 2 Deck, notably the only Mage Deck in that tier. Although it wouldn’t be completely accurate to suggest this card is the single reason for the Deck to reach that tier, I am suggesting that this card is involved in the strongest combo the Deck has to offer, which is impressive considering the wide range of potent plays the Deck can make, such as Khadgar and Astromancer when you have a formidably large hand. This is because, for the low cost of just 8 mana, you can use this card with Khadgar and the aforementioned combo with Mountain Giant to produce a minimum stat-line of 28/32 spread across 4 minions, each with Taunt (Grave Horrors), or 32/32 (4 Mountain Giant), and then attack face with all 4 only to refill the board with the extra copy of this card you get via Twinspell. The first thought coming to mind regarding this is ‘Ok, I’ll just use Brawl or Hagatha’s Scheme to clear these big threats, before the opponent has a chance to refill their board, to which my counter would be: What about other classes? Hunters, Druids, Warlocks, Paladins, Priests, and even other Mages currently lack any efficient AoE to deal with such a board, and Rogues could only effectively deal with this board if they’re lucky and get a Brawl from Hench-Clan Burglar, or equivalent. Simply put: 8 mana should not be able to decide the game so easily, or be able to give you such a huge tempo swing, whether you needed it or not.

The reason I think this card should be the target of a nerf is it would remove the degenerate combos with Dragon Mage, without killing the deck it is played in as they can still produce a 3 mana 8/8 with ease, which isn’t bad, makes room for less played cards such as Archmage Arugal, and can still make efficient 4 mana plays with the likes of Twilight Drake, and even some late-game plays with Astromancer.

So, the real question: How do you nerf this? There are a few methods, but I believe there is one method that could do it most effectively without ruining the card:

A mana change. This, in my opinion, is the worst way to go about nerfing Conjurer’s Calling. Increasing this card’s cost by 1 or even 2 still makes the combo I mentioned earlier possible, though less desirable, and an increase of 3 mana is undoubtedly excessive.

Removing Twinspell. Although this would definitely help in reducing the card’s strength, it is still not dealing with the combo I mentioned earlier, and is removing the unique keyword this set has to offer. It also removes the part about Mages that makes it one of the ‘good’ classes (meaning one of the classes opposing E.V.I.L.).

The third method (and in my opinion the best option) is changing ‘Destroy a minion’ to ‘Destroy an ENEMY minion’. This allows you to punish players who abuse beefy Edwin VanCleefs, whilst maintaining the Twinspell aspect of the card and keeping it at a fair mana cost, considering what the card can do.