Upcoming Hearthstone Balance Changes - Giggling Inventor, Mana Wyrm, Aviana
Three card changes are coming to Hearthstone later this week on October 18th and one of them is purely for Wild!
- [Discuss this Change] Giggling Inventor now costs 7, up from 5.
- [Discuss this Change] Mana Wyrm now costs 2, up from 1.
- [Discuss this Change] Aviana now costs 10, up from 9.
Check out Blizzard's post below for more information on each of the changes.
Quote from BlizzardIn an update that is scheduled to arrive October 18 PDT, the following cards will be changed.
Giggling Inventor – Will cost 7 mana. (Up from 5)
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. We think it’s important to take risks when making powerful cards, especially when it comes to neutral taunts, given the role they can play in encouraging minion interactions and making games more interesting. However, Giggling Inventor has stepped beyond its intended role, and we don’t feel that it should be as effective as it currently is.
We initially tested this card at (6) mana in both the current Standard format as well as with cards that will be released in the future. Ultimately, we felt that its power level was still higher than is appropriate for a Neutral card with no build-around requirements. At (7) mana, we expect Giggling Inventor will find its way into fewer decks in general—and be much less effective in Quest Rogue—while it might remain situationally playable within specific deck archetypes, such as Evolve Shaman.
Mana Wyrm – Will cost 2 mana. (Up from 1)
Over time, we’ve been moving away from powerful, early-game 1-drops like Mana Wyrm. It can often feel like the outcome of a game is decided by whether Mana Wyrm was played on turn one, and if it could be removed quickly by an opponent. Mana Wyrm has also steered us away from making powerful low-cost Mage spells. We’d like Mana Wyrm to remain an option for decks it synergizes with, while preventing it from being a huge turn one threat.
At (2) mana, it will be easier to deal with Mana Wyrm the turn it’s played, and it will be harder to buff it with cheap spells early in the match. We still expect it to remain an option in decks that have a heavy focus on cheap spells, but it should be a less appealing option in decks that aren’t built with that focus in mind.
Aviana – Will cost 10 mana. (Up from 9)
Changing Aviana to (10) mana means it will no longer be possible to play Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King on the same turn without some additional help from cards like Innervate or The Coin. It also means Juicy Psychmelon will no longer draw both Aviana and Kun. This should make the combos Aviana and Kun produce less consistent, while still allowing decks that use the combos to exist for the players that enjoy playing them.
im playing gwent, gwent cool
but gotta give a try to mtg as well
I hereby give you the official title of "Loot Hoarder".
Aviana is a MASSIVE nerf in Wild, what are you talking about?
they nerfed the two most counter to druid, tempo mage and quest rogue, now we can finally call this game druidstone without a doubt.
This is why I play warlock with a Demonic Project. If you draw it before the 7 mana goes down you win. Hold it until they drop their enabler and they instant concede.
breh, Tempo MAge is so not a counter to druid. All they have to do is stack armor and you're gonna die to fatigue before you touch their health.
I completely agree with all those nerfs, and I'm saying this as a Combo Druid player in Wild and a Giggling Inventor user in most of my standard decks.
That nerf to Mana Wyrm tho, lol. Welcome Jaina to the "we don't have a 1 mana 1/3 class minon to play at turn 1 club" in standard:
Everyone had a dire mole
Voidwalker
So anything-but-combo Druid and Zoolock escaped harmless. Nice. Time to quit Hearthstone for good.
Well I think the changes made were pretty decent in general but there were more changes that should have been made. Druid for instance has been ridiculous, in the sense that their core cards are so powerful that many times you could have gotten UIed in the face and still not know whether you're playing against maly, togwaggle, token, mecha'thun etc. I've even seen streamers play seaforium bomber druid and while not OP, it worked out decently because the rest of the cards carried them. Personally I would nerf spreading plague even more since druids traditionally aren't supposed to deal with wide board pretty well and druids being able to go plague and stuff like branching paths/ anti magic shell/ strongshell scavenger the same turn is pretty disgusting.
The other deck I'd really want to see a nerf towards is odd warrior. Not only you can feel it, but VS has even mathematically proved in one of their articles how this is the most polarized meta ever. The main culprits are quest rogue and odd warrior. Giggling getting hit means that quest rogue will be a lot less good, which is good for odd warrior. I'd really want to see something like upgraded warrior power giving 3 armor, because having a strong really polarized deck get even better for the meta can't be the harbinger of anything good.
hell yes, liking most of these nerfs, even if i wasn't expecting a cost nerf for mana wyrm
still surprised and rather dissapointed that SP hasn't been touched yet; that card is bonkers and even moreso now that mossy horror is no longer relevant
FINALLY MANA WYRM NERFED.
DIE TEMPO MAGE DIE
As much as I dislike mana Wyrm, I think that "gain atm till the end of the turn" would have been a better nerf. Aviana is a great nerf, now they need innervate and psych melon doesn't draw all their combo. Giggling inventor for 7 is just killing the card. 6 would have been more appropriate. The thing I can understand is how they didn't nerf standard Druid. Plague up to 7 mana, branching path (how about choose two of the followings, but not the same twice?), wild growth, UI. Druid is busted on so many levels
honeslty, most of those cards will rotate after the next expansion. They might nerf them if Druid is still too stronk in Wild and Standard when the next expansion hits.
These nerfs came in rather late so I'm assuming they held back on purpose with the new expansion in mind. No need nerfing cards that might just become obsolete in a new meta.
You can't nerf Tank up, that's warrior's upgraded hero power completely in line with others. Can't reduce it to 3 armor gain because hunter deals 3 damage and reactive is always worth less than proactive effect.
These nerfs are a lot more impactful than I feel people are making it feel like. Sure tempo mage is proooooobably dead with that deck being one of the meta defining aggro decks, but Giggling Inventor also makes way for more aggro decks to become viable. Now there is no need to have a specific tech card on turn 5-6 in order to keep on playing aggressively. This will mean that druid also will fall a bit in popularity as most variants of it act as combo decks which struggle against faster decks. This increase in aggro and decrease in druid result in odd warrior to become more reliable, especially considering Quest Rogue is going to fall in popularity too because of the Giggling nerf.
If I were to decide what I think the winners and losers of these nerfs, I would say that Quest rogue, Tempo mage, and Druid all are going to become a bit weaker while Odd Warrior and aggressive decks such as Zoo and Odd paladin become stronger in the current meta.
In witchwood, the only form of Aviana-Kun that got to tier 1 was togwagle druid , and it was only polarizing against Reno priest an pirate warrior. Suddenly boomsday gets released and half of what you play are Star Aligner and Togwagle druids.
i love how people trying to defend """tempo"""mage against quest rogue. love the nerfs.
Not a huge fan of the mana worm nerf. I would have loved to see it at two health. It would be if a similar threat level but dealing two damage on turn two is much more reasonable. I am also guessing this was motivated in part by cards in the next expansion, I expect sole good mage aggro cards
Gigglig inventor seems like the only option while keeping the flavour. And it is still a situationally powerful card, while it may not earn a deck slot it could be impactful if generated in a game.
Aviana, fine by me. It makes the combos much harder to pull off I don’t know if they will be competitive at all, but they will still exists for casual play