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.
I can't believe blizz changing aviana after 3 years it was released...
3 years ago there wasnt an issue because cards like kun and other stupid combo cards didnt exist.
Yeah, I know that... I was just implying that they could've nerfed a newer card... or re-check the new cards they printing...
Team Malfurion reaction !
Credits to N_G-1<small class="time"></small>
Giggling nerf is good. The line about initially testing it at 6 mana and then releasing it at 5 mana was sort of stupid but hey, at least it's being addressed now.
Mana Wyrm has always been a problem, but you don't fix it without giving mage something else to compensate for that loss.
Aviana nerf is underhanded and I will rail about it. Fuck you Blizzard for introducing a combo card that overpowers an existing combo card and then nerfing the OLD card to destroy the now overpowered combo.
To put it in terms that Mike Donais would understand, a good version of this nerf would change the Spreading Plague beetles to not attack and Psychmelon to cost what it should cost (8+ mana)
No, they're saying that they tested Giggling Inventor at 6 mana for the nerf decisions then decided it was still too strong at 6 mana; they didn't do that before release.
I want to know how they got enough testing to say it was OP at 6 but we have months of replays from the community showing that it was OP at 5 yet remained unchanged for much longer than their own testing could have lasted. The whole thing makes zero sense and the timeline doesn't match up at all.
Couldn’t they make the inventor to summon only one annoy-o-tron and leave the mana cost? That way it’d be still be efficient and fair for defensive tool. B/c with that type of nerf they made it unusable for both defensive and aggro purposes.
All 3 are now unplayable.
Nerfs are just proving the game’s design flaws and most importantly is just a reminder of their buisness model, all good cards will be scrapped one day, collectors « whales » are fleeing like rats on a sinking ship.
The Mana Wyrm nerf is to harsh, and it will straight up kill mage for the rest of the meta. Its the only 1 drop they run and aggro decks simply needs cards like these. Nerfing its health to 2 would have been much better. Both odd rogue and warlock zoo were already better aggro decks, people will just flock to these instead. Giggling inventor will be unplayable, should have been nerfed to 6 mana instead.
F*** you Blizzard. Instead of nerfing the stupid brainless aggro decks or the cancerous Pala decks, you nerf Aviana and with it the Star Aligner and Togwaggle combo. Were these decks that strong or a huge problem to the hearthstone community? Compare to all the aggro decks or the warlock decks with a handful of counter options it was easy to break that combo. In my experience it was never that strong or unfair, just nice to play because it was fun. So please tell me why? And btw the meta of Boomsday sucks like hell for control decks except warlock.
A much more acceptable nerf would be that minions cost then 2 instead of 1 mana, so that you cannot play Kun directly after Aviana. But Aviana with a cost of 10 is totally unplayable. Who is making this kind of stupid decisions? Are your developers only play odd rogue, even shaman or paladin?
I want my dust for Aviana and Kun back. Because Kun is dead as well.
So why not give Giggling an extra Annoyotron? Or give the Giggling itself taunt and divine shield? I don't see why the card is fully nerfed and not reworkerd.
to be honest making it 6 mana would be a decent change making baku decks not be able to use her, the seven mana cost seems like way too much considering the total value of the minions would be around 5 mana
Screw you Blizzard. You fucking suck.
I had Aviana from back in the day but never had Kun. Well, I just crafted fucking Kun after the "no balance changes this time" message because I figured that since AviKun was just accepted as a fact in wild, I may as well ride the train.
I also crafted 2x Juicy Psychmelons and 2x Star Aligners. Yea, aligner druid is OK but it's not the end-all-be-all thing. The broken thing isn't AviKun (which is fairly moderate compared to "year of the mammoth mana cheating") but Psychmelon. Changing Psychmelon's cost to 8+ mana would have been a good compromise, but this is Warsong Commander level bullshit.
Oh but at least I get my 1600 dust from Aviana. Seriously, fuck you.
i heard that innervate is a card, just a rumour tho
Aviana nerf is def going be considered as such and you will be getting your 1600 dust. Geeze, relax man and get a kit-kat-bar!
Vicioussyndicate just released a wild meta report and Star Alligner druid is indeed only Tier 2, because a lot of the decks teched against it.
For me - i have Kun and haven't crafted Aviana yet, it used to be decent for Jade Druid. Still pretty sad that there is no dust refund for it, as i was keeping it planning to play some AviKun deck one day. This basically ruins all the AviKun combos like C'thun, Mimiron, Malygos and all the future possible ones.
Blizzard should just get it over with and delete Mage.
play warlock