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.
Giggling Inventor - RIP Quest rogue accually (no more options agains aggro). Aggro decks with ~60% winrate will have like 65% after update. Thanks bliz, you forcing us to play odd pally/rogue.
Actually, those 2 also ran Giggling Inventor, which is exactly the problem. Every deck that can run odd cards ran it.
There was not a single Odd Paladin in any noticeable tournament in the past few months and Odd Rogue actually had one of the worst win percentages in the Fall Championship. So yeah, obviously Championship and ladder are two completely different things, but letting your turn 3-5 mountain giant go face instead of over killing a 1/2 minion would do great for your percentages.
Yay, let's destroy Mage because that worked out so well last time for Warrior with the Fiery War Axe nerf. At least Pirate Warrior was tier 1 before the FWA nerf but Tempo Mage is barely a tier 2 deck that doesn't even cause problems in the meta like Quest Rogue for example.
Meanwhile Druid has the most broken cards in the game and they are untouched by this nerf patch.
A broken card is a broken card. Now, if they actually want, they can do good early cards for mage. The same with warrior. After the fiery war axe nerf they could do better cards for early. The problem is, do they want? Usually they prefer to create more op cards for druid...
Do people not see Tempo Mage as polarizing? For a few expansions now it's been an "I drew well so you lose" kind of deck.
I honestly don't understand why they had to nerf Giggling Inventor. This was a very good card against aggro decks and now it's literally unplayable. Is Blizzard pushing the aggro meta harder? Because I really don't want this..
2 annoyotrons for 5 mana? It was too annoying.
1. this crad was super broken and very, very much needed a nerf, it was literally in every single deck.
2. when blizzard gave us a control meta (KaC), everyone said it was stale, and they asked for aggro back, now here we are complaining about have a potential aggro meta that we may not even have.
Only took 4 years for mana wyrm nerf, snowballing wins without you ever being able to interact.
Meanwhile, druid still runs havoc with OP bullshit
spend 20 minutes playing wild at high ranks.
Giggling Inventor is annoying and I was waiting for the nerf.
Aviana-Kun was enabling easy OTK-Combos, I guess Blizzard saw a problem. (Especially with the Psychmelon.)
If Star Aligner Druid gets nerfed, then what about Exodia Mage?
I didn't see the Mana Wyrm nerf coming. Is Northshire Cleric next?
Does northshire snowball? No
Does northshire see play? No
Is northshire next? No
So you wanted to trade 400 dust for 400? Also that card isn't even really used since release. What did you expect?
This is pretty hilarious
play it in jungle gaints druid for the memes.
Looks good. Giggling seems unplayable now even tho Mossy will not be that wide used (still must have good against druids). Aviana now can be played only with innervate and can't be easily drawn, which is good. And Mana wyrm should be nerfed long time ago. Its ridiculous if you happy to waste ANYTHING to kill 1-drop asap. Which can kill you on its own during few turns. Now tempoMages at least can't have perfect tempo
Good nerfs but one incredible miss: dreampetal florist. Without dreampetal florist being nerfed standard is not going to be balanced.
was standard ever balanced?
I hope they'll never touch Preparation I'm ok if they'll destroy any other card or all of them.