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.
Very strange nerfs. Isolated on their own, probably makes sense, but the timing and logic behind is very questionable given the overall picture and meta.
For the gazillionth time Blizz are contradicting themselves, but it's no surprise anymore. And neither is the total neglect towards balancing the game and making more cards playable.
I think they screwed big time with the Odd/Even mechanic. It's cool and I personally like it a lot, but in the long run it will severely limit the design space. Now for every single card, and even for every single nerf and change they need to be doing a shit ton of analysis and tests to understand how it feels in an Odd/Even deck, apart from everything else...
Will they actually remove/change this concept at some point? Or they will just wait it to cycle to Wild and then not give a damn about it like everything else in Wild? :)
Can Quest Rouge survive without giggling or with a 7 mana giggling?
Against control yes, against Odd Rogue/Aggro Pally/Zoo probably not.
Mossy Horror is still useable at least as tech against Spreading Plague. Otherwise if Odd Pala now becoms more popular again Mossy will be a great card against (unbuffed) dudes too. And when Prinz Two leaves standard, Zoolock should mostly 2-attack-minions again of the board and Mossy will be good against that too.
In what timeline do you live? :D
This meta is pretty heavy on control and combo. But maybe the HS world looks different on rank 20. ^^
This is just ridiculous. I understand that Druid has been fully shafted in the past couple of expansions and hasn't really been a contender. But when Paladin got Corridor Creeper and Call to Arms, they both were nerfed. When Warlock for Dark Pact, it was swiftly nerfed. Now Druid is topping out on seemingly every chart BUT this one and nothing is done that will impact them.
mana wyrm costs 2 = MTG Arena
"we keep an eye on the giggle guy, but he's fine."
"nevermind, let's increase it by 2 mana, so nobody plays it ever again."
"apparently we at blizzard never heard of logic before."
Inventor to 6 Mana would buff Even Paladin by alot
They don;t have a restricted or banned list in Hearthstone. So their answer is to just make a card worthless.
Ok 1 fucking deck it wouldn't be broken by any means though and Even pally isn't even that great right now (excuse the pun).
Why am I worried the Aviana nerf didn't do enough? There's so many ways to get an extra mana... Innervate, Emperor, etc. Aviana grew in power in the past few months because Druid got the tools to stall and draw. The fact that it now needs one more card to pull off an OTK combo isn't an issue when druids can draw half their deck by turn 8. I was hoping they'd kill the OTK from Aviana once and for all by completely changing the card somehow.
We'll see, I guess. Something is better than nothing.
we say that every nerf, but then a new expansion comes out and quest rogue finds it's way back into the meta again
No nerfs to standard druid truly show how bad the balance team is at Blizzard Hearthstone.
No change to druid in constructed? Disappointed.
Aviana wasnt the issue Kun was. Should have made Kun so that he only refreshes the amount he costs to play. But I see why it was aviana that was nerfed. It limits the design space for other cards to be made.
Mana Wyrm nerf was needed, all the other 1/3 for 1 mana are either limited or have a drawback, even tunnel trog becuase the cards you cast are overloaded. Mana wyrm grew too fast with no downside.
This nerf means that Blood Knight will no longer be an auto-pick in arena. It also means I will no longer lose to a 12/12 Blood Knight in arena. I'm pretty happy with it. The other two nerfs are good too.
underwhelming...
Noice. As a Wild player I'm not particularly affected by the Giggling Inventor change. Guess my Pogorogue is going to have to play Belchers instead, I can live with that. But the Mana Wyrm nerf was LONG overdue, that card had the air of Undertaker all over it and hasn't been touched ever. If non-even aggro Shaman was a thing in Wild at the moment, I'd epect Tunnel Trogg to suffer the same fate at some point. As for the Aviana, I like it. It does not utterly destroy the combo, since you can still solve the problem via Thaurissan ticks or Innervate, but just the fact that you both have to add these cards to your deck somehow (though the deck still has flex slots) and have to draw them/have to have them occupy space in your hand gives proactive decks more time to kill the Druid and reactive decks more time to draw their obligatory 2x Dirty Rat. The Giggling Nerf might be a bit too brutal for Wild where it's not as warranted, but overall, thumbs up.