Blizzard is nerfing several Hearthstone cards following the United in Stormwind expansion to slow the game down a bit.
Trading card games tend to follow a trend of acceleration over time, with cards getting slightly more efficient each release cycle. Blizzard’s Hearthstone appears to have hit this tipping point. The devs have stepped in with a handful of nerfs designed to slow the pace of the game.
In the patch notes for the upcoming 21.0.3 update for Hearthstone, Blizzard said, “After two weeks of monitoring the rapidly evolving United in Stormwind launch metagame, we’re making a few balance changes to slow down the speed of the game by a turn or two.
“Overall, this translates to two things: limiting the efficiency at which combo decks can assemble the pieces they need to win, and reducing the burst damage that board-based decks have access to from hand. We hope that these changes will give a bit more room for slower strategies to find success in this meta, and we’ll continue to keep an eye on the live game to see if any further changes are needed.”
Several cards that have been affected are listed below:
- Incanter’s Flow, Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 3]
- Il’gynoth, Old: [Costs 4] 2 Attack, 6 Health → New: [Costs 6] 4 Attack, 8 Health
- Darkglare, Old: [Costs 2] 2 Attack, 3 Health → New: [Costs 3] 3 Attack, 4 Health
- Battleground Battlemaster, Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 6]
- Kolkar Pack Runner, Old: [Costs 2] 2 Attack, 3 Health → New: [Costs 3] 3 Attack, 4 Health
- Granite Forgeborn, Old: 4 Attack, 5 Health → New: 4 Attack, 4 Health
- Conviction (Rank 1), Conviction (Rank 2), Conviction (Rank 3), Old: [Costs 1] → New: [Costs 2]
- Flesh Giant, Old: [Costs 8] → New: [Costs 9]
If any players crafted these cards and are disappointed with the changes, then they have the opportunity to refund the cards for dust until two weeks after the patch goes live.
Elsewhere, all six hours of the Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers soundtrack is now available on Spotify.
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