In the latest Hearthstone patch, Blizzard decided to sneak in a huge update right at the end - the Echo mechanic is being changed slightly in order to balance Wild a bit! Here's the changes coming, along with their reasoning.
Quote From Blizzard
- Echo
- Copies of cards with the Echo keyword can no longer cost less than (1). Full Arcane Dust refunds will be available for the following cards until December 19:
- SN1P-SN4P (Normal Only)
- Glinda Crowskin (Normal and Golden)
- Sound the Bells! (Normal and Golden)
- Dev Comment: This change is targeted at a very popular deck in Wild that utilizes SN1P-SN4P along with the Echo mechanic to generate extremely large minions or near infinite damage. This change should put a stop to that interaction while having very limited impact on the average use case for Echo cards. Glinda, SN1P-SN4P, and Sound the Bells were the three cards that took advantage of generating 0-cost copies through Echo, so we've opted to refund all three of those cards as a result.
Comments
Are they just giving us the value in dust or do we get full value back if we disenchant?
Its full value returned if you disenchant the card since this isn't a Hall of Fame rotation.
So crafting a golden version of the card wouldn't benefit in any way then right?
Yep crafting any of the cards does nothing. it is just the usual nerf. disenchant them if you have them.
RIP Sound the Bells cheese in Dalaran Heist, you will be missed.
Also, this is the first time Blizzard changed a mechanic to work against established rules for the sake of eliminating an OTK.
At first I was kind of apprehensive because I really don't like the idea of nuking future synergies just because of one specific combo (which Mechwarper is more responsible for than anything else really), but at least they're giving out reasonable refunds.
Great, I actually had a random Glinda in my collection and was short on dust.
Edit: and a golden Sound the Bells!, glorious
Good.
But not enough.
With these two things, Wild would a decent place for a very long while...
And possibly become a source for additional money, with Wild packs (right now buying them is basically a hoax).
How would it be possible to consider spent mana on something like Conjurer's Calling and Evolve? What happens if I evolve a devolved board? What was the spent mana on the minions I'm transforming? What about tokens, since they come into play for free do they evolve into 1 drops?
Just curious as to whether or not you thought about what you were saying.
In the same way they save handbuffed stats from hand to board.
It becomes a green stat and it stays that way on board.
Mana is already a stat, and it is actually inconsistent with current generic rules that mana is reset from hand into board.
If you double trasnform, it follows normal upgrades, it just starts from the discounted value instead of full value.
Ofc i think of what i say. At least, i try my best. ;)
No he means that if you say play Mogu for 0 mana, when you cast mutate on him you get a 1 drop because it remebered the cost discount. But after that it is just normal 1 drop
your word in Blizzard's ear.
But hey, at this point they might as well end up doing that eventually. NOw that there is a precedent for fundamentally changing the game's rules to achieve balance I don't see why they wouldn't.
Moreover, since they talked about Mogu Fleshshaper and how it would be monitored in the next expansion, maybe this is the route they'll eventually take.
that said, I think your first proposition is still a bit flawed? What about cards like Frizz Kindleroost or Sorcerer's Apprentice? 0-mana discounting isn't an inherently flawed mechanic, it just becomes that when you have an infinite source to discount and the only currently existing ones are Echo cards and Archmage Antonidas who (in my opinion) should have been changed to not proc off his own Fireballs a long time ago (make it like a [Hearthstone Card (Trade Prince Gallywyx) Not Found] situation so Mage can get better cost discounting mechanics without the threat of an Exodia looming over it)
Mechwarper was also apparently fine. It is still a huge problem in Mechadin.
Same goes for Arcane Flakmage and [Hearthstone Card (arcane mysteries) Not Found] (unused in Standard).
(0) is not inherently broken, but it is inherently flawed. Bound to become a problem in an eternal format.
Hence my proposition, without nerfing this or that card, but simply perfecting the rules.
(0) should only be allowed when enabler and enabled cannot be played in the same turn, or when enabled is exactly a specific card (ghoul).
ALTERNATIVELY, (0) enablers should only cost, say, 5-mana or more, allowing a decent game for early turns. But this is even more unlikely imo.
This is definitely a needed change for the health of wild. That Warlock deck wasn't unstoppable, but it was such a pain to play against. The worst was when you'd survive both echo waves but then lose to Mecha'thun. Good riddance!
This is the most elegant solution I can think of. It's too bad that there's no way to make it obvious in the game client that things behave this way, but it solves the problem with the fewest negative side effects. A Good Nerf.