Blizzard just put up their balance changes for the 10.2 Hearthstone (Free) update. I have to say, I think I love most of these changes. It is fair to say that there is no shortage of player input when it comes to what needs to be changed about Hearthstone. Sifting between emotion, bias, and unusual anecdotes to get to the core of what changes will be best is a job I would not wish upon anyone, but the folks behind Hearthstone really came up with some great adjustments to some rather popular cards this time around.

The cards that seem less impactful from my own personal viewpoint that got changes were Corridor Creeper and Patches the Pirate. Both of these cards really don’t fit the current meta game of slower control oriented play. Only around a third of Tempostorm’s Meta Snapshot top two tiers are aggro or aggro-adjacent deck types. What I am hopeful for here is increased design space investment for aggro decks and maybe class specific cards that really push some classes towards more aggressive play. So are these changes good? I think Patches will still see play since reducing your deck by 1 card and getting an extra 1/1 out on turn 1 are both good things. The Corridor Creeper needs to be at 3 cost to justify itself, preferably even 2 cost now with the damage reduction. This may end up being too steep an investment and might need to be a 5-6 starting cost to be acceptable.

The main entree here is Bonemare and Raza the Chained. Raza is one of the corner pieces of the Highlander Priest and a main perpetrator in the endless 2 damage at a time combo. Now granted there are other ways to OHK your opponent, but this was a rather easy way of doing it and now it will require a lot more effort to pump out the damage. Bonemare’s value is that it makes leaving even a single small minion on the board deadly. Delaying it by a round won’t remove it’s value but it may end up seeing less play as 7 mana for 9/9 of stats is a lot more attractive than 8 mana for 9/9 of stats. I think this will more Bonemare into a niche control pick rather than just running into it at random in any given value deck.

So what are your thoughts? Are you cancelling future legend runs with these changes? All of these cards still have some value, although I think the Creeper took the biggest hit as far as continued viability.