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
The next wild meta will just be what it was before people discovered Sn1p-Sn4p warlock: secret mages all over the place with a side of mech paladin.
At least those decks aren't as painful to play against as warlock, I guess.
Yes! They are OP, but not broken, hence, they can be countered!
Also, we got a new expansion coming, so maybe people will figure out some decks to make the meta more diverse (I just hope that no other broken combo isn't discovered soon)...
There must be at least one guy that crafted a golden sn1p-sn4p that's feeling kinda sad right now...
Why would you feel sad? Card is still good... this minor nerf is like minor for very specific wild deck.
yo can't craft sn1p-sn4p golden, only normal. The golden version was a reward for a special boomsday project event ;)
Aha, glad to hear it. Thought it was possible someone could have missed the event and decided to craft themselves a golden copy of the card.
I feel much better now :)
Never actually used Snip-Snap, so hurray, free Dust
only on the non-golden version (aka the one you would have had to craft if you didn't get the free golden one back when it came out)
A little late to answer, but... riiiight, they have us a Golden one
I guess they can revert the nerf to Reckless Experimenter now.
Although that would require them reverting a nerf, so...
The card never saw play anyway so they would probably keep it as is..
Actually, Mecha'thun Priest used it, although the Combo with it was unaffected by the change so you're probably right..
they could, but I think it'd be pointless.
Also it might enable some other degenracy in Wild in the future and then they'd have to nerf it right back.
The did revert nerf once in the past for Molten Giant
True, but I don't necessarily envision them doing the same for Reckless Experiment. The situation is a bit different.
If anything reverting the nerf to Reckless Experimenter would be more warranted than reverting Mountain Giant. Infinite SN1P-SN4P combos was literally the only reason Reckless Experimenter was nerfed. Now that infinite SN1P-SN4P is not possible there is no reason to leave Reckless Experimenter in its nerfed state.
I’d kind of prefer they keep Reckless the way it is right now, rather than reverting it. While for now Snip Snap was the only real problem for it, if they reverted it it’d always have that potential to become a problem. Hell, I think they should probably do the same thing to Mechwarper and any other cost reduction cards like that. Always has the potential to break something otherwise
Hmmm. Does this mean that they could make Reckless Experimenter more reckless again? It was changed specifically because of Snip-Snap.
Also, what about Unstable Evolution? It doesn't technically have Echo, and I believe they've stated that "Repeatable this turn" is actually coded slightly differently than Echo. It really shouldn't be able to cost 0 with a Radiant Elemental or Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Finally, while I truly don't care about the dust, that's a very select group of cards to offer a refund on. Was Mistwraith ever used in an infinite damage combo? What about Preparation and Echoed copies of Pick Pocket? I'm not going to make threats because Blizzard won't grant me a full refund for my 2x non-golden Walnut Sprites, but a little more thought and explanation of the change would be appreciated.
I'm assuming Evolution stays the same (or else they would have refunded it)
Not to mention Evolution doesn't enable OTKs.
They give the refund on cards that were realistically used in OTKs (or just used at all)
Walnut Sprite and Phantom Militia are unaffected because there is no way to reduce them below (1) anyways (since there is no aura effect that does that). All the other echo cards that technically could be reduced to 0 ,for whatever reason, never saw play in any real capacity.
The biggest thing about those is that they now removed a bunch of really fun combo strategies for Dungeon Run and the like, but that's not really something you can justify refunds for.
They're already pretty generous for refunding Sound the Bells AND Glinda since the former was only ever used for the memes while the latter still works as intended and technically not even directly involved with the change.
It's a shame they didn't return Reckless Experimenter to its original text. It was nerfed because of a 0-cost combo that would have been in Standard. Maybe it's just future proofing.