Every now and then, Hearthstone developers need to balance the meta through changes to the cards that have either become too prevalent in decks or have been pushed to the shadows of the Hearthstone meta realm. 

Hearthstone’s mathematically increasing mana pool in duels plays a huge role in deciding the victor and thus, balancing updates often witness mana changes to cards along with some ability and card tweaks to balance things. Let us take a look at which cards were nerfed or buffed in the 20.2.2 patch.

Standard Balancing: Cards Buffed

A lot of underrepresented and underpicked cards have been buffed by the Hearthstone developers in an attempt to bring more diversity in decks. Razorboar has received an attack buff, with the creature now able to deal 3 Attack every turn instead of 2. Dark Inquisitor Xanesh now reduces the cost of every corrupted card as well in the summoner’s hand and deck by 2 mana points as its battlecry. 

Whirling Combatant and Unbound Elemental have both had their attack buffed by a single point while Lilypad Lurker’s stats see an increase of a point in both attack and health. Tidal Surge, Fiendish Circle, Deck of Chaos, Shieldmaiden and N’Zoth God of the Deep have all had their mana costs reduced by a basis point. 

Standard Balancing: Cards Nerfed

Refreshing Spring Water has many powerful factors and actions attached to the card, which makes it too menacing at its current mana cost at 4 basis points. The Hearthstone developers have increased the mana cost by one basis point to lower the frequency of mana refreshments in early stages of the battle.

First Day of School at 0 mana cost was proving to be just too powerful in the early game for Paladin players. The developers have increased the mana cost by 1 basis point while also increasing the number of random 1-cost minion cards summoned to the hand in order to balance the card and curb the early game pressure created by it.

Hysteria at 3 Mana arrived just too early for opponents to be able to react to, with all reactionary cards having a generally higher mana cost. The card’s mana cost has thus been increased to 4 basis points to allow opponents at least an extra turn and better cards to be able to combat the effect of Hysteria.

CrabRider’s permanent windfury combined with Rush allowed it to be a menace and equip the players with the ability to wipe out weaker minions on the board quickly, especially when combined with buffs from other cards. The developers have attempted to balance things out by making windfury a battlecry and to last only for the said turn where it is placed on the board. CrabRider retains the ability to make a menace on the board while also removing the necessity for opponents to direct resources to eliminate this card first. 

Olgra, the Mankrik’s Wife was just overpowered, having the ability to summon a 3 Attack, 10 Health Mankrik at 3 mana cost, especially with the summoned Mankrik attacking the hero directly upon being placed on the board. The developers have reduced the summoned Mankrik’s health to 7 basis points, making it easier to eliminate for the opposition. 

Battlegrounds Balancing Updates

Barrens Blacksmith has been removed from the minion pool in this game mode while a handful of others have been subject to nerfs in general. Roadboar and Prophet of the Boar have both had their Attack points slashed by one while Bannerboar has also received a Health nerf of a basis point along with the Attack nerf.

The first blood gem played on Bristleback Brute each turn will now only give an extra Attack and Health of 2 respectively instead of 3 previously. Groundshaker’s ability will now only equip other friendly minions with additional 2 Attack points for the said turn instead of also affecting Groundshaker earlier. 

Dynamic Duo has received a nerf of 2 basis points in Attack and Health respectively. Bonker’s Attack has been reduced by a single basis point while the player will only gain one Blood Gem after Bonker’s Golden Card attacks using its Mega-Windfury. 

The heaviest nerf has been doled out to Charlga. The six gems costing card previously boasted of 7 Attack and 7 Health but will henceforth have only 4 of each. Also, at the end of each turn, a Blood Gem will only be played on other friendly minions, which means it will not include Charlga anymore. 

Miscellaneous Updates, Bug Fixes and more

Orb of Revelation and Rally the Troops have both been moved from the Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Passive Treasure Pool 2 Ultra Rare. The language on some Amalgam cards have been fixed to now include all Minion types. Various bugs related to in-game notifications and proper display of price of items in the in-game shop have been fixed.

Some battle-ready decks were prevented from being accessed and stopped showing up if Dame Hazelbark was opened first. This issue has been rectified. The bug that somehow removed Glaivebound Adept from the game has been fixed, with the item now likely to be back in your collection.

The use of Vol’jin’s Hero Power on Goldgrubber would sometimes result in Goldgrubber’s stats being reset each round, which has been fixed with this patch. Patch 20.2.2 has also addressed and fixed a bug where Sparkjoy Cheat would draw a card whenever you had a Secret in your hand, even if the Secret was not castable as if a duplicate Secret was already in play. After the fix, the Sparkjoy Cheat will only draw a card if a Secret has been played from the summoner’s hand.