Giggling Inventor giggles no more. The nerf hammer strikes again

Blizzard nerfed the following three cards. The changes are coming this Thursday. The changes themselves seem badly needed. The most surprising of the three is mana wyrm considering how long the card has remained unchanged for years. Personally, I agree with the change to mana wyrm. Tempo Mage has been a staple tier 2 deck in standard for a really long time. When tempo mage gets the perfect hand, it often feels like the game is over from the start.

One other card that I know people were expecting to get nerfed was Keleseth. That card was most certainly looked at by Blizzard. And now we know that they think the card is fair. Spreading plague is also another card that is missing from this list that many were hoping would be gone. Perhaps with the nerfs to the other top tier decks, Druid in standard will become even more dominant.

Blizzard Blog:

Giggling Inventor – Will cost 7 mana. (Up from 5)

Giggling Inventor is one of the most powerful and popular cards we’ve ever created. There’s virtually no downside to including it in a deck, and because it’s neutral, it’s played in almost every deck. We think it’s important to take risks when making powerful cards, especially when it comes to neutral taunts, given the role they can play in encouraging minion interactions and making games more interesting. However, Giggling Inventor has stepped beyond its intended role, and we don’t feel that it should be as effective as it currently is.

We initially tested this card at (6) mana in both the current Standard format as well as with cards that will be released in the future. Ultimately, we felt that its power level was still higher than is appropriate for a Neutral card with no build-around requirements. At (7) mana, we expect Giggling Inventor will find its way into fewer decks in general—and be much less effective in Quest Rogue—while it might remain situationally playable within specific deck archetypes, such as Evolve Shaman.

Mana Wyrm – Will cost 2 mana. (Up from 1)

Over time, we’ve been moving away from powerful, early-game 1-drops like Mana Wyrm. It can often feel like the outcome of a game is decided by whether Mana Wyrm was played on turn one, and if it could be removed quickly by an opponent. Mana Wyrm has also steered us away from making powerful low-cost Mage spells. We’d like Mana Wyrm to remain an option for decks it synergizes with, while preventing it from being a huge turn one threat.

At (2) mana, it will be easier to deal with Mana Wyrm the turn it’s played, and it will be harder to buff it with cheap spells early in the match. We still expect it to remain an option in decks that have a heavy focus on cheap spells, but it should be a less appealing option in decks that aren’t built with that focus in mind.

Aviana – Will cost 10 mana. (Up from 9)

Changing Aviana to (10) mana means it will no longer be possible to play Aviana and Kun the Forgotten King on the same turn without some additional help from cards like Innervate or The Coin. It also means Juicy Psychmelon will no longer draw both Aviana and Kun. This should make the combos Aviana and Kun produce less consistent, while still allowing decks that use the combos to exist for the players that enjoy playing them.

I think neglecting to nerf standard Druid was a mistake. Armor, Spellstone, and Spreading Plague are too good.

Aviana seems like such a weird nerf considering all of the other things they could've nerfed instead.

It's weird to me to see them nerfing Mana Wyrm, a card that's been in the game since the start. Sure, it was always a big snowball card, but I'd probably rather it'd lost a stat on either side than been pushed up another mana.

I assume Aviana Kun combos were just not fun to play against in Wild, but it also feels like Aviana is unplayable now except on exactly the turn where you cash in Twig of the World Tree's Deathrattle or have an Innervate. The whole point of Aviana's original mana cost was that you spend 9 on Aviana, then with 1 mana remaining you get to play some big minion for 1-mana, which wasn't even that impressive at the original time of printing. Then it was Blizzard's own fault that they went and printed Kun, at which point Aviana went from "meh ability" to "disgusting combo enabler in Wild forever." I really don't see what they were thinking by printing both of those cards.

I also don't get why it was really THAT nerf worthy. Surely Dirty Rat fucks up that combo all the time?