After failing to include card balance changes in the Hearthstone team’s “In The Works” blog post on September 18, Team 5 has received quite a bit of grief from the community.

Professional players, content creators and popular streamers flocked to Twitter, Youtube and Twitch to express their frustration with the current state of the meta and called for action.

Team 5’s statement regarding “The State of the Meta” was short, sweet and aggravating to the above parties:

We’ve seen the meta-game start to stabilize in the wake of The Boomsday Project’s release. Decks like Odd Warrior, Odd Paladin, Token Druid, Tempo Mage, Taunt Druid, Zoo Warlock, Quest Rogue, Secret Hunter, Even Paladin, Deathrattle Hunter, and Even Warlock, have all been top performers. While those decks stand out from the pack slightly, there are effective decks from every class. Evolve Shaman and Combo Priest have both seen success, for example. Overall, we’re happy with the excellent diversity of decks we’re seeing at all levels of Ranked Play.

They appeared to be the happy-minority regarding the current state of the meta as the staleness of playing the same few decks at top-tier play provided a monotonous experience for some. Upon hearing feedback, the Hearthstone team put out a tweet alluding to changes that were coming as a result.

Today, Blizzard made good on their promise to take a closer look at the current state of the game and a blog post was made today. The following cards experienced nerfs:

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 will be much less effective in Quest Rogue--while it might remain situationally playable within specific deck archetypes, such as Evolve Shaman.

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.

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 them.