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Hearthstone 15.1 update will nerf Conjurer's Mage, defuse Dr. Boom

Hearthstone has lowered the Boom on the bad doctor, while also preparing to nerf a handful of the Conjurer Mage's biggest tools.

Ozzie Mejia

August 22, 2019 10:05 AM

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It's been less than a month since Hearthstone debuted its Saviors of Uldum expansion, but Blizzard is already in a mood to nerf a few cards. With a few weeks for the current meta to settle down, the publisher announced a handful of nerfs, including some that are aiming at Mage and Warrior in particular. And yes, that includes Dr. Boom.

The following cards are set to receive changes:

• Conjurer's Calling: Now costs 4 mana. (Up from 3)
• Luna's Pocket Galaxy: Now costs 7 mana. (Up from 5)
• Dr. Boom, Mad Genius: Now costs 9 mana. (Up from 7)
• Extra Arms: Now costs 3 mana. (Up from 2)
• Barnes: Now costs 5 mana. (Up from 4)

One of the biggest changes comes to Dr. Boom, Mad Genius, one of the few Hero Cards remaining in Standard play. With Dr. Boom offering Rush to all Mechs, he's proven to be a wildly powerful card over the course of the late game. Since his whole deal is resource generation throughout the game's home stretch, Blizzard has found it necessary to even things out by delaying the bad doctor's deployment by a few turns.

The changes to Luna's Pocket Galaxy and Extra Arms are both interesting to note, because these were two cards that were buffed just a few months ago as part of the Rise of the Mech event, which buffed a handful of cards from the Boomsday Project. As the popularity of the Conjurer's Mage grew, along with the Turn 2 Extra Arms on the 1-Cost Northshire Cleric, Blizzard quickly found that these changes wound up being detrimental to the overall meta. The arrival of Saviors of Uldum only made the situation worse, necessitating a change back to the cards' original states.

Speaking of the Conjurer's Mage, the change to Conjurer's Calling will be one that current players will likely see as an overdue one. Conjurer's Calling's cheap cost has been abused rampantly when combined with cards like Mountain Giant. Its Twinspell properties mean the pain doesn't stop anytime soon, either. The slight increase to this spell's mana cost should even the playing field a little bit more, as even as a 4-Cost spell, Conjurer's Calling is a potent weapon for the Mage.

Lastly, there's an interesting change for Wild players. Even after his rotation out of Standard, Barnes has proven excessively popular in Big Priest decks. His deal is that he can summon a 1/1 copy of a massive late-game minion on Turn 4 so that on Turn 5 it can be brought back with its full stats after a Resurrection play. Big Priest has been allowed to roam free in Wild for well over a year, but it now looks to have finally caught Blizzard's attention, especially with Colossus of the Moon being added to the Big Priest ranks.

These card changes will take effect with the next Hearthstone update, which is coming soon.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?