Hearthstone's latest round of nerfs is now live

The latest round of Hearthstone balance changes is now live: That means a big jump in the Naga Sea Watch Mana cost, a smaller increase to Spiteful Summoner, a significant nerf to the amount Dark Pact heals for, and a change to the Quest Rogue quest reward that should make it a little less brutal against slow decks (but will still probably be annoyingly strong).

We took a closer look at what the changes mean last week, but the broad goal is to shake up an otherwise somewhat stale meta now that the Hearthstone Championship Tour summer playoffs are complete. Increasing the cost of Naga Sea Witch by such a drastic amount (it's the biggest jump since the Starving Buzzard nerf) will likely see a welcome end to the Wild Giants deck, while the changes to Dark Pact and Possessed Lackey should see Cubelock and Control Warlock be less of a menace on ladder.

The full rundown on the latest Hearthstone balance patch is up at playoverwatch.com. We also recently re-reviewed the game, four years after our initial take on it—and it turns out it's still pretty good. No Legendary cards were harmed in the making of this patch.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.