The wildly controversial Hearthstone card “Unleash the Hounds” has been nerfed, or decreased in effectiveness, Blizzard community manager Christina “Zeriyah” Sims announced this afternoon.
Today will be an interesting day.
— Zeriyah (@CM_Zeriyah) May 6, 2014
The card, which previously cost two mana, will now cost three. That means players will have to wait an additional turn before unleashing the powerful card.
Sims explained that the card, which can only be used by the Hunter class, had seen its use go beyond what was intend. “Hunter decks have become increasingly more dominant and are doing better than we are comfortable across many levels of play,” she wrote.
The change couldn’t come sooner. Large swaths of the community have grown to despise the card, many insisting that it undermine a fundamental component of competitive card games: board control. The card allows you to summon one hound for every minion your opponent has in play. The card is often paired to devastating effect with another card called the Starving Buzzard, which lets you draw a card from your deck for each of the hounds and build a huge early card advantage.
One commenter was apparently so moved by the change they wrote: “I have tears in my eyes.”
