Five Hearthstone Cards Targeted For Cost Increases

Another round of card changes are coming to Hearthstone next week, affecting five cards, including one that's going under the knife for a second time. Blizzard announced the changes on the Hearthstone blog page, and they're sure to inspire equal parts "Good, they finally fixed that" and "Why did they nerf that?" -- mostly depending on whether you used or didn't use the card(s) in question in your decks.

All the cards see a cost increase. Four of them -- Cold Blood, Flametongue Totem, Equality, and Hunter's Mark -- are from the base set, while the fifth, Emerald Spellstone, was added in the Witchwood expansion. This is the second time Hunter's Mark has seen its cost go up; it was originally a zero-cost card, which was then raised to one, and will now cost two.

Blizzard's reason for making the changes are for the usual reason: The cards in question have become too ubiquitous, thus "take[ing] away some of the flexibility players have when building decks, ultimately stifling the diversity of decks we see when playing Hearthstone." The changes will go into effect with a patch scheduled for Feb. 5.