What does the introduction of SN1P-SN4P mean for Hearthstone?

SN1P-SN4P is the newest Hearthstone card revealed by Blizzard. It’s being put into the Boomsday set, which means it’ll rotate out a little earlier than the latest sets starting with Rise of Shadows.

A golden copy of the two-mana 2/3 Mech legendary will be given to anyone who logs in from June 3 to July 1. The card also boasts Echo, Magnetic, and a Deathrattle that summons two 1/1 Mechs. It’s an extremely powerful card at first glance, but when put with other cards in the set, it becomes unbeatable.

Originally, under the first version of the Reckless Experimenter card, all minions with the keyword Deathrattle were discounted by three mana, even down to zero cost. Essentially, Priest players could have used a simple gameplan of having early game Mechs stick to the board. Then, on turn five, they could continuously magnetize SN1P-SN4P for zero cost to a Mech until it was so large that it could kill the opponent in one hit.

Blizzard had two options: Nerf SN1P-SN4P before release or change Reckless Experimenter. The company opted for the latter, and that has more meaning than many Hearthstone players might realize.

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This isn’t the first time that Hearthstone received a card release by itself. Fans may remember when Volcanosaur was released ahead of the Journey to Un’Goro expansion, which helped raise hype and reveal the Adapt mechanic. The difference, in this case, is that the game didn’t change around Volcanosaur, and many decks played it because it was new, not overpowered.

While fans were theorycrafting about how broken or overpowered SN1P-SN4P was, the developers decided to listen and actually change the game around this card and helped open up design space by nerfing the effects of cards like Reckless Experimenter.

These changes come at a very interesting time for the game. Reckless Experimenter was changed, but for the first time in Hearthstone history, cards were buffed. That’s right, some underpowered cards were reduced in mana cost or given a little stat boost to help them become more viable. Gloop Sprayer and Mulchmuncher were reduced in mana cost, while Thunderhead and Security Rover were given extra health. But what do all these changes mean?

For so long, Blizzard was known for nerfing Hearthstone cards hard and removing them from the meta in one fell swoop, taking whole archetypes with them. Cards like Patches the Pirate and Arcane Golem were destroyed and fans believed that the developers had gone too far. The transition to softer nerfs and even buffing some cards is a sign that Blizzard is more open to seeing where the game goes and that it does care about the player experience and health of the game. More cards being viable means that the team has a more open design space to work with, and that’s the biggest sign of a healthy game with longevity.

If you’re a Hearthstone fan, get ready for the game to become a lot more interesting in the coming months with buffs to previously-weak cards and maybe even some new decks rising out of these landmark changes.