Before the patch, mana matches to my fuel cards were abundant. Sure some matches took longer than others, but 75% of my matches were under 2 minutes. Since the patch I struggle to get any gem matches from the get go that assist any of my cards. Before I have one card full on mana, one card is usually destroyed from either skulls or Targeted damage. AI has always received the mana gems it needs to fuel quickly by extra turns after extra turns. This is still the case & I believe it gives the AI an advantage. Is it more balanced now that I have to wait for 3-4 turns to get my mana up & risk losing a card in the process? The risk was always present, but at the moment my mana surge is at 71%. I shouldn’t struggle to fuel any cards, but now I do. This is my observation on my last 50 or so matches since the update. What is your experience since the patch?
Well mana surge was giving 4x the normal mana on some formations (“T” formation for one), that was a glitch pure and simple. That may be why you noticed mana not filling as quickly.
As far as your other observations, I attribute that to confirmation bias. I REALLY doubt they changed the core gameplay system to make it more in favor of the AI.
Only time will tell i guess.
You can still get a 5-match to occasionally give 4x Mana. It’s not fixed, but it happens a lot less. They ALMOST got it all
@Dustin I wasn’t insinuating that they changed the core game play system. I was simply stating my observations & wanted to know what other players have noticed.
gotcha, well definitely the 4x mana bonus being less common is a big deal.
Beyond that Maw only works once now, and I THINK they fixed the skull overkill crash since he can’t devour multiple times on one skull match.
I’ve noticed my Maw’s Hunger will trigger on the first turn at an extraordinary rate. The sample size is too small to draw a conclusion. More testing needed 
Confirmed the One-Cast is fixed and no more multiple Devours.
@TaliaParks that’s funny you mentioned that, because I have the opposite experience. My last kill is almost always a devour. The others are not.
Yeah, I figured I was just seeing a random anomaly.
Those first turn Devours = instant win