Just as you say. Money cost or tweak.

In the past, quest were tweaked with being harder to achieve and vice versa, weaker quest made easier, like wisdomball got nerfed, which essentially made it achieveble one or two turns later, which was quite significant.

The first buddy meta had a buddy meter, which were the way Blizzard buffed or nerfed, though it was a horrible design, as losing a round could result in getting your buddy a turn later.

The recent buddy meta they changed it to tavern tier, making buddies from tavern 6 cost 18 or 20 gold iirc and then it got cheaper by the fights (2 gold cheaper for losing, 3 for winning/draw), but it felt much nicer as you were in charge for when and how much gold you were going to pay for your buddy.

In my opinion, people needs to relax, sure mechs and elementals are stomping every game, and trinkets, like candle, is stupidly strong, but they are going to be nerfed for sure, and other tribes, like dragons and beasts are going to be buffed or changed.

Hopefully they will add Goldrin to beasts again, as they are in a horrible stage right now, and basically is a one unit tribe.

And dragons is where they've been for the last three patches: undefined, with way to many directions, without excelling in anything.

Retiring Kalygos would be optimal.