Blizzard has dropped a major Hearthstone patch during BlizzCon! Read on for the patch notes.
Quote From Blizzard The 19.6 patch brings pre-purchase for Hearthstone’s newest expansion, Forged in the Barrens, along with balance updates for Battlegrounds, Duels, and one card in Standard—High Abbess Alura.
Standard Balance Update
High Abbess Alura
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 5]
Dev Comment: High Abbess Alura is going to 5 mana in order to push out the swing turns she enables. When an individual card contains a large amount of a deck's winrate, as Alura does, it breaks the promises of a Hearthstone match. Instead of having a natural back-and-forth flow between players, games with a turn 4 Alura can create seemingly insurmountable board states too early in the match. At 5 mana, Alura's identity as a big spell buildaround card remains intact but the change will give more room for games to occur before the swing and for responses to be ready after her Spellburst trigger.
High Abbess Alura will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 19.6 patch goes live.
Battlegrounds Updates
- The Darkmoon Prizes Battlegrounds event has come to an end.
- Instead of checking for triples after each minion is summoned, all minions will now summon first before any triples are generated.
HERO POOL UPDATES
- Captain Hooktusk has been removed from the Battlegrounds Hero pool.
Y'Shaarj
- Embrace Your Rage
- Old: Start of Combat: Add a minion from your Tavern Tier to your warband. Keep it. → New: Start of Combat: Summon a minion from your Tavern Tier. Add a copy to your hand.
Elise Starseeker
- Lead Explorer
- Recruitment Map cost reverted to 3 Gold.
King Mukla
- Bananarama
- Big Banana drop rate increased to 1/3.
Akazamzarak
- Prestidigitation
- Ice Block can now only be Discovered once per game.
MINION POOL UPDATES
- Elistra the Immortal has been removed from the Battlegrounds minion pool.
Rabid Saurolisk
- Old: 4 Attack, 2 Health. After you play a minion with Deathrattle, gain +1/+1. → New: 3 Attack, 2 Health. After you play a minion with Deathrattle, gain +1/+2.
Waxrider Togwaggle
- Old: 1 Attack, 2 Health. → New: 1 Attack, 3 Health.
Yo-Ho-Ogre
- Old: 2 Attack, 5 Health. → New: 2 Attack, 6 Health.
Molten Rock
- Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health. → New: 2 Attack, 4 Health.
Arm of the Empire
- Old: Whenever a friendly Taunt minion is attacked, give it +3 Attack. → New: Whenever a friendly Taunt minion is attacked, give it +2 Attack permanently.
Champion of Y’Shaarj
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Health. → New: 4 Attack, 4 Health.
Junkbot
- Old: [Tier 5] → New: [Tier 4]
Kangor’s Apprentice
- Old: 3 Attack, 6 Health. → New: 4 Attack, 8 Health.
Duels Balance Updates
- Gattling Gunner has been removed from the Active Treasure pool.
- Mage Armor is now a Neutral Active Treasure (formerly Mage).
Frost Shards
- Old: [Costs 1] → New: [Costs 2]
Men at Arms
- Old: [Costs 6] → New: [Cost 4]
Humble Blessings
- Old: [Cost 5] → New: [Costs 3]
Fluctuating Totem
- Old: Attack 0, Health 3. → New: Attack 1, Health 4.
Spiked Arms
- Old: Attack 4, Durability 1. → New: Attack 3, Durability 3.
Demonizer
- Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 4]
Killmox, the Banished One
- Old: [Costs 6] → New: [Costs 7]
Pre-Purchase Forged in the Barrens
The Barrens are the anvil upon which the Horde as we know it was founded: A literal crossroads where the tauren, trolls, and orcs came together for the first time. Heroes are made here. Perhaps you, too, shall be Forged in the Barrens!
Forged in the Barrens will launch worldwide this Spring with 135 new collectible cards! You'll be able to find the full schedule for card reveals and see which cards were announced today by visiting the card library here after the Hearthstone Deep Dive at BlizzConline. Check back frequently—the list will be updated with new cards as they’re revealed!
The Forged in the Barrens Mega Bundle includes 80 Forged in the Barrens card packs, 5 Golden Forged in the Barrens packs, two random Forged in the Barrens Golden Legendary cards, the Hamuul Runetotem Druid Hero, the Hamuul Runetotem card back, and Battlegrounds perks**!
The Forged in the Barrens Bundle includes 60 Forged in the Barrens card packs, two random Forged in the Barrens Legendary cards, and the Hamuul Runetotem card back!
**Battlegrounds Perks are available upon purchase and expire at the end of the Forged in the Barrens expansion cycle.
Log-in for Shadow Hunter Vol’jin & 30 Years of Blizzard Card Back
Log into Hearthstone after the 19.6 patch goes live to receive the Shadow Hunter Vol’jin Legendary minion for free, available to play immediately!* And, to celebrate Blizzard’s 30th anniversary, all players will be able to claim the free 30 Years of Blizzard card back from the in-game shop until March 2, 2021!*
*Limit one per account.
Bug Fixes & Miscellaneous Updates
- Fixed a bug where completed Weekly Quests would not show awarded XP on the Rewards Track without relaunching Hearthstone.
- Fixed a bug where Transfer Student would not have a unique ability on the Darkmoon Faire gameboard.
- Fixed a bugged interaction between Bright-Eyed Scout and Shenanigans.
- Fixed a bugged interaction between Holy Wrath and Shenanigans.
- Fixed a bug where Sightless Watcher’s Battlecry would not offer a second copy of Sightless Watcher if one was in your deck.
- Fixed a bug where Keywarden Ivory’s Spellburst would only give one additional spell after Discovering two spells when played with Brann Bronzebeard.
- Fixed a bug where Dreaming Drake would not retain in-deck and in-hand modifications when Corrupted.
- Fixed a bug where history tiles were not showing after activating Spellburst for Glacier Racer and Imprisoned Celestial.
- Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where minions added to the warband via Embrace Your Rage would not be summoned by Bob’s Burgles the following recruit phase.
- Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where three Golden Faceless Taverngoers used on the same minion would combine to form another triple.
- Fixed a Duels bug where Staking the Claim would not count Keywarden Ivory as a Discover card.
- Fixed a Duels bug where Scrapmetal Demolitionist’s card text would not update throughout a run.
- Fixed a Duels bug where Instructor Fireheart would play two voice lines simultaneously.
- Duels Signature Hunter Treasure Bow of the Beast has been renamed to Carrot on a Stick.
- The Silas Darkmoon login reward will now be granted if you own a pack from Madness at the Darkmoon Faire and go to the Open Packs menu.
- Increased the font size on mobile devices for the XP bar on the Rewards Track.
- Search results for any minion type in the Collection Manager will now include Circus Amalgam.
Book of Heroes Valeera – March 2
Retrace Valeera’s path to becoming an expert assassin in the next installment of Hearthstone Book of Heroes, releasing on March 2! Defeating all 8 bosses in this linear adventure will reward 1 Rogue pack, containing only Rogue cards from Standard!
Our next major update will include an Arena rotation and new Duels Treasures! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram to stay up to date on the latest releases!
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 12 - Day 2 [Finished]](dark-beyond-reveals-day-2-thumb.webp)
Comments
The image showing the basic bundle is wrong and misleading:
The Forged in the Barrens Bundle includes 60 Forged in the Barrens card packs, two random Forged in the Barrens non-golden Legendary cards, and the Hamuul Runetotem card back!
Since they didn't say in the patch that he's getting removed or changed, is tickatus still going to be getting darkmoon prizes?
Arm of the Empire is now broken beyond repair. Especially in early elemental builds.
I was expecting them to change High Abbess Alura to only cast targeted spells. It would stop the whole Tip the Scales nonsense and make her a lot more viable for Priest. There is no way to use her in any Priest deck because Priests really need their removal cards. Building a buff deck around her is simply not viable due to a lack of better card draw options. She is pretty much a Paladin exclusive legendary instead of a dual class card.
How is nobody excited that we finally got a Tauren hero portrait?
I am very excited
I cannot speak for everyone, but for me there are 3 reasons:
Is the patch live? I'm not seeing a patch update yet.
No. I'm not sure why Blizzard is pretending to be able to do two things at once. There's no way in hell they can run BlizzConline and release a patch at the same time.
(EDIT: "Run" in the sense of "present," even if it's something that was technically prepared beforehand.)
???
They recorded the BlizzCon content at least two weeks ago - they aren't "running" anything right now.
The team responsible for patching the game is different than the one running content. Plus, all the BlizzCon stuff is pre-recorded so it's not like anyone appearing in the content couldn't be helping with stuff if that was their area (it isn't).
I'm certain they are waiting for things to wrap up a bit more for the day. I do think it's insane to push such a large patch during BlizzCon though. This kinda hurts content creation since you're crowding the most important information.
Yes, yes, but they had to TIME the things so they would happen simultaneously, so that when the guy in the video says, "Log in today to get these bonuses," people are actually able to do that. This did not happen.
But the patch is live now, so who cares.
No patch over here... Clicked the "Check for Updates" several times. Tried a "Scan and Repair" too. Hoping I don't end up having to un/re-install. Sure it'll get fixed soon enough but it's weird that I can't get it. On PC too, not mobile.
Whenever the BNet client won't patch, it means it hasn't gone live yet. Very odd of them to release notes and then not drop the patch, but I'm sure there's a good reason for it.
They really just killed mage in duels and left druid untouched, rip. Super hyped for core set though!
Well that change to High Abbess Alura was certainly not expected, given that the deck will certainly die off on its own when cards rotate. Its certainly not really all that different compared with Prismatic Lens previously.
Was actually very expected. Everyone said how broken and unfun it could be on turn 4 or 5.
Its power cards are practically rotating in 1 month, which is why I thought it was unexpected. Im not denying that its bs practically wins games on 4, its just that prismatic lens used to do the same thing. What made it different now is simply the high end with nozdormu and a few taunt/rush murlocs.
I hope High Abbess Alura is unnerfed eventually, I was having so much fun with her in prelate paladin as a highroll option for buff spells. She is definitely not too powerful in wild so it’s another case of a card that is a cool option for wild decks but not in any high meta decks for wild being nerfed because of standard, similar to what happened with Dinotamer Brann.
The dinotamer brann nerf was actually a buff to many - even highlander hunter is a fun deck!