Looks like the Hearthstone team has managed to prepare a number of hotfixes for the weekend! Patch 23.0.1 has been deployed across all regions. It's a server-side hotfix, meaning that no downloads should've been necessary. Some card visuals might be behaving oddly until our game clients are able to catch up, however.
Update: There was another small hotfix for Fireside Gatherings (the Tavern Brawl was missing Sunken City recipes). Also some developer insights on the card nerf, plus we took a chance to further elaborate on a few other points of interest.
Quote From DeckTech Hotfix rolling out across the regions now. Includes bug fixes and some balance changes to a few modes, including a pre-emptive balance change for that ONE deck that some of us saw during Theorycrafting.
Broken Rogue Combos
Which deck, you might ask? The one dubbed "Turtle Rogue". Following yesterday's theorycrafting streams, there have been rumors of a potentially broken early turn OTK interaction loop, in which the likes of Pandaren Importer and Brann Bronzebeard were identified as prime suspects (plus Fogsail Freebooter). Why that first card? Smaller Standard rotation of spells with only 4 sets = you get a chance to discover something very reliably (in this case, Shadowstep when you put enough unique spells into your deck).
If you'd rather care for a visual interpretation:
So whew, terrible Day 1 experience avoided?
Since then, we've also heard some reasoning on the change from people on the Hearthstone team, noting that possibility of reverting the nerf down the line once there are more Rogue spells in the Standard pool of cards:
Quote From Gallon Brian Kibler: Importer is one of my favorite cards and I’m super sad it’s what is getting nerfed as a result of this.Think the team agrees. This is an unfortunate interaction that we wanted to fix before launch, which meant we had to nerf an otherwise totally fine card. Once there are enough spells in Rogue where you aren’t guaranteed a shadowstep, I think it’s highly likely the nerfs reverted.
Quote From DeckTech It was important to the team to move on this quickly, before the set went live. That limited the options–updating functionality under the hood requires code changes, updating card text and functionality requires code changes *and* localization.How doable was increasing the cost of shadowstep instead?
I wasn’t in those talks, but I would expect it was one of the options considered. But the Core Set was built with the entire year in mind, whereas importer was a fringe playable card, so I’m not surprised it didn’t win out.
That's a reasonable enough stance for the time being, even as the whole situation is rather unfortunate for Pandaren Importer fans.
But! There are also some other notable improvements for various game modes in there:
Full 23.0.1 Patch Notes
Quote From Blizzard Patch 23.0.1 is a server-side hotfix, deploying right now. The patch includes balance changes to Battlegrounds and Duels, a pre-emptive balance change for Standard, and bug fixes.
Balance Changes:
- In order to prevent an unintended interaction after Standard rotation, Pandaren Importer is changing from a 2-mana 1/3 to a 3-mana 2/4. Because this is a server-side patch, Pandaren Importer will appear as though its stats have been affected by an in-game effect. This will be updated in an upcoming patch. Because of this change, regular copies of Pandaren Importer will be able to be disenchanted for their full dust value until April 20 at 10 a.m. Pacific. (Golden copies of Pandaren Importer are not craftable because they were on the United in Stormwind rewards track).
- Sub Scrubber (Ini Stormcoil’s Buddy) has been moved from Tavern Tier 2, to Tavern Tier 4. Because this is a server-side hotfix, the Tavern Tier will not appear correctly at hero selection or when hovering over the Buddy Meter. This will be updated in a later full patch.
- Varden Dawngrasp and Ini Stormcoil have been moved from Armor Tier 2 (2-5 Armor) to Armor Tier 1 (0 Armor).
- Wildfire and Malygos are banned from deck creation in Duels.
- The Legendary Loot and Unstable Magic Passive Treasures were moved to the Ultra Rare Pool 2.
The new Battlegrounds Hero Ini Stormcoil (or more specifically, her Buddy) only lasted untouched for a few days. Since the change won't be visually reflected in-game outright, this gives anyone keeping up with the news a small advantage, by being aware of the 'real' Tavern Tier behind the curtain.
Quote From Blizzard Bug Fixes and Game Improvements:
- New: Fixed a bug that caused this weekend’s pre-release Fireside Gatherings to be unable to use the new Sunken City deck recipes.
- Fixed the visual bug that caused the Ranked Season Rewards celebration to appear blank.
- Fixed a bug where Kurtrus, Demon Render counted times your hero was attacked as well as times you attacked with your hero.
- Fixed a bug where secrets played after Freezing Trap would not trigger after Freezing Trap activated to remove the trigger condition. For example, after this bug fix, if a player plays Freezing Trap and then Explosive Trap, and the enemy attacks the player with a minion, the Freezing Trap will activate to return the attacking minion and then the Explosive Trap will trigger.
- Fixed a bug where Emergency Maneuvers could cause an enemy minion to go Dormant.
- Fixed a bug where Pathmaker would create extra history tiles throughout games.
- Improved Battlegrounds performance related to when minions buffed “for the rest of the game” appear in Bob’s Tavern during the Recruit Phase.
- Temporarily removed the “The Good Stuff” Darkmoon Prize from Tickatus’s Prize pool in order to avoid a bug. The Prize is expected to be returned to Tickatus’s Prize pool in a later patch, when the bug is resolved.
- Fixed a bug where the game would crash if you got a Mysterious Stranger encounter after already completing all Tasks for all Mercenaries you own. Now, if there are not enough visitors with available Tasks to fill the three options, it will select random Mercenaries to fill those slots. You will then be able to select a Mercenary as normal and, if that Mercenary does not have any Tasks to offer, you will get Coins for that Mercenary.
- Fixed a bug where the Reshape Deathblow would copy the target’s Equipment twice.
- Fixed a bug where the “Mecha Magic!” Duels card bucket was inaccurately labeled as “Big Spell.”
- Fixed a bug where players who already had a complete Curse of Naxxramas collection when Patch 23.0 went live could not claim the Diamond Loatheb reward that was added in the patch.
If you started opening your Voyage to the Sunken City packs early by setting up one of the private Fireside Gatherings and the outdated recipes for one of the two available Tavern Brawls bothered you, at least that should now be working properly.
The blank screen for Ranked Season rewards is something we talked about the other week.
Diamond Loatheb for Real This Time
Another major fix some people will be very happy to see. Not everyone was able to find the newest Diamond acquisition of Loatheb through the relevant Collection achievement - even if they technically met all the requirements by owning Curse of Naxxramas cards (Hearthstone's very first solo adventure). It might've had something to do with already claiming these points in the past.
Unfortunately, owning all eligible cards at one point in the past but not by the time the reward became available in the game still means missing out here. Be careful disenchanting old stuff you "might never get to use anyway" if you care about these Diamond cards! Or Wild. Or Duels. Or whatever else might come in the future.
Quote From DeckTech Do we actually have to recraft cards? It’s written 23/24 cards on mine but I disanchanted a bunch And yeah I had them all back in the dayYeah, that’s how all these work. They check if you own 100% at the time the achievement exists.
Enjoy admiring the lovable ugly creature if you got it! Or maybe will yet for the future Diamond collection.
Hey, technically that's Kel'Thuzad's line!
Mysterious Stranger Bug Fix & Task Improvements
The other at least somewhat notable correction, following the grand task extension. That Mysterious Stranger issue was not a new thing in Patch 23.0, but before this only a small handful of people grinded the mode so much to have all available tasks completed. Now that it's become so much easier to plow through them, said crowd started growing larger. This bug has even caused some players to start skipping the mystery node altogether (because it would not only hang the game, but also make finishing the entire Bounty downright impossible and force one to retire it). Glad to see it squashed long-term.
Eliminating crashes should make everyone happy, and it certainly won't hurt picking up a few extra coins along the way while enjoying smoother Bounty runs. Just mind that the Mysterious Stranger node might be less of a common occurrence nowadays (Hot Potato! has now seized its opportunity).
Did you see the potential Rogue OTK coming? Already hugging your Diamond Loatheb? Glad to see anything else from this list? Let us know below!
Comments
Lol, rogue got nerfed before day one even. Probably they playtested it and thought it sucks being on the receiving end of a combo at turn 5. In any case, poor Pandaren Importer got nerfed to 3, which makes it even less playable than it was before, where it at very least had a 1 mana advantage over Venomous Scorpid. Now its competing unfavorably with both scorpid and Vulpera Scoundrel
They could've just made it so the panda cant discover Shadowstep for the time being. While its not ideal, its still better than nerfing a card that heretofore had little impact on the meta, and I doubt the playerbase would be up in arms over a change like that. Its not like rogue would play that card anyway. What it does do is practically making the card unplayable for classes that might actually want to play it as a 2 mana option.
Another discover effect ruined! How can f2p like me find epics and legendaries when those got nerfs?
Also Brightwing and War Cache removed from core is bad
Still pretty good in a highlander deck.
Depending on how many spells rogue gets in the Sunken City mini-set and the next expansion, I could see them returning it to its original stats then. It's an unfortunate fix, but one that can at least be very temporary.
Given what Gallon said (added the quote), that's very on point!
The change should have been: "Battlecry: Discover a spell that costs 1 or more that didn't start in your deck"
I saw some suggestions for changing Pandaren Importer to only discovering from a pool of spells that aren't *currently* in the deck, but coding anything on such a short notice is bound to be more difficult than doing simple mana cost adjustments they so like.
That would be a super cool interaction!
Recently I've used the pandaren battlecry to find that snowball shaman spell 'cause i don't have the epic, but i was trying to beat the achievement, and it worked.
Sadly I've made snowballing only 9 minions 🤕
Just a question - anyone else got a golden standard pack? And if so for what? I mean, I logged into the game today and I've got one, Idk for what. Is it for completing all Book of Mercenaries chapters or...?
Yep, exactly for that! We should also have a post about it later today.
Thanks for clarification! ^_^