We've got patch notes!
No More 3-Rune Cards in Discover Pool for Death Knights
Blizzard has announced the nerf to Death Knights and it should make playing against the class less of a pain point. With the removal of 3-rune cards from the Discover pool, Death Knights should no longer be able to somewhat consistently generate powerhouse cards.
Card Nerfs
We've got three card nerfs and one of them is a big one. Sorry not sorry, Druids.
- Rowdy Fan - Now gives +3 Attack (Down from 4).
- Overseer Frigidara - Now has 3 Attack (Down from 5).
- Twig of the World Tree - Now refreshes your mana crystals (No longer gives you 10).
Card Buffs
A total of 25 card buffs are coming in the patch. Warriors will be seeing the most changes.
Warrior
- Rock Master Voone - Now costs 3 Mana (Down from 4).
- Verse Riff - Now costs 1 Mana (Down from 2).
- Bridge Riff - Now costs 5 Mana (Down from 6).
- Power Slider - Now has 2 Attack, 3 Health (Up from 1 Attack, 2 Health).
- Shield Block - Now costs 2 Mana (Down from 3).
- Frightened Flunky - Now has 3 Health (Up from 2).
- [Hearthstone Card (Thori’belore) Not Found] - New: Rush. Deathrattle: Go Dormant. Cast a Fire spell to revive Thori-belore!
Mage
- Infinitize the Maxitude - Now also reduces the cost of the card by (1).
- Audio Splitter - Now costs 2 Mana and has 3/2 (Down from 3 Mana, stats lowered from 4/3).
- Spitelash Siren - Now costs 4 Mana and has 5 Health (Down from 5 Mana and 6 Health).
- Arcane Artificer - Now has 3 Health (Up from 2).
Hunter
- Stranglethorn Heart - Now costs 8 Mana (Down from 10).
- Halduron Brightwing - Now also gives spells in your hand Spell Damage +1.
Shaman
- Jazz Bass - Now has 3 Attack (Up from 2).
- Altered Chord - Now deals 6 Damage (Up from 5).
- [Hearthstone Card (Flow Rider) Not Found] - Now has 1 Mana and has 2/1 (Down from 2 Mana and 3.2).
- Lightning Storm - Overload is now (1) (Down from (2)).
Warlock
- Crescendo - Now costs 2 Mana (Down from 3).
- Crazed Conductor - Now costs 4 Mana and has 3/4 (Down from 5 Mana and 4/5).
- Siphon Soul - Now costs 4 Mana (Down from 5).
Rogue
- Record Scratcher - Now has 3 Attack (Up from 2).
- MC Blingtron - Now has 5 Attack and 5 Health (Up from 3/4)
Priest
- Holy Nova - No longer hits the enemy Hero but it heals your Hero.
Druid
- Kiri, Chosen of Elune - Now costs 3 Mana (Down from 4).
- Death Blossom Whomper - Now costs 5 Mana and has 6/5 (Down from 6 Mana and 7/6).
Full Patch Notes
Quote From Blizzard Dev Comment: Overall, we’re pretty happy with meta diversity and power in Standard right now. There are a few outliers that we’re looking to reign in with this patch, but the bigger focus is on raising the power level of some of the new Festival of Legends cards and archetypes, so that they can compete with the stronger stuff and people can feel better about trying out these fun new strategies.
System Update
All Death Knight cards with any three-rune requirements (Frost-Frost-Frost, Blood-Frost-Unholy, etc.) are now removed from all Discover pools and random generation effects.
Dev Comment: Death Knight is very strong as a class right now, and this change weakens the class across the board. We’ve also received a lot of feedback that one of the more frustrating parts of playing against Death Knights is when they are able to generate additional copies of their powerful triple-rune cards—particularly when the card is one the deck didn’t have access to in deckbuilding.
Card Updates
The following cards have been adjusted to be less powerful:
Rowdy Fan
- Old: Battlecry: Choose a minion. It has +4 Attack while this is alive.
- New: Battlecry: Choose a minion. It has +3 Attack while this is alive.
- Dev Comment: Rowdy fan has gotten a lot of attention in combination with Lady S’Theno, a powerful combo at high levels of play. But even outside of that combo, it’s a card that is just a bit too efficient at its rate in a wide variety of decks.
Overseer Frigidara
- Old: 5 Attack, 6 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 6 Health
- Dev Comment: Death Knight has several strong decks, and Frost Death Knight stands out as the strongest of the bunch. We wanted to shave a bit more power off it by bringing one of its best cards more in line with the rest of the deck.
Twig of the World Tree
- Old: Deathrattle: Gain 10 Mana Crystals.
- New: Deathrattle: Refresh your Mana Crystals.
- Dev Comment: Twig of the World Tree is the best card in a really good deck leading to some frustrating play experiences in Wild right now. The interaction between Twig of the World Tree and Sphere of Sapience didn’t exist when Twig was first printed, so this change is to curb this card’s power level and bring it back closer to the original play pattern.
Rowdy Fan and Twig of the World Tree will be eligible for full dust refunds for two weeks following Patch 26.0.4. Overseer Frigidara is a Core Set card, so it can’t be crafted or disenchanted.
The following cards have been adjusted to be more powerful:
Rock Master Voone
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [3 Mana]
Verse Riff
- Old: [2 Mana]
- New: [1 Mana]
Bridge Riff
- Old: [6 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Power Slider
- Old: 1 Attack, 2 Health
- New: 2 Attack, 3 Health
Shield Block
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [2 Mana]
Frightened Flunky
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Health
- New: 2 Attack, 3 Health
Thori’belore
- Old: Rush. Deathrattle: Go Dormant. Cast a Fire spell to revive Thori-belore! (Revives 2 times.)
- New: Rush. Deathrattle: Go Dormant. Cast a Fire spell to revive Thori-belore!
Dev Comment: Warrior had two major themes this expansion, menagerie and riffs, and neither of them landed at the level we were hoping for at launch. We’re buffing these Festival of Legends cards to give those themes a chance. We’re also buffing some older cards to help support the class generally. Shield Block is a card we now hope can become a definitional, powerful card that represents what Warrior is about. We’ll continue to monitor the class after these adjustments to determine if further changes are needed down the line.
Infinitize the Maxitude
- Old: Discover a spell. Finale: Return this to your hand at end of turn.
- New: Discover a spell. Reduce its Cost by (1). Finale: Return this to your hand at end of turn.
Audiosplitter
- Old: [3 Mana] 4 Attack, 3 Health
- New: [2 Mana] 3 Attack, 2 Health
Spitelash Siren
- Old: [5 Mana] 2 Attack, 6 Health
- New: [4 Mana] 2 Attack, 5 Health
Arcane Artificer
- Old: 1 Attack, 2 Health
- New: 1 Attack, 3 Health
Dev Comment: Mage got two major focuses in Festival of Legends: Light Show and DJ Manastorm. Audio Splitter and Infinitize the Maxitude can both fit into those decks, and others, so we hope these changes can help open up the class. As for the reversion to Spitelash Siren, what more can we say other than, “Naga, Spell, Naga…”
Stranglethorn Heart
- Old: [10 Mana]
- New: [8 Mana]
Halduron Brightwing
- Old: Battlecry: Give all Arcane spells in your deck Spell Damage +1.
- New: Battlecry: Give all Arcane spells in your hand and deck Spell Damage +1.
Dev Comment: Like Infinitize the Maxitude, Stranglethorn Heart is underperforming. We’re giving them both buffs because we want these Legendary spells to feel better to open and play. We’re also buffing Halduron to give some help to the Arcane Hunter package that has never had a chance to shine.
Jazz Bass
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Durability
- New: 3 Attack, 2 Durability
Altered Chord
- Old: Lifesteal. Deal 5 damage to a minion. Costs (3) less if you’re Overloaded.
- New: Lifesteal. Deal 6 damage to a minion. Costs (3) less if you’re Overloaded.
Flow Rider
- Old: [2 Mana] 3 Attack, 2 Health
- New: [1 Mana] 2 Attack, 1 Health
Lightning Storm
- Old: Overload (2)
- New: Overload (1)
Dev Comment: The new Overload Shaman deck has not performed where we wanted or expected it to, so we’re giving it help with all these changes. This change to Lightning Storm also puts it better in line with the other current 3-4 Cost AoE spells.
Crescendo
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [2 Mana]
Crazed Conductor
- Old: [5 Mana] 4 Attack, 5 Health
- New: [4 Mana] 3 Attack, 4 Health
Siphon Soul
- Old: [5 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Dev Comment: Warlock is one of the weakest classes in the game right now, so we’re giving it some buffs to its new Fatigue package. We’re also bumping up Siphon Soul, which we think should help the class a little more generally.
Record Scratcher
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Durability
- New: 3 Attack, 2 Durability
MC Blingtron
- Old: 3 Attack, 4 Health
- New: 5 Attack, 5 Health
Dev Comment: Rogue has some good decks right now, especially at higher levels. We didn’t want to further strengthen those existing decks, but we did want to give them some more options from their Festival of Legends set.
Holy Nova
- Old: [4 Mana] Deal 2 damage to all enemies. Restore 2 Health to all friendly characters.
- New: [3 Mana] Deal 2 damage to all enemy minions. Restore 2 Health to all friendly characters.
Dev Comment: Right now, Priest has some powerful aggressive strategies. This adjustment is to make its other decks—control and Overheal—more enticing. While some players were hoping for more Overheal support in this patch, Overheal is an evergreen mechanic that we hope and expect to evolve over time, including through additional future card drops, instead of just adjustments to our first batch.
Kiri, Chosen of Elune
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [3 Mana]
Death Blossom Whomper
- Old: [6 Mana] 7 Attack, 6 Health
- New: [5 Mana] 6 Attack, 5 Health
Dev Comment: Druid is one of the classes that has seen a lot of new Festival of Legends cards see play, and we’re pretty happy with where its expansion set has landed. We’re taking this opportunity to set a higher bar for the Core Set and to encourage more of the cool Deathrattle support the class got from Murder at Castle Nathria.
Battlegrounds Updates
Armor Adjustments
Note: Aranna Starseeker, Silas Darkmoon, and Tess Greymane now has less Armor at higher ranks, but more Armor at lower ranks.
Buddy Updates
Dev Comment: This is our last expected patch of this Buddies meta. Battlegrounds Season 4 is coming soon with Patch 26.2. When it does, Buddies will be removed again to make room for a massive minion shakeup. But don’t worry, we’ll see our Buddies again one day. For now, hang tight. Season 4 details are right around the corner!
Bilgewater Mogul (Trade Prince Gallywix’s Buddy)
- Old: [Tavern Tier 3]
- New: [Tavern Tier 4]
Magnus Manastorm (Millhouse Manastorm’s Buddy)
- Old: [Tavern Tier 4]
- New: [Tavern Tier 5]
Nightmare Ectoplasm (Mutanus the Devourer’s Buddy)
- Old: [Tavern Tier 4] 4 Attack, 3 Health. When you ‘Devour’ this, spit its stats onto 2 extra minions.
- New: [Tavern Tier 3] 5 Attack, 4 Health. When you ‘Devour’ this, spit its state onto 1 extra minion.
And the quest gained from Shady Aristocrat (Sire Denathrius’s Buddy) has again been made harder to complete.
Duels Updates
Card Pool Updates
- Sister Svalna, Linecracker, Clockwork Automaton, Elwynn Boar, and Edwin VanCleef have been banned from the eligible card pools.
Hero Power Updates
No Guts, No Glory (Warrior)
- Old: [1 Mana]
- New: [2 Mana]
Lichborne Might (Death Knight – Sai Shadowstorm)
- Old: [1 Mana]
- New: [2 Mana]
Warmaster’s Frenzy (Neutral – Drek’Thar)
- Old: [1 Mana]
- New: [2 Mana]
Signature Treasure Updates
Devout Blessing
- Old: Add a copy of each Deathrattle minion that died this game to your hand. Allied: Priest.
- New: Add a copy of each friendly Deathrattle minion that died after your last turn to your hand. Allied: Priest
Ace in the Hole
- Old: [2 Mana]
- New: [3 Mana]
Moonbeast
- Old: [3 Mana] At the end of your turn, add a random Eclipse spell to your hand. Your Eclipse spells cost (0).
- New: [4 Mana] At the end of your turn, add both Eclipse spells to your hand. Your Eclipse spells cost (0).
Collector’s Ire
- Old: [7 Mana]
- New: [6 Mana]
Gift of the Old Gods
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [3 Mana]
Reno’s Crafty Lasso
- Old: 3 Attack, 2 Durability
- New: 2 Attack, 3 Durability
Sr. Excavator
- Old: [6 Mana] Battlecry: Draw 2 cards. Any minions you draw cost (2) less.
- New: [5 Mana] Battlecry: Draw 3 cards. Any minions your draw cost (2) less.
Runed Soulblade
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [3 Mana]
Treasure Pool Updates
- Ancient Reflections, Bag of Holding, and Mask of Mimicry have been temporarily removed from all Treasure Pools.
- Royal Gift and Location, Location, Location have been moved to Treasure Pool 2.
Passive Treasure Updates
Eerie Stone
- Old: After you destroy a minion with a Shadow spell, add a copy of that minion to your hand. Reduce its Cost by (2).
- New: After you destroy an enemy minion with a Shadow spell, add a copy of that minion to your hand. It costs (2) less.
Brittle Bones
- Old: After you destroy an enemy minion with a spell, summon a Volatile Skeleton.
- New: After you cast a spell that kills an enemy, summon a 2/2 Volatile Skeleton.
Avenging Armaments
- Old: After a friendly minion loses its Divine Shield, give it +2/+2.
- New: After a friendly minion loses its Divine Shield, give it +2/+1.
Righteous Reserves
- Old: After you play a minion with Divine Shield, give a random friendly minion Divine Shield.
- New: After you play your first Divine Shield minion each turn, give a random friendly minion Divine Shield.
Mummy Magic
- Old: After you play a Deathrattle minion, give it Reborn.
- New: After you play your first Deathrattle minion each turn, give it Reborn.
Endurance Training
- Old: Your Taunt minions cost (3) less, but not less than (2).
- New: Your Taunt minions cost (2) less, but not less than (2).
Arctic Armor
- Old: After the first time you Freeze an enemy each turn, gain 1 Armor.
- New: After the first time you Freeze an enemy each turn, gain 2 Armor.
Edge of Dredge
- Old: After you Dredge, draw a card and shuffle your deck.
- New: After the first time you Dredge each turn, draw a card.
Unholy Gift
- Old: At the start of the game, shuffle 5 Death Knight cards into your deck.
- New: At the start of the game, shuffle 5 Lich King cards into your deck.
- Dev Comment: Unholy Gift and Rune Helmet now use the updated version of Obliterate.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Arcanite Ripper’s effect was not improving when damage and healing occurred at the same time (such as hitting yourself with Cheaty Anklebiter’s effect).
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Screaming Banshee did not work property when healing and taking damage at the same time (such as while attacking your Ashbringer into an enemy minion).
- [Duels] Added missing Festival of Legends and Rastakhan’s Rumble cards to Discover pools.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where one version of Crimson Clergy was banned while the other version was not.
- [Collection] Corrected in-collection “how to obtain” descriptions for various products.
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where the first phase of the *Melomaniacal Laughter* achievement granted Battlegrounds Track XP instead of Rewards XP.
- [Localization] Fixed various localization issues.
Comments
What do you know, everyone is still playing BBB Death Knight!
Well, I was expecting slightly different than simply disallowing discovers for triple rune cards. For starters, I think some of their cards simply needs slight nerfs. Bone Breaker and Plague Strike are two cards that absolutely needs touching for example.
But really, the one issue I have with DK is not even its powerlevel, its the fact that the class is built to run on extremes. Blood DK and Frost DK is practically the extreme examples of an archetype you can find and its sadly warping the meta. It makes the whole meta more about who you face rather than the solidity of your deck itself. Lots of decks are going greed because blood DK is such a fucking slog, and then you queue into a frost DK and get your arse kicked sideways.
I was thinking team5 might actually revise the power levels and make it more interesting to actually mix up the runes. The rune system was supposed to make deck building more interesting but its ironically now doing the exact opposite. Why, for example, would anyone bother playing anything that isn't a triple rune deck? I guess one day I'll see an absolutely OP card being printed for each triple rune combinations because there wouldn't be any reason to play them without it. This is just an illusion of variety where none actually exist.
Okay, let's move on from that and focus on the buffs.
- Played lots of warrior today. And I can say resolutely that the riffs are still shit though much less shit than it was previously. Anything that's not enrage warrior feels clumsy, overcosted, and completely unable to affect tempo. It feels a lot like playing one card per turn and praying your opponent cant remove it.
If you want to play warrior, just play enrage. At least that deck can snowball well as opposed to riffs or menagerie that are slow as shit
- Ive seen implock doing well but admitably havent gone round to try it. But looking at the buffs, there's definitely something there, because Crazed Conductor can absolutely win you the game out of nowhere.
- Ive seen lots of shaman trying overload but thus far its a bit mild. Still cant see it top the excellent swarm-totem shaman build that at very least can contest against anything that's not frost DK
- Rogues will be jamming those cocs for a long time. The changes to blingtron is just nuts, but likely not nuts enough for it to see play outside of menagerie rogue
Edit:
- Just to add one more to the list, because it cropped out hard a few games after I wrote my initial impressions.
Naga mage may be legit. Seems like we already forgotten the shit Spitelash Siren was hurling at opponents before it got nerfed to oblivion. Probably a mistake from team5 because that deck in sunken city was good but its main crime was its bs game plan. And here we are, introducing it back again, expecting it to be less tilting than it was before.
Now with Rewind, this deck is just taking the piss. Again, we are asking team5 to just cut the crap and disallow all these card slinging to go past the fucking rope. I dont mind my opponent playing 100 cards as long as they're using their time to do it. What I do mind is having to see card after card being played by my opponent when its MY turn.
Twig buffed to refresh 20 mana XD
Please buff the OG Voone & Blingtron 🥺
I was really hoping they'd do the DK change properly and make it so we can't discover cards outside of our rune combinations. I get that it would probably power boost DK in Standard for now with how few cards there are but it feels really stupid when your triple Blood DK opponent starts freezing your board with Frost spells or plays The Scourge and has a massive board all of a sudden. As the card pool expands the problem for Standard would fix itself, they'd just have to wait to release in the second expansion rather than now.
Removing the ability to Discover cards outside of your deck's rune combinations wouldn't be a good change if the intention is to nerf the class. Suppose you run a triple-Frost deck for example. You may not be able to get a Vampiric Blood or something like that, but now all your cards that Discover spells just make it even more likely for you to get another Frostwyrm's Fury (assuming the change were to happen instead of the one we got rather than in addition to it, but even then, it still makes it a lot more likely to Discover the really good single and double-Rune cards of that particular Rune type as well).
While people can make a debate about which one is more significant than the other, the buff and nerf that this effect would provide would be quite big changes that can't simply be glossed over. Discovering cards outside of your own Runes can be fun, and at the end of the day, restricting Discovers to your own deck's Runes basically just removes that fun factor while not really changing the power level that much (since it makes a huge change in both directions).
I'm not really sure how I feel about banning all triple-Rune cards from Discover since I feel like it calls into question over the philosophy of the class design as a whole, but I do think this is the better move than removing the ability to Discover outside of your Runes.
DK is supposed to be balanced around the fact they have to sacrifice access to the majority of DK cards in favour of having access to more specific powerful rewards. In that way, they're supposed to be somewhat predictable and be very defined in what they can and can't do. So you play against a Frost DK and being aware of how they play, you use your boardclears for the little stuff to mitigate incoming damage cause they won't be playing for board lategame anyway. And then they play two Scourges back to back because of discovers and that whole philosophy crumbles.
Though they have not been top of the meta or anything, I've seen so many control DKs in Wild just cramming in literally every discover card that exists just to abuse stuff outside of their runes. Like chain-discovering Patchwerks when they're triple Frost and winning a combo matchup they have no business winning. Or getting multiples of Blood Boil against a proactive opponent. That shit violates the entire philosophy of DK's design. Let them laser focus on what they do best and prohibit their access to stuff they're not supposed to be able to do at all.
Cause what is the purpose of this triple rune ban, really? Which cards are we super scared of DKs discovering in multiples? Sure there's Mograine, Vampiric Blood and Soulstealer. But as far as I see it, it's pretty much just Frostwyrm's Fury that really drives people up the wall. So just...nerf it? It's not like Snowfall Guardian is a fun and interactive card to play against (I play Wild, I should know...fucking Shudderwock Shamans). Snowfall for 1 extra mana with 5 damage battlecry isn't any more fun, let alone in a rune combination that has so much out of hand face damage.
I'm not particularly attached to the ability to spam Mograines or anything. By all means, ban triple rune cards if you don't want to balance them properly. But if they design DK to be hyper-focused and restrictive in deck building, the least they can do is enforce that restriction. This was their opportunity to do so.
I think that a key reason why Bliz decided to just stop triple rune discoveries is exactly what you referred to here. Hearthstone was based in WoW and it's talent trees. There was a huge controversy a number of years ago about Class Identity and there was a lot of changes made to make sure that the tactics of one class don't necessarily bleed into another. Which is why you'll find high damage spells in Mage, but not necessarily in Priest or Warlock. You're giving up versatility for focus. Being able to grab Climactic Necrotic Explosion when you're playing an Unholy deck is ungodly since you create and spend so many corpses with that rune.
Another one on that level is as mentioned before, getting Vampiric Blood with a Frost DK build is just stupid, plain and simple, let alone gaining another few copies of Frostwyrm's Fury. The triple rune cards are supposed to be representative of the focus you're playing, and I totally agree with your sentiment that teching against blood DK just to have them pull out Frost cards is breaking the identity of the classes.
If DK was able to have this reverted in the future, I'm sure it would come with a lot of triple rune cards getting nerfed. We'd start seeing Marrowgar only able to rez 5 minions with a cap on their Atk/Hth, Frostwyrm's only able to target minions with reduced damage, or even Vamp only giving 5 health and the corpses spent draw you a card.
I know this is off topic, but you made me think about how cool and powerful a card Marrowgar is, and yet how it pretty much just clears a board and VERY rarely sets up lethal. Imagine a card like that in vanilla days: Equality/Consecration, Mass Dispel, Brawl, Twisting Nether or Vanish ... or you're dead.
But the way unholy plays marrowgar is simply a way out where most aggro decks dont get any. The real strength of UUU decks is Grave Strength, which is quickly turning my eyes back into its sockets.
The deck is simply stronger with marrowgar despite its obvious weakness. Certain decks that cant do board clears will immediately fold to it.
I just assembled an Unholy DK deck to kill off some of the achievements and I am using Lord Marrowgar for that reason. Unholy can swarm and create a gnarly board presence, he is the one card to help bring balance on a turn.
On a side note... I have had a TON of fun running Blightfang and then hitting their own minions with Death Growl. Bonus points if you have an Arms Dealer in play when they start dying. Getting a handful of 3/2 taunting zombies that add more corpses to your pool to fire off a Boneshredder or Marrowgar is wonderful.
This is a great fix. Think about the basic concept of Legendaries: their effects are unique and powerful, so you can only run one copy (yes, I know many Legendaries are trash). Those triple rune cards are in fact very powerful, more consistently powerful than most Legendaries. So now you can only run two copies (or just one, if it's Legendary) and not get to discover more and more and more copies. And it also removes some of the biggest offenders (like Vampiric Blood and Frostwyrm's Fury) from showing up in matches where they don't belong.
I could not be happier to see that Twig is just as useless now as it was before there was something to autobreak it. I think it will still be used, but it won't pop things off so quickly that no one wants to play against it.
As for DK... this needed to happen. When someone is able to grab another vital card, like Frostwyrm's Fury, multiple times more than the allotted number of cards in your deck... it gets really lame to play against and shows the over power there. This is a solid change.
As for the Buffs, I hope that this will mean some usage out of them. There are still a number of cards that are just not as fun to play with, like Jazz Bass, that still won't be played much. But at least they are trying and not leaving all the less than fun cards to be hopefully played.