Twist, the new format that replaced the Classic and was announced a little over a month ago is about to become inaccessible - for a month.
The mode will be available through July 31, though will be going offline until its relaunch on September 1 which will bring a formal launch to the mode. We can expect a new format during the relaunch and a "fun surprise". We're not entirely certain what that surprise is, nor do we have any good guesses, so let us know what you think it might be in the comments below!
Here's Blizzard's official announcement about the end of the Twist beta test, from the 27.0 Patch Notes.
Quote From Blizzard The current Twist Beta is coming to an end at the end of this season, at the end of the day on July 31. After the Beta ends, Twist will be temporarily unavailable while we prepare for the formal launch. Thank you all for trying out this new Mode and giving your feedback!
Twist is scheduled to formally launch on September 1, with a new format and a fun surprise. Stay tuned for more details closer to launch.
Comments
My guess would be that the surprise is an event with pack rewards, based on:
A different way to address the second point would be to grant people temporary copies of eligible non-Standard cards, similar to the Core Set. However, that would make it harder to sell battle-ready decks at full price, so I don't expect them to go that route.
What kind of "preparation for the formal launch" do they need to do that requires shutting it down for month? It doesn't make sense, they have all the technology in place, don't they? Unless their "fun surprise" is something REALLY different from your regular constructed format.
Yeah, sounds like they didn't plan ahead
They most likely want all the focus to be on the new Titans expansion for Standard for about a month. Also re-releasing Twist a month into the expansion gives players something new to do once the Standard meta has settled down.
Blizzard like spacing out their content like this, happens in every game. They started doing this after K&C where they had released Dungeon Runs and the expansion at the same time. Everyone was more interested in the Dungeon Runs so the expansion took a back seat.
blizzard can still space out their content without shutting down twist for a month. going into this we expected to see a new format every month, not have to wait a month with no twist for every new format.
they without a doubt could have come up with something interesting for august and it wouldn't have taken away from the expansion because obviously people are going to be more focused on the completely brand new massive standard expansion than they will be twist regardless of what the new format is. twist also could offer new ways of using those new expansion cards. nothing about twist inherently takes attention away from the new expansion.
dungeon runs are completely unique content from traditional hearthstone; twist is traditional hearthstone, just with a less conventional format. there's absolutely no reason (other than laziness/greediness) to not make a twist format for a month. if anything, they're missing out on a potential way to further promote the new expansion.
There is also the Wild-only update, which will contain new and updated cards. Should(hopefully) be about the same time as the re-release of Twist.
This is a great point, the wild update represents a huge change to how we see Twist as players' collections are subject to change drastically, which is almost unheard of for wild cards. It wouldn't make sense to just do it for TITANS hype seeing as this will be the only skipped month; we will see both a new expansion and new Twist format once December rolls around.