Today's patch isn't quite the expansion launch but it sure does contain a lot of exciting stuff as well. Let's go through the major things that have changed with this patch.
Mobile Note - Your update is delayed (as usual) so expect these changes later today after your app store of choice gets the update.
Hall of Fame Rotation
In contrast of previous years, the Hall of Fame rotation happened prior to the expansion launch itself. The following loved and hated cards have now been moved to Wild:
You can read our thoughts about these cards in this article.
Priest Basic & Classic Rework
Connected to the Hall of Fame rotation, the Priest class has now completed its rework. A total of six Priest cards have rotated to Hall of Fame, with some iconic cards like Northshire Cleric included, and been replaced with six brand new cards. In addition to that, seven other cards have seen some changes but will remain in Standard.
Goodbye Velen, welcome Natalie!
Read the details and see all the cards involved in this article.
Duplicate Protection
Definitely one of the most exciting changes with the patch was extending the duplicate protection from Legendaries only to all other rarities as well. With this change you should, for example, be able to get all Commons of the set in about 30 packs, and buying that 80 pack preorder should get you all the Rares.
You can read more about the change in this article.
Card Unnerfs Part II
We already saw some Wild-only cards (and Sludge Slurper) being unnerfed with the previous patch, and today these four cards are reclaiming their lost honor:
- Raiding Party's Mana Cost has been moved back to 3 (from 4).
- Giggling Inventor's Mana Cost has been moved to 6 (from 7; the original cost was 5).
- Reckless Experimenter's card effect has been changed, removing the restriction of "Cost can't be reduced below 1".
- Dr. Boom, Mad Genius's Mana Cost has been moved back to 7 (from 9).
Which unnerf are you most excited about?
Illidan Arrives to Battlegrounds
He's had a long trip from Outland to the Tavern, so before getting into the frenzy of Constructed play Illidan has decided to stop for some Battlegrounds games. That Hero Power should give you a nice advantage if you play your cards well. Are you prepared?
New & Returning Player Decks
Now that our good friend Whizbang the Wonderful is rotating, Blizzard has decided that new and returning players can now select a free competitive deck from nine alternatives to be added to their collection. These decks are made with cards from Year of the Dragon sets, so they will all be Standard viable when the new expansion hits and rotation happens on April 7th. And no, the fact that you didn't play last week doesn't count; the returning player limit is four months with no Hearthstone.
As a completely unbiased Mage-fanatic, I give you this deck as an example what you could choose to get:
You can read more about this change and see all the decklists in this guide.
That's a lot of changes but there might be more! Stay tuned for more news and potential datamined information about the patch!
Comments
Living Roots is now epic, I already dust it :D
Good catch! That's a really bad mistake by Blizz. Free dust until they patch that!
Thx for the heads up. Just dusted both of them.
LOL, wtf. I had 8 😂😂
Am I seeing things, or is the Hunter banner a brighter shade of green now? If so, I assume they might have done that to differentiate between that and Demon Hunter, since that one is a green hue too.
Good catch and most likely correct assumption ; this should enhanced the contrast and legibility as well as annoying old timers.
Most excited about the duplicate protection!
Dust re-refund for mad genius please
Why? You got full dust value for him at the nerf, so it technically costs you nothing to recraft him.
Don't be greedy, please.
Sure as if Blizzard makes any loss re-refunding Dr.Boom dust
I just realized - this is the only way to get a Rise of Galakrond card outside of the set (Mage has arcane amplifier)
They did not say anywhere that Living Roots is now epic for some reasons.
Edit: Worth to mention that it may be a bug, so you can maybe abuse the system and dust it now and craft it latet when will back to common, because there is no reasons, at least at first glance, to this change. But I don't know, I will leave it as it is.
The Mage deck might be the best pick anyway, because it contains Zephrys the Great and Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, giving new/returning players the tools to play highlander decks in every class.
Just a note if you don't care about collecting golden cards and prefer dust. Now that the Hall of Fame has happened, and assuming you have your Priest leveled to 60, you can dust both golden copies of Northshire Cleric and Divine Spirit and just keep the normal ones, since those cards moved out of the Basic set. Easy 200 dust right there!
Can't wait for that juicy HoF dust to flow in my deposit.
(And dust those golden Shadowform that make me feel dirty)
really wanna play these. but i dont know about sinking in the gold or dust right now to make all the new priest cards.
Yay!!!
Now the joy of waiting for the Apple store to actually get the update :(
I wish they would reduce the crafting cost of the buffed cards to be equal to the dusting cost the same way they increase the dusting cost to be equal to the crafting cost when they nerf cards. I dusted my Dr. Boom when it got nerfed and now I will have to craft it back again.
You got 1600 from dusting Boom, and now you're paying 1600 to craft him. So the nerf and buff negate themselves. Personally, I'd wait on crafting him back, to let others experiment and see if he's viable in Wild.