Legendary weapons, Legendary spells, hero cards and quests all had a positive reaction so we can certainly bring them back at the right time.

When we do bring cards back we want to make sure it is the right time and the story support it like it did for Dr. Boom's Hero card and Hagatha's Hero card.

What is your favorite keyword or cycle of cards or card type that you would want us to bring back first?

When Hearthstone was built originally the technology for world wide collections didn't exist so we built our game around that. The vast majority of players play only in one region so this works great for them.

I do feel for the players like you that play in multiple regions though. It is a lot of work to change this so we haven't prioritized it yet over card sets or current features.

One of our goals is to do a better job of creating medium to long-term goals. We've talked about doing special rewards for something beyond 500 wins, though I'm curious what players would want to achieve. If you have any specific milestones you think we should celebrate and reward in-game we'd love to hear about them. We could go the route of static achievement like 1000 wins, try to create a continuously rewarding system that doesn't have a cap like leveling in Overwatch, or do some time-based weekly or monthly progression system. We've been talking about all of these individually and will likely release at least one of them.

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Also wanted to address something that comes up with every AMA. We spend a lot of time talking about the things we're working on, but players obviously want to know when the thing is being released. This format isn't going to be great for that because when we're ready to announce a thing is happening, we'll do a video or blog and release it simultaneously to every region on our website. I hope that AMAs can be a place where we can discuss some of the things we're thinking about so players can both get some insight to what is going on or have the opportunity to give feedback on the general direction we're thinking about.

This seems like a great idea for a Tavern Brawl. We have so many ideas and suggestions both internally and externally for new game modes that we can't just add all of them to the game. Having them show up as Tavern Brawls guarantees that a lot of the community is focused on them and all talking about that mode and playing it at the same time.

When we do this as a Tavern Brawl would you rather it be a regular brawl or what we call Brawliseum (meaning it is 100 gold to enter and you get rewards based on success)?

We all like the idea of more achievements and tracking of progress. We were able to add a bunch of this in the new Single Player adventure that is coming out after the first Expansion of the year. We will let you unlock hero powers and starting decks through play and we will track which hero powers and starting decks that you have won with. Hopefully in the future we can do more of this. Each time we do a new feature like this we learn more about it and expand on the technology as we go.

We do a mix of this. Sometimes a mechanic like Rush and Lifesteal and Discover is kept for years. Sometimes we do it for one expansion. Freeze is a good example because it isn't very fun to have your minions frozen a lot so making that into a Tier 1 deck is pretty dangerous. We have seen this in mage already.

When we have a build-around like treants or elementals or dragons we can launch it and see how it goes, then slowly add cards to increase the power level over the next few years. Dragon Priest is a great example of this because it has been a reasonable deck for years and it changes each year as some of the strong cards leave, and new strong cards show up.

In the future we want to have more decks that rely on cards in two different years so that when rotation happens the deck changes, with some cards leaving and new cards entering the decks.

This time we will gave away the card a week before the expansion comes out so you can use it over the prerelease weekend.

We have a bunch of plans for this year that aren't new game modes. Our focus right now is making sure existing game modes feel like they’re fresh and exciting, like our recent update to Arena. The honest answer is that we haven't figured out what the next Hearthstone game mode will be. We talk pretty in-depth about common suggestions like 2v2; we've even spent some time in design and engineering prototyping what that mode might translate to in Hearthstone. That said, it's not something we’re working on today. We have some ambitious ideas for game modes in mind, but they’re still very early on in the design process.

As far as new stuff goes, in 2019 we’re really focusing on improving some of our existing systems while also doing some unique events throughout the expansion timeline to shake up the meta in fun ways. We'll share more information about these events as they get closer to release.

Some of this has been discussed in other answers, but I want to mention Squelch because it is something that different game designers around the world feel differently about.

From a game design perspective, emotes help players feel that they are playing a game against other human players, and squelch would hurt that. Emotes create emotional moments, whether it’s a begrudging acknowledgement of a good play from your opponent, or even a taunt here and there.

That said, there are pros and cons, and it’s an interesting topic of discussion.

I love murlocs and I am hoping to add a splash of murlocs in the next few expansions. Sludge Slurper has an amazing coming into play sound, check it out!

I just wanted to double down on the fact that we can't give any new keywords away.

Q:

How will the Leaderboard be handled in the future? A lot of players have talked that 30 runs/month, while a fair number, is difficult to obtain. With each phase of Arena being 2 months, is there a chance of doing an overall leaderboard over those 2 months, at maybe best consecutive 30/40 runs, rather than a monthly announcement?

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A:

This is another one we're looking for community feedback on. Currently, the thought is to do one leaderboard with the same 30 consecutive run rule per Arena season. This would mean doing it about once every 2 months.

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Q:

Related, how will Arena events work? This year, we didn't have Taverns of Time nor Wildfest, but we had other arena events throughout the year that took 3 weeks to a month per expansion release. With the ever in flux Arena card pool, will these events continue, especially since it would detract from the time to experience the new Arena metas every two months. Previously, it seemed these were planned in the 3rd month once Arena was settled, so these events might interrupt that.

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A:

We still plan to do arena events like Dual-Class Arena. However, it's unlikely we'll do a ton more Arena events just because the format is already going to be rotating every two months.

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Q:

As Arena is no longer Standard, is there any chance of Hall of Fame cards being available in Arena? Most HoF cards were placed there because of their Constructed synergies, and were only ok to good Arena cards. For example, in the current rotation, all three cards were ok cards, situationaly really powerful, but by no means broken in Arena. As a result, is there any chance that the HoF cards could be available in Arena again since it is not Standard, since a lot of these cards do reward intelligent play?

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A:

Technically speaking, we treat Hall of Fame like any other individual set. It's possible (likely even) we'll bring them into the Arena pool at some point, though they aren't a part of the next format.

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Q:

Out of curiosity, how will Discover work? Previously with Standard/Wild, it felt like Discover was based around those two modes, but can it be honed to only pull cards from individual sets? I imagine that Discover not pulling banned Arena cards was too hard to implement directly, but will it be refined to the Arena sets?

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A:

I'm excited about this actually! Discover and random card generation will only pull from the cards in the sets available to draft. We didn't originally have the tech to do this but our engineers are wizards and conjured up a solution in time. Thanks, wizard engineers!

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Q:

I assume this is the case, but will decks be retired automatically upon each Arena phase-shift?

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A:

Yes. If you have a run in progress when the new season starts, your run will be retired and you’ll receive an Arena ticket.

Hi Tarrot! I saw a bunch of Arena questions you posted both in the hsArena reddit and here in this AMA. I worked with another designer to try and get them all rounded up and answered. Here you go!

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Q:

What will happen with cards that were previously banned from Arena in Wild? A few months ago you restored the Basic/Classic cards that were banned, but what will happen with cards like Faceless Summoner, which was banned prior to the bucket system, and is a part of the Old Gods set. Also, with Old Gods, previously the C'Thun cards were banned because of the inability to build C'Thun decks, but most of those cards would've been perfectly fine Arena cards, and as Old Gods has not been a thing for a while, I imagine that the possibility of confusing players will not be there anymore. Is there any chance those cards could also be added to the Arena pool?

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A:

This is a list of the cards still banned from Arena in the new format for the next expansion:

Klaxxi Amber-Weaver, Dark Arakkoa, Cult Sorcerer, Twilight Darkmender, Hooded Acolyte, Blade of C'Thun, Usher of Souls, Ancient Shieldbearer, Twin Emperor Vek'lor, Disciple of C'Thun, Doomcaller, C'Thun, Beckoner of Evil, C'Thun's Chosen, Twilight Geomancer, Twilight Elder, Crazed Worshipper, Skeram Cultist, Ancient Watcher, Mind Control Tech, Hagatha the Witch

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Also banned but technically not in Witchwood as of the next expansion:

Baku the Mooneater, Black Cat, Genn Greymane, Glitter Moth, Gloom Stag, Murkspark Eel

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Cards that were banned in the past for balance reasons such as Faceless Summoner will be available to draft.

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C'Thun cards use a lot of text on them that is irrelevant to Arena because you can't realistically draft a C'Thun deck. This is a little bit of a confusing message to send. Most of these cards are pretty bland without the C'Thun text, so rather than have a small bit of confusion from players who don't know what C'Thun is, we thought it was better to leave them out of the draft pool.

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Q:

Will Arena drafts still be done via the bucket system? If so, how will the cards from pre-bucket system expansions be handled? Will it be based off their performance in Arena (is that data archived?), and if an expansion is removed for one phase and then replaced, will cards be rebucketed based on their pick-rate during a phase, or based off their performance in comparison to other similarly bucketed cards?

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A:

Yes. Older cards that haven’t had buckets have been initially placed in buckets similar to how we handle new sets. We didn’t do this based off of data, but plan to update these buckets shortly after release based on live data.

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Cards will maintain their bucket across different seasons, but will still be updated based on new data for each season.

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Q:

Will the bucket system be reworked, in particular the top bucket? Both MSG and OG did not have any particularly overpowerd cards, with the best cards from each expansion being Bog Creeper in OG (comparable to Furious Ettin, so Top 3/Bot 2 tops) and the tri-class cards in MSG (real popular, I would imagine 2nd bucket cards comparable to Stonehill Defender), so there will be a dearth of neutrals to fill in the top of the first bucket, and in certain classes like Druid and Shaman, there are not nearly enough cards to populate a set of 3 cards in the top bucket. Will it be refined to a smaller system?

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A:

A few classes do face a problem of having few top bucket cards, leading to similar drafting options over and over. There are some challenges with increasing the amount of cards in the top buckets, as that would lead to seeing weaker cards in general for what are supposed to be your powerful picks. Ideally, we’d like to have a system that provides a lot of variety while still being a satisfying drafting experience. We don’t have a great solution for that yet, but it’s something we’re considering for the future.

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Q:

Related to the bucket system, how will micro-adjustments work? In large part, micro-adjustments are based very heavily on the cards in a pool, and that the cards in a pool being a stable set of cards. With consistently rotating sets of cards, each different Arena phase will have different power levels of cards, and class powerlevels will vary drastically every two months or so based on which cards they have access to. Will micro-adjusts be reverted for each phase and only used in an emergency situation (if a class is blatantly OP to the point of ruining Arena), or held over for each expansion change?

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A:

For the first season, we’ll have every card at their base offering rate. Moving forward, it’s undecided whether we will reset offering rates each season. As mentioned earlier, we’re looking to have a faster turnover on updating buckets and micro-adjustments based on early live data.

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Q:

How long in advance will the new expansions for each Arena phase be announced? If there are two phases an expansion, will the announcement be a month in advance, or a week in advance, or something else?

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A:

I don't have exact timelines, but I would guess 2-4 weeks in advance. We have some ideas on what the future formats might be, but nothing is finalized yet. Would love some suggestions.

Probably Firefly. He's not just my favorite, I'm told he was the best.

I will miss Arfus. He was a good dog. :(

I meant Sludge Slurper. I never forget a murloc!

One important lesson was that new expansions should have a big impact on the meta. We want to see the game continue to evolve over the year because that’s what makes it fun. We helped this by changing some Classic cards so that our new expansions will have a bigger impact, but we will continue pushing new cards that have a bigger impact.

Another lesson we took away from Year of the Raven is that having something to do between expansion releases is important. We are hoping to address this in a variety of ways this year and in the future. One way that we already mentioned is Arena changing every 2 months. Another way is releasing the single-player Adventure a month after the expansion. We’re not done with just that though.

We did like how weapons in Kobolds played out, though I think we'll wait a while before we revisit Weapons in non-traditional classes.

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We think it's generally positive when classes have access to things other classes don't, it makes them feel unique. In rare cases we break those rules because it makes thematic sense. In Kobolds, it made sense to us because it was the treasure and loot-themed expansion. If we get to another expansion that makes sense for weapons in non-traditional classes, we might revisit it. For now, you can expect weapon love for Hunter, Paladin, Warrior, Rogue, and occasionally Shaman. Not so much for Mage, Warlock, Priest, or Druid.

Our goal was to add a feature that made it easier for players to build competitive decks using the cards they already own. This will be a great help to people who don’t own all the cards for a specific deck they’d like to play. It’s also great if someone knows 5 or 10 cards that they want to put into a deck, but they aren’t sure what the rest of the deck should look like and want help with that.

The way it works is we gather information from all the decks that are being played and we see how successful each card is in these decks. We look closely at what cards you own, and what cards you have already placed into the deck, and find the best archetype that fits those 2 criteria. We then finish out the deck with the strongest cards that you own for that deck archetype.

Sometimes a deck doesn't fit into one of the many archetypes and in those cases we resort to a backup plan and give you the most powerful cards that you own in a good mana curve.

We spot check to make sure there are no 2 card buckets, so there shouldn't be!

I mentioned this in a different post, but something we want to work on is providing players with more rewarding mid and long-term goals. Daily quests do a good job of creating daily rewards, but we don't have very engaging systems for players who want to be working towards something over the course of a week/month/year, etc.

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One approach we're discussed is to consolidate the current reward systems so that players can feel more rewarded playing the game the way they want, whether that's single-player, the ladder, Arena, Tavern Brawls, and so on.

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Our rewards are spread out across a ton of places right now, and I think when that happens it makes a lot of the individual pieces like 10G per 3W feel unrewarding. It has always been our goal to provide players with enough rewards to make it easy to craft a deck they enjoy. Everyone benefits if that's true. We want you to be able to craft fun decks, because players who are having fun stick around long-term. If creating fun decks is a painful process, players will leave and we know that.

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Bundles with cards like Zayle will help players get in and play, and we have some events and rewards coming in the mid-expansion timelines of 2019 as well. In the long-term, the goals are what I mentioned above. Consolidate some of our existing systems so you can play the way you want to play, and give players more mid and long term goals that are appropriately rewarding.

this means we'll start at the base offering rate for the first few days, then bring in microadjustments hopefully about a week afterward once we have enough data.

Zayle will function similar Whizbang, but uses 5 thematic decks instead of using the deck recipes.

I agree!

Should 2v2 make its way to Hearthstone, I'd love to work on some co-op Adventures!

Anyone who has played Hearthstone before Year of the Dragon will keep the Year of the Mammoth Adventures; no changes there. For new accounts, these Solo Adventures will still be available to unlock through the online store for free.

Question from one of our European players:

Will the second and third single player experience of the year be like the upcoming one? So, 15 wings (chapters) in total?

We’re happy with what chapters can do for us. In the case of the upcoming release, we chose to use them to help better tell different beats of a story and introduce gameplay changes. That said, they’re a tool that need to fit the format, so it’ll depend on what we have in store for the next two expansions this year.

As the new solo adventure releases and you get to play through it, give us your feedback on it! We’re listening!

To speak to this from a single player perspective, we learned a ton from the past year of solo adventures.

Monster Hunt gave us some great insight into how we can better tell stories in the Dungeon Run format, and the value of bringing in new unique Heroes. It also taught us a lot about Hero Powers, and just how much a new, strong Hero Power can dictate the pacing and style of the game.

The Puzzle Lab was a departure from standard gameplay, but it paved the way for doing things in Hearthstone that aren’t traditional, while still feeling like Hearthstone. You’ll see some of this idea in the upcoming solo adventure!

Rhastakhan’s Rumble taught us about how big we can go with combat, and the value of player choice and tracking. I’m super glad we were able to react so quickly to community feedback on this.

This year there’s not a Hero tied to the Year of the Dragon rotation, but I’d be shocked if we didn’t have some awesome Heroes lined up over the course of the year!

Mixed sets went over well in Tavern Brawl, and we’re excited to see how Arena will feel with similar changes. I think this is something the team would be open to experimenting with in the future.

Didn't someone already ask this? I swear I'm seeing twins.

I jumped around a bunch in difference aspects of game development before landing in game design. I started off in college for game design and after a few years found I had an affinity for 3d modeling. Ended up getting some items into a AAA game and doing some commission work for a few years before I had the opportunity to work production and design on an indie game. After a couple years of work on that, I branched off to work in party games for a bit before landing a job a Blizzard!

The path to becoming a game designer is super open and differs for everyone, but I will say there are two things I found extremely useful:

1. Play a lot of games, but don’t just play them. Observe them, dissect them, break them. Get good at them. Mod them and make them better.

2. Learn support skills. Learn how to script, what it takes to make an FX in a game. Game Designers are at their best when they’re able to flex and help out wherever they can.

As for my favorite card, I know it’s silly but I think Argent Squire is one of the top ones. I really enjoy cards that are simple but have a lot of room for different synergies and playstyles.

Trying to figure out how to appropriately value the 5-Wing PvE Adventure. You unlock a Golden Legendary Zayle so I wanted to know:

Will the Golden Legendary Zayle, be craftable and disenchantable?Or will it only unlocked from the 5-Wing Adventure. Further, can it be opened regularly in card packs?

The Golden version of Zayle can not be crafted or disenchanted, and will not come in card packs. However, the normal version can be crafted, similar to promotional cards like E.T.C.

I do check in to the weekly thread of the top cards from the community. It’s cool to see some of the designs and desires of players.

I’ll also say that I posted a bunch of custom cards myself before joining the Hearthstone team! Some of them are actually in the game at this point.

Absolutely, players really enjoyed having a burst of flavor and change right before an expansion hits. In fact, we’ll be doing it for this expansion!

Great ideas in here gang, keep em' coming and I look forward to taking these back to the art and design teams!

We agree! Interactions like this are fun for us too. I can't promise any raps in the future, but expect more involvement from the team at large ;)

Yeah, sorry for the mis-reply... my Reddit skills could use some work...

Glad to hear you are already noticing! The community team and the game team are working very closely to help improve on not just frequency, but also the timeliness of the comments/engagement.

As a music fan myself I was also saddened to hear of Keith Flint's passing...
We have added some here and there in the game already though they are usually more subtle in nature. Specifically on the Karazhan board in the top left corner when you click repeatedly on the plate of coals you will randomly summon a fall of glowing "Purple Rain", which coincided with the passing of Prince. It is great to be able to do these homages when possible.

I appreciate your raising this concern and it is certainly something that I want to take back to the team. I wish I had a direct answer for you right now on this, but I want to give the topic the consideration and thought that it obviously deserves. Thank you for making us aware of it

We'd give you a hint, but it might give two much away...

They will be tied in several ways. First and foremost they will be telling an ongoing story for all three expansions and as such you can expect characters (some of whom you are learning about in the teasers as we speak!) to make multiple appearances across all three sets. The "Trilogy" will take a variety of twists and turns (as you would expect from any good story) along the way and be largely told through the single player portion, though you can expect much of the theme to be present in the expansion itself.

In addition to this there are plans to link many of the tavern brawls and in game events to the story, and we are looking forward to even more opportunities to do things like this along the way.

Believe me when I say EVERYONE on the team feels similarly as without exception we are all missing one or more cards and would love the chance to complete our collections as well! We are definitely looking at how best to handle this.

No surprise: so do we!
Many of the ones you list here have definitely come up in conversation and I know I personally am interested in what kind of additional aesthetics people are excited about. I know the team at large would love to hear more ideas like this, so feel free to post em! Are there any of these that specifically interest you?

The new album is SO GOOD!
I will be seeing them for the 3rd time when they hit Los Angeles in a couple months.... cant wait

As the very person saying that in the video, I can honestly say we mean it.
Frequency is the very first thing we can address by looking for opportunities to share more often the things we are working on, as much as possible in a way that will feel timely and relevant. Additionally I would say we want to be even more honest with our players, meaning here sharing not only those things we are excited about but also the things we are concerned about or mistakes we have made and want to address.

I know the Hearthstone team is excited for the opportunity to engage with you and you can expect to see more frequent articles, blog posts, AMA's, behind the scenes and hearth side chats that will introduce you to a broader range of developers on the team. To your point specifically we have cited our want to do this separate from proximity to expansions.

Improved mobile performance is definitely something we continue to look for opportunities to improve on. Recently we optimized the size of the art files specifically to take up less space while still maintaining the level of quality we would like to maintain. Additionally we are in the middle of looking at sound for future places to optimize, one such idea being; removing the background music for adventures a player doesn't own and as such will never make use of.

We'll be paying attention to data and community feedback for the upcoming adventure as well to make changes of a similar level if needed.

There are certain aspects to what we do in Hearthstone that should remain grounded in Hearthstone. I'd always love to dive deeper into the solo adventures are do more, but it does beg the question: If you're that ambitious, do you just do a spin-off game?

The update for the store should go live around the same time the next adventure comes out. This did create a small gap where new players wouldn't have access to these old adventures, sorry about that!

The online webshop update for old mission content should happen sometime next week.

Question from ShulerIsDead in Russia:

Any plans to bring back Wild content for gold?

Question from Sibilla in Russia:

Arena questions: How will discover mechanic work with newest arena changes? Will the cards be pulled from wild, standard or the chosen expansion? Is there any special thinking behind the expansion choices or is it (will it) be completely random. Meta is going to change every 2 months now – how will it affect card buckets?

Question from Awaken in Russia:

Will we get PVE with each next expansion or is this the only instance of the “extended adventure”?

Question from Sandro in Russia:

Are you planning to add existing legendary dragons in their human form? (Alexstrasza, Malygos, etc.)

Question from Gunter in Russia:

Will we ever see Wild cards rotated back into Standard? Any update on the replay feature?

Question from Смертомышь in Russia:

When will you add Sylvanas and Ragnaros replacements for the classic set?

Question from Astagion in Latin America:

Will the sets of cards that form part of each season for the Arena be determined by some arbitrary criteria, or will they be isolated sets selected at random?

Question from one of our European players:

How important will Fireside Gatherings be in the year of the dragon and do you have some updates to share on that front?

Question from one of our European players:

Can you make it possible to buy multiple packs with gold on mobile just like it is on desktop?

Question from one of our European players:

Can we have another shot at getting Tyrande, pretty please?

Question from one of our European players:

Will the second and third single player experience of the year be like the upcoming one? So, 15 wings (chapters) in total?

Question from one of our European players:

How will the Arena rotation work with old pre-imposed appearance rates of certain cards/sets?

Question from one of our European players:

How will Zayle work compared to Whizbang?

Question from one of our European players:

Are you planning on making more frequent balance changes in wild mode?

Question from one of our European players:

The sets of the Year of the Raven felt a lot lower in power level compared to the past. Was that an unintended consequence or are you planning on alternating strong years with weaker ones?

Question from one of our European players:

In the past, pre-expansion additions like Marin the Fox and Volcanosaur made the game more exciting during down periods. Are you planning on doing that again in the future?

Question from one of our European players:

Are you working on additional features that were not mentioned in the year of the dragon announcement? (new game mode, in-client replays and deck tracker, observing arena drafts, achievement system, more deckslots, guilds and other social features, more cosmetic unlocks, etc)

Hi all! Quick note that we're in the process of wrapping things up. As always, there are many more questions that we want to answer, so some of the team might be able to pop in from time to time to answer another question or two.

Thank you all so much your questions. We'll see you soon.

This might be more detail than you were looking for but wanted to step in to chat about how we handle community stuff. Maybe a quick intro is in order: I'm Andrew and I help to support the community team for Hearthstone. I've been around Blizzard for a few years.

We have an awesome team that you'll get to know, and we focus on a bunch of things, a few of which I'll call out. One is community feedback and reporting (Reddit, our forums, social, etc.) and we talk very regularly with the broader team about it. Lots of the team is active on these platforms too. We also have someone dedicated to supporting content creators and we often talk about how we can bring the community closer to us. It's a huge responsibility and something we know can be improved. The dev team, like the fine folks with us today, believe strongly in this and will have a very active role, and they all follow the conversations about the game closely.

So, our priority right now is to figure out how we can all be more present and communicative, and get more and more voices from the team out there. And we want this to be as consistent as possible; there will always be ebbs and flows and things we aren't ready to talk about, but it should never feel like the doors are closed.

Jeez y'all, don't just spell it out for everyone.