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Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Summary of the Hearthstone AMA

Going through the AMA and updating some of the major talking points. Bear with me as I'm updating this and let me know if I missed anything.

Battle Pass Controversy

• Ben Lee confirmed a major rework of the awards and progression system will hit around the time of the next expansion, and they're expanding the Tavern Pass to supplement this with new cosmetics. It's the intention of the team that this is a "repackaging" of existing rewards, and to allow people to earn rewards in modes other than Standard and Wild. They do not intend for it to change the amount of gold/packs you earn during an expansion cycle, and the survey that went out is meant to help refine the design of that system. He mentions these types of surveys have been used for years and often what's discussed in these surveys does not represent what ends up going into the game. link

Arena

• Team's focus right now is keeping Arena in a "stable" place while they put forth effort on new game modes. Confirmed that they expect to bring back set rotation next expansion in some form, with Descent of Dragons likely to be rotated out of it. Open to feedback on "small" changes that could help improve the Arena experience. link

Battlegrounds

• Hero balance is coming up "very soon", with Eudora nerf specifically mentioned. link

• A MMR reset and future seasonal resets are likely planned for the next major Battlegrounds update. link

• Team doesn't think minion damage from spawned tokens is an issue with the exception of Nat Pagle and Pirate Ship, which they are looking to address in some fashion. link

• They also admit they're looking at ways to tune down the power of end game Murlocs (though they still want them to be a viable end game build) as well as buff Beasts now that Goldrin is a 6 star minion. link

Scholomance Expansion

• Currently no immediate balance changes planned, but they will keep a close eye on the data as well as player experience when it comes to cards like Kael'thas and Lightning Bloom. link

• Team opened to bringing back dual class cards in future expansions if they're well received, but admits they are incredibly challenging to design. link

• At the beginning of the final design process of Scholomance, Instructor Fireheart's original card text said something along the lines of "At the end of your turn, deal damage to a random enemy equal to your Overloaded mana crystals." After further testing, they decided that it was too unimpactful, and changed it to what it is today. link

Basic/Classic set

• We should expect a major revamp of the Basic/Classic set at the start of the next Hearthstone year. link

• The entire set is being examined, not just one class like Priest was this past year. link

• There will not be any replacements this year for the 5 neutrals that were Hall of Famed, but it sounds like it'll be addressed next year when they revamp the Basic/Classic set. link

Reverting Nerfs/Future Buffs

• After the next rotation, team will look at reverting nerfs on certain cards once they rotate to Wild. Additionally, they would like to go back and do a second pass at previously nerfed cards currently in Wild that haven't had their nerfs reverted. link

• Future buffs would be used as more of a correction tool to get underperforming classes in line with others, instead of buffs for the sake of buffs the way Extra Arms and Luna's Pocket Galaxy were. link

Misc

• Celestalon admits Paladin secrets are the hardest ones to design around, says the next expansion contains a new Paladin secret that's one of his favorite upcoming cards. link

• Previously released Heroes and cardbacks will eventually come back and be available for players who previously missed them (possibly via new Tavern Pass?) link

• The ability to upgrade a normal card to a golden copy is still a feature the team would like to implement, but one that's currently not on their roadmap. link

• Currently no plans to make "cleave" or "elusive" official keywords. link

• Currently no plans to do another Doom in the Tomb event, but mention if they brought it back it'd be for a shorter period of time. Mentioned that they were too slow in reacting to the power of Evolve and N'zoth decks in the format. link

• No plans to have future expansions crossover into other Blizzard franchises like Starcraft or Overwatch, but there could be crossover limited time events within the game. link

• New type of vanity card coming soon that will look different in the hand, board, and in your collection. link

• Re-iterated team doesn't have plans to return to a year long narrative like what happened in the Year of the Dragon, but opened to revisiting it again some day. link

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