Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.
"I do expect players to be a little bit sad to see Ice Block go" - Ben Brode talks Hall of Fame, tournament mode and easier quests in the Year of the Raven
Adds the worst mage spell in the game to compensate.
The idea for the classic set is that it needs to be a little simpler than the expansions, set the base flavor of Hearthstone/Warcraft, ideally set up class identity, and provide a baseline of cards that can come in and out with the meta.
There is of course danger in evergreen sets in preventing Standard from doing its job and changing each year - and that's what the Hall of Fame attempts to correct.
Any card we add would have to be very low risk for being an auto-include. I think Shatter is very low risk in that way, and does a good job at the other goals of the Classic set. This isn't to say we don't want Classic to be powerful - it's still the most powerful set in the game. And we will make sure Mage is still competitive either way.
Ben Brode
The idea for the classic set is that it needs to be a little simpler than the expansions, set the base flavor of Hearthstone/Warcraft, ideally set up class identity, and provide a baseline of cards that can come in and out with the meta.
There is of course danger in evergreen sets in preventing Standard from doing its job and changing each year - and that's what the Hall of Fame attempts to correct.
Any card we add would have to be very low risk for being an auto-include. I think Shatter is very low risk in that way, and does a good job at the other goals of the Classic set. This isn't to say we don't want Classic to be powerful - it's still the most powerful set in the game. And we will make sure Mage is still competitive either way.