Reminder: Dust Refund Window for Hearthstone’s June Card Balance Changes Closes Soon - Tips & Tricks

Even though we've already had another major patch take over our collective Hearthstone consciousness, and with the murderous shadows of a new expansion looming on the horizon, the powerful echoes of the mid-June card balance changes can still be heard resounding across the tavern. For there were unexpectedly many of them, their potent impact not to be so quickly forgotten. 

But as it's been almost two weeks since that fateful patch hit the servers, it's also time to ring the bell for a final look at your current collections - there might be some decisions left to be made, and perhaps even more of the precious arcane dust to be uncovered. All of the 13 cards in question possess a certain worth, in a descending order: 

• Legendaries - Caria Felsoul, Lightforged Cariel, Nellie, the Great Thresher, Mr. Smite
• Epics - Spitelash Siren, School Teacher
• Rares - Wildpaw Gnoll, From the Depths, Shield Shatter, Earthen Scales
• Commons - Tidal Revenant, Battleworn Vanguard, Lightning Bloom

All of them remain disenchantable for their respective 'base craftable' dust values: 1600 per Legendary, 400 per Epic, 100 per Rare, 40 per Common. As usual, golden copies are worth far more here: with Legendaries going for 3200, Epics for 1600, Rares for 800, and Commons for 400. 

Quote From Blizzard

Any craftable versions of the cards listed above will be eligible for full dust refunds for two weeks following Patch 23.4.3 (Core Set versions of cards that are in the Core Set, and the Golden versions of School Teacher that were given as part of the Voyage to the Sunken City Rewards Track, are not craftable).

The exact cut-off hour is rarely ever being specified in these cases, but the opportunity window for collecting your current card dust refunds likely closes later today, around the time where Hearthstone patches usually become available in your respective timezone. Sometimes there is a slight extension, sometimes there isn't. Thus trying to game the system until the very last moment is not a safe proposition.

Throne of the Tides - Card Nerfs Galore

As always, there is no real harm in dusting everything for its full arcane dust value, since you can always recraft any cards at no loss at a moment's notice. Or even pull some of them from your packs in the future, once this opportunity is long gone.

Certain nerfed cards can still be seen across their respective classes and decks, although the days of the old style of Control Warrior or Naga Mage's mana cheating shenanigans appear to be over for the time being. Other strategies have taken their place - occasionally different, yet at times eerily similar. 

With only a few notable exceptions, almost all other cards in this particular instance belong to two of the most recent expansion sets: Fractured in Alterac Valley and Voyage to the Sunken City, respectively. Extra copies of said Rares and Commons aren't so hard to find once you've opened enough card packs of the same variety; on top of that, Standard packs (i.e. your weekly Tavern Brawl reward) fall into this category as well. 

As for the rest, there are a handful that deserve a small special mention. 

Diamond Card Achievement Reward

It's rather unheard of to see 4 Legendary cards hit with a nerf bat at the same time. It's even rarer still to see 2 of them belonging to the same set - such as is the case with Caria Felsoul and Lightforged Cariel for Fractured in Alterac Valley. And this actually provides us with a certain unique opportunity. 

Now, you might recall that the modern Collection achievement reward for owning 25 Legendaries from any given expansion results in earning a free Diamond card - in this instance, in the form of one Balinda Stonehearth. If you don't own it yet, there might never be a better chance (conveniently just as Big Spell Mage has resurfaced in the metagame).

Whether you have Caria and Cariel in your collection or not, it's a simple matter. You can craft both or either essentially for free, and from there just add a few more Legendary picks (all Hero Cards are generally a safe pick for many viable decks, while Captain Galvangar or Kazakusan can still hold their own) until you hit the exact 25. Afterwards, you are free to thank Caria and Cariel for their service by collecting your full dust value.

This way you can also be certain they won't start reappearing in your packs (at least until you have owned all 29 Alterac Valley Legendaries, even temporarily). Even if you don't intend to closely follow this Diamond plan, it should be worth it to craft and instantly disenchant Caria Felsoul at the very least, for that exact reason. Might not be particularly playable in the foreseeable future, and it could sting greatly to find the card months from now when it's only going to be worth 400 dust.

School Teacher 

The golden versions from the current Rewards Track are indeed uncraftable (thus, no free dust to be had there), but they only became available at levels 65 and 75. For most players that meant 3-4 weeks of dutiful XP gathering at the very least, and it's highly unlikely everyone was patiently sitting on their Voyage to the Sunken City card packs for so long. So there were probably a lot of normal copies of the card to be found as a result. If somebody had a premonition this card might be getting nerfed and purposefully hadn't collected the golden copies to allow for pulling regular Epic versions from the packs, they can take pride in their prophetic skills. 

The Wild Case

Finally, we have two remaining cards technically belonging to the Wild sets, as far as any potential dust refunds are concerned. Lightning Bloom hailing from Scholomance Academy, and Earthen Scales going all the way back to Journey to Un'Goro. Of course the latter card also exists as a free version for the Core Set 2022, which brought about this nerf in the first place (Ramp Druids being naughty). 

For that reason, it's important to remember to choose the 'Wild Cards' filter when searching through the collection. If your default is Standard, these two can be very easily missed. 

This is also a fine opportunity to remind everyone that if you've never opened packs from a certain set before (including Wild-type packs), you are pretty much guaranteed to get a respective Legendary within the first 10. Could be a worthwhile pursuit if you've been eyeing the other mode, or perhaps hoping to expand on your existing Duels options.

Refund Command in the Collection Manager

We are almost approaching the first birthday of one of our all-time favorite quality of life improvements! And yet it still bears repeating. 

By typing 'refund' in the card collection search box, you will be able to easily locate all the cards in question and decide whether or not to pull that disenchanting trigger. 

Quote From Blizzard

Searching “Refund” in the Collection will now populate with cards eligible for a dust refund.

P.S. Sometimes you may encounter a rare bug where refundable cards don't show as such or don't display full arcane dust values, even though the refund window is still technically active. Always restart your Hearthstone client and double check again in such cases.

How was your arcane dust haul this time around, many Golden copies along the way? Any last minute finds and decisions to increase the total amount stored for the future? Such extensive card changes haven't been always a norm for Hearthstone.