Full Dust Refunds End Soon for 10 Hearthstone Cards From the Huge Lich King Balance Patch - Bonus Tips on What to Keep and What to Disenchant

Happy New Year, aspiring dust hoarders! Hearthstone-wise we still technically find ourselves within the ongoing Year of the Hydra, but all our other calendars are now showing a slightly different number at the end. One thing that hasn't really changed is the regularity of recent dust refund reminders; if you've been mostly away for the holidays, this is a perfect opportunity to scour your collection for the final time - as there are 10 distinct eligible cards to consider from the latest huge balance patch: 

• Unleash Fel is now Manathirst 6 (Up from 4).
• Sinstone Graveyard now costs 3 (Up from 2).
• Sketchy Information now costs 4 (Up from 3).
• Relic of Dimensions now costs 6 (Up from 5).
• Boon of the Ascended now costs 5 (Up from 4).
• Forsaken Lieutenant now costs 3 (Up from 2).
• Tome Tampering is now banned in Wild.
• Priestess Valishj now costs 1 (Up from 0).
• Necrolord Draka now costs 5 (Up from 4).
• Anub'Rekhan now only affects the next 3 minions on this turn (No hard limit before).

As far as dust refunds go, this is far from the greatest opportunity in Hearthstone history - no featured Commons and only 3 Rares, with the rest of the cards being all Epics and Legendaries which are consequently much harder to get a hold of. It's very unlikely most players would have multiple copies of the latter rarities lying around. 

Still, all put together that's a lot more than the small disenchant returns we've been seeing throughout December. With just 2 cards here or 1,5 cards there. 

Quote From Blizzard

The above craftable cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks following Patch 25.0.4.

Prince Renathal was also nerfed in the same patch, but it's an Uncraftable free gift from Murder at Castle Nathria, and thus of no particular interest to us here. And Signature Anub'Rekhan followed its own path of bonus compensation. If you'd owned the card at the designated time, you should already have that bonus dust in the bank - while still being able to dust off the Legendary versions.

Quote From Blizzard

(Signature versions of Anub’Rekhan and all versions of Prince Renathal are not craftable).

We're taking a hard look at what systemic changes we want to make to Signature cards in the future, and have not finalized those decisions. This time, players who have the Signature version of Anub'Rekhan as of December 20th at 10am PST will receive a grant of 1600 Arcane Dust at login, later that week. Things may work differently in the future. We will share more information on those future plans once they're finalized.

For most of the past year, "two weeks following the patch" translated to more or less full 15 days rather than just plain 14 (and sometimes even a little longer). It was a very welcome small extension, possibly to account for the timezone differences or the patching process itself. But since it's Blizzard, nothing is set in stone and we cannot guarantee that the current dust refunds will be adhering to the same pattern. In the spirit of "better safe than sorry" philosophy, it's best to make it as soon as possible with that final search across one's card collection and perhaps some added pack openings from the relevant expansions.

At least until then, all of the listed cards will remain disenchantable for their respective 'base craftable' dust values: 1600 per Legendary, 400 per Epic, 100 per Rare. As usual, Golden copies are worth far more here: with Legendaries going for 3200, Epics for 1600, and Rares for 800.

Lich King Be Marching 

As far as the newest expansion is concerned, there is surprisingly little to be found here: just two cards that have been deemed worthy of an early nerf. The featured pair being Unleash Fel and Anub'Rekhan. The Legendary itself is somewhat of a curious case, and we've already covered the what and the why of it with the above note on the Signature card compensation. But if you've only pulled Signature Anub from your packs after December 20, this timing is bound to be rather unfortunate. At least it's still possible to benefit from disenchanting the regular and Golden versions, relatively small consolation as it might be. 

The Demon Hunter card is of Rare quality, so there is a good chance any March of the Lich King and Standard packs might've provided more than just two copies by now i.e. our favorite dust refund outcome. Although if you wish to keep playing the class in the current meta, keep in mind this slight balance change has not really discouraged anyone from including the card in their Quest/Fel DH builds. It's still quite popular.

The same could be said for Anub'Rekhan, as no Ramp/Armor Druid is going to part with this power play in the foreseeable future. But if you've never owned the Legendary in the first place and are positive you really wouldn't like to find it in your packs going forward (once it's no longer refundable for full value, that is), the usual trick can be applied here: manually craft the card and then disenchant it right after, thus ensuring the lasting duplicate protection - except for the Signature part, since those types stick to their own special rules.

Moving Back Into the Castle Nathria

Now this is what the most recent balance patch was truly about with its notable card changes focused on one particular previous expansion: 5 different options from Murder at Castle Nathria were deemed to be offensive enough and in dire need of an adjustment. Admittedly it's mostly all Epics and Legendaries, with just one Rare tagging along. Some of these are still being utilized across a variety of competitive decks, some are being dropped for other replacements. 

Another Rare of the Rogue variety, which means Castle Nathria and Standard packs should've put more than two copies into most players' hands over the past 5 months. It's worth noting, however, that even after the nerf the Sinstone Graveyard holds up as a regular inclusion for various Miracle builds. As for Necrolord Draka... nope, not really a fan favorite anymore. 

Three Epics that most everyone should probably disenchant all copies of while the bonus dust value remains available. Demon Hunter decks are moving away towards Relic-less options in general, Discard Warlock isn't exactly a thing in Standard, and Priest has definitely taken a notable hit (although don't count out the Bless archetype just yet). 

If you've never owned these particular Epic cards in the first place, it wouldn't be a bad idea to open up some extra Murder at Castle Nathria packs and try your luck - the potential gain is pretty high in this case. Other than that, you might still want to consider briefly crafting them and hitting the disenchant button afterwards (same goes for Necrolord Draka), in order to trigger future duplicate protection. All your acquired Standard packs throughout 2023 should be better off as a result.

Another Voyage Across Alterac and Stormwind

The final bunch of 3 changed cards are all over the place: three different rarities, three different sets from the recent past. The Legendary Priestess Valishj hails from Voyage to the Sunken City, Epic Forsaken Lieutenant belongs to Fractured in Alterac Valley, and finally Rare Sketchy Information goes all the way back to United in Stormwind. It would take a great deal of luck to pull any of these from their respective expansion packs, let alone from Standard packs. As such, it's not recommended trying to go out of one's way to make it happen. 

It's been already noted above how Bless Priest is sort of still trying to establish a foothold (albeit a turn or two later on average) - but unless it's your most favorite deck in all of existence, this shouldn't be reason enough to hold onto the Legendary in question. As for Deathrattle Rogue, it really seems to be 'unliving up' to its namesake: looking quite dead in the current metagame, you could say.  

Best disenchant what you can here, while you can still ensure the full dust returns. Plus the usual bit of advice - if you've never owned any of these cards, make sure to first craft them and then follow up with the disenchanting procedure. While Alterac and Stormwind are set to rotate out of Standard come April, that's still a few months to go. Better make room for pulling something else from the relevant set packs meanwhile.

Diamond Card Achievement Rewards

It's more of an aside consideration seeing as the adjusted Legendary cards all belong to different sets, but it's still one nonetheless. Since the modern Collection achievement reward for owning 25 Legendaries from any given expansion results in earning a free Diamond card - in this instance that would be Commander Sivara for Voyage to the Sunken City and Decimator Olgra for Murder at Castle Nathria. 

Whether you have Priestess Valishj and Necrolord Draka in your collection or not, it's a fairly straightforward matter. As you can currently craft them essentially for free, and from there just add a few more Legendary picks until you hit the exact count of 25 (it's probably only really worth it if you already find yourself with 20+ total Legendaries owned from a given set). Then collect your chosen free Diamond card achievement reward and profit by still disenchanting the refundable cards for their full dust value. You might then dip below 25 collected Legendaries from the expansion again, but it's not like the game can take away your achievement and associated Diamond card by that point. 

This way you can also be certain that any of the cards mentioned above won't start reappearing in your respective future packs (at least not until you have owned all 29 Castle Nathria and/or Sunken City Legendaries, even temporarily). If you wish to hedge your bets, then waiting until later in the year could also be considered a valid strategy, as you get to collect more free packs from Standard - just keep in mind that there is no real guarantee we're ever going to see another Legendary card from these particular expansions receive a balance adjustment. 

Diamond Blood Matriarch Liadrin and currently refundable Anub'Rekhan don't warrant a similar mention for March of the Lich King, because it's strictly better to just wait another month for the upcoming Mini-Set to the latest expansion before worrying about collecting 25 Legendaries for the associated achievement. Plus we'll be very surprised if this is the only Lich King Legendary card nerf we're going to see throughout the year. 

Refund Command in the Collection Manager

One of our all-time favorite quality of life improvements is now well over a year old! And yet it's still worth talking about.

By typing 'refund' in the card collection search box, you will be able to easily locate all of the currently eligible cards and decide whether or not to turn any of them into precious arcane dust. Do note that Hearthstone's crafting UI has received a small revamp with the most recent patch, and now you might need to make sure that the "premium" option is enabled before being able to view Golden versions of the cards. 

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 in your collection, or don't display their 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, or try to confirm this with other players; it's often just the sync issues or occasional server disconnects that are to blame.

How many of these featured Epics and Legendaries did you ever own in the first place, and were there any shiny Goldens? A pretty good dust refund haul or just a mediocre opportunity all in all? Let us know in the comments!