The 2019 Hearthstone Year in Review

Everyone’s favourite Hearthstone dev, Dean “Iksar” Ayala, was out on reddit early in the year to talk about what the Basic and Classic sets are supposed to be and why those cards may be changed.

Dean went on to talk about how cards in these sets can be problematic when they are auto-includes since it can lead to an unhealthy meta. If a card means a lot of class fantasy, they would rather nerf the card to keep the flavor in rather than rotate it out to wild.

I bet you didn’t remember this! 4 years after the nerf of Undertaker, Iksar showed up on reddit to talk about the first set of new cards that was added to Hearthstone in the Curse of Naxxramas adventure. We learned quite a bit about some of Hearthstone’s history!

• Undertaker was a miss. Dean play tested a lot with Warlock. The team was much smaller back then.
• Deathlord was originally a 2/6.
• Mad Scientist was known to be very strong. Helped players experiment more with secrets.
• Sludge Belcher was designed to be better than Druid of the Claw, "the gold standard for premium taunt minions".
• Voidcaller is not a card they would make in present day Hearthstone.

Quote From IksarHS

Undertaker still makes me laugh. Naxxramas was an interesting small set to balance. Personally, Naxx was the first set I ever worked on so I look back on it fondly. Some design anecdotes….

The state of the ranked ladder was not great at the start of the year and Blizzard agreed with the community. In the state before the update, the ladder simply took too long to climb and lead to quite a bit of fatigue for players at lower ranks. Although players that remain at the bottom of the ladder may not be the best of players, it was an important goal for everyone to feel some form of progression. Here’s what changed!

• There were no changes from rank 10 to rank 1.
• Between rank 50 and 16, ranks only require 3 stars to level up. (2 less!)
• Between rank 15 and 11, ranks only require 4 stars to level up. (1 less!)

The first of many in-game events for 2019. To celebrate, everyone who logged in was rewarded with a golden Fireworks Tech and over the next week could complete quests that rewarded you with both Gold and Arcane Dust.

After Dean Ayala talked about what the Basic and Classic cards meant just a few weeks beforehand, a set of nerfs arrived that focused on the power level of some of Hearthstone’s original cards, and another one that was about to rotate out.

• Cold Blood - Cost increased to 2 mana. (Up from 1)
• Flametongue Totem - Cost increased to 3 mana. (Up from 2)
• Equality - Cost increased to 4 mana. (Up from 2)
• Hunter's Mark - Cost increased to 2 mana. (Up from 1)
• Emerald Spellstone - Cost increased to 6 mana.(Up from 5)

The cards were ultimately changed because they made other strategies look “less interesting”.

Quote From Blizzard

This doesn't mean is that all Basic and Classic cards should be ineffective, however. It’s hugely important to us that these sets contain a good number of cards that are great tools for different situations and deck archetypes.

We’ll see more news on Basic and Classic cards as the year progresses.

Jaina Proudmoore, the basic Mage hero, received an art update that covered her up a bit more! This was the first of two art updates this year that would become a large topic within the community, keeping discussion going for a couple of weeks.

A new feature made it onto the official Hearthstone site that showcased the top Hearthstone players on a live leaderboard for both Standard and Wild. This was something a lot of people had been asking for since Hearthstone was first playable and it is much better than the old blogs they would sometimes release at the end of the month.

We still don’t have leaderboards for Arena even though we’ve got them for Battlegrounds. Blizzard has also seemingly stopped posting blog updates with the best Arena players every month, so let’s hope 2020 brings us more web leaderboards!

Activision Blizzard announced company restructuring that laid off around 8% of Blizzard’s non-developer employees. Many members of community management teams were let go, with some of those positions being replaced later in the year.

One outcome from the layoffs was that they would be focusing on increasing the size of game development teams, our Hearthstone getting a roughly 20% increase in size.

Quote From Bobby Kotick

While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn’t realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees.

As a special way to celebrate the most recent expansion, Rastakhan’s Rumble, we got to play three special tavern brawls - the Brawl of Champions. In this set of brawls we got to play as bosses from the Rumble Run solo content and had special premade decks for each class that focused on a different shrine mechanic each week. You were also able to earn a Rastakhan’s Rumble card pack each week through a special quest that required playing the brawl 3 times.

Overall, the series of brawls was received quite well.

Blizzard took the old conquest format into the backyard for a quick execution. The new format would see players bringing 3 different 30 card decks to a tournament, all of which came from the same class. One deck would be designated as your primary deck with the secondary and tertiary decks needing to contain 25 cards found in the primary deck and 5 new ones.

It was a weird way of trying out sideboards and to get people to show up with new types of decks. It didn’t work out in the end with everyone bringing the same class to every single event leading to the most dull viewing experience in Hearthstone’s history.

Specialist was annihilated on July 30 when Blizzard announced a revised conquest format returning for future events.

The Masters and Grandmasters Tour events that we’ve been familiar with were announced shortly after the specialist format. This was meant to introduce everyone to “more sustainable, entertaining, and accessible [Hearthstone]” which now that we look back on it, and after much feedback from participants, it didn’t seem to do a great job at it.

The biggest announcement every year comes to us in February - the next year of the Hearthstone zodiac! It was announced that we’d be getting 9 cards being hall of famed with the new set rotation, a constantly changing arena drafting pool, the new smarter deckbuilder, and more!

Blizzard was not kidding when they said this was going to be an awesome year, though it did take 8 months before we saw any dragons...

Hunters & Hunters & Hunters & Hunters.

The HCT Winter Championship was the last large Hearthstone tournament that took place prior to the Year of the Dragon set rotation and as such was our last encounter with Odd and Even decks. We saw bloodyface, Roger, Lingluanjing, and Bunnyhoppor all move on to the HCT World Championship that takes place at the end of April.

The most popular decks we saw at the event were Midrange Hunter featuring Deathstalker Rexxar, Clone Priest with crazy amounts of control, Even Warlock, and Quest Rogue - damn you The Caverns Below.

Hearthstone officially released out of beta on March 11, 2014 which made it 5 years old! Blizzard released a special video featuring the voice of our innkeeper, Terrence Stone. What a fitting last name.

What a great way to celebrate Hearthstone’s birthday!

Eight new cards were revealed to us with the announcement. What were you thinking when these cards were announced together?

Stream-sniping is one hell of a drug.

Roger and his teammate Reall were banned from the Grandmasters series of events for one year due to stream-sniping and win trading.

Quote From BlizzMilkFat

Hi all – Sam Braithwaite, Senior Global Franchise Lead for Hearthstone esports here. As we prepare for the 2019 HCT World Championship, I wanted to take the opportunity to address the community’s feedback about one of our professional players, Luo "Roger" Shengyuan, who recently won the HCT Winter Championship.

In Oct. 2018, during the Hearthstone Global Games, we discovered that team Chinese Taipei, which included Roger, tom60229, Shaxy, and Reall had violated the rules to gain a competitive advantage. In response, we administered the penalty outlined in the rules at the time, and disqualified team Chinese Taipei from the competition.

But previously, in April 2018, allegations of Roger and Reall participating in win-trading had surfaced. After an investigation, we discovered their involvement in the incident but did not issue any official warning in response to their rule violation due to an internal miscommunication.

We now realize that our previous rules around these scenarios and our enforcement of them did not meet the standards of our community. We take full responsibility for this. Moving forward, we will be reevaluating our rules for the 2019 season and are committed not only to improving, but also to being more transparent about the way we administer warnings, penalties, and rulings.

Our failure should not diminish Roger’s accomplishments. He earned his championship at HCT Winter and his spot at the upcoming HCT 2019 World Championship on his own merit and in compliance with the official HCT competition ruleset.

While Roger and Reall may still compete in Hearthstone Masters Qualifiers and Masters Tour events, due to having two rule violations last year, they will not be invited to the inaugural year of Hearthstone Grandmasters. Grandmasters will be the highest level of competitive Hearthstone, and its competitors will be held to higher standards, not just in performance, but also in conduct.

Thank you for all your feedback, your support, your patience, and understanding. Hearthstone esports wouldn’t be what it is without you, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts as we prepare to embark on a new chapter of Hearthstone esports in just a few short months.

The first Year of the Dragon expansion launches! Bringing us the usual 135 new cards, the expansion brought us the new Twinspell mechanic, a free Archmage Vargoth for logging in, and those pesky Lackeys!

Since Rise of Shadows marked the start of Year of the Dragon, we lost access to Journey to Un’Goro, Knights of the Frozen Throne, and Kobolds & Catacombs inside of the Standard card pool. RIP Death Knights.

Oh, and the Even and Odd card mechanics all got sent to the bench. Damn right!

Decks that were enjoyed at the beginning of the new expansion were Bomb Warrior (thanks Kripparrian), Magic Carpet Zoolock, and Token Druid with those magical Archmage Vargoth board buffs.

Tempo Rogue, Bomb Warrior, and Zoolock all dominated the first large event of the Year of the Dragon with Midrange Hunter and Khadgar mage also making large appearances.

Hunterace ended up taking out Viper in the grand finals 3-2 in an absolutely insane game featuring Shudderwock Shaman and Zoolock.

No comment.

The first piece of adventure content of the year, The Great Dalaran Heist was the most ambitious solo content to date and a format that would be repeated throughout the rest of the year, though it was also the first solo content in a while that cost money.

Four weeks of content with plenty of replayability through the unique twists of each wing, anomaly mode that gave us a random modifier for our run, and tons of different treasures for a unique deckbuilding experience.

There were also lots of rewards since it was paid content, essentially forcing us to buy 15 packs at their regular price, though we did also get a Golden Classic Pack, Zayle, Shadow Cloak, and two new card backs.

In the first round of balance changes for Year of the Dragon, those pesky Rogues got hit with some nerfs that would bring them a bit more inline with other decks.

• EVIL Miscreant had its health decreased to 4, from 5.
• Raiding Party had its cost increased to 4, from 3.
• Preparation now reduces the next spell by 2 mana, down from 3.

A fourth change targeted Archivist Elysiana, making her harder to play multiple times in the same game for Warrior.

Welcome to Out of Cards!

In our first post as a new website, if we ignore the existence of HearthStation, Out of Cards was officially born! Since then we've put quite a bit of work into the site and we're excited for what 2020 is going to bring us.

Thank you to everyone who calls us home, no matter what card games you're interested in. All hail derpcorn!

We weren't aware of Eric Dodds and Jason Chayes leaving Blizzard, though it was learned of in October right before BlizzCon thanks to an article from Kotaku. A third ex-employee of Blizzard, Dustin Browder, also left around the same time.

Eric Dodds, Jason Chayes, and Dustin "Rock" Browder were all on Blizzard's cancelled Starcraft FPS project, Ares, as reported by Kotaku. The three left as those resources were redirected to other projects within the company.

• Eric Dodds - Game Director of Hearthstone before Ben Brode. Concepted Hearthstone with Ben
• Jason Chayes - Production Director of Hearthstone.
• Dustin Browder - Lead Designer & Game Director of Starcraft 2, Game Director of Heroes of the Storm.

Although the two may not have been working on Hearthstone at the time they left, they were important members of the early Hearthstone team - a group that does not have many members left at Blizzard.

Quote From Blizzard

Yes, Eric, Dustin, and Jason made the decision to move on from Blizzard a few months ago. They have been and always will be considered members of the Blizzard family, and we’ve loved working with them over the years. We wish them the best for the future. That said, we want to make sure it’s clear that development of Blizzard games has always been a collaborative effort between many talented, longstanding teammates here continuing that good work.

CARD BUFFS? IN MY HEARTHSTONE?

Yup. Blizzard actually did it and buffed Hearthstone cards. In doing so they had to apply some nerfs later on to them, but we actually received a round of buffs! Each class received two buffs from underplayed cards found in The Boomsday Project expansion which released the year prior.

We also received a brand new card, for free, just for logging in during the event, SN1P-SN4P! This was the first time in Hearthstone's history we were given a new card outside of an expansion.

One of the most important blog posts in the history of the game was published, one that talks about the identity of every class in Hearthstone. The game has evolved quite a bit over time and this is finally a solid answer on how Blizzard sees each of the classes.

This is the same day where we got a preview of what was coming soon - new basic and classic cards to replace those that were banished to wild.

Two basic cards were sent to the Hall of Fame.

• Vanish is being moved to the Hall of Fame. It is being replaced by a new minion named Plaguebringer.
• Mind Blast is being moved to the Hall of Fame. It is being replaced by a new spell named Radiance.

Eight new cards were added to the Classic set. They are available through crafting and card packs.

The second expansion of the Year of the Dragon was announced and it was going to be reintroducing the Quests mechanic, a new Reborn keyword that resurrects your minion when it dies (with 1 Health), and the long-awaited return of the League of Explorers!

Eight new cards were revealed to us with the announcement. What were you thinking when these cards were announced together?

Blizzard didn't end card art changes with Jaina earlier in the year, this time things got crazy.

The art update focused on reducing the sexuality of some art pieces and the removal of blood/gore in others. Dave Kosak was quoted later in a PCGamer interview stating they simply went back to bring up old art to their standards.

Sexuality Focused Changes

• Succubus renamed to Felstalker, a completely different character.
• Mistress of Pain renamed to Queen of Pain. Less leg showing, no longer looks seductive.
• Windfury Harpy is now more covered up, different pose.
• Secretkeeper now has a frontal post, no more behind.

Blood / Gore Focused Changes

• Eviscerate no longer shows blood, uses old art. (Especially noticeable on golden version)
• Bite new art, higher detail. No longer biting into anything, just showcasing sharp teeth.
• Deadly Shot is now a ballista shooting an arrow.
• Headcrack showcases a slingshot with a ball on fire instead of a character being smacked in the head.

Quote From Dave Kosak

We went back and really just brought everything up to our standards.

It wasn't because we were looking at ratings, or international [regulations], or anything like that. We really just wanted our artists to feel good about everything in the set.

[We] wouldn't print those same cards today.

A now yearly tradition, Hearthstone’s Fire Festival returned with a week’s worth of legendary quests that gave us gold and card packs!

We also got a chance to see what the League of E.V.I.L. was up to, with the gang crashing Dalaran into Blackrock Mountain in a series of Tavern Brawls taking place over a three week period - talk about storytelling! These brawls had special quests active that gave out packs and certain golden cards if you could beat the brawls within a time limit.

A community challenge was active during the event that allowed us to reveal four new cards from the newly announced Saviors of Uldum expansion, one card at every 25% of the DEFEATING 25 MILLION TAVERN BRAWL BOSSES goal.

• 25% unlocked on July 12 - Plague of Madness
• 50% unlocked on July 13 - Psychopomp
• 75% unlocked on July 15 - Plague of Murlocs
• 100% unlocked on July 17 - Armagedillo

Frank Pearce, Chief Development Officer and one of the co-founders of Blizzard Entertainment, left the company after more then 28 years of service. This is the second member of the Blizzard leadership that left the company in the past year, with Mike Morhaime announcing his departure in October of 2018 and his "strategic advice" role concluding a couple of months beforehand on April 7, 2019.

Only one of Blizzard’s founders remains, Allen Adham, who rejoined the company in 2016 after leaving in 2004.

The second Year of the Dragon expansion launches, Saviors of Uldum! Another round of 135 new cards, the expansion gave us a new lackey, quests to get some Uldum card packs, and a bunch of new and returning mechanics!

• Reborn - Cards with the reborn keyword resurrect the first time they die and return with 1 Health. In total, 18 cards have this mechanic.
• Plagues - These are powerful cards that have deadly effects. The "villain" classes each receive them, 4 having board-wide effects.
• Quests - Finally return to Hearthstone! Last seen in Journey to Un'Goro, these are 1-cost legendary spells that start in your opening hand if they are in your deck.
• Highlander / Singleton - If your deck has no duplicates, do a cool thing! We last saw this mechanic in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan.

Decks that were enjoyed at the beginning of the new expansion were Quest Malygos Druid, Wall Priest, Shudderwock Shaman, and of course, Control Warrior.

The beloved Hearthstone caster, Cora "Songbird" Georgiou, had a surprise announcement right after Saviors of Uldum launched - she was going to quit casting! Thankfully though, we didn't lose Cora from the Hearthstone community since she accepted a job on the Blizzard design team!

Quote From Cora Georgiou

I'm taking a step away from commentary. The last 3 years have been the best of my life, and I'm so grateful to have been able to do something that I truly love, but it's time to pursue something I'll love even more.

That being said…

I am thrilled to announce that I will be joining the Hearthstone Final Design team as an Associate Game Designer at Blizzard Entertainment!

I love Hearthstone more than anything, and I'm so blessed to be able to work with a team who feels the same way. ❤️

This isn't the first time the Chinese version of Hearthstone has received special features not available elsewhere in the world. Chinese players are now able to compete in tournaments and earn a Battlenet points currency that can be used to buy card packs.

A special desktop addon is a required download in order to participate in the fun. It adds a special tournament button, the rules, deck selection, matchmaking, opponent found, current standings, and past results. Now, at the end of 2020, there is still nothing going on with an official, accessible tournament mode within the official Hearthstone client.

Well, that didn't work out too well.

Blizzard pushed out another round of card nerfs for the year, this time focusing on nerfing previously buffed cards in the Boomsday Buff patch and some problematic cards, including one hellraiser from Wild, Barnes.

This was one of the rare times Blizzard nerfed a wild-only card showcasing they do still pay some attention to the format and it is possible we could see it happen again in the future.

• Conjurer's Calling costs 4 mana (Up from 3)
• Luna's Pocket Galaxy costs 7 mana (Up from 5)
• Dr. Boom, Mad Genius costs 9 mana (Up from 7)
• Extra Arms costs 3 mana (Up from 2)
• Barnes costs 5 mana (Up from 4)

Out of nowhere, Blizzard decided that the Discover mechanic needed to be changed. With it originally being more favorable to class cards than neutrals, some classes had some really good potential to get consistent cards.

The change meant that instead of having a 4x bonus of seeing class cards when using Discover, class cards found via the keyword are now on-par with neutrals. Damn good change!

The second piece of adventure content of the year, Tombs of Terror applies the same mechanics we learned and loved from The Great Dalaran Heist but put a new spin on it with special chapter bosses known as the Plague Lords. The Plague Lords have tons of health and can be defeated over multiple runs, meaning you may not just be able to 1-shot the content! Lots of fun flavor with the lords theming the chapters with special passive effects and minions.

We also had dual-class heroes for the first time in solo content which saw the League of Explorers building really crazy decks and unlocking insane treasures!

Sometimes certain Hearthstone cards feel problematic or limiting to the game and Divine Spirit is certainly one of them.

Dean Ayala joined in the conversation on the card on Twitter and actually mentioned that Divine Spirit could be removed! Though he did say if it did happen, we'd only see it take place during a set rotation and alongside other "sweeping changes", so if we don't see anything announced early this year for a change in April, maybe 2021 will give us some desired change.

How do you feel about Divine Spirit? Is it silly for it to be a constant win condition for the class?

The Hearthstone year just keeps on getting better! How long can this go on?

Doom in the Tomb brought back 23 cards out of Wild and into Standard until the launch of Descent of Dragons. These cards, for the most part, broke the game to the frustration of many players who wish it didn't go on for as long as it did. 

We also got new hero portraits for 1000 wins with each class, a couple of Tavern Brawls that saw us team up with both the League of E.V.I.L. and the League of Explorers, and the return of dual-class Arena, a community favourite. Hallow's End always brings out fun and we're glad to see Blizzard continue with that tradition.

Have you unlocked any of the new 1000 win heroes?

In a blog post on October 8, Blizzard announced that Blitzchung and two Taiwanese Hearthstone casters were removed from the Grandmasters program.

On the previous Sunday, Blitzchung made a comment on the Asia-Pacific Grandmaster's stream in a post-match interview, while in a mask, stating "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age". Blizzard Taiwan removed the VOD containing the interview and it, rightfully so, caused a bit of a stir on reddit. Blizzard stated Blitzchung would receive no prize money and be banned for 1 year from the tournament series.

In support of Blitzchung, many on reddit have stated they had their Battle.net accounts closed, are going to instead go to the F2P model, or will no longer be playing the game. American University's TeSPA team supported Blitzchung by holding up a sign on a collegiate Hearthstone stream stating "Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizzard" and they were not penalized by Blizzard.

The punishment from Blizzard lead to Brian Kibler announcing via his blog he would not be casting BlizzCon 2019 which also lead to ThatsAdmirable quitting the broadcast team for Grandmasters, the Bucharest Masters Tour, and BlizzCon.

The controversy was addressed all over the mainstream media, even attracting the attention of US Senators who called out Activison Blizzard. J. Allen Brack issued a statement shortly after the Blitzchung ban, overturning the prize money portion of the penalty later and announcing the Grandmasters suspension being cut in half. Brack also addressed the controversy at BlizzCon 3 weeks later stating "We did not live up to the high standards we set for ourselves", "We'll do better going forward", and "When we get it right, we create a common ground for the community to come together, our actions are going to matter more than any of these words".

Hong Kong continues to protest.

The second volume of Blizzard's Art of Hearthstone series released!

Focusing on the Year of the Kraken, the 144-page book contains plenty of beautiful art from Whispers of the Old Gods, One Night in Karazhan, and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, making it an excellent addition to your coffee table and something to admire while you're waiting for people to take their turns in Battlegrounds.

If you're looking to pick up a Hearthstone book, Amazon has them available (Disclaimer: The links below are affiliate links).

• The Art of Hearthstone (2018)
• The Art of Hearthstone: Year of the Kraken Edition (2019)
• The Hearthstone Tavern Cookbook (2017)
• The Hearthstone Pop-up Book (2018)

The final expansion of the year! Descent of Dragons launched with the most cards in any Hearthstone expansion to date, 140, and as we said before, tons of freebies. 

BlizzCon 2019 also gave us the announcement of Hearthstone's newest game mode, Battlegrounds, news on Blizzard's Diablo 4 (no phones required), Overwatch 2, and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. We also got a kick-ass panel talking about how the Hearthstone team told a year-long story with Year of the Dragon and how they loved every bit of it.

We initially saw a lot of Galakrond Shaman thanks to it being overpowered, though nowadays we've got Pirate Warrior, Zoo Warlock, Resurrect Priest, Secret Hunter, Mech Paladin, and Token Druid being loved by many. 

A large update to the Battle.net Desktop App hit right after BlizzCon which brought us a new interface and some highly-requested features!

• Hide Games - Don't play certain games? You can now hide them! Bye Activision!
• More News - You can see more articles within the view for each of the games.
• Docked Friendslist - Your friends are always accessible on the right side of the client.
• The friendslist also updates based on your selected game to show friends playing that game first.

If you want to check it out, the app is still in beta, so follow the instructions here to change things up!

They did it. They finally added a new game mode to Hearthstone. It is fun. It is so much fun.

Hearthstone Battlegrounds is a spin on the familiar and relatively new "autobattler" game. Popularized by DotA Autochess and later Riot's Team Fight Tactics, Battlegrounds uses the mechanics of Hearthstone to give their own take on the genre and it is super addictive. Blizzard has been quick to make adjustments to the game mode by switching out heroes and minions to keep things consistently fresh. We're hoping that they'll continue to do this forever so the game mode will remain popular.

Sneaky Blizzard! At the end of the patch notes for the Descent of Dragons game update, a line was added in to talk about a change that happened with Echo. This was done much like the Discover change earlier in the year in that it was not previously communicated to the player base.

This change made it so that copies of cards with the Echo keyword can no longer cost less than (1). This was a huge problem with SN1P-SN4P, Sound the Bells!, and Glinda Crowskin so of course they became eligible for dust refunds. It is, however, a bit of a shame it came down to this when players predicted this mechanic would eventually become too broken for play. The change makes for less fun in solo content where players were able to get some crazy results thanks to Sound the Bells.

Quote From Blizzard

This change is targeted at a very popular deck in Wild that utilizes SN1P-SN4P along with the Echo mechanic to generate extremely large minions or near infinite damage. This change should put a stop to that interaction while having very limited impact on the average use case for Echo cards. Glinda, SN1P-SN4P, and Sound the Bells were the three cards that took advantage of generating 0-cost copies through Echo, so we've opted to refund all three of those cards as a result.

China's version of Hearthstone has some special rules to get around loot box regulations in the country, and Blizzard made them even more interesting. Two new currencies were added to the game called Arcane Orbs and Runestones, and if other countries make it harder to have "loot box" style microtransactions, its possible these currencies could be used to get around them.

Arcane Orbs

• Arcane Orbs can purchase Card Packs.
• You can earn Arcane Orbs through quests and events.
• There is a cap to how many Arcane Orbs you can own, encouraging spending. Cap appears to be 9999.
• There is a quest called "Embrace the Arcane" that rewards you with 180 Arcane Orbs for playing 3 games in any mode.

Runestones

• Runestones can purchase Arcane Orbs, Heroes, Adventures, or Arena Tickets.
• Runestones can be converted into Arcane Orbs at an unknown rate.
• Runestones can be purchased with real currency.
• They appear to be unearnable in-game.

The final expansion of the Year of the Dragon actually contained some damn dragons!

So many freebies! This was an excellent way to end the Hearthstone year by giving everyone access to the 5 Legendary Galakrond cards, card packs, and some gold. We also had some great card mechanics that really brought the year together.

• Galakrond and Invoke - Your five free Galakronds come with their own buildaround keyword, as seen on the also free Shield of Galakrond. Invoking powers up Galakrond and activates his Hero Power. There are 12 Invokers, 5 cards which benefit from Invocation, and the 5 Galakronds.
• Sidequests - The anti-EVIL classes all have access to these. They function like Quests, but don't start in your opening hand, and multiple can be played at once (even alongside Quests themselves). There are 8 in total, 2 each for the four classes.
• Explorers - Each of these Dragons Discover a Dragon themselves. The anti-EVIL classes get one each.
• Breaths - Spells that gain additional power when holding a Dragon. Each class gets one.

We're still waiting on the solo content launching sometime in January which is going to add an additional 35 collectible cards to the game. What a strong note to end on!

Hell, its about time.

With the launch of Descent of Dragons and a new Hearthstone shop in the client, Blizzard used the opportunity to give one of the most requested heroes of all time a grand return.

Tyrande was originally only available to select countries that were able to access Twitch Prime, meaning many players had no chance of obtaining her. If you haven't picked her up yet, go get her now in the in-game shop!

The last big news for the year, just as Blizzard was going out on vacation until 2020, the nerf hammer was brought onto Shamans.

Why were Shamans a target? Well, their winrates were beyond absurd. With Descent of Dragons just coming out, Shamans took up a large portion of the ladder and it was difficult to play around them. Some success was had with Aggro Hunter decks, though Shamans were definitely in a place too powerful and deserved the changes.

• Corrupt Elementalist cost is now 6 (up from 5).
• Sludge Slurper attack is now 1 (down from 2).
• Faceless Corruptor attack is now 4 (down from 5).
• Mogu Fleshshaper cost is now 9 (up from 7).

More changes may arrive in the new year. Don't forget to disenchant these cards for full dust value if you don't need them - that ends on January 2!