In the latest patch notes for Hearthstone, we learned that the newest mode, Twist, was going to be disabled during the months of December and January while Blizzard tinkered behind the scenes. Now, in a post on the Hearthstone forums, Community Manager GnomeSayin has informed everyone that Twist will only be closed for one month; the Wonders + Un'Goro format will continue to the end of the year! You can read the full post below:
Quote From Blizzard In the 28.0 Patch Notes, we announced that Twist would be going on hiatus for the December and January seasons, to return for the February season. We’ve seen your disappointment with that announcement, so we’ve decided to update our plans.
We’re pleased to see that Twist has some very passionate fans, and that players are enjoying the current November season (Wonders + Un’Goro). Instead of disabling Twist for December, we’re going to keep the current format going for one more season. Twist will still be taking a break for the January season and returning with a different format in February.
Why have a break at all? We want Twist to be a sandbox-like mode that lets us experiment with new ideas and makes you think about your collection in new ways. It was always intended to be a seasonal mode that would deactivate from time to time, kind of like a giant Tavern Brawl. That break gives us time to learn from prior Twist seasons and prepare for upcoming ones—and we hope it will make Twist more exciting when it returns. We understand now that the announce language was not clear enough in conveying how long those breaks could be. Going forward, we’ll do a better job of sharing our plans for upcoming breaks. For now, we hope that you continue to enjoy the Return to Un’Goro format, and we look forward to sharing the February season with you.
What do you think of the news? Will you continue to play Twist through December? What do you think Twist will look like come February? Let us know in the comments below!
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Comments
I am holding out hope the new Format in Feb will be more exciting with some crazier/wackier rule changes. I stopped playing Twist after XL Wonders coz the lack of Blizzard and player interest in the format decreased mine. Glad the team listened to community feedback though, that's something but there's a lot of hopium going forward for this format.
I’m still waiting for someone to explain what Blizzard lack of interest or decreased support for Twist means. Especially since the only example people can give is the downtime they announced, and that was planned since the beginning. See my previous comment on this article for the link to June’s announcement of Twist where they state clearly it won’t always be active.
HS Mathematics has an interesting video on the subject which makes sense. Basically Blizzard are downplaying Twist coz they need Standard to be the main popular mode for monetization reasons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCuz1hpfx4
I’ll check it out, though I consider the channel to be over dramatic clickbait mostly. Point in case would be that if their main point for Twist “dying” or whatever they might say is that Blizzard needs Standard to be the main mode for monetization reasons, that’s the kind of obvious realization that should make anyone watching it go “Well duh.”
Edit: After 5 min I’ve had enough AI robot voice for the day. Their whole concept is devs wanted it to be a failure and just threw it out to entice people back into Hearthstone to hook them on Standard… I deal with enough conspiracy theory BS in real life, I don’t need to hear it in HS talk too!
Like I said, overly dramatic clickbait channel!
Here’s a more realistic reason as to why Twist isn’t as popular as Standard, or even Wild, in regards to the number of Legend players they showed. Dedicated Standard players don’t keep their old cards, so they don’t have a lot of what they’d need. Dedicated Wild players would rather just play Wild, and rarely do people play enough of HS to get Legend in more than one game mode.
And I will jump in and say, in no way am I trying to say Twist was a monumental success. But I don’t see it as a failure (yet). They could actually make some changes to increase the accessibility of the mode. For example, a Twist core set made of a lot of the cards they added to Caverns of Time. Then the actual new cards could be released as a mini set instead of in packs.
My biggest question is still why everyone is acting like they already pulled all support for the mode? Because all I’ve seen when asking that question is “the downtime” or now some conspiracy theory bots on YouTube.
I feel like I need to point something out that surprisingly a lot of users here, other forums, and even this article on OoG didn't seem to understand after 28.0 patch notes came out indicating Twist would be deactivated for a few months. And what I need to point out is, Team5 stated that this would be the case from the very first Twist announcement back in June. Read through the third paragraph to see where it states that the mode would not always be available.
That same announcement states that it also may not change every single season, so that immediately set the precedent for December with no changes from this season to the next.
But that last part also begs the question... Why can't they just leave certain season sets/rules up an extra month or two without change instead of downtime between seasons? It does seem strange, but I assume there is some reason on the back end that they may need to occasionally shut down temporarily to try and implement some new, wacky rule or something.
Whatever the reason, I am glad to see they are listening to the players who love this mode and are at least keeping it live during December as well. I've been having fun with a Jade Elemental Shaman. I am so happy to have a game mode where I can play Kalimos, Primal Lord in a somewhat competitive deck again! Back when Un'Goro launched, I still hadn't gotten too into Hearthstone and was playing very casually. But after popping Kalimos on day 1 of the expansion, I had a blast playing an Elemental Shaman, and I got hooked!