January 2024 Balance

January 2024 Balance is a Hearthstone patch released on Jan. 29, 2024. It was versioned 28.4.1 with the build number 193128. It was released during the expansion Showdown in the Badlands

Card Changes

Velarok, the Deceiver - Health decreased to 3 (from 6).
Herald of Nature - Health buff decreased to +1 (was +2).
Pendant of Earth - Now restores Health instead of gaining Armor.
Shattered Reflections - No longer adds an additional copy to your hand.
The Garden's Grace - Stat buff decreased to +4/+4 (from +5/+5).
Shattershambler - Cost reduction of the next Deathrattle minion removed (was "costs (1) less").
Boogie Down - Cost increased to 4 (from 3). Finale effect changed to "Summon another" (from "Give them Taunt").
Thaddius, Monstrosity - Cost reduction decreased to 2 (from 4).
Cactus Construct - Health of the summoned minion decreased to 1 (was 2).
Dew Process - Cost increased to 4 (from 2).
Pyrotechnician - No longer banned.

Quote From Blizzard

Patch 28.4.1, launching today, brings bug fixes and balance changes to Hearthstone and Battlegrounds!

Hearthstone Updates

Dev Comment: This is our first balance patch after the launch of the Delve into Deepholm mini-set. The overall goal of the patch is to help the mini-set launch in two ways: 1) reducing the power and popularity of some of the dominant decks from before the mini-set that are continuing to see lots of play; and 2) toning down some mini-set cards that didn’t land how we wanted.

It’s too early in the new meta for buffs, but we’ll keep an eye out for those opportunities in our upcoming balance patches. Looking a little further ahead, some of the cards we’re adjusting are cards that will be rotating out of Standard with the next expansion—we'll take another look at them when the time comes to see if they should be reverted once they’re out of Standard.

Velarok the Deceiver (created by Velarok Windblade)

Old: 3/6

New: 3/3

Shattershambler

Old: Battlecry: Your next Deathrattle minion costs (1) less, but immediately dies when played.

New: Battlecry: The next Deathrattle minion you play immediately dies.

Dev Comment: Excavate Rogue is an example of a pre-mini-set deck that we wanted to tone down a little to make room for new strategies. We’re happy that our recent buff to Velarok has facilitated this deck that people clearly love playing, and we don't want to undo that, but it’s just a bit too powerful and popular. These changes to Velarok and Shattershambler reduce the early-game blowout potential of Excavate Rogue to keep what’s fun about playing the deck, but give opponents more of an opportunity to respond.

Cactus Construct

Old: Discover a 2-Cost minion. Summon a 1/2 copy of it.

New: Discover a 2-Cost minion. Summon a 1/1 copy of it.

Herald of Nature

Old: Battlecry: If you’ve cast a Nature spell while holding this, give your other minions +1/+2.

New: Battlecry: If you’ve cast a Nature spell while holding this, give your other minions +1/+1.

Pendant of Earth

Old: Discover a minion from your deck. Gain Armor equal to its Cost.

New: Discover a minion from your deck. Restore Health to your hero equal to its Cost.

Shattered Reflections

Old: Choose a minion. Add a copy to your hand, deck, and battlefield.

New: Choose a minion. Add a copy of it to your deck and battlefield.

Dew Process

Old: [2 Mana]

New: [4 Mana]

Dev Comment: There were a few powerful Druid archetypes that we wanted to address in this patch. Cactus Construct is a powerful card across Druid decks that had room to be a bit weaker. The Herald of Nature change makes early Treant Druid boards a little easier to react to. Pendant of Earth was adjusted so that it can still be a strong defensive tool later in the game, but isn’t as strong as an early, proactive stall tool. Shattered Reflections was causing too many reflections, leading to repetitive gameplay—so we took one reflection away. Finally, we weakened Dew Process because the game is less fun when decks like Mill Druid are extremely competitive and meta-warping—we still want cards like that to exist for players who like that type of gameplay, but we don't want them to be the prevailing ladder strategy.

Boogie Down

Old: [3 Mana] Summon two 1-Cost minions from your deck. Finale: Give them Taunt.

New: [4 Mana] Summon two 1-Cost minions from your deck. Finale: Summon another.

The Garden’s Grace

Old: Give a minion +5/+5 and Divine Shield. Costs (1) less for each Mana you’ve spent on Holy spells this game.

New: Give a minion +4/+4 and Divine Shield. Costs (1) less for each Mana you’ve spent on Holy spells this game.

Dev Comment: Paladin is looking strong after the mini-set. Boogie Down is a card that we’ve seen in almost all Paladins since it was released, so we’re making it a little bit slower and adjusting the Finale to partially compensate for the later play. We’re also hitting Garden’s Grace to reduce some of the deck’s from-hand burst potential. To that end, we’ve got our eye on cards like Shroomscavate, but we like that players are trying out the new cards, so we’re making just these changes for now and we’ll make further changes later if needed.

Thaddius, Monstrosity

Old: Taunt. Your odd-Cost cards cost (4) less. (Swaps polarity each turn!)

New: Taunt. Your odd-Cost cards cost (2) less. (Swaps polarity each turn!)

Dev Comment: We don’t think combo play patterns are inherently bad, and Thaddius isn’t a power outlier right now, but he has been in Standard for a long time and has facilitated several decks with early one-turn kills and low feelings of agency. We think it’s time to make another adjustment to Thaddius and see what Standard looks like when he’s significantly weaker. Now that we’ve been able to make this change to Thaddius, we're unbanning Pyrotechnician.

The craftable versions of the cards listed above will be eligible for full dust refunds for two weeks following Patch 28.4.1. Additionally, there was an error with the dust refund periods for patches 28.2.1 and 28.2.3, so the cards eligible for dust refunds in those patches will also be eligible for full dust refunds for two weeks following Patch 28.4.1. For clarity and simplicity, we’ll be returning to the consistent two-week full refund period from this patch going forward.

Pyrotechnician is no longer banned in Standard.

Battlegrounds Updates

Dev Comment: We’ve made changes to Land Lubber and some economy-related spells to address an unintended play pattern where players could stay on low Tiers and buy dozens of spells in a turn. We’ve also adjusted Hawkstrider Herald and removed Titus’ Tribute to lower the frequency and power spikes of late-game Beast strategies.

Card Changes

Archlich Kel’Thuzad

Old: At the end of your turn, destroy the Undead to the left of this a resummon it.

New: At the end of your turn, destroy the Undead to the left of this and resummon an exact copy.

Dev Comment: This is a text-only change for clarity, not a functional change.

Moroes, Steward of Death

Old: 6/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +2/+6.

New: 5/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +1/+5.

Hawkstrider Herald

Old: [Tier 5] 5/2

New: [Tier 6] 6/2

Mystic Sporebat

Old: 5/1

New: 3/1

Land Lubber

Old: [Tier 2] 3/4

New: [Tier 3] 4/5

Dev Comment: Land Lubber has been returned to the minion pool.

Moon Bacon Jazzer

Old: 1/3

New: 2/3

Geomagus Roogug

Old: 3/6. Whenever a Blood Gem is played on this, play a Blood Gem on a different friendly minion.

New: 4/6. Divine Shield. Whenever a Blood Gem is played on this, play a Blood Gem on a different friendly minion.

Prickly Piper

Old: 3/1

New: 5/1

Paint Smudger

Old: 3/2

New: 5/3

Fleeting Vigor

Old: [Tier 4] Give a minion +6/+6 until next turn.

New: [Tier 3] Give a minion +7/+7 until next turn.

Shiny Ring

Old: [Tier 3]

New: [Tier 2]

Staff of Enrichment

Old: [3 Gold]

New: [2 Gold]

Primal Staff

Old: [Tier 4]

New: [Tier 5]

Dreamer’s Embrace

Old: [Tier 5]

New: [Tier 4]

Planar Telescope

Old: [Tier 4]

New: [Tier 3]

Overconfidence

Old: [Tier 2]

New: [Tier 3]

Natural Blessing

Old: Choose a minion. Give all minions that share a type with it +3/+2.

New: Choose a minion. Give all minions that share a type with it +2/+2.

Spell Pool Changes

Reckless Investment, Leaf Through the Pages, and Titus’ Tribute have been removed from the Spell Pool.

Bug Fixes and Game Improvements

[Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Shadestone Skulker could cause infinite loops. Now, when the weapon is “given back,” the Skulker will no longer have it—meaning it will only return a weapon the first time the deathrattle is activated on a particular Skulker.

[Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Lightshow showed the wrong text and functioned incorrectly when cast from somewhere other than from hand (like through Void Scripture).

[Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where the enchantment banner for Golden Sprightly Scarab showed the wrong buff amount.