Hearthstone announces big changes are coming to classic cards

Prepare to do some deck building as Blizzard is nerfing some of the more popular classic cards.

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Blizzard Entertainment has announced it’ll be making some big changes to Hearthstone as the Year of the Kraken approaches, which will cause some cards from the classic set to be tweaked in order for them to not remain overly powerful within the standard format.

Before we get into what cards are being tweaked, the hardest hit class appears to be the Druid class core. The Ancient of Lore will now only allow players the option to draw a single card, instead of being able to draw two cards.

The Force of Nature will cost one mana less and will now only summon three 2/2 Treants that won’t be forced to die at the end of the round, although their Charge will no longer be available.

The last Druid class core card to be tweaked is the Keeper of the Grove, which will now have its stats changed from a 2/4 card down to a 2/2. The change was made in order to make the player use some more strategy when pulling out a Silence card.

Blizzard wanted to scale back silence and removal options, so the Ironbeak Owl will have its mana cost increased from 2 to 3, Big Game Hunter will now cost 5 mana to summon, Hunter’s Mark will now cost 1 mana, and Blade Fury will cost 4 mana and will now only cause damage to all enemy minions.

Lastly, Blizzard has tweaked some of the more popular neutral minions, starting with Knife Juggler, who will have its attack reduced to 2.Leper Gnome is next with yet another reduction in its attack value, from 2 to 1. Arcane Golem won’t have Charge, but it’ll gain two additional health points, making it a 4/4 card. Molten Giant will now cost a whopping 25 mana to summon as a way to make it a bit more difficult to summon. The last card to get tweaked is the Master of Disguise, which now only gives a friendly minion Stealth until your next turn.

These proposed changes will go into effect once Hearthstone’s patch 5.0 becomes available.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    April 20, 2016 10:45 AM

    Daniel Perez posted a new article, Hearthstone announces big changes are coming to classic cards

    • reply
      April 20, 2016 10:47 AM

      Some really needed nerfs in there, but I think they went a little overboard with the Blade Flurry double-nerf.

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        April 20, 2016 11:22 AM

        [deleted]

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          April 20, 2016 11:28 AM

          I don't think the mana cost for it is a big factor, not hurting hero means though it can only be used for a control purpose, which I think is better anyway for the game. But Rogue is a long way off from being able to play control.

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            April 20, 2016 11:29 AM

            There's a ridiculous number of changes going into "The Year of the Kraken."

            A lot of the changes make it seem like they want stuff to stick better. They're slowing down the game. What is and isn't viable will be up in the air.

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              April 20, 2016 11:32 AM

              Yeah but control Rogue still seems tough, especially as we've lost heal bot. Problem with control Rogue is you lose a lot of your health through early clearing with weapons and it doesn't give you enough time to move into a control game.

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      April 20, 2016 10:47 AM

      RIP Rogue.

      On the bright side it looks like I can get 2 "free" legendaries by disenchanting my 2x Ancient of Lores + 2x Force of Natures.

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        April 20, 2016 11:33 AM

        Ancient of Lore is still pretty good ... FoN however. Yeah dust that shit!

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          April 20, 2016 11:44 AM

          I would actually say it seems like the opposite. A 7 mana 5/5 needs to have a great effect to be playable and draw one card isn't it. If they lowered the cost to six it would be a hard decision as it competes with Sylvanus and Thaurissan but now it seems like garbage.

          Force of Nature on the other hand is a whole new card and is essentially a 6/6 for 5. Token druid will likely be viable as savage roar wasn't changed.

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            April 20, 2016 12:11 PM

            Silver Hand Knight is already 6/6 for 5 and sees no play. I doubt the 2 extra attack from Savage Roar will make the difference for the viability of FoN. Seems reasonable for Arena though.

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              April 20, 2016 12:20 PM

              Seems like they've assigned a value to the druid's "Choose" mechanic, so now you're paying a bit of a price for the card's flexibility.

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              April 20, 2016 7:38 PM

              The extra dude you get with Force of Nature over Silver Hand Knight is rather significant. Token druid wants to flood the board in order to use Power of the Wild, Savage Roar, or Soul of the Forest.

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                April 21, 2016 12:07 AM

                Two of the three cards you list aren't even played and probably won't be realistically. Both of them only appear in Egg Druid which is 100% dead come standard. I don't see +2 damage on your Savage Roar pushing this card into viability.

                It is also extremely weak to really common AoE where even Silver Hand Knight is better (albeit still not good enough).

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                  April 21, 2016 12:20 AM

                  I'm not telling you that Force of Nature be a popular choice, I'm just saying that it's a better card for the type of Druid deck that wants to flood the board.

                  Soul of the Forest and Power of the Wild do see limited play, by the way.

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      April 20, 2016 10:56 AM

      Blade flurry has to be a design motivated nerf so they can design high power rogue weapons. Either one of those changes would be fair but both is just effectively removing the card. A majority of the rogue cards appear to be unseen yet so there is some hope for rogue to live.

      Everything else looks good, although I do feel Ancient of Lore needed to be dropped to six to even it out. Molten may also be a bit heavy handed but that remains to be seen how it works with the BGH nerf.

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      April 20, 2016 11:08 AM

      Link to the official post is always nice: http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20097355/keeping-hearthstone-fresh-4-20-2016

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      April 20, 2016 11:10 AM

      Who actually attacks or trades with anything with a knife juggler? Not that I mind to much as implosion and muster was the main cards that made that OP.

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        April 20, 2016 7:32 PM

        You attack face with it all the time.

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      April 20, 2016 11:32 AM

      How did they not nerf Divine Favor??? And that Blade Flurry nerf... increased Mana and can only hit minions? wow.

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        April 20, 2016 1:03 PM

        I'm not sure Divine Favor needs a nerf. It's really only valuable in extremely aggressive decks, and the advent of Reno Jackson has made aggro much harder to pull off than it used to be. Face Paladin basically isn't a thing. Plus with the change to Arcane Golem, aggro is losing yet another tool.

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      April 20, 2016 11:41 AM

      [deleted]

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      April 20, 2016 11:53 AM

      So their nerf to Big Game Hunter was just increasing the mana cost to 5? I'll keep one in my deck for whenever someone plays one of those Old God game enders which cost twice that much, thanks.

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        April 20, 2016 12:16 PM

        Means there's two reasons why you can't play Dr Boom same turn as BGH.

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          April 20, 2016 12:18 PM

          Dr. Boom is toast in Standard, but this will suck for Wild.

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      April 20, 2016 12:01 PM

      Hey guys, I stepped out for 90 minutes and I was wondering what the... OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED???

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      April 20, 2016 1:39 PM

      Keep in mind you should disenchant every card that is nerfed (after they nerf goes live and assuming they give full dust value) as you can craft the cards again if you actually want to use it.

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        April 20, 2016 2:48 PM

        I have 5,200 dust worth of golden cards that have nerfs pending. :) Good timing with the new expansion next week.

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      April 20, 2016 2:30 PM

      What? remove arcane golem's charge but increase the health stats? Who is going to play a 3-cost 4/4 minion that gives your opponent a mana crystal?

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        April 20, 2016 3:21 PM

        I won't. I already hesitate when I see Dancing Swords in the arena draft, so I can't see myself taking Arcane Golem.

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        April 20, 2016 3:56 PM

        Most of the cards are unplayable (or at least borderline unplayable) now. Force of Nature, Ancient of Lore, Savage Roar, Keeper of the Grove (probably), Blade Flurry, Owl (will use Spellbreaker instead), Arcane Golem and Master of Disguise (lol).

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        April 20, 2016 6:41 PM

        Nobody does, its a dead card. I'm fine with the nerf but I wish there was a way to do it without making it useless

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          April 20, 2016 7:46 PM

          Yeah, my problem is that it's useless. Nerf, fine, but don't make them obsolete.

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            April 20, 2016 7:49 PM

            Blizzard just doesn't like charge as a mechanic. I'm not surprised they axed it.

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              April 20, 2016 7:53 PM

              Removing charge is cool. I don't know how else to make that card not shit though, maybe keep the new cost and card text and bump up the stats to a 5/4 or 4/5. A 4/4 for 3 mana and you give the enemy a mana crystal is straight up garbage.

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      April 20, 2016 5:51 PM

      I don't think any of these nerfs should have taken place, because I don't think classic should be a permanent set at all. The cards in it should be rotated out and put back in with others in a new core-set every cycle.

      I love the idea of rotating sets, but keeping these classic cards a permanent fixture of the game has really killed my enthusiasm for the game. I did every single quest for 2 years, but I stopped last month and I doubt I will ever go back.

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        April 20, 2016 6:16 PM

        Sounds like a terrible experience for anyone that wants to f2p. Especially if classic is rotated out.

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          April 20, 2016 6:30 PM

          Old cards from any set (including classic) would ideally make up a core set. They'd just get core set packs instead of classic. It'd be the exact same f2p experience, except any cards they have from ANY set might be rotated back in someday, so they're never completely void.

          As it is now f2p investors that bought any gvg or naxx have completely lost all the cards permanently in standard, and I don't see how that's any better.

          The meta will never be 100% fresh with classic being permanent.

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            April 20, 2016 6:33 PM

            I should also note that I'm a completely f2p player. I have been playing since season 1 though, so I have practically every card I want.

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        April 20, 2016 7:35 PM

        I agree with you that classic cards should be rotated out, but I don't get why this would kill your enthusiasm for the game. They're taking a huge step forward by rotating out Naxxramas and GvG. The game will feel a lot different come Tuesday.

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          April 20, 2016 7:57 PM

          I think maybe I was getting burnt out for a few months, and this was sort of the last straw. They really did fuck up a vital piece of the rotation puzzle by leaving in a permanent set. I don't want nerfs at all, I want them out of the rotation for a time. If they're gonna nerf like this I don't see how they didn't even touch freeze mage, one of the most boring matchups to play against in the game.

          It's hard to quantify exactly why my enthusiasm for the game is completely gone, but yeah, I'll just chalk it up to burn out. I did every quest --and i mean every quest-- from season 1 until last month. I played every class in ranked (always went with my least # wins class), and I took my laptop with me on multiple vacations, etc. Rotation was exactly what hs needed, but they fucked it up.

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            April 20, 2016 8:01 PM

            They might decide in a year to rotate classic out. There's really nothing stopping them. They listen to player feedback a lot, especially professional players.

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      April 21, 2016 12:24 AM

      I thought they said they were going to Nerf/change 20+ cards from classic? Is it bad I want more changes?

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