A new Hearthstone patch has released and with it comes a load of changes for constructed, Battlegrounds, and Duels. Here's what is in Patch 27.2.2.
Standard Changes
- Fox Spirit Wildseed (Token) now has 2 Attack (Down from 3).
- Halduron Brightwing now Costs 4 (Up from 3) but has 4 Attack (Up from 3).
- Faithful Companions no longer summons a copy of the minion but instead summons a beast from hand for the Manathirst effect.
Quote From Blizzard Dev Comment: When we made our last round of changes, we knew this balance window was coming soon, so we took a lighter touch on Hunter. Now that we’ve seen the results of our last changes, we’re happy with how the meta is shaping up, but it’s clear that we need to give Hunter a bit more of an adjustment to give other classes some room to breathe.
Hunter has two decks we’re targeting with these changes: Arcane Hunter and Hound Hunter. Halduron is a card we previously buffed to give the Arcane package a chance to shine. We’re happy with our prior change to the effect, but just need to adjust the numbers slightly to keep the power in line. For Hound Hunter, we wanted to hit the deck’s early game and its explosive endgame. The adjustment to Faithful Companions should cut down on that finishing potential while also letting the deck operate on another axis with more interesting late-game decisions.
Halduron Brightwing, Faithful Companions, Ara’lon, Wild Spirits, Stag Charge, and Spirit Poacher will all be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks following Patch 27.2.2.
Wild/Twist Changes
A few cards are having their previous changes reverted as they were not intended.
- Fixed a bug where unintended changes were made to Glaivezooka, Swipe, and Dragon's Breath.
- Fixed a bug where Don Han'Cho was updated to 5/6 stats instead of the intended 5/5 stats.
- Updated Wyrm Weaver’s textbox to match updated Mana Wyrm stats.
Quote From Blizzard With the launch of 27.2, 113 Wild cards were updated for Wild and the upcoming launch of Twist! There were also six more cards that were unintentionally changed at that time. In this patch, we’re removing three of those unintended changes.
Battlegrounds Changes
In typical Battlegrounds fashion, numerous balance updates have been made in the patch. Additionally, some cards have been removed and added to the minion pool.
The following minions have been removed from the minion pool:
- Razorgore
- Baby Krush
- Dynamic Duo
- Invent-o-matic
The following minions have been returned to the minion pool:
- General Drakkisath
- Tavern Tempest
- Bonker
- Kaboom Bot
Quote From Blizzard Denathrius’ Anima Reserves (Anomaly)
- Old: All heroes are Sire Denathrius.
- New: Quests and Rewards are in this game. All heroes are Sire Denathrius.
- Dev Comment: We heard your feedback that this Anomaly didn’t feel interesting enough, so we set out on a Quest to make this Anomaly more Rewarding—double the Quests, double the fun!
Friends and Family Discount (Darkmoon Prize)
- Old: For the rest of the game, minions in the Tavern cost (1) less.
- New: For the rest of the game, minions in the Tavern cost (2).
Anomaly Pool Updates
The following Anomalies will now appear less frequently:
- Might of Khaz’goroth
- Fortitude of Khaz’goroth
- Oops, All _____ !
- Finicky Hourglass
- Dev Comment: Anti-Gravity Stadium is also still removed from the Anomaly Pool.
The following Anomalies will now appear more frequently:
- Prudence of Amitus
- Nguyen’s Shifting Disks
- Bring in the Buddies
- A Faire Reward
Minion Updates
Surf and Surf
- Old: Spellcraft: Give a minion “Deathrattle: Summon a 2/2 Crab” until next turn.
- New: Spellcraft: Give a minion “Deathrattle: Summon a 3/2 Crab” until next turn.
Niuzao
- Old: [Tier 6] 7 Attack, 6 Health
- New: [Tier 5] 6 Attack, 5 Health
Soul Rewinder
- Old: 2 Attack, 1 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 1 Health
- Dev Comment: We rewinded the previous change to Soul Rewinder.
Keyboard Igniter
- Old: 4 Attack, 2 Health. Battlecry: If you’ve taken damage since last turn, give your other Demons +1/+2.
- New: 4 Attack, 1 Health. Battlecry: If you’ve taken damage since last turn, give your other Demons +2/+2.
Famished Felbat
- Old: 9 Attack, 5 Health. At the end of your turn, your other Demons consume a minion in Bob’s Tavern to gain its stats.
- New: 8 Attack, 5 Health. At the end of your turn, your Demons consume a minion in Bob’s Tavern to gain its stats.
Time Saver
- Old: 3 Attack, 5 Health. If you have any unspent Gold at the end of your turn, this sells for 2 more Gold.
- New: 2 Attack, 3 Health. If you have any unspent Gold at the end of your turn, this sells for 3 more Gold.
Stormbringer
- Old: 1 Attack, 7 Health
- New: 1 Attack, 9 Health
Electric Synthesizer
- Battlecry: Give your other Dragons +3 Attack.
- Battlecry: Give your other Dragons +3/+1.
Obsidian Ravager
- Old: 4 Attack, 4 Health
- New: 7 Attack, 7 Health
Carbonic Copy
- Old: [Tier 5] 5 Attack, 6 Health
- New: [Tier 4] 3 Attack, 3 Health
Granite Guardian
- Old: 1 Attack, 17 Health
- New: 1 Attack, 28 Health
Adaptable Barricade
- Old: 12 Attack, 1 Health
- New: 18 Attack, 1 Health
Omega Buster
- Old: Deathrattle: Summon five 1/1 Microbots. For each that doesn’t fit, give your Mechs +1/+1.
- New: Deathrattle: Summon six 1/1 Microbots. For each that doesn’t fit, give your Mechs +1/+1.
Sanguine Champion
- Old: 9 Attack, 3 Health
- New: 18 Attack, 3 Health
Sore Loser
- Old: 1 Attack, 4 Health. Your Undead have extra Attack equal to your Tier.
- New: 2 Attack, 4 Health. Your other Undead have extra Attack equal to your Tier.
Relentless Sentry
- Old: 5 Attack, 1 Health
- New: 6 Attack, 1 Health
Champion of the Primus
- Old: 1 Attack, 8 Health. Avenge (2): Your Undead have +1 Attack for the rest of the game (wherever they are).
- New: 2 Attack, 9 Health. Avenge (3): Your Undead have +1 Attack for the rest of the game (wherever they are).
Recurring Nightmare
- Old: 5 Attack, 5 Health
- New: 8 Attack, 5 Health
Fairy Tale Caroler
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health. Battlecry: If you lost your last combat, give your other minions +2/+1.
- New: 2 Attack, 3 Health. Battlecry: If you lost your last combat, give your other minions +2/+2.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where Captain Sanders was in the Thorim, Stormlord Hero Power pool in games where the Golden Arena Anomaly was active.
- Fixed a bug where Golden Leeching Felhound cost more than 3 Health.
Duels Changes
Finally, Duels has received a round of balance updates.
Quote From Blizzard Passive Treasure Updates
Kindling Flame
- Old: Fire Spell Damage +2
- New: Fire Spell Damage +1
Natural Force
- Old: Nature Spell Damage +2
- New: Nature Spell Damage +1
Mending Pools
- Old: Whenever you play a Nature spell, restore 2 Health to all friendly characters.
- New: After you cast your first Nature spell in a turn, restore 2 Health to all friendly characters.
Spreading Saplings
- Old: After you cast a Nature spell, summon a 2/2 Treant.
- New: After you cast a Nature spell, summon a 1/1 Sapling.
Iron Roots
- Old: After you cast a Nature spell, give a random friendly minion +2/+2 and Taunt.
- New: After you cast a Nature spell, give a random friendly minion +1/+1 and Taunt.
Endurance Training
- Old: Your Taunt minions cost (2) less, but not less than (2).
- New: Your Taunt minions cost (2) less, but not less than (1).
Freeze Solid
- Old: Whenever damage is dealt to a Frozen enemy, deal 1 more.
- New: Whenever damage is dealt to a Frozen enemy, deal 2 more.
Corrupted Felstone
- Old: After you cast a Fel spell, give the left- and right-most minions in your hand +1 Attack.
- New: After you cast a Fel spell, give the left- and right-most minions in your hand +1/+1.
Passive Treasure Pool Updates
- Starving has been moved to Pool 2.
- Special Delivery has been moved to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.
Card Pool Updates
- Helya and Odyn, Prime Designate have been banned from initial deckbuilding.
Bug Fixes
- Neptulon will no longer be generated by Chaos Storm.
Comments
Helya and Odin banned for Duels is pretty big.
What happened to the Hearthstone section of this site? It seems like it's a forgotten game and your main focus is just generic gaming news found on every possible gaming portal. A lot of the Hearthstone news are really late and some aren't even published, no notifications about twitch drops, but amazon prime extras with affiliate links are always on time.
You guys built all of this on Hearthstone all the way back from hearthpwn days and now you can't even respect it enough just to post some timely regular news.
No hard feelings, just some criticism.
Criticism is certainly deserved. We simply haven't been giving Hearthstone the care it deserves. Our team is a lot smaller than it used to be and not all of us are playing the game like we used to and in some cases some folks simply aren't around anymore at the usual times when content drops - life changes can suck for that!
Had I of been around yesterday, we'd have had the patch notes up when Blizzard posted them. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was get the patch notes up and kickstarted our datamining process so that we can have fresh card images up later on.
This is, however, something I do want to change. We need to find a couple of dedicated, passionate Hearthstone players who can deliver timely and well-put-together articles for everyone. We certainly have the audience for it still and I'd rather people avoid the cesspool that are a couple of the other sites in the HS community if we can push out good content for them. Hearthstone will likely always be a pillar of our website and it's certainly important to know your roots.
Flux, could you provide a few details on what the time commitment and expectations would be for these roles? I play Hearthstone (a lot, and exclusively) and I'm invested in the success of this website. However, I have a busy life (like most people, I'm sure) so I don't know if I would be able to give it the attention it deserves.
I'm still trying to figure out exactly which direction we want to head for this.
Previously, a lot of the folks that have come and gone from the team would add a single article to the site each week, maybe two if it was a particularly interesting week. Although I have nothing but love for those contributions and the people that created them, it becomes difficult to have a very large team of folks who aren't contributing a ton of content because there are very real costs involved in every person that is added to the team (mostly it is a time to train people thing). It has also been my experience that people who contribute so infrequently also tend to last very long, so I want to lean in the direction of "let's find people who want to post quality content 4-5 times a week at least on the site".
With that said, I think there is definitely a plus to having both kinds of people on our staff - more eyeballs in general keep everyone on their toes and it's something I miss having.
We're undergoing a lot of just different stuff though right now and we're getting close to opening up another round of staff applications to find new folks who want to come in and make this place awesome. Our biggest problem in attracting talent is the way our pay structure works (it's all revenue based, you get what you earn) which fluctuates with site traffic, the time of the year, and even just the topics at hand - so much time spent on Mercenaries content and Legends of Runeterra that never did particularly well.
One thing that I will say though is we're going to be moving in a direction of more about the community here, which is something that has unfortunately decreased over the years. I can't really explain more than that right now.
Took the words right out of my mouth. I have always enjoyed this site, but I have unfortunately had to seek Hearthstone news/updates elsewhere lately.
I did not know that this patch was coming. I log in, and Blizz gives me a pop-up telling me that cards have changed.
I stared at the Wildseed package, thinking that's the same text as before, until I concluded that Twist has produced some kind of time loop.
Let me guess: if I had long-pressed or triple-tapped the screen, would I have been able to view the related cards?
Theres also a wild expansion today apparently that I wasn't aware off. I don't play wild but I like to know all the updates to the game I play :(
Ah shoot, I had this written down incorrectly on my calendar. We'll get a reminder up for folks soonish.
I had tomorrow, the launch of Twist, as being the date for Caverns of Time.
Not on the login screen dialog. The related cards only shows in the collection. But yes I do understand your confusion as I saw the same thing but knew about the patch beforehand. So someone not in the loop probably would be very confused seeing no text change on the wildseed cards.
Hey, at least there was a pop-up! And after I checked the dust refund situation, I took myself over to the official HS blog to get the details.
All good now.
I hadn't been wishing for a Hunter nerf, but I'll take it.