We've got a fresh round of Hearthstone Developer Insights for the Year of the Pegasus' upcoming core set!
Quote From Aleco Thread for the some of the design insights/philosophies behind the recent core set updates:
Our #1 goal for this year's core set was to celebrate 10 awesome years of Hearthstone. In order to do this, we really tried to push our boundaries by reaching for some of the most iconic cards in Hearthstone history - including ones from the Hall of Fame!
How did we pick which cards from the past to come back?
The short answer here is that we tried a TON of stuff, and kept what we felt the game could handle. Cards like Leeroy Jenkins and Fiery War Axe were performing well in testing without breaking the game, while others…
like Coldlight Oracle and 1-mana Cold Blood were dominating in playtests. We really tried to test almost every card from the Hall of Fame (not Ice Block though, sorry not sorry) to see which ones worked and which ones didn't in the modern game.
DK and runes: We downshifted the rune requirements on a TON of cards, leaving just one BBB, FFF, and UUU spell in standard. Our general feeling was that the rune system was too restrictive, and we wanted to open up more room for deckbuilding within the class.
Our hope is that players will now feel like there are meaningful choices and concessions being made when picking between various rune combinations, as opposed to feeling forced towards specific combinations.
Druid and ramp: Coming into the Year of the Pegasus, our philosophy on ramp in standard is changing a bit. We think Druid should be able to ramp with a restriction on 2 (Splish-Splash Whelp), and ramp with some kind of small upside on 3.
Since Wild Growth is just ramp on 3 with no upside, it was a natural candidate for rotation/adjustment. Nourish has established itself as a card that is usually lackluster when played on its own, yet very strong when its Choose One effects are combined (cont).
We didn't love how the card was positioned, so we tried out a few changes (such as making it give empty mana crystals) but none of these changes landed well in testing. Instead of trying to force a change to the card that we didn't like, we decided to rotate it out of Standard.
Wrath of Air Totem back? Yup! We want to celebrate Hearthstone's history with this core set, and Wrath of Air Totem felt like a part of that history worth celebrating. If players love it we can keep it in the game long-term, and if they don't we can rotate it when appropriate.
On Shadowstep
Quote From Aleco Thanks for the update: any thoughts on why Shadowstep remains?
Love it or hate it, it’s hard to deny that it’s one of the most iconic cards in hearthstone history! Not saying it will never rotate from core set, but this did not feel like the year to do it.
Paladin's Extra Cards
Quote From Aleco How about on Pally still having +2 cards in core? Will other classes get +2 new cards?
I don’t think it’s a big deal if classes have slightly different numbers of core cards. We might even add/remove a few cards to core throughout the year if need be!
That Annoying Priest Guy
Quote From Aleco Sorry for being the annoying Priest guy, but some q's on the new core set:
1. What is the intended direction for 2024? It feels odd to remove Benedictus, but keep Ascendant and add Chirurgeon.
2. Why was Catrina kept given its lack of use and support in 2023?We have to make core sets while keeping in mind the sets that will be released throughout the year, as well as a number of other constraints like discover pools. I know thats not the most satisfying answer, but it’s the most I can really say :/
What do you think about this round of developer insights? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
They should removed or at least nerfed shadow step. They remove other iconic cards but don't do anything with shadow step
Why, exactly, is a bad card (that's not even a real card) worth celebrating? Should we also celebrate Angry Chicken? Both of these are iconic for being bad, nothing more.
That was usually the totem you most wanted to roll as Shaman way back, to hit higher breakpoints with Lightning Bolt or Lightning Storm. There was a reason most people referred to the replacement with Strength Totem as a nerf.
I don't remember "most people" calling it a nerf. You flat-out made that shit up.
Obviously it was desirable in a deck that could take advantage of it, but it's not great for the game overall. The current Totem Shaman build, for example, has maybe one card that would benefit from spell damage.
By punishing decks that don't use burn spells, it's cutting Shaman off from minion-heavy archetypes. Strength Totem doesn't do that, because it at least works on other totems you might create, even if you are running few or no minions.
Why would I make something so innocuous up? It's possible I'm misremembering, certainly. Looking at old threads when the announcement happened, Odd Shaman was the biggest Shaman archetype, so it was definitely a nerf in that specific deck. Maybe that's what I'm remembering.
After that answer, Catrina and Spellstone definitely indicate more resurrection stuff this year. And since Chirurgeon was part of that response, I’m definitely thinking some sort of pirate theme set two. Maybe Hooktusk leading a crew on a hunt for buried treasure on a remote island
Whoever's idea it was to add Deathwing, Mad Aspect to core, I just want to say thanks 🙃 this made my day
If you're celebrating Hearthstone history, you gotta have Deathwing, but let's face it -- the original Deathwing is not a good card anymore.