Quote from BlizzardPatch 31.4, launching on January 21 , pushes Hearthstone further than it's ever gone with the Heroes of StarCraft Mini-Set, the new Mythic Kerrigan Hero Skin, a new Arena-only card, and more!
It's About Time—Heroes of StarCraft is Here!
Explore the StarCraft universe with new cards across Zerg, Protoss, and Terran multi-class factions. Experience aggressive Zerg swarms, huge Protoss swing turns, the Terran Starship armada, and more!
Heroes of StarCraft is our biggest Mini-Set ever, with 49 all-new cards. Get them in The Great Dark Beyond packs or as a complete 94-card mini-set.* Get the normal version for $19.99 or 2500 Gold, or get the all-Golden version for $79.99 or 12,000 Gold. The all-Golden version also comes with a bonus Diamond copy of the Grunty Legendary minion! Individual factions from the Mini-Set are also available for $9.99 or 1200 Gold. You can see all the cards from the Heroes of StarCraft Mini-Set in the official Card Library .
* 4 Legendary cards, 1 Epic card (x2), 20 Rare card (x2), and 24 Common cards (x2).
Become the Queen of Blades
The Zerg swarm has infested Hearthstone! Now you can become their leader, Sarah Kerrigan, with Hearthstone's next Mythic Hero skin. This quad-class skin can be used by all the Zerg classes—Death Knights, Demon Hunters, Hunters, and Warlocks—and includes new emotes, special animations for attacks, victory, and defeat, special board visuals, and more. Spread the infestation!
Hearthstone Card Update
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Dev Comment: Ethereal Oracle has been one of the strongest and most ubiquitous cards in the meta since the launch of The Great Dark Beyond. In hindsight, this is a card we probably should have addressed in the last balance patch. Unfortunately, the timing of that patch wasn't ideal because we try to avoid high-impact changes heading into an extended winter break where we wouldn't be able to react to unforeseen problems that might arise. Instead, we're adding the change into this major patch because we're already expecting a meta shakeup with the mini-set, and we have our usual built-in balance window a few weeks from now for any necessary follow-up adjustments.
Disenchantable versions of Ethereal Oracle will be eligible for full dust refunds for two weeks after this change goes live with Patch 31.4.
In-Game Event: Heroes of StarCraft
Choose your faction and fight for glory! From January 21 - February 11 , pick one of three Event Tracks to complete for 13 packs (5 Perils in Paradise packs and 8 The Great Dark Beyond packs) and a faction-specific Hero Skin. Which campaign will you join?
Event Hero skins not earned through the event will be available in the in-game Shop after the event ends.
Arena Updates
When Patch 31.4 launches, all current Arena runs will end and a new Arena season will begin. The Arena pool will be adjusted so that the following sets make up the card pool this season:
- Voyage to the Sunken City
- Murder at Castle Nathria
- Whizbang's Workshop
- Perils in Paradise
- The Great Dark Beyond (including Heroes of StarCraft)
Additionally, a new Arena-only card will be added to the card pool to help you probe the depths of the meta:
Loaner Deck Updates
Loaner decks for new and returning players* are getting updated with the launch of Patch 31.4. These new decks are tuned to let you immediately jump onto the ladder and include cards as new as The Great Dark Beyond main set!
* Returning players who have been away for 90 or more days are eligible for a free deck just for logging in. Returning players can claim these returning decks each time they are eligible. New players are eligible for their free deck after completing the tutorial and Apprentice Track.
February Twist Update: Return to Un'Goro
On February 4 , the Wonders XL format will end and the Wonderful Un'Goro format will begin. Wonderful Un'Goro is back to a 30-card format using the Wonders format, but with Journey to Un'Goro added. The following sets will make up the format:
- Legacy
- Curse of Naxxramas
- Goblins vs Gnomes
- Blackrock Mountain
- The Grand Tournament
- The League of Explorers
- Whispers of the Old Gods
- One Night in Karazhan
- Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
- Journey to Un'Goro
- The Caverns Below is banned.
- Caverns of Time
The Wonderful Un'Goro format will end with the February season and then Twist will be on hiatus. We will have more information about future Twist seasons in a future update.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [General] Updated Unity version.
- [Hearthstone] Like Galakrond and C'Thun, you will not be able to randomly Discover or generate StarCraft faction cards unless you started the game with at least one card in your deck from that faction or you are actively the Hero for that faction.
- [Hearthstone] Some older cards have had their names updated (Banshee is now Wailing Banshee, Mothership is now Stormcoil Mothership, and Hallucination is now Spore Hallucination).
- [Hearthstone] Cards that draw an unfixed amount of cards will now check for player deaths between draws (meaning that if you draw a Plague from a card like Malygos the Spellweaver and your life goes to 0, you will now immediately lose, instead of continuing to draw and possibly gaining the life back). However, cards that draw a set amount (like Arcane Intellect) will finish their full effect before checking for deaths.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Spore Empress Moldara could be added to E.T.C.'s Band.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug with copying or repeating the Deathrattle of Velen, Leader of the Exiled with Xyrella, the Devout.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug were Screaming Banshee didn't work with Airlock Breach.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Magnetic effects didn't work properly with static board-wide stat increases (like Zilliax Deluxe 3000 or Stormwind Champion).
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where launching a Starship could count as summoning twice for “when summoned” effects.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Lucky Comet could trigger Bounty Wrangler's Quickdraw effect twice.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Exarch Maladaar effect could use Corpses to pay for Forge or Tradeable costs.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Dreamboat's buff effect counted minions summoned by his heal effect (like if you had a Mana Geode in play).
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where The Galaxy's Lens targeting an Elusive minion would switch the target to the enemy Hero.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Tess Greymane wouldn't replay Spontaneous Combustion.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where you could launch your Starship with Bloodbloom.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Orbital Halo would get reduced to 0 when your opponent played cards.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where, for some reason, Bloodbound Imp didn't get buffed by Kil'jaeden's Portal.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a visual bug where all the minions in Diamond Kil'jaeden's Portal would come out Golden, even if they had a higher quality (Diamond or Signature) available.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed an issue where certain Legacy cards were not included in the eligible Twist Wonders card pools.
- [Battlegrounds] Reverber Drake and Echoing Roar will be temporarily banned at patch launch due to a bug that is scheduled to be fixed in an upcoming hotfix.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Knockoff Wisdomball would sometimes Refresh into an empty Tavern (not very helpful).
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Efficient Engineer couldn't trigger an Echoing Roar on an Upbeat minion during its off turns (not very efficient).
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed various bugs with Karmic Chameleon sometimes not correctly copying (not very... Karmic?).
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Rylak Metalhead, Reverber Drake, and Persistent Poet didn't work together.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Thundering Abomination's buff overrode Butchering's buff on Reborn minions, instead of them stacking.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Golden Private Chef wasn't animated.
- [Collection] Players who missed getting Bob the Bartender from the event can now get the normal version by going to the pack opening screen with a regular The Great Dark Beyond pack and get the golden version with a Golden The Great Dark Beyond pack.
- Misc. other bug fixes and game improvements.
31.4 Patch Notes - Mini-Set, Kerrigan Mythic Skin, Balance Changes, In-Game Event, Game Updates & More
Blizzard just published patch notes for a Mini-Set content patch, learn all about it below!
As someone that loves Starcraft this miniset is something I look forward to how it turns out remains to be seen but just to be able to play with Starcraft cards will be awesome. Hopefully the meta will be better than what we have now because right now I hate the meta. The meta even if there is alot of decks present feels like it all plays the same its either combo or puke minions on board. Some decks combines the two like Handbuff Paladin that pukes minions for 8 turns than have a 25+ damage combo from hand.
Really looking forward to this mini set! SC2 was the 1st blizzard game I've ever played and holds a special place in my heart. D4 Season 7 is on Tuesday too so I'm gonna have a good night of gaming.
The price of the mini set is 2500 gold. Is it worth buying?
Minisets is always worth buying, its so much value for just 2500 gold.
Dont even make this mistake , keep your gold for the next expansion (they are 25 packs) and just craft the cards you need from miniset , its scam to give 2500gold for a miniset that will have 2 or 3 playable cards
WTB an update for BG's instead of this BS we currently have.
Honestly, might as well throw Wayward Probe into the main game too because why not.
I agree completely!
have they showed the Grunty card yet
Believe it’s tomorrow at 9am EST
I love how Twist is seemingly being shelved just as quickly as it was introduced. "Here's a repeat season followed by another hiatus. We'll update you all later." Just admit you killed Duels for no reason and your replacement failed because of no actual effort. The season with the prebuilt decks for Legendaries was so fun but we haven't seen anything like it since. But hey, at least we have 1 game board a year now and 2 ultra premium Ragnaros skins.
Yeah I think with their current staffing level, it’s taking all of Hearthstones workforce to keep standard/battlegrounds/arena running.
solo adventures, twist, duels, mercenaries, and game boards are all getting shelved.
There are a lot of new skins and pack bundles in the shops, which is likely because blizzard is forcing the team to focus on content that instantly generates money.
I don’t blame the devs, because they’re underpaid engineers who also play the game and try their best, but I hope the upper echelons of blizzard make sure to prioritize gameplay a bit more often
I feel that there was a bunch of better changes you could do to Ethereal Oracle rather than increasing the Cost. Because the design philosophy of most nerf feels to be "Maybe they would play it less" instead of "Let's make the card more balanced"
You want to play your cards, every Priest plays Creation Protocol because why wouldn't you, but the card is perfectly fair.
I don't really know in what deck the card was problematic cause I don't play standard. But recently I only saw it on Meteor Shaman, and if that deck was the problem you could say "Draw 2 spells that started in your deck" or remove the Spell Damage, or even give it Spell Damage -1 , Why not after 10 years I think we are ready for a change like that, but only increasing the Mana is like meh. The decks when the card was fundamental are going to still being playing the card and the decks when the card wasn't that relevant are going to cut it off.
But... that was exactly the problem with the card - it was too efficient, so a lot of decks used it. You didn't even have to plan to use the spell damage. The goal is to make it a bigger investment so that decks that don't need it stop using it by default - expanding deck diversity in the meta, so the decks that want Ethereal Oracle look more different from every other deck.
Fundamentally, I just read this statement and hear you saying "I think the nerf will work".
I mean, the card is nerfed, that's not debatable.
What I mean with that statement is that you are hurting more the decks where that card was just fine, than the decks when the card was problematic. And is a clear case when the just pay for the sinners.
For example (this was reverted but works for the point) At some point Saronite Chain Gang was nerfed to "Summon another Saronite Chain Gang" because back on the day the interaction that it had with Shudderwock was problematic. But that actually damaged all the other decks when you wanted to use Saronite Chain Gang as a handbuff card. So instead of make an smart change that fix the issue without removing the utility that it had for other decks. As simple as said "Battlecry: Summon another Saronite Chain Gang with stats equal to this minion's", they just removed that. So yeah, it fixed the Shudderwock problem, but all the other decks that cared for the card for a different reason also lost a card unjustifiably.
So yeah, the card is going to see less play, but is going to see less play in the decks where it was less problematic At 4-Mana, if I don't care about the Spell Damage that much, I might just play Carry-On Grub which has better stats and an effect that you can play on curve without worry about anything, and without needing external cards to trigger it.
Thing is people often missunderstand the intentions of nerfs, most of the time when they nerf a card the intention is not to kill it but to make it abit weaker and less efficient and even if its not alot a mana increase does make a card less efficient. This nerf will probably remove it from some decks but not the decks that use it as an important part of their win condition.
A shame that they are not adding Wayward Probe to constructed too, since this is the last time any Starship support will ever be printed. A card like that would have been a fun addition to the Starship mechanic and what I would have expected to see in a miniset.
I would probably bought a Overmind mythic skin. Damn shame it's Kerrigan.
"Awaken my child and embrace the glory that is your birthright. Know that I am the Overmind the eternal will of the Swarm and that you have been created to serve me."
Expected some more changes after such a long time lol
And 1 aena-specific card? Weird
Usually when you have such a meta warping card nerfed the meta changes quite a bit. This card will slow down a lot of the decks that use it. Cards that seem very strong now may not be in a week, plus with a mini set coming out they’ll probably have a bigger one in a few weeks and rotation is soon so they’ll likely buff a few cards before they rotate.