Upcoming Arena Changes, Cards Being Removed from Arena Drafts
Blizzard just posted a blog post about their thoughts on Arena and some big changes that are coming in an upcoming patch! 45 Class cards will no longer show up in your arena drafts.
You can read the entire blog post below:
Quote from BlizzardThere’s been a lot of internal and public discussion regarding the state of Arena recently. Today, I’d like to share what the Hearthstone team’s goals are for Arena and shed some additional light on where our overall focus is for the future.
Hearthstone has four major game modes right now: Constructed, Arena, Solo Adventures, and Tavern Brawl. One goal we have for Arena is that we want it to feel meaningfully different from any other way you might play Hearthstone. I think we’re hitting that goal now, but it’s important for us to keep that in mind when thinking about future changes. Variety among all game modes is important to us, but an equally important goal is to have a wide range of experiences within each game mode.
This is an area where we feel Arena has some room for improvement. When you first enter Arena and are offered the choice of three different classes, our goal is that you can look at those choices and choose any class without feeling disadvantaged because of their difference in power level.
Most of the feedback we’ve received on Arena is centered around class balance. For the last few content releases, Mage and Rogue have bounced back and forth as the top two most played and most powerful classes. Paladin has been in a tier by itself below Mage and Rogue, while the last five classes have done some shifting around in a tier below these three.
So what are some ways we can address Arena balance? Tools that we have available immediately involve removing cards from Arena completely—C'Thun-synergy cards and Purify are examples of this. We’d like to avoid removing strong spells and weapons from the Arena, because they add to a lot of the unpredictability and excitement surrounding the possibilities outside the current board state. We’d also like to avoid removing iconic cards, since they are generally versatile and familiar tools to veteran and new Arena players alike. Additionally, we can remove lower-performing cards in order to make room for a class’ more commonly utilized cards to show up more often in your Arena draft.
With those things in mind, we will be removing the following cards from the Arena draft in an upcoming patch:
Mage
Rogue
Paladin
- No changes
Shaman
Warlock
Druid
Warrior
Hunter
Priest
We're looking to develop additional solutions to balance Arena as well, such as the ability to adjust the rate that individual cards show up in your draft depending on a designer input value. If we pursue that route, there is still the matter of deciding on the best way to go about using that tool to achieve balance for each of the nine classes and still have Arena feel fun and different each run.
Drafting by card rarity is another discussion that we’ve been hearing a lot. If it’s a matter of balance, we’re fairly confident the ability to adjust the “weights” of cards available can solve that.
We think Arena is a fun environment that could use some overall balance tuning. We hope the above changes will help to address that, and we will be monitoring the Arena closely to see the impact of these changes. We also need your feedback to help us ensure that the Arena remains enjoyable for years to come, so let us know your thoughts!
You know, maybe Hearthstone does need a PTR. They could test different Arena changes through that.
And of course they didn't remove Flamewreathed Faceless. At least change that card to become a Rare instead of a Common.
They removed Confuse in order not to confuse new players.
Without a Firelands portal nerf (for arena) it is joke...
What if you draft a deck with the cards in it and then wait to play any games until the patch comes out? Is your run forfeited?
I think the system will still let you play with the deck you made before the patch change, but just match you with other people who have previously made a deck like yours - with all the old cards.
I dobut it - one run of old cards hardly makes a difference. If a bunch of people save their decks then it'll matter for about half a week and then everything shifts as planned.
I always thought that Paladin was stronger than Rogue in the Arena (though Valeera's Hero Power counters Uther's), but the stats don't lie (or at least I hope so).
Anyway, it will be nice to see something different than Flamestrike on an average turn7 (hoping that Mage will be picked less frequently).
I'm very sad about Snowchugger leaving arena. This card was cool and not OP at all, just good. Why not Twilight Flamecaller or Ethereal Conjurer? Forgotten Torch also makes no sense. Why not Flamecannon or Frostbolt?
I think Rogue losing more than Mage for some reason. Paladin wasn't any better than most classes in Karazhan meta so no reason to keep Eye for an Eye, for example. Also 6 Warrior and 5 Hunter commons will be removed and only 3 Priest commons at the same time. That's incredible!
Overall I don't mind these changes, I think it's good for the arena anyway.
Taking Frostbolt away from mage is like taking cleavage away from Jaina...
Ok I guess freeze effect make Jaina's nipples harder, but why not Flamecannon? This spell is better in arena than Forgotten Torch.
Thank goodness Paladin was left unchanged. It's Murloc Knight not Keeper of Uldaman like Shielded Minibot they Truesilver Champion have Seal of Champions any Blessing of Kings broken Argent Protector commons.
They're clearly trying to balance to about the current power level of Paladin. So they nerfed the two classes above it, and buffed everything below it.
yeah Forgotten Torch was a real problem. Not a fucking fireland portal or flame cannon. GJ Ben let magarena continue. You should add Purify to mage's draft instead of Flamestrike that would be well deserved and all those mage pickers would suck huge dick with their 7+ runs.
Maybe you could elaborate. If I've just paid 150 of my earned gold to take a chance at earning more gold, with the amount dependent on how well I play, why would I not choose a class that is going to benefit me the most?
The HS-team being stupid as usual. Removing a few of the OP arena cards like Flamestrike - sure! But leave the weak ones. It might be the only chance for people to see them played outside of crappy constructed decks and it brings charm to the arena. Also I'm questioning some of the removals of what I guess is considered bad cards. Dunemaul Shaman and Succubus for example aren't bad in Arena, but they're also not OP in the slightest. So I'm confused as to what they're thinking.
They're also removing bad cards to let those classes in general get better cards during the draft.
oh So this is the Format their changing? Cause Ladder isnt stale or anything. granted its a good idea to Remove shitty cards to make sure they dont get in the draft but I think There is better changes they could make
PLEASE STOP POSTING ''Priest is not a class'' THAT JOKE HAS BEEN DONE TO DEATH ALREADY. In 5 hours i've seen it over a dozen times. It's no longer funny, let's move on.
What's a Priest?