Some Classic Cards Moving to Wild, Three Expansions this Year, New Rogue Hero - Year of the Mammoth
Wow. Some big things are coming with the new Standard rotation into Hearthstone.
The Rundown
- Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and The League of Explorers all rotate out of Standard with The Year of the Mammoth.
- Six cards from Classic are being moved to Wild-only.
- The cards will not be disenchantable for their full crafting amount like normal with card changes, instead, Blizzard is just going to give you the full dust value of each card you own.
- You can still dust the cards once the rotation hits if you no longer want them - free extra dust!
- If you own a Golden and Normal copy of a card, you will only get the full dust value of the Golden version.
- You will only get the full dust value for the copies you have that can be included in a deck. If you have 3 Azure Drakes, disenchant one today.
- We will not see an Adventure this year. Instead, we will see three ~130 card expansions!
- The second and third expansions will feature a playable story, like an adventure.
- Cards will still only come from card packs.
- A Heroic Tavern Brawl will be going live sometime after the first expansion releases, using the Wild format.
- Blizzard is going to work on doing more Wild tournaments.
- Daily Login Rewards! At least for the start of the new rotation. Includes Dust, Gold, Expansion Packs, and "a few other surprises".
- Rogues are getting Maiev Shadowsong, a new hero! Win 10 games of Hearthstone in Standard when the rotation occurs and she's all yours.
- We will see some Deathrattle build-arounds in upcoming sets.
Cards Moving From Classic to Wild
Six cards are moving over to a new Wild-only set called the Hall of Fame set. If you own any of these cards, you will keep them and gain dust equal to their creation value when the rotation hits.
We recommend crafting these cards if you don't have them already, especially the golden versions. It's like loaning Blizzard your dust, and they let you keep the card as interest!
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Discuss The Move
Announcement Post
Quote from BlizzardWe’ve got a lot of great things on the horizon for Hearthstone in 2017, including new content launches, innovative ways to get together and play with friends, improvements to keep Hearthstone fresh and exciting, and more! Read on to get the full scoop on what’s happening this year.
Year of the Mammoth Roadmap
2017 marks the end of the Year of the Kraken and the beginning of a new Hearthstone Year: The Year of the Mammoth. Each new Hearthstone Year brings a fresh start in the form of a new Standard format. Once the Year of the Mammoth officially begins with the first major expansion of 2017, Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers cards will become exclusive to Wild.
Set Rotation Is Coming
Last year, we introduced a New Way to Play, which introduced the Standard and Wild game formats to Hearthstone.
In order to keep Hearthstone exciting and accessible as more cards are added, Standard allows players to use the most recently released cards, as well as a core of Basic and Classic cards. Our overall intention with Standard is to keep the game feeling fresh for all of our players, and to allow newer players to jump into Hearthstone quickly, without collecting lots of cards to build a competitive deck. Standard also gives our developers more freedom when designing new cards for the future.
However, over the course of the Year of the Kraken, certain cards in the Classic set have contradicted these goals. When cards show up too frequently in decks and are considered auto-includes, deck-building becomes more limited. Deck variety stagnates, potentially interesting build-around cards fall by the wayside, and the gameplay experience begins to feel less dynamic. Most cards should feel like situational additions to a deck, depending on the deck archetype the player is trying to build.
To help meet our goals, certain cards from the Classic set will become exclusive to the Wild format. These cards will be added to the new Hall of Fame set, which will also include cards that are currently in the Reward set.
Neutral Cards
Developer’s Note: The first three of the six Classic cards that will be added to the Hall of Fame set are powerful Neutral cards that show up in many decks and reduce the chance of new cards having an impact. This is truer for cards in the 5+ mana cost range because players tend to use fewer of these cards in a deck.
Azure Drake is a strong Neutral card that ended up being a bit too versatile, and thus became one of the most played cards in the game. There should be more five drop options for players, rather than considering Azure Drake an auto-include.
Similar to Azure Drake, it’s hard to see a card at the six mana cost out-value Sylvanas. In addition, Sylvanas has the most powerful Deathrattle effect in the game—as a comparison, the Priest card Mind Control costs 10 mana. We have exciting Deathrattle build-arounds coming soon, and in combination with Sylvanas, they would be too powerful for Standard.
Ragnaros is heavily played in both control and mid-range decks and even shows up as a finisher in certain types of aggro decks. His high immediate value and strength at the eight mana cost made the decision during deck-building, “Is this eight mana minion better than Ragnaros?” rather than, “Is this eight mana minion the best choice for my deck type?” Dozens of cards in the seven to nine mana range never saw play because Ragnaros was always the easy choice in that range, and some decks only want to run one high cost card.
Class Cards
Power Overwhelming allows for extremely mana-efficient minion trades or high spikes of damage for only one mana. Keeping this card exclusive to Wild will prevent some crazy combinations and spike damage. Warlock decks also tend to use lots of Classic cards, so the decks changes less when new expansions release. This change will help increase the variety of cards in Warlock decks over time.
Freeze Mage is a fun deck that has been around for over three years now, and we’d like to see more variety with Mage decks after each major release. This move allows Freeze Mage to continue existing in Wild, while creating more variety in Standard. Ice Lance also prevented us from making powerful Spell Damage cards and designs that allowed you to duplicate your cards. Ice Lance was also a very high burst damage card, sometimes being a key component of 30 damage combos.
Stealth is a very powerful mechanic, and can also be very frustrating to play against—more for some classes than others. Hearthstone should ultimately be a game of plays and counter plays, and Conceal makes it increasingly more difficult for other classes to interact with Rogue minions as time goes on. We considered promoting Gadgetzan Auctioneer to Wild instead, but in the end we decided to move Conceal because Auctioneer has proven to be one of the most skill testing cards in the game. We think the power level of Auctioneer decreases with this change, and games where Auctioneer is played will be a bit more interactive.
We wanted to allow players to disenchant Classic cards that are being added to the Hall of Fame set for full dust refunds, but then felt that incentivizing players to dust their cool Wild cards was counter to our goal of making Wild awesome.
So instead, we're just going to give you the dust, and you can keep the cards!
Up to the maximum number of cards you could put in a deck, we will give you the full dust value of any cards you have that are being added to the Hall of Fame set. (Yes, that means if you have at least one Golden Ragnaros, you'll get 3200 dust!) The dust will be automatically awarded upon log-in once the Year of the Mammoth begins.
Adventuring in Expansions
Looking back, we learned a lot in 2016 with the introduction of the Year of the Kraken. One of the things we’d like to put additional focus on for the Year of the Mammoth is having additional deck-building options and deck variety in Hearthstone. To help give players additional tools and options to accomplish this, we are changing up the way we handle our release cycle. Previously, a Hearthstone Year alternated between Expansions and Adventures.
For the Year of the Mammoth, our release cycle will include a ~130 card expansion at the start of the year, a ~130 card expansion in the middle of the year, and another ~130 card expansion at the end of the year.
Why the change of release cycle?
At their core, Adventures paint colorful and thematic stories about the Hearthstone universe. Imagine being able to learn about the history and lore behind each of our sets inside the game in a similar way! Defining who the Jade Lotus are through a series of battles between the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan families would have been a great way to supplement the overall Gadgetzan story arc. That concept is something we would like to do more of in future sets: Take the storytelling and cool missions of Adventures, and combine them with the card pools of expansions.
Cards will be acquired via packs like other expansions in the past; additionally, each release will include optional single-player missions that will help develop the expansions’ thematic narratives and offer fun challenges.
We’d like to continue being flexible and refine the way we roll out content so it’s more enjoyable for all of our players. The second expansion of 2017 will be our first step into this new design, and we plan on building on this concept over time. Additional details about our free single player content will come at a later time.
Where the Wild Cards Are
With the cards from Blackrock Mountain, The Grand Tournament, and League of Explorers becoming exclusive to Wild, the Wild format is going to be more exciting than ever before! For our players that enjoy playing in Wild, we’ll be supporting it in more ways in 2017.
Sometime after the release of our next expansion, we plan to run a Heroic Tavern Brawl utilizing the Wild format. With so many cards at your disposal, our most passionate and hardcore Hearthstone players and deck-builders will be put to the test.
We will also be collaborating with third-party tournament organizers to promote additional Hearthstone tournaments using the Wild format. Whether players are dueling in competitive Standard or Wild, we want our community to be excited about all of the various ways to play Hearthstone, and we hope additional official support for both formats will help to accomplish this.
We’re super excited about the ever-growing Wild ecosystem, and we’re looking for new and interesting ways to continue supporting it in the future.
Gather ‘Round for Fireside Gatherings
If you’re not familiar with Fireside Gatherings, they’re a great way to get out and meet people just as passionate about Hearthstone as you are! Fireside Gatherings mean a lot to us, and we’re planning on beefing up this program and adding additional in-client features to support Fireside Gatherings during the Year of the Mammoth. Keep an eye out for more information about Fireside Gatherings closer to the release of our first expansion this year—it’s never too late to become an Innkeeper!
Celebrate the Year of the Mammoth Together!
That’s not all for the Year of the Mammoth! Before the release of our next expansion, we’ve got a flurry of activity planned to support its launch: Daily login rewards will be available for a limited time— offering dust, gold, and expansion packs—as well as a few other surprises in the weeks before launch to blaze a trail for everything our next expansion has to offer.
Awardin’ a Warden
Login rewards aren’t the only things we’re offering to get players excited for the Year of the Mammoth: A new Hearthstone Hero approaches the Tavern!
The new Rogue Hero, Maiev Shadowsong, has emerged from the shadows, eager to become a part of your Hearthstone collection after 10,000 years of tolerating bad “You are not prepared” jokes from Illidan. Legion beware: Adding this vengeful Night Elf to your collection will be easier than teaching an old felhound new tricks. Just win 10 games of Hearthstone in Standard Ranked or Casual mode after the next expansion officially launches to acquire her.
Year of the Mammoth Wrap-up
There’s a lot on the horizon for Hearthstone in 2017; we hope you’ve enjoyed this look into the year ahead and we’ll see you at the Inn!
How about crafting the commons golden, assuming u have only all the regulars, here's my math:
doing no crafting: +refund = 40 dust = 40 dust <--gained on one card
crafting golden: -investment + refund + disenchant=-400+400+50 = 50 <--gained on one card
thats 10 more dust over doing nothing and doing it for all 6 commons (remember 2 copys per card) means a gain of 60 Dust :)
so the value lies in the commons (only considering dust potential...)
Damn, you're right.
in my calculations i get 60 dust and keep the regulars, i dont touch the regulars at all, the 60 dust only comes from my investment to the golden ones, or to make it simpler if u have only the regulars u get 240 dust (for the commons) refund from blizz when doing nothing (also u keep regulars here)
and if u invest in gold u get 2400 dust refund but u must substract investment (2400-2400=0), the gain comes from disenchanting the golden ones ---> 300 dust, so in the end u compare 240 vs 300 and thats were my 60 dust plus comes from (in both cases u keep ur regulars^^)
Pro tipp: buy blizzard shares and become Rich in 2017
#390 cards
You think paying players are happy about this change? It's going to cost over a extra $100 USD a year to stay tournament competitive.
As a f2p player, I actually found adventures a lot more annoying than regular card sets. At least I can craft a Freezing Potion (for example) when I need one for just 40 dust, as apposed to having to try and save 3,500 gold so I can get Blackwing Corruptor. I've already managed to get nearly everything I need from the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Expansion, but after more than a year I still haven't gotten that Blackwing Corruptor, and I STILL cannot play good dragon decks.
"I've already managed to get nearly everything I need from the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Expansion"
"as apposed to having to try and save 3,500 gold so I can get Blackwing Corruptor."
Are you telling us you managed to effectively get all relevent cards from an expansion, for less than 3500 gold? For less than 35 packs?
You aren't even guaranteed a single legendary for 35 packs. I've oppened probably over 70 MSG packs and I still only have 3 legendaries!
Do you simply lack the willpower to look at a 600 gold collection and not immediatly spend it on packs?
but I don't NEED 3 Gadgetzan Legendaries.
I mostly play Reno Mage, and the only Gadgetzan legendary i use for it is Kazakus. Perhaps I could craft Inkmaster Solia for it as well, but its not really necessary and its importance is debatable.
However, I DO need cards like Volcanic Potion, or Dirty Rat. These cards are almost absolutely pivotal, and luckily I can get them both for just 500 dust. Compare this to 3,500 gold if they were, say, in the 5th wing of an adventure.
It might be easier to get legendaries in adventures than in expansions, but for the majority of cards the opposite is true.
LOL the freeloading F2P are crying over a game that is possibly the most generous DCCG around. If you are F2P then you have no rights and your opinion doesn't count.
Can't you afford $30?
So instead of creating more viable 5, 6, and 8 drops... they throw away the most playable ones... hmmmm
Is it me? Or are we never guna have money in out wallets again? 3 new expansions, 0 adventures, ~130 cards per expansion, ~390 cards that we wont be guarantied to get. And from all that we have to buy thousands of packs to make sure we have the dust and the cards to play them. So its a lot of content of course, a lot of expensive and RNG based content that wont be garentied to be given to you. Even with this new daily rewards stuff, will we really have enough money or gold for that matter to get all the card we need to play these new expansions? I would have loved to play 2 new adventures and one expansion. But this is going to be rough for not only F2P players but hard on the wallets of everyone else that buys the expansions. I hope Blizzard decides to reduce the price of packs cause unless your rich you'll never be able to have enough money to catch up with all the expansions. But hey free dust though, not enough to carry you i the new cards your going to buy pack over pack over pack about. but enough to get you about 4+ legendaries.
I guess i am going a bit overboard on this. Its just my opinion at the end of the day.
If you stopped spending so much on hookers then maybe you could afford a few expansions.
Blizzard need to release cards more than 3 times a year to keep this game fresh. The meta and optimized (or close to) decks get figured out too quickly with the internet and the game becomes stale after the first month of release. I've been bored with this expansion since last month already.
After two years since release, Blizzard shouldn't focus as much on getting new players as people have already tried it or not planning to anyway. Blizzard should focus on retaining current players. I would like to see two expansions and two adventures per year. Even better if they can fit Five card releases per year. You can even make them in smaller batches, something to keep the meta fresh.
One thing I think that could be done to support Wild is enabling the purchase of packs and adventures that have rotated out, rather than leaving it as is (i.e. having to craft whatever Wild card you want).
Blizzard will have to make Wild competitive and in the tournament scene first.
Someone do the math here but I think Adventures usually provide more value than expansions in terms of price $. Having three expansions will hurt my wallet more as I usually have to spend more than $25 on packs and will prob not own every card of an expansion.
for 3500 gold I get EVERY card in the set for an adventure, same gold represents only 35 card packs, average of 1.75 legendary... Adventure is way more value.