Hearthpwn

Hearthstone Patch 7.1

The promised end of February balance patch has arrived! A quick summary of today's patch:

• Card nerfs to Small-Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws.
• A new keyword for the Emperor Cobra effect which will now be known as Poisonous.
• The march ranked reward card back which is labelled Year of the Kraken.
• It looks like we're getting a Hearthstone puzzles brawl and another co-op brawl!
• Arena updates, ranked play floors, and plenty of bug fixes.

Year of the Mammoth Approaches! The Login Rewards

A special reward to celebrate the upcoming Hearthstone New Year! Each day leading up to the Year of the Mammoth, rewards are available on login.

There are seven days of real rewards with an extra 7 days which are used as backup days (assuming the expac gets delayed) which only end up granting 50 gold.

Quote from HearthPwn

• Day 1: 50 Gold
• Day 2: 1 Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Pack
• Day 3: 100 Arcane Dust
• Day 4: 1 Old Gods Pack
• Day 5: 1 Journey to Un'Goro Pack
• Day 6: 50 Gold
• Day 7: 1 Journey to Un'Goro Pack
• Day 8 - Day 14: 50 Gold 

Small-Time Buccaneer & Spirit Claws Nerfed

Our friends have been nerfed!

• Small-Time Buccaneer's Health is now 1. (Down from 2)
• Spirit Claws' Mana is now 2. (Up from 1)

New Poisonous Keyword

Destroying minions when they receive are damaged by a particular minion now makes use of the Poisonous keyword instead of having all the extra text. The following cards have received this change.

• Pit Snake
• Emperor Cobra
• Patient Assassin
• Maexxna

New Card Backs

• Year of the Kraken - Ranked Play March 2017
• Fossil - Journey to Un'Goro Pre-Order

Fossil
Year of the Kraken

Strings

It seems all the references to Battle.net have been changed to Blizzard. This is them changing over to Blizzard branding. They have not been added here due to clutter. These other new strings showed up though!

Quote from HearthPwn

• GLOBAL_KEYWORD_POISONOUS Poisonous
• GLOBAL_KEYWORD_POISONOUS_TEXT Destroy any minion damaged by this.
• GLOBAL_KEYWORD_BOSS Boss
• GLOBAL_KEYWORD_BOSS_TEXT The players are fighting together to overcome the Boss.

New Tavern Brawls

Quote from HearthPwn

• TB_LETHALPUZZLES_SUCCESS You did it!
• TB_LETHALPUZZLES_START Each round, you must defeat your opponent... good luck!
• TB_MP_CROSSROADS Wait, who's that guy?
• TB_MP_STORMWIND_SUCCESS You did it! How much more can you go?
• TB_MP_BOSS Decorated Stormwind
• TB_MP_BOSS2 Partytown
• TB_MP_BOSS3 Party Capital
• TB_MP_CROSSROADS_CRASHER What's he doing here??
• TB_MP_COOP_TEXT_START Use your Hero Power to decorate the Tavern with the other player!
• TB_MP_COOP_FIRST_CRASHER Watch out! Those guys are trying to crash the party. Get rid of them!
• TB_MP_COOP_PINATA You did it! Time to hit the Piñata! But the Party Crashers are getting out of hand....
• TB_MP_COOP_CRASHER_DISCARD The Party Crasher gets bored of sitting in the player's hand and leaves.
• TB_MP_COOP_ENDING Success! Thanks for celebrating the Year of the Mammoth with us!
• TB_MP_COOP_1STSPELL Uh oh, the Kabal may have gotten into the punch....
• TB_MP_COOP_2NDSPELL Please don't light the fireworks inside!

Official Patch Notes

Quote from Blizzard

The expedition begins soon! This latest update blazes a trail for the Journey to Un’Goro, Hearthstone’s latest Expansion as well as the arrival of the Year of the Mammoth and a new Standard format. This update also includes adjustments to Ranked play, Arena updates, balance changes to Small Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws, some visual improvements and optimizations, and several bug fixes.

Whew! That’s a lot to cover, so read on for details!

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• This update begins preparations for the Year of the Mammoth celebration that kicks off at the end of March.
• Pre-purchase for Journey to Un’Goro, Hearthstone’s latest expansion, is now available! You can pre-purchase 50 card packs and get the Fossil card back for $49.99 USD.

• Ranked Play
  • Upon achieving certain milestones in Ranked Play, it will no longer be possible to lose ranks beyond those milestones for that season. The milestones are Rank 20, 15, 10, 5, and Legend.
• Arena
  • Creating decks for the Arena will now feature Standard cards only. Arena runs that were started prior to the patch will still include Wild cards.
  • Rares, Epics, and Legendaries will be offered more frequently during Arena deckbuilding.
  • Spells will now show up with a higher frequency.
  • Neutral Basic / Classic cards will appear less often.
  • If you own a Golden version of a card, the first copy you draft will be Golden. If you own multiple Golden copies of a card, all copies you draft will be Golden.
• Balance Updates
  • Small-time Buccaneer’s health reduced from 2 to 1.
  • The mana cost of Spirit Claws increased from 1 to 2.
• General
  • Added some memory optimizations.
  • Improved matchmaking for new players.
  • We are testing an update to the account creation process for mobile players. This will minimize the overhead associated with creating a new Battle.net account, and will be available in limited release.
  • Maximum in-game music volume has been capped in order to retain the best audio quality.
  • [Android] We made some optimizations to Android distribution, allowing for a smaller install size and smoother patching in the future.
• Bug Fixes
  • Resolved inconsistencies in the way that Small Time Buccaneer’s Attack interacts with effects such as those generated by Humility, Keeper of Uldaman, and Crazed Alchemist.
  • Resolved an issue where a Kazakus potion spell cards could appear blank when copied by a minion or spell effect.
  • Knuckles will now correctly use its effect when under the effects of Misdirection.
  • Addressed an issue with the interaction of Wrath’s card draw timing in conjunction with Daring Reporter.
  • Snipe will now correctly trigger after Potion of Polymorph.
  • Djinni of Zephyrs will now correctly copy spells buffed by spell damage.
  • Bouncing Blade will now correctly continue bouncing after clearing a Divine Shield.
  • Resolved an issue where seasonal reward cards could take a while to show up in the Collection Manager.
  • Searching the Collection Manager with a class name will now correctly display Tri-Class cards.
  • Resolved issues that could slow or stop payment authentication when using the in-game Shop.
  • Fixed many minor visual issues and some card text inconsistencies.