Hearthpwn

Did You Know Hungry Crab and Pirates were Overpowered in Alpha? 22 Card Changes from Alpha

The crew over at HearthSim and HSReplay.net took a look back into the past and discovered some old designs of our favourite cards that come from the Alpha days of Hearthstone. These were discovered thanks to the game not yet being localized into different languages and the placeholder values for the non-English strings not being updated.

Unfortunately, we can't know for certain about the other parts of cards were different due to things like Mana Cost and Attack Value not being localized, but it sure is an interesting look into the past!

Card Renames

• Healing Stream Totem turned into Healing Totem
• Chaos Energy was the name for Demonfire
• Leokk? Nah, that used to be called Spirit.
• Dual Warblades & Warblade of Azzinoth decided they would rather be the Dual Warglaives & Warglaive of Azzinoth
• Shard of Azzinoth became Flame of Azzinoth

Card Replacements

• Unbound Elemental was previously Grounding Totem.
  • Your other minions can’t be targeted by enemy spells or Hero Powers..
• Naturalize was previously Demoralizing Roar.
  • Enemy minions get -3 Attack this turn..

Card Text Changes

A dollar sign before a number in the client indicates that the number will increase with Spell Damage.

Class Cards

• Arcane Explosion - Deal $1 Damage to all enemies. (Even the hero got hit)
• Flamestrike - Deal $4 damage to all enemies. (Even the hero got hit)
• Swipe - Deal $3 damage to an enemy and $1 damage to all other enemies. (One less damage to the target)
• Ancestral Healing - Restore a minion to full Health. (No Taunt!)
• Charge - Give your minions Charge this turn. (OP)
• Mortal Strike - Deal $4 damage. If your hero has 12 or less Health, deal $8 damage instead. (Up from 6)
• Gorehowl - Attacking a minion doesn’t cost Durability. (No Attack removal)
• Starfall - Choose One - Deal $4 damage to an enemy; or $2 damage to all of them. (It's been buffed to 5)
• Hungry Crab - Battlecry: Destroy all Murlocs and gain +2/+2 for each Murloc eaten.
• Thoughtsteal - Draw 2 cards from your opponent's deck. (No copying here, straight thiefin')
• Prophet Velen - Battlecry: Draw a card for each undamaged character. (Damn healers)
• Spellbender - Secret: When a minion is targeted by an enemy spell, Summon a 1/1 and target it instead.

Neutral

• Deathwing - Destroy all other minions. (No discarding of your hand)
• Bloodsail Corsair - Battlecry: Gain Health equal to the Durability of your weapon.
• Captain Greenskin - Give ALL other Pirates +2/+2.
  • Build 3140 has Greenskin as "Whenever you attack with your hero, draw a card.".
• Captain's Parrot - Whenever you play a Pirate, draw a card. (WHAT)
• Emperor Cobra - Has +Attack equal to the number of Mana Crystals you have. (RIP Poisonous)
• Harrison Jones - Battlecry: Steal an enemy weapon. (That's cool!)
• Lorewalker Cho - If you end your turn without playing a card, draw a card.
• Millhouse Manastorm - Battlecry: Put a ‘Mega-Blast’ card into your hand.
  • MEGA-BLAST!!! - Deal 5 damage to all enemies.
• Southsea Captain - Battlecry: Return a hero’s weapon to his hand. (Weapon recycling.. niceee)
• Southsea Deckhand - Battlecry: Your equipped weapon gets +1 Durability.