Hearthstone Arena Updates For December 19, 2018 - Rastakhan Bonus, MCT Removed, Some Old Cards Return
A big update came out today for Hearthstone's Arena featuring removal of Mind Control Tech, some old cards returning, and the bonus which makes Rastakhan cards show up more often.
Quote from BlizzardIn this Arena update we’re adjusting the appearance rate of a number of cards, restoring older cards to the Arena, removing a Mind Control Tech from drafts, and adjusting Arena buckets.
Read on for details!
Appearance Rates
Cards from Rastakhan’s Rumble now have a +50% appearance rate in drafts – The bonus appearance rate for the most recent set has returned to freshen up Arena with newer cards.
Draft
A number of cards were removed from Arena for balance reasons in the past. Our new systems provide tools to tweak balance in other ways, and we would prefer to make Arena as true as possible to the cards available in Hearthstone.
The following cards are once again available in Arena picks:
Druid
- Savagery
- Soul of the Forest
- Mark of Nature
Hunter
- Starving Buzzard
- Timber Wolf
- Snipe
Priest
- Mind Blast
- Lightwell
- Inner Fire
Shaman
- Dust Devil
- Totemic Might
- Ancestral Healing
- Windspeaker
Warlock
- Sacrificial Pact
- Sense Demons
- Succubus
Warrior
- Warsong Commander
- Charge
- Rampage
The following card will no longer appear in Arena picks:
Neutral
- Mind Control Tech – Minion based combat plays a major role in the Arena, and Mind Control Tech is a (3) mana card that can unreasonably punish playing multiple minions. While we love that there are cards that help players come back from unfavorable positions, we recognize that the high variance gameplay of Mind Control Tech could create a negative Arena experience. As a result, Mind Control Tech is no longer able to be drafted.
The following cards will remain unavailable in Arena drafts:
- Hero Cards
- Quests
- Whizbang the Wonderful
- Vicious Fledgling
- Ancient Watcher
- Humongous Razorleaf
- Odd/Even Cards
Bucket Adjustments
This is a snapshot of the current Arena buckets. Keep in mind that card promotion or demotion is almost entirely based on whether a card has a very high or very low pick rate. Adjusting buckets helps change the average composition of Arena decks so they feel more varied.
You can download a snapshot of the Arena buckets for this time period on the forums.
i wonder why it took so long for the warsong commander to return.
MCT is weird in that new players and good players don't play around it. But different reasons. You aren't supposed to play around it in arena because the odds are too low that your opponent has drafted it and is currently holding it. You are supposed to play around it in constructed because you know which decks run it and they are usually running more than one copy. MCT amounts to RNG in arena if your opponent happens to have it.
Which is ridiculous and the wrong direction for the game. You should ALWAYS have to worry about being a mongo and flooding the board.
Removing MC Tech actually did a great change in arena...You can finally have a big board without any worries!
Cmon man... Ban warpath already.
Don't get the hate for Mind Control Tech – it's an awesome card.
Only a Druid player would say this.
It's an awesome card in a format where you aren't at high risk for losing all of your tempo for 3 mana with potential difficulty at retaking it.
«In a format where you aren't at high risk for losing all of your tempo» it'd be a trash tier.
Am I the only one using it? Doesn't it drop for anybody else? Well, not anymore, of course xD
people here have the mind set of a baby, hope you understand why they giving you negatives, i gave you a postion. a shit storm will hit me soon
I don't like they removed MCT. Sure, its variance was pretty high, but it also was a card that raised the skill cap by a decent margin, since decisions like "do I play MCT as a vanilla 3/3 just for tempo or do I wait and hope and can steal something" or "do I play a fourth minion to push for lethal, but risking to get MCT'd?" often are among the hardest decisions you have to make, and imo hearthstone desperately needs cards that bring in such decisions, as this is what makes the game fun and interesting. Also, thinking stuff like "my opponent didn't seem to have MCT two turns ago as he definitely would have played it if he had, so unless he topdecked one I can safely play my 4th minion" is what separates an excellent arena player from a good one. And MCT was a card that brought in many of those aspects quite often. Sad to see him go.
While i get where are you coming from, losing a game just cause you decide to not push for board and givin your opponent a breather or if you do push for board and MCT steals that one minion that was the absolute worst outcome for you ... this is just stupid. Im glad its gone, such a high variance card was not healthy for arena at all.
The skill that comes from deciding between a vanilla move or a possible later benefit is seen in so many other battlecries, spells, that's is something that roots to the basics of the game. They should get rid of this card in standard mode as well or even better...nerf it to the ground.
The same skill cap you're referencing with MCT still applies to board clears. "My opponent didn't seem to have Flamestrike or Supercollider, guess I'll try and build a big board." You don't need a coin flip rng card to make players predict or reflect on making certain plays.
Really surprised they didn't give MCT (as well as Hero cards) a hard ban from Arena; i.e. can't be drafted or generated.
Since when can't heroes be generated?
I never suggested that, just figured such cards would be somewhat likely to go with if such a thing were to happen (outside Quests, which do it to themselves anyway).
Holly moly, blizzard is actually doing stuff lately...
Wait a minute..who f*cked the timeline again??
Wait, Vicious Fledgling got remove? I'm pretty sure I saw it in a couple draft...
You can still get it via random effects, but im sure you didnt see it in a draft, you couldnt see it even if ppl tried to save old decks, since there were quite a few arena resets since then. So you are probably remembering it wrong, thats all :)