Hall of Fame - Duplicate Protection - Returning Player and Priest Changes Today
Today, Thursday March 26th, is the day for many of the announced changes from our coverage from mid-March. A short summary of what is coming at some point today:
- Several cards will go to the Hall of Fame, including 6 Priest cards.
- All the Priest changes will go live, including the introduction of the new Basic and Classic cards.
- Duplicate Protection goes live some time today, meaning even old packs will no longer give duplicate cards until you have all cards of that rarity. Be sure to wait until it is officially live before opening packs!
- New and Returning players will get new (re-)introduction missions to the game.
- New and Returning players will get a FREE DECK starting today, as well as some card packs. To see which decks you can choose from see our post from Tuesday!
- Illidan Stormrage will enter the Battlegrounds as a new Hero!
Nerf Revisions
Last week Blizzard reverted some nerfed Wild cards back to their former glory. Today's patch will have a second round of revisions included. The following are the effected cards returning to their original form.
- Dr. Boom, Mad Genius - New: Cost 7 mana.
- Giggling Inventor - New: Cost 6 mana.
- Raiding Party - New: Cost 3 mana.
- Reckless Experimenter - New: Deathrattle minions you play cost (3) less, but die at end of turn.
Hall of Fame
Every year Blizzard sends some cards to the Hall of Fame, due to those cards limiting design space, breaking Class Design goals or just generally being used so much that it's time to make room so other cards can fill that design niche to change things up in the meta.
These are those Hall of Fame cards from the Neutral cards:
Priest changes
And these are the Hall of Fame cards from the Priest cards, again, mostly moved to the Hall of Fame because of conflicts of Class Design or not leaving enough design space for new cards:
Priest gets 6 NEW cards to replace the Hall of Fame line up and 7 more cards get mana or mechanics changes to better suit the Priest class to it's intended Class Design.
The 2 Basic set cards will automatically be added to your collection, but the other 4 are Classic set cards and will need to be opened from Classic packs or crafted. With the new Duplicate Protection system getting those cards from packs won't be too hard however.
These are the 6 replacement cards:
For a full breakdown of all the Hall of Fame and Priest class changes we will direct you to our post from mid-March with all the details. You can also find them by clicking the banner below!
Duplicate Protection
Starting at some point today, Thursday the 26th of March, you will get the introduction of increased coverage of the Duplicate Protection system that we already have for Legendaries. It will now cover ALL cards -- legendary, epic, rare and common. You can not get any duplicates anymore until you have every card of that rarity in the full set.
Not only will this new measure cover all card rarities, it also covers all expansions, new and old. Including card packs you already own.
There's a caveat here: once you receive a card, you'll have it marked for "collected" purposes. So if you disenchant a card you've received, it's still considered "owned." So you can't exploit the refund system that way. There's a great benefit to this though: If you don't like a particular card or class, you can disenchant them and not have to worry about getting them in future packs. This "collected" tag lasts forever once you have collected it.
New and Returning Players
If you return to play Hearthstone again starting at some point today, Thursday March 26th, you will be greeted by a brand new re-introduction campaign. This will not only bring you back up to speed with the game, but also reward you with your own competitive deck of the class of your choice, as well as some card packs.
When you log in after returning, you will first play through 3 quick catch up missions as Illidan...back in the time when he was a Mage! After this you will receive your rewards and can go out and play the game freely.
The new catch up missions also perfectly line up with the new Demon Hunter prologue that goes live April 2nd, where you continue the story of Illidan, this time as a Demon Hunter!
There are some limitations to this new provision though. The free deck is only available to players who have not logged into Hearthstone in the past 4 months beginning on March 17, 2020. Limit one per account.
If you want to know which decks you will be able to choose from, look no further than our post from Tuesday where we have all 9 decks listed.
For more indepth information about the Year of the Phoenix and upcoming changes we will direct you to our post from mid-March with all the details. You can also find them by clicking the banner below!
Illidan enters the Battlegrounds!
- Hero Power: Wingmen
- [Passive] Start of Combat: Your left and right-most minions attack immediately.
Get bent Leeroy.
With albatroses in the game it is less an issue
Not gonna lie, nothing was wrong with Leeroy. A finisher card which did what it should- finish games. But it's time to say goodbye. At least he has chicken.
I'm hyped for the priest rework. I am a priest main who hasn't properly touched this class for 2 months because of RESS priest. I do hope we can figure a fun yet fair deck out this time.
We still didn’t get any win condition even after all the bullshit talk about muh “design philosophy” ffs. To have priest play 1 hour games and “outvalue“ the opponent is completely retarded and just extremely boring for everyone.
Added a note about Illidan Stormrage being replaced by Xavius today as well. :)
can you please change the wording a little bit on the "no duplicate" rules?
seems it's a bit confusing for some people because for commons, rares and epic it means you can't get a third copy until you own all the cards in a set, so it's more of a no triplicate rule
Done. I copied the exact wording Blizz used, that you posted further up. :)
God, I'm so excited
No more Mountain Giant Conjurer's Calling combo
No more "If he has Leeroy, I lose."
No more combo priest!
they should rework shaman next, he has a lot of unplayable crap
Amen. Next expansion Shaman will be even less played than it was in this one after the Gala nerfs... RIP
Shamen is fine. Paladin should be the next Hero.
So mecha'thun priest is back? -_-
So, is wild going to be priest with Reckless Experimenter and SN1P-SN4P? I thought they nerfed Reckless Experimenter, only because SN1P-SN4P got introduced. But I don't see why this OTK is introduced into wild?
Is this really going to be an OTK or am I missing something?
Echo cards cost can not be reduced below 1 anymore,therefore the combo will not work.
https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/7130-patch-16-0-removal-of-doom-in-the-tomb-cards-bg
Notable changes were made to the way the Echo keyword works on minions like SN1P-SN4P, making them cost no less than (1), with Dust refunds as a result.
They changed the Echo mechanic to where the Echo copy cannot be reduced to below 1 mana so no OTK possibilities thus why the change to Reckless Experimenter is reverted
What about "Repeatable this turn" does Unstable Evolution can still be casted for infinitely with apprentice?
Echo got nerfed a few weeks ago, so it can't be reduced down to 0, so if you play Reckless Experimenter and then SN1P-SN4P the SN1P-SN4P copies will cost 1
Yes, since "Repeatable this turn" is not echo.