21.2 Patch Notes - Balance Changes, Battlegrounds, Mercenaries Pre-Orders
Blizzard just published patch notes for patch 21.2 that feature balance changes, battlegrounds revamp, mercenaries pre-orders, and more. Read all the details below.
Quote from BlizzardToday's 21.2 patch brings pre-purchase for Mercenaries, the massive revamp for Battlegrounds, a new Book of Mercenaries featuring Tamsin, and more!
Mercenaries for Hire!
Hearthstone Mercenaries is the new game mode where you collect iconic Mercenaries, assembling Parties to take down procedurally generated Bounties. It is an entirely new way to play Hearthstone, combining RPG and roguelike elements with some of your favorite Hearthstone characters. Check out our Overview, Gameplay, and Village blogs before pre-purchasing—Mercenaries launches worldwide on October 12!
Standard Balance Updates
Stealer of Souls
- Old: [Costs 4] 2 Attack, 6 Health
- New: [Costs 6] 4 Attack, 6 Health
Dev Comment: While the winrate of decks including Stealer of Souls isn’t particularly high, the games where these decks win are often won in an extreme way. This change, like our philosophy in the first Stormwind balance patch, is aimed at slowing the down the speed of Stealer of Souls and softening those extremes. Note: Stealer of Souls will remain banned in Wild alongside this change.
Flesh Giant
- Old: [Costs 9]
- New: [Costs 10]
Dev Comment: We’re moving Flesh Giant up another mana to further reduce the speed at which comes down in the average game. After monitoring the initial balance to change here, we believe it was a bit too soft and are adjusting Flesh Giant accordingly.
The cards listed above will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 21.2 patch goes live.
Battlegrounds Revamp
Today we’re introducing an entirely new Battlegrounds specific keyword, Avenge, that does something after X friendly minions die. Then, we’re replacing 37 minions with new ones and adding two new Heroes! You can get an idea of how the Avenge keyword works by checking out those new minions below.
Before you do, we’ve made a few fundamental changes we want to make you aware of. We’ve added a damage cap of 15 damage until the first player dies, meaning that no player can take more than 15 damage from combat until the first player in a lobby dies or disconnects. We’ve also increased turn timers so that everyone has time to get familiar with the new content: the length of turns 3-9 have been increased by 5 seconds. Everyone will start fresh with this update as ratings will be reset with the 21.2 patch to make way for a new season. It all happens with the 21.2 patch, dropping tomorrow!
General Updates
- Battlegrounds Specific Keyword added, Avenge: Does something after X friendly minions die.
- The length of turns 3-9 have been increased by 5 seconds. We may further adjust the length of turns sometime in the future.
- Darkmoon Prizes have been disabled.
- All players’ Battlegrounds ratings have been reset for a new season.
- Damage cap of 15 damage has been added until the first player dies. Please note that the damage cap does not check for player deaths until the start of each Recruit Phase, meaning if someone concedes, disconnects, or dies during the Recruit Phase (Is Wrath Weaver ever really on your team?), the damage cap will still be present for that combat.
- Players with Battlegrounds Perks are now more likely to be offered new Heroes during the two-week early access period that follows their initial announcement. In every lobby during the two-week early access period, the option to play with new Heroes will be distributed at random between players with Battlegrounds Perks. No player will be offered more than one new Hero.
New Heroes
Master Nguyen
- Power of the Storm [Passive]
- At the start of every turn, choose from 2 new Hero Powers.
Cariel Roame
- Conviction (Rank 1)
- Give a random friendly minion +1/+1. (Upgrades at Tavern Tier 3.)
- Conviction (Rank 2)
- Give three random friendly minions +1/+1. (Upgrades at Tavern Tier 5.)
- Conviction (Rank 3)
- Give five random friendly minions +1/+1.
Players with Battlegrounds Perks will have early access to the Heroes above before they’re formally released on September 14.
New Minions
BEASTS
LeapfroggerSewer Rat
- [Tier 2, Beast] Deathrattle: Give a friendly Beast +2/+2 and this Deathrattle.
Bird Buddy
- [Tier 2, Beast] Deathrattle: Summon a 2/3 Turtle with Taunt.
Reanimating Rattler
- [Tier 3] Avenge (1): Give your Beasts +1/+1.
Palescale Crocolisk
- [Tier 4, Beast] Battlecry: Give a friendly Beast Reborn.
- [Tier 5, Beast] Avenge (2) and Deathrattle: Give another friendly Beast +6/+6.
DEMONS
Impulsive TricksterIcky Imp
- [Tier 1, Demon] Deathrattle: Give this minion's maximum Health to a friendly minion.
Impatient Doomsayer
- [Tier 1, Demon] Deathrattle: Summon two 1/1 Imps.
Kathra'natir
- [Tier 3] Avenge (3): Add a random Demon to your hand.
Insatiable Ur'zul
- [Tier 4, Demon] Your other Demons have +3 Attack. Your Hero is Immune.
Famished Felbat
- [Tier 5, Demon] Taunt. After you play a Demon, consume a minion in Bob's Tavern to gain its stats.
- [Tier 6, Demon] At the end of your turn, each friendly Demon consumes a minion in Bob's Tavern to gain its stats.
MECHS
PupbotMechano-Tank
- [Tier 1, Mech] Divine Shield
Grease Bot
- [Tier 4, Mech] Avenge (2): Deal 6 damage to the highest Health enemy minion.
Holy Mecherel
- [Tier 4, Mech] After a friendly minion loses Divine Shield, give it +2/+1 permanently.
Omega Buster
- [Tier 5, Mech] After a friendly minion loses Divine Shield, gain Divine Shield.
- [Tier 6, Mech] Deathrattle: Summon six 1/1 Microbots. For each that doesn't fit, give your Mechs +1/+1.
MURLOCS
Saltscale HonchoSwolefin
- [Tier 2, Murloc] After you play a Murloc, give two other friendly Murlocs +1 Health.
SI:Sefin
- [Tier 3, Murloc] Battlecry: Gain +2/+1 for each other friendly Murloc.
Seafood Slinger
- [Tier 5, Murloc] Avenge (3): Give a friendly Murloc Poisonous permanently.
- [Tier 6] Battlecry: Make a Murloc Golden.
DRAGONS
Evolving ChromawingWhelp Smuggler
- [Tier 1, Dragon] After you upgrade your Tavern Tier, double this minion's Attack.
Tarecgosa
- [Tier 2] After a friendly Dragon gains Attack, give it +2 Health.
Prized Promo-Drake
- [Tier 3, Dragon] This permanently keeps enchantments from combat.
Prestor's Pyrospawn
- [Tier 4, Dragon] Start of Combat: Give adjacent minions +1/+1 for each friendly Dragon.
- [Tier 4, Dragon] Whenever another friendly Dragon attacks, deal 3 damage to its target.
PIRATES
Defiant ShipwrightBriny Bootlegger
- [Tier 2] After you upgrade your Tavern Tier, add a random Pirate to Bob's Tavern.
Peggy Brittlebone
- [Tier 3, Pirate] At the end of your turn, if you have another Pirate, add a Gold Coin to your hand.
Tony Two-Tusk
- [Tier 4, Pirate] After a card is added to your hand, give another Pirate +1/+1.
Nosy Looter
- [Tier 5, Pirate] Avenge (5): Make another friendly Pirate Golden permanently.
- [Tier 6, Pirate] Every two turns, add a random Golden minion to your hand.
ELEMENTALS
SmoggerDazzling Lightspawn
- [Tier 3, Elemental] Battlecry: Give a friendly Elemental stats equal to your Tavern Tier.
Recycling Wraith
- [Tier 4, Elemental] Avenge (2): Elementals in Bob's Tavern have +1/+1 for the rest of the game.
Master of Realities
- [Tier 4, Elemental] After you play an Elemental, your next Refresh costs (0).
- [Tier 6] Taunt. After a friendly Elemental gains stats, gain +1/+1.
QUILBOAR
Gemsplitter
- [Tier 3, Quilboar] After a friendly minion loses Divine Shield, gain a Blood Gem.
NEUTRAL
Budding GreenthumbWitchwing Nestmatron
- [Tier 3] Avenge (3): Give adjacent minions +2/+1 permanently.
- [Tier 4] Avenge (3): Add a random Battlecry minion to your hand.
Updated Minion
Arm of the Empire
- Old: 5 Health
- New: 4 Health
Removed Minions
Tavern Tier 1Tavern Tier 2
- Fiendish Servant
- Vulgar Homunculus
- Micro Machine
- Murloc Tidecaller
- Dragonspawn Lieutenant
Tavern Tier 3
- Pack Leader
- Kindly Grandmother
- Steward of Time
- Waxrider Togwaggle
- Southsea Captain
- Tormented Ritualist
Tavern Tier 4
- Arcane Assistant
- Imp Gang Boss
- Infested Wolf
- Iron Sensei
- Hangry Dragon
- Bloodsail Cannoneer
- Warden of Old
- Crystalweaver
- Thorncaller
Tavern Tier 5
- Virmen Sensei
- Hexruin Maurader
- Junkbot
- Toxfin
- Herald of Flame
- Qiraji Harbinger
- Bolvar, Fireblood
- Security Rover
Tavern Tier 6
- Sneed's Old Shredder
- Nat Pagle, Extreme Angler
- Seabreaker Goliath
- Ironhide Direhorn
- Mythrax, the Unraveler
- Mal'Ganis
- Faceless Taverngoer
- The Tide Razor
- Lieutenant Garr
Duels Update
- Meek Mastery has been moved from Passive Treasures Pool 1 to Pool 2.
Dev Comment: In this patch, we are moving Meek Mastery to Passive Treasure Pool 2. We will continue to monitor Duels and make small adjustments as needed while we work on a much larger Duels update, planned for later in this expansion cycle.
Book of Mercenaries Tamsin – Coming September 7
After escaping a vengeful demon hunter in the Barrens, the warlock Tamsin Roame has vengeance on her mind as well. Her bloodthirsty mission will take her to the Alliance's seat of power, the city of Stormwind, Tamsin's home when she was mortal. There she will attempt to unleash the demon Anetheron upon the city. But when Tamsin comes face to face with her own father, will she or anyone in the city survive? Find out when Book of Mercenaries Tamsin launches September 7th. Defeating all 8 bosses in this linear adventure will reward 1 Warlock pack, containing only Warlock cards from Standard!
Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
- The main menu has been updated. A Mercenaries button has been added (locked until mode is live), Battlegrounds can now be accessed from the main menu, and Solo Adventures have been moved under Modes—where Arena and Duels can still be found.
- The first-time user experience has been updated and streamlined. New Players can now play Battlegrounds right away or the original Hearthstone tutorial.
- Fixed a bug where players were able to delete their first deck immediately after the tutorial and were unable to build a new deck because they had not yet unlocked any playable classes.
- Fixed a bug that caused the friends list to load slowly for players who had many friends online and made it difficult to challenge a friend from that list.
- Fixed a bug that caused Deathrattles to be tracked as triggered (by cards such as Counterfeit Blade) in situations where the Deathrattle condition was not met.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Wild Growth and Overgrowth to award Excess Mana if the mana cap was reached through temporary mana (such as Innervate or Lightning Bloom).
- Fixed a bug where the Fireballs cast by Grand Magus Antonidas were not affected by Spell Damage.
- Fixed a bug where if multiple versions of a card name exist in a player’s deck (such as one with a buff and one without) Southsea Scoundrel would count them as distinct for the first half of its battlecry, but not the second half. Now they will count as distinct for the entire Battlecry.
- Fixed a bug where Reckless Apprentice used up the mana cost reduction from Tour Guide.
- Fixed a bug where Transfer Student was not receiving the correct effect on the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire game board.
- Fixed a bug where Purified Shard (the Priest Questline final reward) was revealed to the opponent when drawn.
- Fixed a bug that allowed players to play a deck that included Stealer of Souls in Wild if the deck was a Standard-legal deck.
- Fixed a bug where Wild was not properly unlocking for some players who had met the unlock criteria.
- Fixed a bug that allowed a Battlegrounds player to face Kel’Thuzad if an even number of players remained in the lobby.
- Fixed various display errors in the Achievement Journal.
- Fixed a bug causing opponents’ names to appear smaller than intended on phones.
- Fixed a visual bug with Pandaren Importer’s Golden animation.
- Fixed a bug where the wrong art was displayed for Sphere of Sapience’s “A New Fate” option, Learn the Truth (the second phase of the Rogue Questline), and Repair Bot (summoned by Gelbin Mekkatorque).
im not here for card games. Only BG. HS is the worst card game you can play atm.
so Wild is officially dead for control players for the LONG time. Only Questfiesta (Warlock, Hunter, Warrior - repeat) and aggro is allowed for at least next 3 months. With 1 day they killed all Reno decks (mostly Reno Priest, LPG Mage, Control Warlock), all Old Gods decks, all Mill decks (ok, I only faced Rogue Mill but still), all BIG decks (Big Shaman, Big Priest, fat Druids versions).
Ok, they didnt kill these decks, you can still play them if you are fine with winratio 20%. So all Control players are masochists now. Ok I reached 7 times in the row legend this year, and August Legend with Tax Palladin (1st time Legend with Aggro this year) and then switched to Celestial Druid because this is the only viable Combo deck to beat Combo Quest decks. But it feels extremely boring to play coin flip games: if I ramp up and have Celestial then Me Win, if dont Me Not Win. Coinflip games. And when I try to play some control like Quest Priest or other then I'm being fucked by the Army of Quest Warlocks again and again.
These meta is totally disgusting. The worse ever meta which I played since 2014 October. They killed on purpose long term known archetypes with 1 bullshit Warlock card. Now they wanna to force Wild players to play Mercenaries? Fuck off Blizzard.
I guess Blizzard thought a 70+% win rate is more acceptable than an over 80% win rate with Giants.
Blizzard: HEY we also nerfed Priest, HAPPY NOW?!
I cannot believe the incompetence of the Hearthstone dev team. They have done absolutely nothing to fix the problem with their game - and that is the Warlock quest. You can make flesh giants cost 25 mana. Stealer of Souls doesn't matter because you banned it from Wild. The quest will cause problems over and over because becoming immune to fatigue damage and weaponizing it at the same time breaks the game at a fundamental level and deletes slow decks from the game. This isn't Jade Druid or Ignite Mage where you can halt fatigue.
Wild is also fundamentally broken because of the Warlock quest, these nerfs do nothing to stop this, and the game will never recover until this is remedied.
Wake the hell up Activision.
at least……will be verry easy to hit legend in wild with my…quest warlock :|
What the ... just happened?!
KOLENTO IS ALIVE, WELCOME BACK MY BOI
Blizzard is making it really easy to stop spending any money on this game by keeping it so unbalanced and stale. Thanks, I guess.
Aww, thanks Blizzard for nerfing Stealer of Souls in a way we didn't ask for :D (except for Wild ban)
Just rotate it out. This one card severely enables a broken combo. It was obviously more broken in Wild, and thanks for banning it their, but it needs to be banned in standard as well. Warlocks questline, with Stealer of Souls, is a literal match made in heaven. It also has nothing to do with the opponent. As the warlock, you do not give 2 shits if it dies, you can just get it back, with ease. As the warlock, you'd prefer if the opponent sac'd there minions into it, as it stalls out turns... but again, Warlocks do not care about the board state. Warlock has a wide array of cheeaaap control options, draw options, while also completing the questline with each card played.
Like, to re-iterate on each patch note I have posted on. I refuse to play a meta where the Warlock is just playing with itself. I do not care to play against someone, where I can do nothing to stop them (except in the case of specifically targeting that deck, but that is dumb as fuck). I will continue to Concede against every Warlock player that plays Demon Seed. It is not a fun card to play against. You can not do a damn thing against it. It's not fun.
At least I can use Flesh Giant in my even handlock again... Too bad that quest is once again untouched,,,
Yes giant nerf who nobody wanted, because it just doesn't matter.
Can i be developer for 1 fking day to nerf warlock quest coz apparently our devs are doing nothing. They keep doing same increase mana increase stats, fking hello ban the fking warlock quest for wild so we can play the fking game jessus fking christ sorry for swearing but i have to. This is so anoying. I want to play control decks in wild!
if they cared about Wild at all, they would've done something about Crystallizer
The quest is the problem, not Crystallizer.
But quest cannot be touched directly, because this card was designed primarily for standard where it's not an issue. The only solution is to either change some wild-only cards like Crystallizer, either ban quest in wild.
I agree with you; but since the questlines were the theme of the expansion they will be very reluctant to nerf them. So targeting individual cards is the next best thing and Crystallizer is one of the worst offenders. Although I concur with many streamers that at the very least the questline should be indirectly nerfed so that fatigue damage isn't redirected.
The quest can absolutely be touched directly.
I'd be fine if it was destroyed into unplayability at this point. It's damaged the game enough.
No, it's not fine. Warlock's quest is not an issue in standard, because at this point, after nerfs to Darkglare and Stealer of Souls, it can't even serve as a reliable win condition. While it's still good against slower decks (which are basically non-existent in this meta), it's simply too slow against everything else. So in this respect, it's a bit like Tickatus, powerful on paper, not very useful in reality. If you slow it down even further, standard Warlock will be done.
Warlock's quest is an issue in every game mode, which is why they just nerfed Stealer of Souls (again) which only does anything in Standard when used with the Warlock quest.
Your crusade against nerfing the quest seems baffling. It's undeniably destroying the game.