21.3 Patch Notes - Constructed & Battlegrounds Balance Changes, Warlock Quest Banned In Wild & More!
Blizzard just released patch notes for the upcoming patch that will be released tomorrow. Check out what's new.
Quote from BlizzardThe 21.3 patch, releasing tomorrow, includes several updates across Standard, Wild, Battlegrounds, Duels, and Arena.
Standard and Wild Updates
The following cards have been adjusted down in power level.
Irebound Brute
- Old: [Costs 7] →New: [Costs 8]
Dev Comment: Irebound Brute was playable a bit earlier than intended on average. Pushing it back a turn should soften extreme turns.
Mindrender Illucia
- Old: Battlecry: Swap hands and decks with your opponent until your next turn. →New: Battlecry: Replace your hand with a copy of your opponent’s until end of turn.
Dev Comment: With the refinement of Shadow Priest in recent weeks, Mindrender Illucia has been overperforming in the archetype, in an unintended way. Instead of being used as a late game disruption tool, Shadow Priests have been using Illucia as an early game play to essentially skip the opponent’s turn. This change is aimed at removing that problematic gameplay from Illucia, while still keeping her in a similar space with her effect.
Perpetual Flame
- Old: [Costs 1] →New: [Costs 2]
Dev Comment: Perpetual Flame is a very efficient removal tool for Questline Shaman. Going up one mana here will give board-based decks a better shot against Shaman in the early- and mid-game.
Command the Elements
- Tame the Flames (the third portion of the Questline)
- Old: Play 2 cards with Overload. Reward: Stormcaller Bru’kan. →New: Play 3 cards with Overload. Reward: Stormcaller Bru’kan.
Dev Comment: Slowing down the speed at which Questline Shamans can get their final reward should open up more room for counterplay, particularly from slower strategies.
The Demon Seed
- The Demon Seed (part 1 of the Questline)
- Old: Take 6 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero. →New: Take 8 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero.
- Establish the Link (part 2 of the Questline)
- Old: Take 7 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero. →New: Take 8 damage on your turns. Reward: Lifesteal. Deal 3 damage to the enemy hero.
- Additionally, The Demon Seed is now banned in Wild.
Dev Comment: After monitoring both Standard and Wild since the release of Stormwind, we’ve decided to both increase the damage required on the first two steps for Standard and ban the Questline in Wild. In Standard, we are slightly upping the amount of damage needed to complete the Questline to slow down the speed at which Tamsin locks up games. In Wild, where there are many more efficient self-damaging cards, The Demon Seed can be completed at an unintentionally fast rate. We are banning the card to protect the format from the problematic gameplay it created. When The Demon Seed rotates to Wild, we will unban it and reposition the card to be more appropriate for the format.
Runed Mithril Rod
- Old: [Costs 3] →New: [Costs 4]
Dev Comment: Runed Mithril Rod is overperforming relative to mana-generation sources in other classes, mainly due to Warlock’s card draw potential. Going up one mana will bring Runed Mithril Rod’s power level more in line with what other classes have access to.
The cards listed above will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 21.3 patch goes live.
The following cards have been adjusted up in power level.
Dev Comments: We’re looking at opening up a few more strategies for some of the less-diverse classes and underrepresented archetypes in the Standard metagame. These buffs are aimed at some of the weaker archetypes to make them more appealing options to play with. Some of these changes are on the lighter side, in anticipation of the mini-set coming in the next major patch after the patch launching Mercenaries.
Leatherworking KitSelective Breeder
- Old: [Costs 2] →New: [Costs 1]
Wildfire
- Old: 1 Attack, 1 Health →New: 1 Attack, 3 Health
Mordresh Fire Eye
- Old: [Costs 2] →New: [Costs 1]
Stormwind Freebooter
- Old: [Costs 10] 10 Attack, 10 Health →New: [Costs 8] 8 Attack, 8 Health
Stonemaul Anchorman
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health →New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Bloodsail Deckhand
- Old: 4 Attack, 5 Health →New: 4 Attack, 6 Health
- Old: 2 Attack, 1 Health →New: 2 Attack, 2 Health
Battlegrounds Updates
GENERAL UPDATE
- Turn lengths have been reverted to their pre-21.2 times (turns 3-9 have been reduced by 5 seconds after they were temporarily increased by 5 seconds in Patch 21.2).
HERO UPDATES
ShudderwockGalewing
- Snicker-snack
- Old: [Costs 0] → New: [Costs 2]
Master Nguyen
- Dungar’s Gryphon (Eastern Plaguelands Option)
- Old: In 5 turns, upgrade your Tavern Tier. →New: In 5 turns, your next Tavern Tier upgrade costs (5) less.
- Power of the Storm [Passive]
- Adjusted the odds of hero power offerings (no text changes).
MINION UPDATES
Impatient Doomsayer
- Defiant Shipwright has been removed from the minion pool.
- Southsea Captain has been returned to the minion pool.
Kathra’natir
- Old: [Tavern Tier 3] Avenge (3): Add a random Demon to your hand. →New: [Tavern Tier 4] Avenge (4): Add a random Demon to your hand.
Leapfrogger
- Old: [Tavern Tier 4] 7 Attack, 5 Health. Your other Demons have +3 Attack. Your Hero is Immune. →New: [Tavern Tier 3] 5 Attack, 4 Health. Your other Demons have +2 Attack. Your Hero is Immune.
Monstrous Macaw
- Old: Deathrattle: Give a friendly Beast +2/+2 and this Deathrattle. →New: Give a friendly Beast +1/+1 and this Deathrattle.
Reanimating Rattler
- Old: After this attacks, trigger a random friendly minion’s Deathrattle. →New: After this attacks, trigger another friendly minion’s Deathrattle.
Whelp Smuggler
- Old: [Tavern Tier 4] 6 Attack, 2 Health. →New: [Tavern Tier 5] 7 Attack, 3 Health.
Impulsive Trickster
- Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health. After a friendly Dragon gains Attack, give it +2 Health. →New: 2 Attack, 5 Health. After a friendly Dragon gains Attack, give it +1 Health.
Master of Realities
- Old: Deathrattle: Give this minion’s maximum Health to a friendly minion. →New: Deathrattle: Give this minion’s maximum Health to another friendly minion.
Peggy Brittlebone
- Old: [Tavern Tier 6]. →New: [Tavern Tier 5].
- Old: 5 Attack, 3 Health. After a card is added to your hand, give another random Pirate +1/+1 →New: 6 Attack, 5 Health. After a card is added to your hand, give another friendly Pirate +1/+1.
Dev Comment: The text change portion of this change is just to clarify the card’s current, intended functionality. It does not represent any functional change.
GoldgrubberSalty Looter
- Old: 2 Attack, 2 Health. →New: 4 Attack, 4 Health.
Prophet of the Boar
- Old: 4 Attack, 4 Health. →New: 4 Attack, 5 Health.
Roadboar
- Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health. →New: 3 Attack, 3 Health.
Bristleback Brute
- Old: 1 Attack, 4 Health. →New: 2 Attack, 4 Health.
Dynamic Duo
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health. →New: 4 Attack, 4 Health.
Charlga
- Old: 3 Attack, 4 Health. →New: 4 Attack, 5 Health.
- Old: At the end of your turn, play a Blood Gem on all other friendly minions. →New: At the end of your turn, play a Blood Gem on all friendly minions.
Duels Updates
- Party Replacements, Rally the Troops, and Oops, All Spells! have all been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 2 to Pool 2 Ultra Rare.
- All Together Now has been moved from Passive Treasure Pool 1 to Pool 2.
- Voidtouched Attendant is now banned from deck creation.
Arena Updates
Ramming Mount will no longer be draftable in Arena. Additionally, we discovered a bug with some card offering rates. We’ve addressed that bug and will be re-adjusting the offering rates to match the intended rates, which should help move all classes closer to the 50% class winrate.
Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
- Fixed a bug causing crashes when the friends list was opened.
- Fixed a bug where friends could sometimes not be challenged.
- Fixed a bug where Maestra of the Masquerade would sometimes have you start the game as a Rogue (not her best disguise).
- Fixed a bug that prevented Grand Magus Antonidas from hitting Stealth targets and resulted in Antonidas potentially hitting the caster’s own face if the enemy hero was in Stealth.
- Fixed a bug where Tradeable cards would keep enchantments if shuffled into your deck by something other than Tradeable.
- Fixed bugs where cards like Razormane Battleguard would not properly reduce the cost of cards after Celestial Alignment was played.
- Fixed a bug where Barrens Scavenger’s cost could be reduced below 1 while you had 10 or fewer cards in your deck.
- Fixed a bug where Highlord Fordragon would trigger on minions that were not in play.
- Fixed bugs where cards like Master of Realities and Whelp Smuggler would have an incorrect number of triggers.
- Fixed a bug where swapping a Tavern Tier 6 minion (such as with Arcane Alteration, Malygos’s Hero Power) would sometimes cause it to disappear.
- Fixed a visual bug that caused enemy Tavern Tiers to show as reset to Tavern Tier 1.
WOW I bet demon hunter players don't like my comment. LOL But why lot of them banned Demon Hunter deck (choice one class of 4 decks) for Grand Master. It could be glide or Brute or combo?!
I think it's more due to the fact that glide was a dumpster card until quests broke the game and handlock became one of the best standard decks.
i dont believe they nerfed priest again and thye killed the only fun card priest had, not just that, they killed control even more
They kind of had to do this though. It was being used as a Time Walk against opponents and giving them ZERO counter play into a board that NEEDS to be answered or you lose.
And you can mix it with Daring Fire-Eater to get fireballs.
Just so we all understand this. The developers haven't got a single clue as to why the Warlock quest is complete BS. The quest and Ignite both effectively remove any chance of control decks from being played in standard until these two terribly designed cards rotate. The corporate suits have spoken and anything that makes games last longer than turn 6 or 7 is not acceptable in Hearthstone any longer.
If so, why there were no control decks in Barrens standard meta, except for Control Priest? Warlock was unplayable (so there were no Tickatus) and quests were not in the game yet. Can you explain that?
Disappointing. They definitively don't know why people used to play hearthstone. I guess I will not play standard until the next mini set...
Thank god The Demon Seed got banned. That card never should’ve been printed. It breaks the core rules of the game completely negating fatigue damage
That's not true. If you draw cards during your opponents turn, you still take fatigue damage.
RIP Illucia. Whose stupid mind got the idea that getting full hand of random useless cards is the same effect as denial key card from opponent?
Illucia was ok at 2 Mana IMO. Never understood the first nerf in first place, now they decided to nerf a dead card even further lmao.
Shadow priest was the best performing deck and Illucia was a key card in it. No need to laugh
In comment they said they return Illucia to old effect. But getting bunch of useless cards have nothing same with denial key card from opponent. Only reason to play Illucia in control is to steal opp best card. Now it just get copies which you don't need in 99.9% cases.
They should have made her a 2 cost card so that she would be like Evocation. 2 mana for a temporary hand is a decent value option
Exactly my concern with everything I just read in today's news: I hit legend in Wild last month with the pirate warrior quest build, and that was WITH warlock and hunter at their full strengths. I don't know if this will allow control decks to step back to the line to combat a pirate warrior meta.
maybe with the ban of warlock quest we see a rise of control/reno deck who will deal with pirates and hunter quest.both of this deck are so good in current meta because of quest warlock influence.
I killed reno mage on 7th round after he plays Reno with quest hunter. I don't think reno decks are good against quest pirates and quest hunters.
Was expecting some minor buffs to quest rogue but nah. all buffs went to warrior (another sad class this expansion). Well, still losing badly to everything probably.
Quest Rogue is fine already, and will be even better once the best decks are taken down a peg.