22.6.1.1.1.1 Patch Notes
Blizzard released some patchnotes today, with some unusual changes being announced...
Quote from BlizzardThis update, going live alongside the launch of Voyage to the Sunken City, includes numerous balance and system changes across Standard, Wild, Battlegrounds, and more!
General Updates
- The Priest class has been removed.
- The following cards have been banned from ALL formats: Forbidden Ancient, Forbidden Flame, Forbidden Healing, Forbidden Shaping, Forbidden Words, Forbidden Ritual.
- If you manage to have in hand the Skull of Gul'dan, two Hands of Gul'dan, and two of the rarely seen Legs of Gul'dan, the enemy hero will now be immediately destroyed.
- All players have been granted one (1) gold.
- The main Collectible Card Sets (3 per year) are being discontinued.
- Dev Comment: Alongside this new expansion cadence, we'll be introducing "Mega-Sets"! These card sets are comprised of 135 cards that will be released in-between Mini-Sets.
- New Keyword: Taunt Taunt
- Dev Comment: Minions with Taunt Taunt protect Taunt minions. You must destroy all Taunt Taunt minions before you can attack Taunt minions.
- The number of deck slots has been reduced to 9
- Dev Comment: We've found that players have been too confused by the deck slots increase.
Balance Updates
Animal Companion
- Old: Summon an Animal Companion → New: Summon Leokk.
- Dev Comment: Rexxar has finally decided on his new favorite pet, so we're updating Animal Companion to reflect that.
Core Rager
- Old: 4 Attack, 4 Health → New: 5 Attack, 1 Health.
Toxic Reinforcements
- Old: Sidequest: Use your Hero Power three times. → New: Sidequest: Use the "Oops" emote three turns in a row.
Blightborn Tamsin
- Old: Battlecry: For the rest of the game, damage you take on your turn damages your opponent instead. → New: Your Charge minions have +1 Attack.
Tickatus
- Old: Battlecry: Remove the top 5 cards from your deck. Corrupt: Your opponent's deck instead. → New: Battlecry: Remove the top 10 cards from your deck. Corrupt: Your opponent's deck instead.
- Dev Comment: We've seen a lot of complaints about Tickatus, and we agree. A 6 mana 8/8 is way too overpowered, so we are increasing the drawback to compensate.
Kayn Sunfury
- Old: Charge. All friendly attacks ignore Taunt. → New: Charge. Your opponent has Tauntn't.
Shudderwock
- Shudderwock will now update its text dynamically in-game based on which Battlecries you've played this game.
Boulderfist Ogre
- Old: [Cost 6] 6 Attack, 7 Health. → New: [Cost 4] 7 Attack, 7 Health, renamed to Flamewreathed Faceless, reads “Ogreload: (2)”
- Dev Comment: Boulderfist Ogre has been a key player in several decks for its entire existence in Hearthstone. We didn't want to remove the card completely, so we felt a redesign was necessary. Moving the card to Shaman limits which classes have access to it, but it was still too powerful, so we gave it the downside of "Ogreload: (2)" to add more decision making when including it in a deck. Adjusting its stats and cost helped push it into a more balanced space, but the name no longer made sense, leading to the new name you see now.
The Juggernaut
- Old: Start of Your Turn: Summon a Pirate, equip a Warrior weapon, and fire two cannons that deal 2 damage! → New: Start of Your Turn: Summon Mr. Smite, equip Gorehowl, and deal 4 damage to the enemy hero!
Dinosize
- Old: Set a minion's Attack and Health to 10. → New: Set a minion’s stats to 7/14.
BEEEES!!!
- Old: Choose a minion. Summon four 1/1 Bees that attack it. → New: CHOOSE A MINION!!! SUMMON FOUR 1/1 BEEEES THAT ATTACK IT!!!
Shimmering Courser
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health → New: 2 Attack, 2 Health.
- Dev Comment: Unicorn Priest has been much stronger than anticipated. While this change seems to be out of the blue since no one has found the deck yet, we feel it's better to make this change sooner rather than later.
Genn Greymane, Baku the Mooneater
- Old: [Cost 9], [Cost 6] → New: [Cost 8], [Cost 5]
- Dev Comment: Baku and Genn should always be a mainstay of competitive Wild, but we've recently seen them fall off in favor of stronger strategies. Buffing both of them should bring these strategies back to relevance and really open up the format.
Worgen Greaser
- Old: 6 Attack, 3 Health → New: 6 Attack, 4 Health.
Echoing Ooze
- Renamed to Repeatable This Turn-ing Ooze.
Battleground Battlemaster
- Old: [Cost 6] Adjacent minions have Windfury. → New: [Cost 5] Battlecry: Enemy spells cost (5) more next turn.
The Darkness
- Old: 20 Attack, 20 Health → New: 20 Attack, 22 Health.
- Dev Comment: The Darkness has fallen behind other strategies in the current year of Hearthstone, and we feel that it's only fair to keep it up to date.
All affected cards above will be valid for a Special Dust Refund rate of 0%.
Battlegrounds Updates
- Explosive Trap has been added to The Great Akazamzarak's Secret Pool.
- Fixed a bug in Battlegrounds where Jandice Barov was sometimes offered in lobbies without tokens.
- Fixed a bug in Battlegrounds where Pyramad was sometimes offered.
- During her first 2 turns, A. F. Kay can no longer Freeze, emote, send messages to friends, change settings, concede, or quit.
- Diablo has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
- Dev Comment: Diablo returns as permanent addition to Battlegrounds! He was a bit overtuned last time, so we're toning him down a bit in the special combat. (600 Health, down from 666)
- All Murlocs now have Charge.
- Dev Comment: People have been asking why Old Murk-Eye has charge, so we're updating all other Murlocs for consistency.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- Fixed a bug where casting Windchill on a Chillwind Yeti would crash the game.
- Fixed a bug where Tyrantus couldn't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers.
- Fixed a bug where certain accounts would always queue into unfavorable matchups.
- Fixed a bug where Luna's Pocket Galaxy could also put lint and loose change into your deck.
- Fixed a bug where Golden cards didn't have +1 Attack.
- Fixed a bug by restoring a damaged Venomous Scorpid to full health.
- Fixed a bug where Crackle would deal less than lethal damage.
- Fixed a bug where Priests would sometimes not generate multiple copies of Soul Mirror. They will now always generate at least 1 extra copy.
- The Priest class has been re-added.
Voyage to the Sunken City Card List & Expansion Guide
Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated Card List.
Maybe I am mistaken but isn`t the purpose of an april fools' day joke to be at least (maybe) somewhat believable. Everybody and their blind eye can recognize from around the corner that those balance changes have as much veracity as Putins interest in the so-called "peacetalks".
Blizzard you missed a big oppertunity for some mindblowing april fools' day jokes. Let me name a couple examples to help you prepare for next year:
1. From this day forward we will actually listen to the community.
2. We willl actually playtest the next expansion sufficiently to be close to balanced and doesn't need a hotfix right away.
3. WOW no longer requires a subscription fee.
And finally the best one by far: Blizzard treats their employees equally regardless of race, religon, sex or gender!
Aahahah yes.
Stop being so serious and pessimistic on a light hearted April Fools joke. Away with you. You are not wanted here.
Ok, looking at the new priest core set the statement „The priest class as been removed“ actually became funny and almost makes me wish it were true. In the end you really did fool me Blizzard. Well played!
"All players have been granted one (1) gold."
Monsters, the lot of them.
Saddest part is the April fools joke of a card namely Kazakusan is still live, being broken as hell. Card should be banned from both formats.
This is actually legitimately funny
Lots of good in jokes in this one :p
Honestly "Orgeload" sounds like a good name for a card. Maybe once tribal reaches it's peak and orge tribe becomes a thing.
I thought that was how The Juggernaut worked anyway.
i figured you guys would of done an April Fools joke today :(
Knew the moment I saw priest class removed it was an April fools gag but read it all anyway some of the changes actually sounded pretty fun and reasonable to me.
I don't get what they changed with Animal Companion... I mean that's what it *always* did, isn't it?
/at least for me...
So, shit rank rewards and Cenarius elo is some sort of april fool jokes too?
Cool jokes.
No jokes about mercenaries excess of coins?
I don't know something like, we are using your money in order to pay the lawyers for the harassment because we are poor.
Or don't worry about the new expansion. This time it is tested. We will not sell and then nerf everything in the first two weeks after release.
It would be rude but more credible then a "taunt taunt".
April Fools? Yup
Monk Class? no OK - Priest re-added sigh
Whoever did this really loves this game. These are some niche references.
I believe I caught all the references except for the worgen greaser one, can someone enlighten me?