25.0.4 Patch Notes - Many Balance Changes - Arena and BG Changes Too & More
These are the patchnotes for a HUGE balance patch touching Constructed, Arena and Battlegrounds. Read about them below!
Patch is LIVE!
Quote from BlizzardPatch 25.0.4 is a data-only patch, launching today, that includes balance changes to Standard, Wild, Battlegrounds, and Arena, as well as bug fixes and more!
Hearthstone Changes
Dev Comment: Balance changes at this point in an expansion are made with early, somewhat limited data. For these changes, we like to address the most egregious power outliers and play patterns that we know we don’t like—cards that we’re likely to adjust down the line anyway as the meta evolves over time. We hope and expect to make some spicier changes in our next balance pass, once we have more data.
The following cards are being adjusted to be less powerful:
Unleash Fel
- Old: Manathirst (4)
- New: Manathirst (6)
Relic of Dimensions
- Old: [Costs 5]
- New: [Costs 6]
Dev Comment: The Manathirst on Unleash Fel felt like a non-factor that was almost always on anyway when you wanted to play the card. This change makes the card more interesting and helps reel in a Demon Hunter power outlier. Relics are prevalent and powerful—we like them and didn’t want to fully revert their power level, so we’re just touching the strongest Relic to make it a little less explosive.
Anub’Rekhan
- Old: Battlecry: Gain 8 Armor. This turn, your minions cost Armor instead of Mana.
- New: Battlecry: Gain 8 Armor. This turn, your next 3 minions cost Armor instead of Mana.
Dev Comment: This Brann-Anub’Rekhan combo is not a big winrate outlier, but it represents a play pattern we don’t like. We wanted to reduce lethality and remove the ability for the combo to let players dump their entire hand, while still allowing ramp strategies.
Boon of the Ascended
- Old: [Costs 4]
- New [Costs 5]
Priestess Valishj
- Old: [Costs 0]
- New: [Costs 1]
Dev Comment: Boon Priest is not common or overly powerful at most levels of play, but it is the best performing deck at high legend and it wins through frustrating play patterns. We wanted to give it a couple small adjustments to make it more in line with the rest of the meta, especially after the other adjustments in this patch.
Necrolord Draka
- Old: [Costs 4]
- New: [Costs 5]
Sinstone Graveyard
- Old: [Costs 2]
- New: [Costs 3]
Sketchy Information
- Old: [Costs 3]
- New: [Costs 4]
Forsaken Lieutenant
- Old: [Costs 2]
- New: [Costs 3]
Dev Comment: There are two Rogue decks that we want to adjust this patch. Deathrattle Rogue is a deck that can do some cool, fun things, but it’s too fast for most decks to deal with. We don’t want to destroy these synergies, but we do want to slow them down. Similarly, Miracle Rogue makes for very bad play experiences when their pop-off turns are too powerful too soon. We think it is fun and thematic for Rogue to have those turns where they play a bunch of cards and get rewarded for it, but we want to slow that turn down a little.
Prince Renathal
- Old: Your deck size and starting Health are 40.
- New: Your deck size is 40. Your starting Health is 35.
Dev Comment: Renathal had its run. He’s the most played card in the game and the meta has warped around him for a long time, so we are making this change to open the meta back up. At the same time, we know he’s one of the most popular cards we’ve ever made, so we wanted to preserve his core effect as an option for his fans.
Tome Tampering
- Now banned in Wild.
Dev Comment: Discard is a thematic Warlock archetype with many tools over the years. Those tools have combined into a disruptive force in the Wild meta. Tome Tampering is the powerful enabler that puts this deck over the format’s power level; banning that enabler will let players continue to use those thematic discard Warlock tools, but at a level that is more in line with the rest of the format.
The above craftable cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks following Patch 25.0.4 (Signature versions of Anub’Rekhan and all versions of Prince Renathal are not craftable).
We're taking a hard look at what systemic changes we want to make to Signature cards in the future, and have not finalized those decisions. This time, players who have the Signature version of Anub'Rekhan as of December 20th at 10am PST will receive a grant of 1600 Arcane Dust at login, later that week. Things may work differently in the future. We will share more information on those future plans once they're finalized.
The following cards are being adjusted to be more powerful:
Dev Comment: Death Knight is the cool new class that many players want to try out, so we’re making some adjustments to open them up a little and give them more toys to tinker with. Like with the nerfs, these buffs are designed to be higher confidence; we specifically looked for low playrate Death Knight cards that seemed primed for upgrades. We plan to take another look in the next balance pass.
Corpse Bride
- Old: Battlecry: Spend up to 8 Corpses. Summon a Risen Groom with stats equal to the amount spent.
- New: Battlecry: Spend up to 10 Corpses. Summon a Risen Groom with stats equal to the amount spent.
Malignant Horror
- Old: At the end of your turn, spend 5 Corpses to summon a copy of this minion.
- New: At the end of your turn, spend 4 Corpses to summon a copy of this minion.
Meat Grinder
- Old: Battlecry: Shred a random minion in your deck to gain 3 Corpses.
- New: Battlecry: Shred a random minion in your deck to gain 4 Corpses.
Blightfang
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health
- New: 3 Attack, 4 Health
Stitched Giant
- Old: [Costs 10]
- New: [Costs 9]
Ymirjar Deathbringer
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health
- New: 4 Attack, 3 Health
Rime Sculptor
- Old: 3 Attack, 3 Health
- New: 4 Attack, 3 Health
Obliterate
- Old: Destroy a minion. Your hero takes damage equal to its Health.
- New: Destroy a minion. Your hero takes 3 damage.
Blood Tap
- Old: Give all minions in your hand +1/+1. Spend 3 Corpses to give them +1/+1 more.
- New: Give all minions in your hand +1/+1. Spend 2 Corpses to give them +1/+1 more.
Battlegrounds Updates
Quest Reward Updates
- The Kidnap Sack Quest Reward has been made harder to earn.
- The Hidden Treasure Vault and Teal Tiger Sapphire Quest Rewards have been made easier to earn.
- The Partner in Crime, Pilfered Lamps, Wondrous Wisdomball, and Yogg-tastic Tasties Quest Rewards will appear more frequently.
Dev Comment: As we approach the end of the season, we want all players to have a chance to experience some of the rarer Quests they may or may not have been able to find. Enjoy!
Minion Updates
Toxfin
- Old: Tavern Tier 4
- New: Tavern Tier 6
Dev Comment: Though not a power outlier at most levels, Toxfin has a limiting effect on what playstyles feel viable in Murloc lobbies. We are pushing Toxfin up to Tier 6 as a way to open up some space for more diverse strategies.
Minion Pool Updates
- Mechano-Tank and Interrogator Whitemane have been removed from the minion pool.
- Witchwing Nestmatron, Mechano-Egg, Mythrax the Unraveler, and Seafood Slinger have been returned to the minion pool.
Arena Updates
Arena draft appearance rates have been adjusted as follows:
- Death Knight and Paladin cards that generate more cards will appear less frequently.
- Death Knight cards that remove opposing minions and leave a board presence will appear less frequently.
- Low winrate cards from low performing classes will appear less frequently.
- High winrate cards from low performing classes will appear more frequently.
- Some Neutral cards will appear more or less frequently, depending on their performance in a given class.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Potion Belt could not Discover two of the same Concoction.
- [Hearthstone] The wording on Astalor, the Flamebringer has been updated for clarity; this is not a functional change.
- [Hearthstone] Grim Patron and Gruntled Patron will now once again leave Corpses. Adjusted the Corpse Explosion interaction so that it no longer chains infinitely.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where Greatsword of the Ebon Blade would lose Durability whenever any card was played, not just minions.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug that made Scourge Strike unable to be played.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where the Scourging Hero Power doesn’t work if your board is full.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where Hematology and Unholy Embrace did not count as consuming Corpses.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where Unholy Embrace always filled your hand if you had any Corpses to spend when you played it.
Yet you continue with the addiction. Glhf i wish you wont and i wish you the best
Yeah... this happened to me to. Though, just received 1600 dust logging in today.
This place has the most addicts on the milky way. Cant wait till every expansion has atleast 5 cards that are banned in wild. Silly mods dont like this opinion but .... seriously kindergarten kids would run the game better then the actual devs ....
The arena rebalance changed little to nothing lmao, dk still op
mage, it's time to shine
Still getting 19/19 taunt minions by turn 5-6. How many classes, and how many viable decks of those classes, can deal with a 19/19 taunt minion via Invincible and Ghouls?
Literally seems like elementary kids are designing this game; but the reality is a handful of "adults" making more money than they are worth are designing this game.
Yesterday I played against a rogue. At the start of turn 5 they had only a location on board, and by the end of the turn they've got 22/22 Edwin and 18/18 stealthed shadow, as well as couple more smaller minions on the board and 9 cards left in the deck. I bet they can easily deal with 19/19 taunt by turn 6.
LMAO Death Knight is still tier 3. I'm so happy to be wrong when I said this would be another DH situation.
Nothing matters while Guff Hero is a thing....
Ramp Druid isn't even in the top 10 archetypes.
Then why does ramp druid still see a lot of play in high legend ranks (i'm talking single digits)?
I know that the high legend meta looks way different than lets say diamond rank, but it's still very unlikely that a deck would see play there if it had that many bad matchups.
Are you saying there are fewer than 10 archetypes in use at those ranks? I'm pretty sure that's not true.
And regardless of how many there are, one of them must be the worst, and it's probably Ramp Druid.
Then please go ahead and name the top 10 archetypes and explain why ramp druid has the highest amount of bad matchups out of all of them.
I don't think that there's no counter to ramp druid and i heavily disagree with the statement that "Nothing matters while Guff Hero is a thing", but ramp druid still has a lot of good matchups across many archetypes and can even more or less reliably deal with archetypes which (at least in theory) should counter ramp druid due to their access to mass removal cards.
And ramp druid is by far the most disruption resilient combo deck in standard, so don't even try to tell me that it's easily countered by disruption because that's just not true.
I'm not going to look up stats for you. If you like the deck, by all means keep using it. I'm just saying it's not a problem.
I never intended to make it look like this deck is unbeatable or anything like that.
It just seemed to me like you went a bit overkill with your statement.
I don't play the deck myself. I don't even play in high legend or any legend rank tbh.
I just watch some high legend streamers from time to time and noticed that this deck is still doing good in these ranks, that's all.
No buffs to ANY warrior cards. I am disappointed.
:)) They were like , hmm no warrior in the last 6 months , we like it like that , no buffs for ya
Renethal nerf was seriously. Not needed.
When a card is in more than half of all decks in all classes, yes, it needs a nerf. Especially when it has a Start of Game effect.