What are the changes coming to Hearthstone?

If you like Hearthstone then you should be intrested to hear changes are coming in 2016. They are fairly big ones. When the modes debut later this spring they should significantly shake up Blizzard’s free-to-play card game. Blizzard themselves comment the changes will help make the game “fresh, exciting, and accessible“.

The main change sees two new play modes arrive – Standard and Wild. The inclusion of “Standard” is the biggie here. It reduces the pool of useable card for players to draft from when creating decks. “Standard” limits the choice of cards to those released in the past two years. Furthermore, Adventures and Expansions that are not part of the “Standard” format will no longer be available for purchase from the Shop. Currently this means Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes will not be part of “Standard” over the course of 2016 and will be subjected to the new rules. Fear not, any card affected by the changes will still be able to be crafted using arcane dust – even cards that were once uncraftable.

Blizzard posted to their official blog to comment on this mode:

Standard is a new format in Play mode that allows players to go head-to-head using only the most recently released Hearthstone cards. You’ll play Standard using a deck built solely from a pool of cards that were released in the current and previous calendar year, along with a core foundation of the Basic and Classic card sets (which will always be valid for Standard). You’ll be matched against other players who are also using Standard decks.

“Standard” is the, erm, standard term for such a mode amongst the CCG community, so Blizzard are not necessarily reinventing the wheel here. They are however polishing the wheel, and making it nice and shiny – they have a distinct knack of doing that for all their games it seems.

“Wild” needs much less explaining as it is basically Hearthstone as it is now – all the cards in use at any time. It will likely remain totally unfriendly to noobs. I have learned this very well over recent months. Arena games, which are the ‘pay to play’ part of the game, will be contested under “Wild” rules which means it goes mostly unchanged.

In the following video a man with a beard explains many of these changes directly to you…

One of the more noteworthy cards effected by the standard ruleset is Dr. Boom, who debuted as part of the Goblins vs Gnomes expansion, released on December 8th 2014. Everyone in their right mind thinks he is broken and should be nerfed, but Blizzard think otherwise. He remains his “Dr. Balanced” self for well over a year now.

If e-sports is your thing, then you will be very much affected by these changes, as “Standard” will be the only viable mode for official tournaments. Of course none of this matters to me whatsoever, as I cant even get past #16 on ladder. Even with Dr Boom as part of my deck. Woe is me. I do not feel very e-sports.