A MASSIVE patch was just announced, and it’s coming out tomorrow (December 15). Here’s a quick recap of all that’s coming:
- Constructed Balance Update – Nerfs to Blade Dance, Shardshatter Mystic, Dreadlord's Bite, Dinotamer Brann, Voracious Reader and Lorekeeper Polkelt.
- Duels Balance Update – Nerfs to Demon Hunter & Warlock, lowered requirements for unlocking Hero Powers & Signature Treasures, more balance changes.
- Battlegrounds – Darkmoon Prizes (spells) are added to the mode for limited time, 3 new Heroes (C’Thun, N’Zoth, Y’Shaarj), 10 new minions, some balance changes, a few minions removed.
- Rewards & Progression Update – The big progression system update announced last week will now go live! Less XP will be required to hit Level 50, some rewards will get added to the track, multiple Quests will get remade / removed and more.
- Winterveil Legendary Quests – We’ll get a two Legendary Quests for a total of 4 Darkmoon Faire packs as a part of the Winterveil event.
- Book of Heroes – New Book of Heroes is getting released tomorrow – this time it’s Garrosh (Warrior). Also, another Book of Heroes was announced – it will be Uther (Paladin) and release on January 5.
- Bug Fixes – A patch will also include a bunch of bug fixes.
Check out full patch notes below:
Happy Feast of Winter Veil! The 19.2 patch, releasing on December 15, welcomes the Old Gods to Battlegrounds as new Heroes along with 10 new minions and the addition of a limited-time Darkmoon Prizes system! The patch also features balance updates for Standard and Duels, a new Book of Heroes for both Garrosh and Uther, game improvements, and more!
As a thank you for being part of our community, we’re also rewarding all players with 5 Madness at the Darkmoon Faire card packs and 500 gold just for logging in after the 19.2 patch has been released!*
*All rewards will only be granted once per account. Must log in before January 18, 2021.
Battlegrounds Updates
With this new Battlegrounds season, we will be resetting all players’ external rating to 0. For more information about our Battlegrounds rating system read our Dev Insights blog! Ratings will be reset once per expansion.
DARKMOON PRIZES
We’re introducing a new limited-time mechanic—Darkmoon Prizes! Every four turns you’ll Discover a Darkmoon Prize and add it to your hand. As the game progresses, you’ll be offered increasingly powerful Darkmoon Prizes to play with. From immediately impactful buffs to game-lasting effects, Darkmoon Prizes will add a new twist to every Battlegrounds match for the next two months!
Dev Comment: Only one player can Discover Ice Block on Prize Turn 3, but it can also be created by Big Winner.
NEW HEROES
C’Thun
- Saturday C’Thuns! [Costs 2]
- At end of turn, give a friendly minion +1/+1. Repeat 0 Times. (Upgrades after each use!)
N’Zoth
- Avatar of N’Zoth [Passive]
- Start the game with a 1/1 Fish that gains all your Deathrattles in combat.
Y’Shaarj
- Embrace your Rage [Costs 2]
- Start of Combat: Add a minion from your Tavern Tier to your warband. Keep it.
Players with Battlegrounds Perks will have early access to these new Heroes before they’re formally released on December 29.
HERO POOL UPDATES
- Galakrond has been temporarily removed from the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
- Sir Finley Mrrgglton has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
- The Great Akazamzarak has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
- Competitive Spirit has been added to The Great Akazamzarak’s Secret pool.
Silas Darkmoon
- Come One, Come All!
- Increased overall chances of getting tickets after turn 1.
Zephrys, the Great
- Three Wishes
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 3]
Patches the Pirate
- Pirate Parrrrty!
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 3]
NEW MINIONS
Acolyte of C’Thun
- [Tier 1] 2 Attack, 2 Health
- Reborn. Taunt.
Tormented Ritualist
- [Tier 2] 2 Attack, 3 Health
- Taunt. Whenever this is attacked, give adjacent minions +1/+1.
Warden of Old
- [Tier 3] 3 Attack, 3 Health
- Deathrattle: Add a Gold Coin to your hand.
Arm of the Empire
- [Tier 3] 4 Attack, 5 Health
- Whenever a friendly Taunt minion is attacked, give it +3 Attack.
Bigfernal
- [Tier 4, Demon] 4 Attack, 4 Health
- After you summon a Demon, gain +1/+1 permanently.
Qiraji Harbinger
- [Tier 4] 5 Attack, 5 Health
- After a friendly minion with Taunt dies, give its neighbors +2/+2.
Champion of Y’Shaarj
- [Tier 4] 2 Attack, 2 Health
- Whenever a friendly Taunt minion is attacked, gain +1/+1 permanently.
Faceless Taverngoer
- [Tier 5] 4 Attack, 4 Health
- Battlecry: Choose a minion in Bob’s Tavern. Transform into a plain copy of it.
Mythrax, the Unraveler
- [Tier 5] 4 Attack, 4 Health
- At the end of your turn, gain +1/+2 for each minion type you control.
Elistra the Immortal
- [Tier 6] 7 Attack, 7 Health
- Divine Shield. Reborn. Whenever a friendly Taunt minion is attacked, this gets attacked instead.
MINION POOL UPDATES
- Righteous Protector has been removed from the Battlegrounds minion pool.
- The Beast has been removed from the Battlegrounds minion pool.
- Crowd Favorite has been removed from the Battlegrounds minion pool.
- Shifter Zerus has been removed from the Battlegrounds minion pool.
Standard Balance Updates
Blade Dance
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 3]
Shardshatter Mystic
- Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 4]
Dreadlord’s Bite
- Old: 3 Attack, 2 Durability → New: 2 Attack, 2 Durability
Dinotamer Brann
- Old: [Costs 7] → New: [Costs 8]
Voracious Reader
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 3]
Lorekeeper Polkelt
- Old: [Costs 4] → New: [Costs 5]
All craftable cards listed above will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 19.2 patch goes live.
Duels Balance Updates
- Reduced the number of unique Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Epic cards required for unlocking Hero Power #2 for each class from 10 to 5.
- Reduced the number of unique Madness at the Darkmoon Faire cards required for unlocking Signature Treasure #2 for each class from 100 to 90.
- Reduced the number of unique Scholomance Academy Epic cards required for unlocking Signature Treasure #3 for each class from 20 to 15.
- Updated wording of criteria for Hero Powers and Signature Treasures to better reflect unlock requirements.
Connections
- Removed Battlecry from Shadowshell Informant.
Secret Studies
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 1]
Killmox the Banished One
- Old: Rush. Lifesteal. This minion has +2/+2 for each card you discarded this game. If this minion is discarded, return it to your hand. → New: Rush. Lifesteal. This minion has +1/+1 for each card you discarded this game. If this minion is discarded, return it to your hand.
- Dev Comment: Turns out Killmox was a Killjoy…moved to +1/+1.
Mo’arg Outcast
- Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 4]
Gift of the Legion
- Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 3]
Herding Horn
- Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 4]
Drocomurchanicas
- Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 4]
Rewards & Progression Updates
We’re making several major changes to the new progression system in the 19.2 patch:
- Reducing the amount of experience needed to reach certain levels on the Rewards Track.
- Reduced total required XP for completing the Rewards Track by 37,000 XP.
- Adjusting a variety of Daily and Weekly Quests that feel unrewarding or too difficult.
- Removed ‘Finish an Arena run with 4 or more wins’ Quest.
- Removed ‘Play an Old God Legendary from the Darkmoon Faire 10 times’ Quest.
- Adjusted ‘Play 50 Corrupt cards’ Quest to now read ‘Play 30 Corrupt cards’.
- Adjusted ‘Win 7 games of Ranked Play mode’ to ‘Win 5 games of Ranked Play mode’.
- Adjusted ‘Finish in top 2 in Battlegrounds’ to ‘Finish in top 4 in Battlegrounds’
- Adjusted ‘Deal 2,000 damage to enemy minions in Battlegrounds’ to ‘Deal 1,500 damage to enemy minions in Battlegrounds’
- Adjusted ‘Play two 10 cost cards’ to ‘Play one 10 cost card’
- Adjusted ‘Play 20 Murlocs’ to ‘Play 10 Murlocs’
- Adjusted ‘Play 6 Weapons’ to ‘Play 4 Weapons’
- Adjusted all 800 XP Daily Quests to award 900 XP.
- Adjusted applicable quests to count progress from Tavern Brawls and Battlegrounds.
- Adding more rewards to certain levels of the Rewards Track and expanding the Rewards Track levels above level 50.
- Added 50 additional Gold each to levels 27 and 30. Players who hit these milestones before the 19.2 patch will be compensated in a future update.
- Expanded levels 51-150 to a maximum level of 350 and adjusted each level after level 50 to require 1/3 as much XP and reward 50 Gold.
For more, you can find our full update on the Rewards Track here. After these changes are implemented, your existing earned XP value will be retained, so upon your next login you will likely see additional progress through multiple levels. Please ensure that you review your rewards after updating to the 19.2 patch to see what you can now claim.
Dev Comment: Removed quests will need to be rerolled or completed. For the quests that have their requirements reduced in 19.2, if you already have progress on that quest at or above the new quota to complete, the quest will not automatically complete. You’ll need to advance that quest requirement by one for it to complete.
Winter Veil Quests
Winter Veil is underway! Get into the holiday spirit by completing a Legendary Quest chain that rewards a total of 4 Madness at the Darkmoon Faire card packs! These two quests will appear one at a time on your Quest Log and will not override any of your other quests.
Book of Heroes Garrosh
Follow Garrosh’s journey to becoming the Warlord of the Warsong clan in the next installment of Hearthstone Book of Heroes! Defeating all 8 bosses in this linear adventure will reward 1 Warrior Pack, containing only Warrior cards from Standard!
Book of Heroes Uther
Then, on January 5, protect the weak, bring justice to the unjust, and vanquish evil! Defeating all 8 bosses in Uther’s Book of Heroes will reward 1 Paladin Pack, containing only Paladin cards from Standard! Dev Comment: The Achievement for completing Book of Heroes Uther is missing. This is a known issue that will be fixed in a future update.
Miscellaneous Updates & Game Improvements
- We’ve updated our minimum spec requirement for mobile devices to 2GB of memory. Mobile devices with fewer than 2GB will no longer be supported. Please see our recommended and minimum configurations for Hearthstone here for additional information.
- Fixed some slow animation issues with various minions in Battlegrounds, most notably when refreshing Bob’s Tavern with Nomi, Kitchen Nightmare in play.
- Fixed a bug where locked mana crystals were not displaying correctly after disconnecting and reconnecting to a match.
- Fixed a bug where certain sound effects would continuously play after disconnecting and reconnecting to a match.
- Fixed a bug where Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate’s Wheel of Fate could disconnect players.
- Fixed a bug where Oh My Yogg would not properly generate spells created by Twinspells.
- Fixed a bug where the targeting arrow for Battlecry minions was not working properly on mobile devices.
- Fixed a bug where targeting arrows could appear on the Victory or Defeat screens.
In case anyone is wondering:
GOLDEN Fish from N’Zoth is “Gain all Deathrattles from all your Minions that died in Combat TWICE”
Oh finally DH nerfs.
Has anyone’s reward track updated I’m still at the same spot?
I have the same problem. My track didn’t move.
Same to me
While I feel the DH nerfs are warranted, i feel a round of buffs is needed as well for some underperforming classes. Warlock has been stuck with Zoo pretty much all year, Priest is a joke right now unless you like long control matches because many of the decks at tier 1 outpace it. I also feel i am seeing way less Mages on the ladder right now.
However, very glad to see nerfs to Warlock and DH in Duels – DH matches feel even less interactive there and let’s be honest, Killmox was broken.
It seems the nerfs don’t look to hit aggro dh that hard (?, never played that deck a lot).
Why?
– Polkelt on 4 gave hand of gul’dan on turn 5, which is then only playable as outcast with coin — so polkelt to 5 does not matter that much. Card still has quite good stats.
– Voracious reader to 3 makes it harder to refill, but aggro dh has plenty of alternative draw anyway
– Dreadlord’s bite is just 2 damage less.
– aggro dh wil be kept less in check by soul dh, it’s aoe tools are all nerfed
– Blade flurry to 3 means it will hopefully have to trade with its board more often though. However, the mana cost mainly means that it can do a decent blade flurry less early in the game (still, on turn 4, a blade flurry of 4 damage + 4 face is possible, instead of 6 + 6. 6+6 is still possible with coin.)
Probably they will switch to aldrahi warblades from dreadlord’s bite, and outlast other aggro decks with it.
The idea of nerf is not to kill a card.
But to make somewhat adjusted.
They are finally learn that overnerfing cards like what they did to shaman in DoD is so bad that they need to rebuff some card to it’s origin.
Again, it’s a nerf alright.
They lied about extra exp during events
Did they? They said they were going to change the track to not need extra XP from events, and change events back to what they were before, and they did just that.
And what about the packs from grandmasters?
That’ll be in a month after the tournaments ended. “In a month”. Could be a week. Could be 3 weeks, etc.
Still waiting for them to fix the issue some of us have connecting over mobile data. This issue has been going on since last spring and still isn’t resolved. I am tired of having to use a VPN to connect when I am away from wifi.
Do you know when we can expect duel update ? Rest of the signature treasures and hero power. Thanks.
If you have all the Scholomance Epics, you are supposed to get all the Duels Starting Treasures, right?
I have all the epics but some copies are Golden rather than regular.
Am I being punished for having golden copies by not being allowed to get the third treasure?
It seems that way.
RIP Reno Hunter… killed for no reason, you will be remembered.
I disenchanted Brann like 3 days ago omg… atleast I have 5 copies of Dreadlord’s Bite and a golden Voracious reader hehe. Also, nice patch, I like all the fixes and content it brings and it just comes tomorrow. Gj Blizzard, I guess….
hmm, weird that they don’t utilize winter veil event to sell some hero cosmetic.
it’s holiday season, and no bundle either. I really don’t know how their mind work, when this is the time where they can push their profit, or at least that’s what I thought if I’m their marketing director.
On side note, maybe don’t open your pack rewards immediately.
1-4 packs from grandmaster tournament,
5 packs one time reward when login at 15th
4 packs from L. quest,
5 packs from end of month rewards, (if you reach legend)
It brings you to a total of up to 18 packs rewards in one month. Averagely enough to help you go thru the mini set without spending any golds.
So. please hold on to your precious packs. I reckon it’ll be early january when the mini set hit.
Maybe even faster, end of year for card reveal maybe.
That’s 18 packs if you selected the dude who won (idk who he is), but I’ll only get one since Bloodyface lost in group phase, so yeah 15-16 packs on average. But you can still make it to 20 with the 500 gold Blizzard gives you for logging today
Maybe they will release a new bundle closer to Christmas, like next week. We’ll see 🙂 It would be weird if they didn’t push anything out, because I’m pretty sure that we had some Christmas bundles for a couple of years now (e.g. Dame Hazelbark last year).