Some big Arena Changes are coming soon to Hearthstone! Blizzard will be removing cards from almost every class (every one except for Paladin), most of the cards are generally bad, but the stronger classes will be losing some strong cards like Snowchugger, Faceless Summoner, and Goblin Auto-Barber. It’s an interesting first step in making Arena a better experience for players who want to play against a variety of classes instead of just Mage, Paladin, and Rogue.
Check out the official text below.
Hearthstone has four major game modes right now: Constructed, Arena, Solo Adventures, and Tavern Brawl. One goal we have for Arena is that we want it to feel meaningfully different from any other way you might play Hearthstone. I think we’re hitting that goal now, but it’s important for us to keep that in mind when thinking about future changes. Variety among all game modes is important to us, but an equally important goal is to have a wide range of experiences within each game mode.
This is an area where we feel Arena has some room for improvement. When you first enter Arena and are offered the choice of three different classes, our goal is that you can look at those choices and choose any class without feeling disadvantaged because of their difference in power level.
Most of the feedback we’ve received on Arena is centered around class balance. For the last few content releases, Mage and Rogue have bounced back and forth as the top two most played and most powerful classes. Paladin has been in a tier by itself below Mage and Rogue, while the last six classes have done some shifting around in a tier below these three.
So what are some ways we can address Arena balance? Tools that we have available immediately involve removing cards from Arena completely—C’Thun-synergy cards and Purify are examples of this. We’d like to avoid removing strong spells and weapons from the Arena, because they add to a lot of the unpredictability and excitement surrounding the possibilities outside the current board state. We’d also like to avoid removing iconic cards, since they are generally versatile and familiar tools to veteran and new Arena players alike. Additionally, we can remove lower-performing cards in order to make room for a class’ more commonly utilized cards to show up more often in your Arena draft.
With those things in mind, we will be removing the following cards from the Arena draft in an upcoming patch:
Mage
Rogue
Paladin
– No changes
Shaman
Warlock
Druid
Warrior
Hunter
Priest
We’re looking to develop additional solutions to balance Arena as well, such as the ability to adjust the rate that individual cards show up in your draft depending on a designer input value. If we pursue that route, there is still the matter of deciding on the best way to go about using that tool to achieve balance for each of the nine classes and still have Arena feel fun and different each run.
Drafting by card rarity is another discussion that we’ve been hearing a lot. If it’s a matter of balance, we’re fairly confident the ability to adjust the “weights” of cards available can solve that.
We think Arena is a fun environment that could use some overall balance tuning. We hope the above changes will help to address that, and we will be monitoring the Arena closely to see the impact of these changes. We also need your feedback to help us ensure that the Arena remains enjoyable for years to come, so let us know your thoughts!
[Source]
I guess I’m just not that smart. The top 3 classes that are played (Mage, Rouge, Paladin) get the LEAST amount of cards removed (if removed AT ALL)? Blizzard wants to see more diversity in classes playing arena, so their remedy is ‘Hey , lets remove 6+ class specific cards available to you!’
So…. Why not just make everyone use the same X cards and just change the Hero Power?
If you look closely, the cards that are removed for the classes other than the top 3 classes are all ‘undesireble’ cards. By removing them from the draft the card pool is less dilluted and you have more chance of drafting the cards that you actually want. Its a way of ‘buffing’ that class in a sense.
You seem to miss the big part of how Arena works. Draft consistency. Best classes are usually the ones that are most consistent. Every class has some very strong cards. Priest isn’t the worst class in the Arena because it has no good cards (hint: SW:D, PW:S, Dark Cultist, Velen’s Chosen just to name a few). It’s worst class, because the drafts aren’t consistent – the class has TONS of situational/useless/combo cards. So while each class has top tier cards (and I mean it – number of strong cards in each class is roughly the same), the one with most bad cards gets the short end of the stick, because the whole card pool gets diluted by trash cards. The removed class cards are exactly that (mostly, at least) – cards you want to get out of your drafting pool.
Since class cards have much higher offering rate than neutral cards, removing the weakest class cards will make the good ones show more consistently. And thus, average draft with a given class will be stronger.
Balance-wise, removing the best cards from top classes does roughly the same as removing the worst classes from bottom classes. It brings them closer together. But since choosing between 3 weak cards always feels bad, the second option might even be better.
Not to mention that Rogue got hit really hard – removing two very strong common cards, both of which are 2-drops, will hurt the early game consistency. And removing Faceless Summoner from Mage will turn the class late game power a little. What more would you want? I mean, Mage could get one more strong card – like Firelands Portal – removed, but that’s about it. Removing more would hit the class to much.
I don’t think that those changes are going to ultimately balance Arena. It’s just a short-term remedy. A step in right direction. But it’s definitely well-thought and it’s MUCH more logical than just removing a bunch of strong cards from top classes. If they won’t stop with that and give more love to Arena, I might get back to playing it regularly.
They don’t whant to remove the good cards, they whant to remove the bad cards nobody chooses. When you get epic cards as warlock it’s nice when there’s no anima golem because it’s a chance to get a better card.
I’m no arena expert but the top 2 got remove some really good tool, but the other classes got remove they worst tool, so I guess it is fair since you will likely (when playing the 6other classes) draft the better card.
To be honest who want to draft: totemic might, sac pact, confuse, convert, savagery, ettc.
They are going to remove weak class cards from the weak arena classes, so that you will have a bigger chance to draft the good ones.
Its not that you remove cards and it makes the class worse. Sometimes its better to have fewer cards in the pool. For example, astral communion isn´t a good card in constructed, but its absolut bull crap in arena. If you remove it, the odds of getting a better epic are better.
I would like to see this happen to other neutral cards like for example junkboot (bad in constructed, one of the worst arena cards). I think this way the “luck faktor” wouldnt be that big of a deal anymore.
Muster for battle is missing, obviously.
Well by removing these weaker cards, other classes can compete with the holy trinity since they are more likely to draft good cards instead of something like lock and load.
removing cards isn’t necessarily a negative for that class, it increases the chance of drafting better quality cards, thus its a huge positive for those classes struggling to compete. Looking at the list its all the trash you DONT want to see in your draft.
This is a good place to start. I think Muster for battle needs to come out to though. I hope they keep tweaking this. Also, the player base needs to start experimenting with the other classes so that Blizzard can start getting data on these tweaks.
I just want to say Thank You to Blizzard.