(Live Now) Hearthstone 31.0 Patch Notes – The Great Dark Beyond, Pre-Release Brawl, Weekly Quests, Community Days, Standard & Arena Updates

Update: The patch is now live on both PC and mobile. Enjoy!

Blizzard just published 31.0 patch notes! The update launches tomorrow (October 29). It’s a pre-patch for The Great Dark Beyond expansion launching next week, but it also contains some other stuff. You can find a summary below:

• The Great Dark Beyond Expansion – This patch contains data for the new Hearthstone expansion launching on November 5. All of the cards from the set have already been revealed. Learn more about it with our Expansion Guide.
• Pre-Release Brawl – A special kind of Tavern Brawl launches tomorrow. Players will be able to open their GDB card packs (from pre-orders, Twitch drops etc.) early and use those cards for deckbuilding. The format will include Core Set + 2024 expansions. You play until 6 wins or 3 losses. There’s an entry fee of 300 Gold / 400 Runestones / 2 Tavern Tickets, but you gain rewards based on your performance (and unlike in the Heroic Tavern Brawl, the reward curve is much more flat, so just going 3-3 means that you break even). We’ll have a more in-depth coverage of the Brawl with some theorycrafted decks soon.
• Progression Updates – I’ll be honest, this is something I haven’t expected. A couple of weeks ago, Blizzard announced that Weekly Quests will be back to their pre-29.2 form – both the requirements and XP rewards. They are trying to sell it as “making them easier”, but that’s not completely true. Yes, some of them will be easier, but some of them will also be harder (Arena/Tavern Brawl/Battlegrounds Quest will go from PLAYING 5 games to WINNING 5 games, for example). On average they were a bit easier before 29.2 compared to the current state, but not universally so. However, the biggest deal is that extra XP is also reverted. Over the course of an expansion, that adds up to about ~1k Gold lost if you complete all of them (depending on how far you otherwise got on the rewards track). In order to compensate for that, they are changing five of the early Rewards Track levels from 50 Gold to The Great Dark Beyond pack. That’s a 250g net gain (and only assuming that you wanted to buy packs anyway – the Gold is a strictly better resource, because it’s more flexible). As you can probably calculate, this doesn’t offset the ~1k Gold loss. This revert is something many players were asking for shortly after they introduced the new Quests, but after all the changes, pretty much no one was complaining about them anymore. Sorry about another rant on this topic, but I’m just not happy with what Blizzard has been doing for quite some time now.
• Community Days – Community days are back once again, and this time they are much longer so everyone should have enough time to get their rewards. Twitch drops will be active between October 29 and November 2. Earn a total of 10 card packs, including 4 packs from The Great Dark Beyond expansion. Learn more with the Community Celebration blog post.
• Standard Updates – Demonic Dynamics now costs 2 mana instead of 3 to support the new Warlock archetype. Also Overplanner got its wording changed to no longer Discover – the card will still function in the same way, but it won’t synergize with Hunter’s Discover package (most likely for balance reasons).
• Arena Updates – A new Arena rotation will start when the patch releases, retiring all of the previous runs (and thus compensating players with Tavern Tickets). Dual class Arena is finally over and we’ll be returning to single class only. The new drafting pool will include Caverns of Time, Scholomance Academy, Festival of Legends, Showdown in the Badlands, Perils in Paradise and The Great Dark Beyond. As has been the case in the last few expansions, you will be able to draft new GDB cards before the expansion’s release.
• Warcraft Anniversary In-Game Event – A new in-game event has been announced, launching on November 12. The rewards are two copies of a new card Champions of Azeroth (both regular and Golden), World of Warcraft 20th Anniversary Card Back, and Hogger Warrior skin.
• Bug Fixes & Game Improvements – Just like every major patch, 31.0 also launches with TONS of bug fixes and smaller QoL changes. I assume that since it’s a massive patch, it will also introduce a bunch of new issues, but we’ll have a separate post for those after the patch’s release.

Learn more with the full patch notes below:

Patch 31.0 launches tomorrow and starts the final countdown until we set off into The Great Dark Beyond on November 5!

Explore the Cosmos!

The Great Dark Beyond, Hearthstone’s next expansion, blasts off on November 5. The new 145-card expansion includes the new Starship keyword, new Draenei minion type, returning Spellburst keyword, and more! See all the new cards in the official Card Library today. Don’t forget to grab your Pre-Purchase before the expansion launches and it’s gone!

With the launch of The Great Dark Beyond comes a new and improved Rewards Track, filled with out-of-this-world goodies like XP boosts, cards, Gold, and more card packs than any track before! Check out the Rewards Track Refresh blog for details.

Open Your Packs Early and Join the Pre-Release Tavern Brawl!

The Great Dark Beyond Pre-Release Tavern Brawl begins tomorrow with Patch 31.0 and runs until expansion launch on November 5. Crack open your The Great Dark Beyond packs early, build a deck, and compete in a mini-competition to earn more The Great Dark Beyond prizes!

Everyone will get one free entry into the Pre-Release Tavern Brawl. After that, entry will cost 2 Tavern Tickets, 300 Gold, or 400 Runestones per run. For each run, you’ll lock in a deck and play until you get either 6 wins or 3 losses. Decks can be built with cards from Core Set, Whizbang’s Workshop, Perils in Paradise, and The Great Dark Beyond. Prize payouts will be based on how well you do on your run, as follows:

You can learn more about the Pre-Release Tavern Brawl in our dedicated Developer Insights blog.

Celebrate Community Days

In space, one Community Day is the same as four Community Days here in the Tavern. Watch your favorite streamers as they take on the Pre-Release Tavern Brawl and earn packs that you can use on your own runs! From October 29, 10:00 a.m. (PDT) to November 2, 10:00 a.m. (PDT), you can get up to 10 packs just for watching any Hearthstone stream (2 hours per drop):

• 1st Drop: 3 Whizbang’s Workshop Packs
• 2nd Drop: 3 Perils in Paradise Packs
• 3rd Drop: 4 The Great Dark Beyond Packs

Creator Deck Recipes Return

When The Great Dark Beyond launches on November 5, the in-game deck recipes will update to include decks from Hearthstone stars:

• Cantelope’s Rainbow Starship Death Knight
• Kibler’s Starship Crew Demon Hunter
• Kibler’s Starcaneship Druid
• Day9’s Ceaseless Discover Hunter
• SwayBae’s Fiery Elementals Mage
• Roffle’s Libram Paladin
• MarkMcKz’s Mystified Draenei Priest
• Clark’s Schematic Heist Rogue
• Roffle’s Spacerock Shaman
• MarkMcKz’s Demon Starship Warlock
• Sloot’s Akamattack Warrior

New and returning player loaner decks will update with the 31.4 Patch and will include cards from the main expansion, as they did in the 30.4 update.

Progression Updates

Three major progression updates are going live in Patch 31.0:

• Weekly Quests are being made easier to complete, but to grant less XP (reverting to the versions from before Patch 29.2).
• Tavern Brawls will now grant the latest expansion packs, instead of Standard Packs.
• The new Rewards Track and Tavern Pass have been upgraded with more The Great Dark Beyond Packs.

See the Progression Update blog from Game Director Tyler Bielman for more about these changes.

Card Updates

Demonic Dynamics

• Old: [3 Mana]
• New: [2 Mana]

Overplanner

• Reworded effect to remove Discover. This is a non-functional change to any existing interactions, but is in preparation for the new cards in The Great Dark Beyond.

In-Game Event: Warcraft Anniversary

Celebrate 30 years of Warcraft, and 20 years in the World of Warcraft, with a special Wacraft-themed event! From November 12 to December 3, complete Event Quests to earn Event XP on the special event rewards track. Complete the rewards track to earn 2 copies of the Champions of Azeroth card, 2 copies of the Golden Champions of Azeroth card, the World of Warcraft 20th Anniversary card back, and the Hogger Warrior Hero Skin.

Arena Updates

On October 29, with Patch 31.0, all ongoing Arena runs will end and a new Arena season will begin. With this season, we return to single-class Arena. The eligible sets that will make up this Arena card pool are:

• The Great Dark Beyond
• Perils in Paradise
• Showdown in the Badlands
• Festival of Legends
• Caverns of Time
• Scholomance Academy

Bug Fixes and Game Improvements

• [General] Fixed various issues with swapping between languages or accounts on mobile.
• [Hearthstone] Rules update: cards that relate to C’Thun (like those that buff C’Thun) or Galakrond (like those that Invoke Galakrond) will now only be transformed into, Discovered, or randomly generated if a card from that grouping was in your starting deck.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where playing the Horseman’s Head from hand drew you a card. (This fix would have been written as a flavorful rhyme, if we were cleverer or had some more time).
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where, if you conceded during Mistah Vistah’s Scenic Vistah effect, it caused the background ambient sound effect to replay on loop into your next game—nobody signed up for that long of a hike.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where a transformed Hero didn’t show its Lesser Trinket in the Leaderboard.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where minions summoned by Cultist S’Thara were not getting Taunt from Greybough’s Hero Power.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where the Valorous Medallion Trinket triggered after Start of Combat Hero Power triggers.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where the Emerald Dreamcatcher Trinket triggered after Bru’kan’s Hero Power.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Elder Taggawag gained the wrong stats with the Promo Portrait Trinket in play.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where the Bob-blehead Trinket didn’t work with Wheel of Yogg-Saron.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Duos Warbands could appear empty or misaligned in the Full Stats tab.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where your own Hero could sometimes appear in the Duos Portal instead of your partner’s.
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where all Bartenders appeared as Bob in the Duos Portal.
• [Progression] Corrected the wording on the KEEP OUT: BEWARE OF DOGS Achievement.
• [Progression] Fixed a bug where the Valedictorian’s Honor Achievement couldn’t be completed.
• [Cosmetics] Updated the Mythic Ragnaros Hero Power to differentiate for Golden Hero Powers.
• [???] Fixed a bug impacting the Alterac Valley Mysteries.
• [Misc.] Hearthstone: Music from the Tavern Volume 2, with over 50 tracks, will come in a later patch, towards the end of this calendar year.

Source