Every Hearthstone year is marked by the a specific theme, which has a lot of consequences on the game and on the community at large. The Year of the Kraken marked the definition of the “Standard” and the “Wild” format, in keeping with real life card games that employ the same formats (Magic : The Gathering being one of them). Standard format includes only the most recent expansions and adventures that have been released, along with the base set of the game, including the Classic cards and the basic cards that are available to all players. This was supposedly to help new players keep up pace with the game. Wild format was for the veterans, playing Hearthstone since its earliest stages. Every year, set rotations happen, as older expansions and adventures move to the Wild, and are no longer playable in Standard. However, one of the announcements made by Blizzard said that “Classic set cards are permanently in a player’s collection once they acquired it, and will always be playable in Standard”. Apparently they decided to go back on their word with the change of theme, and the dawn of another year in Hearthstone. As Blizzard themselves said, it is an “Year of Mammoth Proportions”.
With the coming of the Year of the Mammoth, quite a few cards from the Classic set will be move into the Wild format’s “Hall Of Fame”, as they were felt to be too strong and an auto-include in most decks. These cards include:
1) Azure Drake : A 5 mana 4/4 minion that replenishes the player’s hand, as well as has potential for follow-up spells if played on a later turn, Azure Drake was too strong for a Classic rare. It also was a Dragon minion, which perfectly synergized with the Dragon decks that abound in the ladder (beside the pirate and Reno decks of course).
2) Sylvanas Windrunner : A 6 mana 5/5 minion with the option to steal an opponent’s minion on being destroyed, Sylvanas had one of the strongest deathrattle effects in the game, which made it an auto-include in most control decks. Blizzard seeks to move Sylvanas to the Wild format, to facilitate the rise of new cards with deathrattles equally powerful as Sylvanas, which they seek to do in the next expansion.
3) Ragnaros The Firelord : An 8 mana 8/8 minion that can’t attack, but deals 8 damage at the end of each turn, until it is removed, was a pretty strong finisher card. Because of the effect, Ragnaros overshadowed other 7 and 9 mana minions that could have seen potential plays, but were instead moved to the sidelines, because a giant Elemental Lord with the power to remove big enemy minions or snipe the opponent’s face itself existed.
4) Power Overwhelming : One of the cheapest Warlock spells, and one of the best options for cheaper warlock decks to trade big enemy minions, as well as pull of big combos with other minions in more expensive control decks. Blizzard plans to remove it from Standard to give them more thinking space, and to allow the meta to change variably depending on cards that come in the new expansions.
5) Ice Lance : One of the key mage cards, played in a lot of mage cards either to stop big enemy minions from attacking, or for dealing a large amount of burst damage. The change allows more flexibility in mage decks, as well as allows Blizzard to conjure up better spell damage cards that help in dealing burst damage, but in a balanced way.
6) Conceal : One of the chief components of a Rogue deck, the spell rendered rogue minions invulnerable for one turn (unless an opponent has an field effect spell that deals damage to all enemy minions on board), which can often mean the life and death for the opponent. Stealth was a very powerful mechanic, and using it in the form of a cheap spell to protect a big expensive minion that can potentially deal lethal damage next turn reduces possibilities of counter-plays.
As said in an earlier stream, one of the main goals of Blizzard was to incentivize players to play the Wild format, and in order to do it, dust cost of all the cards modified in the upcoming patch will be refunded to the players (for the uninitiated, dust is a resource in Hearthstone that is given on removing cards from one’s collection, or “disenchanting” them. Cards can be enchanted again, but it is much more expensive to enchant or “craft” a card than to disenchant a card. Normally, a fraction of the cost of crafting a card is refunded on disenchanting a card of the same rarity. However, if a card has recently been changed, it can be dusted for the cost of crafting it.), and the players are allowed to keep the cards, or dust them off, as they see fit. Dust will be re-issued based on the maximum number of cards that can be put into a deck (that is, the dust cost of only one legendary each, golden or otherwise, and two of remaining others, or one, depending on the player’s collection).
Another new feature that Blizzard decided to explore was to eliminate adventures completely, because of the lack of variety in the meta on account of the small pool of cards offered by adventures. As a result, the Year of the Mammoth will see the release of 3 expansions of around 130 cards each. However, they plan to employ the story telling of the adventures by creating challenges or missions, that can be completed by the player, and which reveals more lore about the cards in the expansion, along with other added benefits (Blizzard goes a little hazy here, they didn’t reveal anything about what “benefits” a player can get by completing these challenges).
In order to support the Wild format, a Wild format Heroic Tavern Brawl will take place in the future, which guarantee high stakes and high rewards for the most skilled players of Hearthstone. Blizzard also promised to collaborate with other third-party organizers to organize more Wild format tournaments in the future. They also plan to use Fireside Gatherings to incentivize players to play the game. They also planned to “develop better ways” to support the format in the days to come.
Besides this, a new rogue hero in the form of Maiev Shadowsong, will be available to all players who win 10 games in Standard format (in either casual or ranked mode). Blizzard also plans to give dust, gold and expansion packs to players logging in to the game daily as part of their plans to get more players into the game.
Were the rotations of Classic cards to the Wild format worth it? Was making life tougher for a player who doesn’t wish to throw out money worth it? Was removing adventures and adding expansions a good move? What about the promises made about incentivizing the game for new players by matching players with other players based on their card collection, especially free players? What rewards will be there for completing the challenges in the adventure section of the expansion? Will the gold rewards of daily quests be increased, now that players need to farm more to get all the cards they need? Let us know in the comments below.