Hearthstone Dev Tracker

Yesterday, Patch 29.2 went live with some changes to Weekly Quests, making them harder to complete but grant more XP. We had seen that many players routinely completed their Weekly Quests through their regular play, without even really engaging with the Weekly Quest system. Our aim with the adjustments was to give all our players goals to play towards, and to reward our most engaged players (who would likely still complete the Weekly Quests without too much difficulty) for their commitment to the game.

But we’ve heard your feedback and it's clear that we pushed too far.

We want to reward players for their additional efforts, not make those rewards outside of their reach. That’s why we’re putting together an unscheduled hotfix patch scaling most of the Weekly Quest requirements back down to a number between what they were before and what they are now. We’ll keep the additional XP where it is. We’ll have more information on the timing of this unscheduled hotfix soon,...

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Patch 29.2, launching on April 16, brings Battlegrounds Duos and Season 7, Once Upon a Tavern! 

This story has lots of chapters, so you can use this Table of Contents to help you find what you need: 

Table of Contents

• Introducing Battlegrounds Duos 
• Battlegrounds Season 7 
• ...

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The first Masters Tour of the year is this weekend, and Hearthstone's best have come to play! Sixteen of the top players from the February and March Ladder rankings will compete for their share of the $50,000 (USD) prize pool and two invites to the 2024 World Champion. This year, we're bringing more Hearthstone action with a third day of streaming action! Read on for everything you need to know to enjoy the action, only on Twitch and ...

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Once Upon a Tavern, there was a new Battlegrounds season, filled with updates for Traditional Battlegrounds and a magical new Mode, Battlegrounds Duos! Jump into the fray with new fairy-tale themed cards and rewards. Whether you’re playing on your own or with a partner, a new chapter in Battlegrounds unfolds on April 16! 

With Season 7, Battlegrounds Ratings will reset and Battlegrounds Quests will rotate out of the Tavern. Tavern Spells will stay in the Tavern for both traditional Battlegrounds and Battlegrounds Duos as a regular part of Battlegrounds going forward. 

Play Battlegrounds Duos 

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This patch, coming when you least expect it, includes updates to Standard, Wild, Battlegrounds, and more!

Hearthstone Updates

General Updates

• Cards in your deck will now be in a random order. We’d get more into the specifics about this change, but we’re not sure that’s a rabbit hole worth exploring.
• Before queueing for a match, you’ll now select whether you want to go first or second, and then get paired with a player who has made the opposite selection.
• You’re not imagining it: the toys in Whizbang’s Workshop do move when you’re not looking.
• You can now pet the dog in Hearthstone.

Card Updates

Shadowstep

• Dev Comment: For player sentiment reasons, Shadowstep has been removed from Core. A new card, called Step, will be added into Core in its place. 

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Patch 29.0.3, launching today, includes the following balance changes to Standard and Battlegrounds.

Hearthstone Updates

Dev Comment: We hope you’re enjoying Whizbang’s Workshop so far! We’ve seen you experimenting with lots of new cards and archetypes across most classes—and finding a few outliers. This patch is mostly to weaken those outliers and to offer a couple higher-confidence buffs based on early data.

The following cards have been adjusted to be weaker:

Tigress Plushy

• Old: [3 Mana]
• New: [4 Mana]

Deputization Aura

• Old: Your left-most minion has +3 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
• New: Your left-most minion has +1 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.

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Jump into a world of fun! Whizbang’s Workshop is now live with 145 new collectible cards, throwback characters, the new Miniaturize keyword, a customizable Zilliax, and more! 

What’s Included: Splendiferous Whizbang 

Whizbang himself is here to welcome you to his wonderful workshop! He’s brought new experimental decks for you to try—giving you something exciting to play each game. How splendiferous! 

What’s Included: New Keyword – Miniaturize 

Some of Whizbang’s toys come with their own fun-sized versions. Cards with the Miniaturize keyword give a 1-Cost 1/1 Mini version of themselves when played. Play your Minis at the perfect time for a cheap burst of power! 

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Whizbang’s about to open the doors to his workshop, where a new Rewards Track awaits! When the Rewards Track refreshes with the Whizbang’s Workshop launch, all players will automatically be granted any unclaimed rewards on the current free Rewards Track and the Tavern Pass track (if purchased), before a completely new Whizbang’s Workshop Rewards Track takes its place. 

Whizbang’s Workshop Rewards Track 

The free Rewards Track for Whizbang’s Workshop will include packs from Whizbang’s Workshop, a random Epic card, two random Legendary cards, Tavern Tickets, a new card back, and lots of Gold! There are also 14 Golden cards along with the Li’Na Shop Manager Legendary card from the set!* 

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Happy anniversary! Today, March 11, marks 10 years since the launch of Hearthstone. We’re celebrating with a Community Day and Patch 29.0, including the groundwork for Whizbang’s Workshop, the Core Set rotation, in-game rewards, and more! 

Schedule and Quick Reference 

There’s a lot happening with this patch, so we’ve organized it into a quick breakdown. You can click on the links to jump to that portion of the Patch Notes. 

Show Schedule

March 11 

• Patch 29.0 Launch 
• Community Day (March 11-12) 
• ...

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Patch 28.6.2, launching today, includes the following changes to Standard and Battlegrounds.

Hearthstone Updates 

Dev Comment: We have two goals this patch. First, we want to weaken some of the meta outliers. Second, we want to experiment with smaller buffs across several cards that are rotating out of Standard soon—especially in classes that are currently weaker—to see if we can give them one last hurrah. Our hope is that players will try out and enjoy some of these strategies during these last few weeks before they go. This is an experiment, so we’ll be tracking player sentiment and play data to see if this works out. 

The following cards were adjusted to be less powerful: 

Sludge on Wheels 

• Old: 2/5 
• New: 2/4 

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Announcing  

Whizbang’s Workshop 

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Patch 28.6, launching today, introduces Hearthstone’s next expansion, Whizbang’s Workshop, brings Quests back to Battlegrounds, and kicks off 10-year anniversary celebrations throughout the Tavern! 

Pre-Purchase Whizbang’s Workshop, Get Early Access Epics 

Find your new favorite toy in Hearthstone’s next expansion, Whizbang’s Workshop, coming March 19! Whizbang is opening up the doors to his world-famous workshop—the place where all of Azeroth’s greatest toys are made. He’s got Wind-Up Toys, Miniatures, and nonstop nostalgia. Find a new favorite toy or build your own—you can make all your wishes come true in Whizbang’s Workship! 

Whizbang’s Workshop has 145 all-new collectible cards. You can learn more about what’s in store in the ...

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With each new Hearthstone year comes an update to the free Core Set that all players have access to. This year, Hearthstone’s 10th year, brings an exciting Core Set refresh designed to celebrate Hearthstone’s history and future with iconic old favorites and a few new friends! The new Core Set goes live when the Year of the Pegasus begins, but it’s just one of the many things we’re doing to celebrate throughout the year. This blog goes over all our Core Set updates, but you can learn more about all the other new year and anniversary festivities in our dedicated Year of the Pegasus blog. 

Iconic Cards Return 

We’re charging into the new year head-first! This Core Set, we’re making bold...

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The time draws near for the great Hearthstone clock in the sky to count down to a new year of Hearthstone, a year-long celebration of Hearthstone’s past and future: the Year of the Pegasus! 

A Message from the Game Director 

Greetings, denizens of the Tavern! 

This year, we’re celebrating 10 years of Hearthstone. That’s 10 years of defining the digital card game genre through iconic characters, tall tales in the tavern, new and familiar friends, and lots of fun! Over that time, Hearthstone expanded into a wide range of game modes. As we move into the future, we’re focusing on the areas where we can surprise and delight the most players with our absolute best ideas. We’re excited to spend all year celebrating the past and the future of Hearthstone with you. 

It all starts soon with birth...

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Patch 28.4.1, launching today, brings bug fixes and balance changes to Hearthstone and Battlegrounds!

Hearthstone Updates

Dev Comment: This is our first balance patch after the launch of the Delve into Deepholm mini-set. The overall goal of the patch is to help the mini-set launch in two ways: 1) reducing the power and popularity of some of the dominant decks from before the mini-set that are continuing to see lots of play; and 2) toning down some mini-set cards that didn’t land how we wanted.

It’s too early in the new meta for buffs, but we’ll keep an eye out for those opportunities in our upcoming balance patches. Looking a little further ahead, some of the cards we’re adjusting are cards that will be rotating out of Standard with the next expansion—we'll take another look at them when the time comes to see if they should be reverted once they’re out of Standard.

Vela...

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Hearthstone esports returns this February! As we head into Hearthstone’s 10-year anniversary, we’re refocusing Hearthstone esports to be all about our core esports experience, with three major Standard events throughout the year: two Masters Tour seasonal championships, leading into the 2024 World Championship!

Each Masters Tour will feature 16 top competitors fighting for their share of $50,000 (USD). Then it all culminates in the World Championship, where the year’s best eight players will try to claim their share of the $350,000 (USD) prize pool and eternal glory!

Climb the leaderboard in February and March to earn one of the sixteen coveted Masters Tour: Spring Championships spots. Twelve slots will go to the top four Competitive Points earners in each region and the remaining four slots will go to the top four total points earners who have not yet earne...

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Patch 28.4, launching tomorrow, digs up the new Mini-Set, Delve into Deepholm, plus updates to Arena and Twist, and a new seasonal event!

Delve into Deepholm

The Bloodrock Mining Co. dug deeper and deeper until they found something amazing: a whole new world beneath the surface! Teeming with elemental energy, this new land brings dual-class cards, new Excavated Treasures, new singleton payoffs, and more!

The Delve into Deepholm Mini-Set has 38 all-new cards. Get them in Showdown in the Badlands packs or as a complete 72-card* Mini-Set. Get the norm...

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Our noble outlaws tried to warn them, but the Bloodrock Mining Co. dug too deep and unearthed a portal to Deepholm in the Elemental Plane. As Therazane fights for her domain, new friends and unlikely allies fight for their lives! Get ready to dig in, this is the Delve into Deepholm!

Delve into Deepholm, launching on January 18, consists of 38 new cards: 4 Legendary cards, 1 Epic card, 17 Rare cards, and 16 Common cards. Those cards can either be opened in Showdown in the Badlands packs or purchased as a complete 72-card set.* Normal versions of the Mini-Set can be purchased for $14.99 or 2000 Gold. The all-Golden version of the Mini-Set can be purchased for $69.99 or 10,000 Gold. The Golden Mini-Set o...

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As we think about the future of Hearthstone and where the team can best focus their efforts, we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue support for the Duels Mode. We do not have plans for any further scheduled updates for Duels, and the Mode itself is scheduled to be removed from the Hearthstone client in April 2024.

This change will allow us to shift our resources to where we feel they will have the most impact, including Traditional Hearthstone, Battlegrounds, and more. To that end, Battlegrounds Duos is scheduled for an upcoming Battlegrounds patch, and we’re trying out some Duels Treasures in our next Arena season—more details soon.

We want to thank all our passionate Duels fans for every pile of loot, treasure, and hard-fought victory you’ve collected along the way. It’s been a heroic run, and we couldn’t have done it without you.

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Patch 28.2.3 is a data-only patch going live today with updates to Standard and Battlegrounds. This patch is our last scheduled patch for the year, and our aim is to make the most fun patch we can for the holiday break. We hope you enjoy and we’ll see you in the Tavern—and in the new year!

Standard Updates

Dev Comment: The overall goals for this patch are to make buffs across underperforming classes, decks, and cards, especially ones from Showdown in the Badlands, and to weaken a few overperforming decks that are keeping other decks down. Our intent isn’t to kill these decks that players generally like, but to bring them down a little to make more room in the meta.

Paladin has been the biggest overperformer since the last adjustment. We’re targeting its AoE board clears because that’s a mechanic we want Paladin to have access to, but not excel in. There are other potential targets that we looked at...

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