Hearthstone’s next balance patch will arrive later this week

A few days ago, on Jan. 5, Blizzard senior game designer August Dean “Iksar” Ayala revealed that the next Hearthstone balance patch was in the works. However, earlier today, Jan. 8, we got news about which changes this update will include. In addition, the forum post revealing this information stated that the update will go live later this week.

Seven Hearthstone cards changing soon

A total of seven cards will change in the update. Six of these cards are direct nerfs to many of the current tier 1 decks. The final card is Dragonqueen Alexstrasza. Starting with this week’s update, Dragonqueen Alexstrasza will no longer be able to discover more copies of Dragonqueen Alexstrasza through her Battlecry effect. While this change may seem minor at first, it will impact the overall strength of the card drastically.

This nerf was long overdue, even if much of the community didn’t complain about this card too frequently. Dragonqueen Alexstrasza was in a total of about 22% of all games tracked on Hsreplay, with an overall winrate of over 52.5%. That makes it one of the best performing and most played cards in the current Hearthstone meta.

The other cards changed in this patch will mainly target several of the tier 1 archetypes. For example, the nerf to Ancharrr hits Pirate Warrior, where Dragon’s Pack and Invocation being increased in mana by 1 each reduces the strength of Galakrond Shaman.

Changes to Battlegrounds

Besides the card changes, Hearthstone‘s other popular game mode, Battlegrounds, also sees some drastic changes this week. For the first time in the history of the game, a total of 26 heroes will be available to play. Previously, the number of available heroes was 24 or less.

Returning with this week’s update are the new and improved versions of Patches the Pirate and Pyramad. Both of these heroes were previously removed for being too weak compared to the rest. Because of this, each of them will now see their hero power increased drastically in overall strength. Patches’ hero power now deals 4 damage to 2 minions at the start of the turn, and Pyramad can now buff a random minion by 3 health instead of 2.

In addition to the buffs to Patches and Pyramad, Shudderwock and Infinite Toki will have the cost of their hero powers reduced from 2 mana to 1 with this update. Finally, Queen Wagtoggle’s buff has changed from 1 health to 2 attack. This should make her far stronger as an early game hero.

For more Hearthstone news, be sure to read all about the upcoming Masters Tour locations for 2020.