Blizzard Plans to Drop Old Card Sets From "Standard" Hearthstone Play, Adds New "Wild" Format

RIP DR. Boom

Welcome to my reality.

This is the only phone game I like. I sure hope this doesn't screw it up.

Taking Goblins vs Gnomes out of the standard play should dramatically reduce the level of RNG I see online, and I support it 1000%. Really, anything that changes up the format, I'm totally on board with. Hearthstone is a fun way to pass the time but it could definitely use some shaking up that doesn't involve new cards or the power creep that rides along with them.

If it's anything like MtG some of the cards in GvG and Naxx will eventually be reintroduced in later expansions. Just imagine the rage we'll see when people who dusted their golden Dr. Boom realise they'll need to craft it again. It'll be glorious.

I am not too familiar with CCGs at all, Hearthstone is my first. Literally in the past few days, I was wondering to myself how the hell they were going to keep creating new cards that wouldn't eventually break the game in one way or another. I guess this is how they do it. It makes sense. It's a little weird to me, but I have no beef with the decision.

EDIT: Taking the old content down, however, is a really bad move IMO. As someone who has terrible luck and must grind out dust for epic/legendaries, it blows and I would not want to do that for entire sets of cards.

As a person who just the other day spent a couple of months saved dust to finally craft Dr. Boom, I'm a little bummed. As a person who doesn't purchase the single player expansions, I'm a little heartened. I'm calling this one a wash until we see how things shake out.

I think this news might have gone down a little smoother with the larger player base if they had announced it alongside some information about the next expansion. It would have been a nice distraction from the anxiety this type of change can cause.

What blows my mind about this is that tournaments will be played in standard mode. So the best Hearthstone players will not be able to use Naxx or GvG cards. I.... I just don't get it.

Also, calling the new mode "standard" doesn't make sense to me. When I hear standard I always think of how I'm playing HS right now.

edit: I need to start saying some positive things in comments. So I will say I'm VERY excited for 9 more deck slots! And hopefully some good card re-balancing.

edit 2: After watching Trump, Noxious and some others describe this new change I've turned around on standard mode. Who would've thought letting the information settle in and hearing from people who can describe this well would make it easier to digest?

Taking Naxx off the market sucks, but at least I can have access to it if I save the 700 gold up before the expansion comes out.

Will await the inevitable reissued version of some cards though: Dr. Boom, Electric Boomaloo

Hmm not really a fan of them killing off the old cards like that or making the actual standard way of playing HS called "Wild".

Though if for balance reasons, it's slightly understandable as this game hasn't been balanced in over a year. The amount of absurdly overpowered cards/combos has been one of the things driving me away from the game a bit. Still play faaar too much though.

Maybe put Hearthstone in this article title? Was kinda confused what you were referring to at first.

This also makes a ton of sense if you want to make an ongoing card game. This is what has allowed Magic to be sustainable as a business model.

I know @austin_walker will appreciate that I had to quit Netrunner because they wouldn't put something like this in effect.

@austin_walker "The first of these of these formats..."

and loatheb, mad scientist, sludge belcher, piloted shredder, death's bite... pretty big! it's interesting that they're pitching "standard" as the main ladder now when "wild" will still exist and might even be more popular. i know it's for the benefit of new players but i imagine a lot of players won't want to play in the new meta. especially since "standard" will probably be just as dominated by secret paladin and combo druid

by far the most interesting thing about this is the proposed nerfs that we'll see in the next patch. the only thing they've touched recently is warsong commander. that'll probably have a bigger effect on the game

also, 18 deckslots. which might have less of an impact with two different ladders...

I'm definitely into the idea of mixing things up for the "standard" mode. Phil Kollar mentioned that they're doing this in large part to be able to actually make meaningful changes even to some of the basic cards (he used the Druid's Savage Roar/Mark of Nature combo, something that's in every Druid deck, as an example). It's exciting to imagine a Hearthstone where everything we take for granted might not work anymore.

That said, removing content sucks. Some of the adventure mode stuff is really neat and I can't possibly imagine why they'd cut it out of the game. Why not just make it super cheap or free and remove the guaranteed card rewards or something? Or just leave it as it is and let people unlock cards for what won't even be the main mode anymore?

As someone who finally crafted Dr. Boom, this change sucks. But generally it's a good idea for the game. You could tell how much they were stretched and limited in trying to prevent game-breaking combos as new expansions were released, and that only promised to get worse. It still will take a little getting used to that the collection I spent money/time building will be largely removed, and some of my favorite decks eventually destroyed in the coming year or two. There are lots of cool decks in the game that only became viable using cards from every set.

But really the biggest thing they have to prove is that the new format keeps the game healthy, instead of just being an excuse to cycle cards and force people to get replacements for auto-include cards. As it is they almost certainly will have to print replacement anti-aggro for cards like Belcher and Healbot. Spending a year scrambling to get the new staple cards could be a lot more frustrating than just building a strong deck with the collection I already have and slowly adding to it.

This is an excellent change.

This is awesome!

Well, fuck that.

Those 2 expansions broke the game for me. I'll be glad to see them go and maybe I'll play again.

Isn't this pretty close to what Magic does for it's official play formats? I really like the idea, but I don't know if it will really stop people from resting on proven decks and just making swaps as necessary.

Additionally: I'm not exactly a Hearthstone expert (far from it, in fact) and I know that there are very few truly viable decks out there, doesn't reducing the number of cards just ensure that the meta of the game stays restricted and rigid? Sure, it might mean that you build around Powerful Combo/Card Y instead of Powerful Combo/Card X, but same shit, different decks, yeah? It's not, like, going to fundamentally shake up the way you play the game competitively, it just changes the cards or class you do it with.

I guess the wild format is probably for me, since I've always embraced the potential stupidity of this game rather than desiring to play it in any serious manner. Though I'm rather afraid that since they're going to be making new cards with the standard format's current rotation in mind that the wild format will just be a neglected hellhole.

I'm 100% on board. The price of the single player adventures means that you already need to pay a quite a bit of money (Or a loooot of time) to get a deck that can really climb the ladder.

I just wish you could use dust to make new single player adventure cards, too. Needing to pay 20 bucks for content I'm not interested in order to get the few of cards I need to make my deck viable is pretty shitty.

"Annoy-o-tron"

Also I'm pretty sure this will lead to the inevitable death of "Wild" as a format. For the same reasons that it has died in every other card game, lack of support. While the limited format (Type II in MTG and Hearthstone's Standard), gives the designers room to support new players and new ideas without crowding the design space, I think Blizzard choosing to go this route is disappointing. They seem to have chosen a familiar concept instead of pushing the boundaries.

Hearthstone is a DIGITAL game, they have the power to change every card ever made. Un-make cards, change cards, rework cards, rebalance cards, re-order entire sets, move cards from one set to another, etc. They have myriad options that aren't available to a physical card game due to not having any physical parts. Blizzard could have done some or all of those things to make the game better or easier for new players while not completely removing old cards and content (adventures). It seems like an admission of defeat. "We couldn't find a better way than what Magic was doing. Sorry guys! Here's Magic Type II - Hearthstone Edition!" Maybe they did try a lot of these things but just aren't talking about them or found some other good reason not to do them, but they didn't seem to address that at all.

I just wonder why they would want stick to the trappings of a physical game when they aren't bound by those things at all.

i think this will be fine. as a arena player, i am glad all the cards are still going to be in there so arena stays enjoyable and random. i trust blizzard to keep making new and fun content like the league of explorers and tavern brawl. i have never played a game that has been updated so much like this before. plus ranked is annoying anyways, can only play so many "Secret Paladins" before snapping my phone in half over my knee.

This is fine with me. I'm at a point now in Hearthstone where I basically have all of the basic cards. Buying packs just give me dust unless I get lucky and get a legendary I don't have.

Re-reading the quote about removing G&G & Naxx makes me think they're not removing the cards from the game themselves, but the packs/expansions themselves aren't going to be purchasable as packs. Instead, the cards will be available to everyone via crafting. You will no longer have to buy the pack.

Isn't that more in tune with the actual text?

Or are they saying, if you previously purchased it, even though they're removing the expansions from the shop, you can still purchase the new cards by crafting. But you can't purchase the expansion (and thus, not have the cards available to craft). The last sentence of that paragraph makes it seem that's the more likely point, but the first couple sentences make it seem like crafting will still be available, even if the shop doesn't have the packs around.

So what's the deal?

@rayeth I think the tricky part there is that digital or not, people are still paying money to get cards. Were Blizzard to fully remove or continually nerf things out of existence, so to speak, people would be pretty angry, probably only leaving the insane diehards playing the game. It's a much softer blow to make it so that even if the cards people spent hundreds of dollars on won't be usable in the main segment of the game, at least they can be used in an secondary mode of the game that might end up being more popular anyway.

I think this makes all kind of sense for a card game.

You will be able to craft the cards from GvG and Naxx but they will not be usable in the standard format of the game (also this means that it'd be a FUCK ton more expensive to get all the cards from those expansions). You will also not be able to buy or play the adventure tied to Naxx, which I see as an incredible disappointment, cutting cool single-player content out of the game like that.

Not sure Secret Paladin works: Avenge, Muster for Battle, Shielded Mini Bot, Coghammer, Dr. Boom, Piloted Shredder, Haunted Creeper and Sludge Belcher were all in different variations of the deck and they will all be gone.

Excellent. I love Blizzard for giving me the much needed excuse to finally do a clean break from their more time consuming games and move on (ie WoW). Hearthstone was already balancing for me on the razors edge of being too much of a task to keep up with (both time wise and with it's brand of bullshit).

Whether the change is in reality good for the game or not is beside the point in my personal case. (i'm sure it will be since the article points out every card game does this eventually). I was on and off the game in bursts for some time now. It's just a good excuse to finally say "eeeh I can't be arsed anymore getting new cards, this has officially become too high maintenance". The investment has spent itself. And it feels nice. The overall infatuation with it is gone, but I am sure when I am on a trip somewhere and there is nothing else interesting to pick up and play I'll fire up an arena run or two still.

PS: making old adventures not available for new players seems like a singular bad move, those things were awesome

I don't have a problem with removing cards from modes but not selling those expansions at all? Those offer a lot of fun new challenges.

Would it be so hard to just slap a prompt on those old adventures that says "Warning! These cards are no longer legal in Standard play!". Knock the price down on them a bit and you'd still get some money instead of no money and annoyed people.

@yummytreesap: Yeah, after reading more comments I see why people are upset/disappointed. Needing to disenchant 4 legendaries to obtain 1 legendary from Naxx blows. And not being able to experience the adventure, that certainly blows for new people. Why wouldn't you want people to have that experience? And make money from it! I hope they reconsider that plan. I don't even know why they would do that. I wonder what their logic/thought process is.

If you think the Wild format might be more popular you have another thing coming.

The format will be mostly devoid of players in a year or two. All of the tournaments are moving to Standard. The same is true for every other card game that has existed. At some point there aren't enough people interested in acquiring all the old cards, and with no tournaments and little developer support, the format dies. It might live on for a while, but sooner or later it will be dead. (Very probably sooner).

I expect the reddit complaint posts about how long a game of Wild takes to find will be posted within the year.

@planetfunksquad: This was my immediate thought with this announcement as well but i'm not sure whether they will do it. The inclusion of a standard format is going to be healthy for the game for a plethora of reasons. The inclusion of a standard format also urges people to spend more money on cards to keep up.

They certainly could just not "reprint" cards as it stands to make them more money but hopefully they take some lessons from MtG. Taking out Sludge Belcher and filling that anti-aggro hole with a new card that would effectively be Sludge Belcher 2.0 makes that Sludge Belcher 2.0 desirable and therefore a "valuable" card. This also means that Sludge Belcher 1.0 is less valuable as a result. Eventually Sludge Belcher 2.0 will lose all its value as well. In anything where you build a collection, the feeling that your collection maintains its value is still important despite that scarcity and trading isn't a thing with this digital collection. Having reprints also makes cards that are bad because they can't stand up to the current meta have more value as the cards which create the oppressive situation disappear.

Obviously every important card in the meta shouldn't get reprinted all the time but just the possibility that a card will be just as desirable in 3 years as it was when you crafted. There are certainly bad aspects to having a standard rotation but reprints help mitigate a lot of that.

No Dr. Boom, no Piloted Shredder, no haunted creeper, no sludge belcher

I play mostly Warlock. I was devastated until I realized you can still make a pretty sick Handlock deck with the Standard cards.

I think it's fine if they changed the format and add these new modes. Just think it's crazy they're totally eliminating the ability to get cards through adventures or through the shop like that. If it's all locked into the "wild" format, why does it hurt to still have those things in the game? Instead of forcing people to dust and make new cards?

I really hope they lower the dust cost for cards or increase the amount of dust you can get if they're going with this.

As someone who plays Hearthstone mainly for the collection aspect, this sucks for a couple reasons.

First, I started playing last year and have very few of the GvG cards. Ever since tGT came out Blizzard has made it difficult to earn those packs. Now my hopes of completing that set are completely dashed because crafting all the GvG rares/epics/legendaries is going to be prohibitively expensive(probably 50k dust for me). No option to get these cards through packs.

Second, now players will be constantly having to collect new sets in order to be viable in competitive(standard), which I'm sure Blizzard loves, but it means you are constantly buying cards that will be worthless in 1-2 years. From a consumer perspective that seems really lousy.

I know it's good for the game but for players who don't invest much money it makes us want to spend money even less

Yeah on second thought, you're probably right, but only because Blizzard's making it exorbitantly expensive to acquire any of the cards in the non-standard rotations. I think this is a very stupid move, especially since wild mode has to (or should) be at least slightly thought about since it is still going to be the format for arena runs. Not that Arena has ever striven for exceptional balance or anything.

Edit: I'd also posit that it sounds unwelcoming to new players in the sense that in order to stay relevant in standard mode, one must essentially make a yearly subscription to the game, whereas in the past maybe you wouldn't be on top if you didn't buy some expansions, but at least you could still build good decks around the stuff you did have.

I imagine this is the opposite of a surprise for every Magic: The Gathering player out there.

I mean yeah, but it's entirely possible to build decent decks out of classic packs and the basic cards and it's been confirmed that those will never leave rotation.

Why don't you just change the cards? It's a digital CCG. Old stuff too broken? Change the way it works!

Though I do not like Hearthstone myself, the removal of old expansions makes sense and is something Magic and many other games have been doing for years. Part of it really is just to keep the cash flowing since tossing out old expansions means people will always have to buy new ones if they want to stick with the game (though the inclusion of the Wild format ensures that old cards don't become worthless). The other part of it is that, in addition to preventing game-breaking combos from inevitably cropping up in Standard mode, it allows them to try out new mechanics without getting locked into using those mechanics forever (Magic does this constantly with its blocks) and it allows them to play around with stat balancing a bit.

The complete removal of old content is weird though and I don't see any good reason at all to do it. Maybe it's an attempt to push people into buying it and/or to make them use the crafting system more, but it just seems completely disrespectful to both the playerbase and to those who worked hard to create that content in the first place. Blizzard as a company has generally approached their games with a mindset of making old endgames and content obsolete in favor of changing things up (especially in the case of WoW), but making it outright inaccessible is kinda ridiculous.

Ever since the game launched I've been waiting for this moment. It pretty much had to happen eventually, both to allow them to keep coming up with new ideas that can actually impact the game without just breaking everything, and also so that the sheer mountain of cards doesn't completely overwhelm new players. Definitely the right move and now feels about the time to me.

I totally agree with Austin's point towards the end however - taking away the old cards from sale seems completely crazy to me, and doubly so for the adventures. They're still going to be playable in the other format. I think it would be great if they started selling those packs for maybe half (or less) their original cost once they're out of the Standard rotation.

Would be a real shame to lose the Adventures, too. Those things are super unique and fun.

Tell us how you really feel about the Annoy-o-tron, Austin.

Removing the rotated out single player adventures feels like a bad move. What if they just removed the card rewards from the old adventures and gave new players a chunk of gold for beating them their first time?

Pros:

- Give new players a fun incentivized way to explore the gameplay and deckbuilding with a variety of challenges without having to brave the ladder 2 hours after installing the game.

- Celebrate the work that Blizzard put into the adventures making them worthwhile and unique experiences as opposed to eradication by reason of the cards not being relevant.

- Enrich the game by giving lore to the cards within the game itself, rather than forcing players to read the wiki/play all the Warcraft games.

Cons:

- Reduces the value of new adventures by letting players know they can play the encounters for free 2 years later. This is leaves the "I don't want to wait" factor and the "I want these cards it comes with" factor. The former's draw and power speaks for itself and the latter is probably the majority of the reason people buy into adventures currently

As a player who doesn't buy card packs but does by the solo adventures, this really sucks.

I'm really excited to adapt my best decks for the standard format, especially considering that the game is likely to get closer to the vanilla level of board control where Flamestrike meant something.

Also, I really want to point out that they are not actually REMOVING Naxxramus from the game. They've said that you will still be able to buy the single player adventure mode for gold, just not real money.

Edit: Misread, you have to own at least one wing for that.

@thisisdell: why? I'm assuming you own all the adventures that are already out as someone who only buys that content, yeah? You'll still have those and you'll still be able to buy new ones when they come out.