In post by Dean Ayala, Blizzard spoke at length at the health of Hearthstone’s Arena mode. For those unfamiliar with Hearthstone, it is a digital card game where you can earn more cards through adventures, expansions, the Arena, or through direct purchasing of packs. You can also earn a free pack once a week with a win in the Tavern Brawl mode, which features unusual rules and stipulations to deck building or game rules. While adventures can be purchased with coins, it is not cost efficient, and thus the only true way of getting consistent packs for “free” would be through the Arena. For that reason alone, the Arena is important to the health of the game.
The way the mode works is that you are given the choice of three random classes out of the possible nine, then draft a thirty card deck based on that class choice. You are rewarded a number of packs based on the number of wins you can muster before three losses. The issue stems from the classes not being properly balanced for the Arena, and you do not have all the classes available to you every draft. Due to the mode’s minion-focused strategy, classes that provide easy removal of your opponent’s creatures gives you a distinct advantage over classes that do not. The worst offenders are the Rogue and Mage classes, who have been consistently powerful due to their bevvy of removal options. While the Paladin has also remained quite powerful due to resistance to removal and effective creatures, the other six classes have been in limbo since release.
Blizzard’s plan is to boost poorly functioning classes by removing some of the chaff, as well as a few of the notorious cards. They claim that some of the stronger cards will remain, as they “add to a lot of the unpredictability and excitement surrounding the possibilities outside the current board state.” Same goes for the iconic cards of each class, as they add stability and class “feel” to your draft.
Below is the list of the cards that will be removed from the arena:
Mage
- Forgotten Torch
- Snowchugger
- Faceless Summoner
Rogue
- Goblin Auto Barber
- Undercity Valiant
Paladin
- No changes
Shaman
- Vitality Totem
- Dust Devil
- Totemic Might
- Ancestral Healing
- Dunemaul Shaman
- Windspeaker
Warlock
- Anima Golem
- Sacrificial Pact
- Curse of Rafaam
- Sense Demons
- Void Crusher
- Reliquary Seeker
- Succubus
Druid
- Savagery
- Poison Seeds
- Soul of the Forest
- Mark of Nature
- Tree of Life
- Astral Communion
Warrior
- Warsong Commander
- Bolster
- Charge
- Bouncing Blade
- Axe Flinger
- Rampage
- Ogre Warmaul
Hunter
- Starving Buzzard
- Call Pet
- Timber Wolf
- Cobra Shot
- Lock and Load
- Dart Trap
- Snipe
Priest
- Mind Blast
- Shadowbomber
- Lightwell
- Power Word: Glory
- Confuse
- Convert
- Inner Fire
Blizzard is also researching other avenues to balance the Arena. One solution is to balance Arena around an adjusted rate individual cards appear in your draft, so that cornerstone cards appear more often. Another potential option is to draft by a predetermined rarity structure, so that all decks have a least a set amount of each type. There is no word if any of the proposed changes will be tested publicly sometime soon.