New cards, class changes coming to Hearthstone’s classic mode

Hearthstone will be revisiting some cards from the classic set, Blizzard announced today in a blog post. The goal of these redesigns, retirements, and re-introductions is to keep the nine classes of Hearthstone feeling distinct, with their own strengths, weaknesses, and core fantasies.

Standard modes rotate over time, with cards being removed and expansions being changed to Wild as the game progresses. This means that players who aren’t involved in Wild play see their classes evolve over time, with new combinations like “secret Paladin” or “jade Druid” coming in and out of fashion. These changes are meant to straighten out classes who have wandered a little too far from their intended strengths and weaknesses.

The first, and biggest changes come for rogue and priest. Mind Blast, a card that does five damage to the enemy hero, is being retired in favor of Radiance. Radiance restores five health to the priest’s hero. The rogue card Vanish that returns all minions to their owner’s hand is being replaced with Plaguebringer, a 3/3 minion that adds the “poisonous” trait to an allied minion.

Mind Blast and Vanish will still be available in Wild mode.

New cards will be added to classic card packs in the next major update. These cards are going to be in every standard rotation, which means that they’ll continually be around to change the metagame.

This is part of an ongoing effort by Blizzard to revisit past content in an attempt to spruce up Hearthstone’s current metagame. Recently, the Rise of the Mechs event went back and buffed The Boomsday Project’s cards, including the addition of a new legendary.

This gallery contains all the new cards coming to the classic decks.

Grid View