Hearthstone’s Arena mode will have 45 cards removed from it in an upcoming patch

What makes Blizzard’s Hearthstone particularly enjoyable is its ability to create memorable tales and experiences from its, how do I say this, controlled randomness. Its Arena mode unfortunately, is just a little bit too unpredictable, and seemingly unbalanced as a result.

Blizzard are looking to bring a better sense of balance to the mode in a future patch though. They’ve detailed their plan of action in a new blog post:

Most of the feedback we’ve received on Arena is centred around class balance. For the last few content releases, Mage and Rogue have bounced back and forth as the top two most played and most powerful classes. Paladin has been in a tier by itself below Mage and Rogue, while the last six classes have done some shifting around in a tier below these three.

So what are some ways we can address Arena balance? Tools that we have available immediately involve removing cards from Arena completely—C’Thun-synergy cards and Purify are examples of this. We’d like to avoid removing strong spells and weapons from the Arena, because they add to a lot of the unpredictability and excitement surrounding the possibilities outside the current board state. We’d also like to avoid removing iconic cards, since they are generally versatile and familiar tools to veteran and new Arena players alike. Additionally, we can remove lower-performing cards in order to make room for a class’ more commonly utilized cards to show up more often in your Arena draft.

So, instead of directly nerfing the stronger Arena classes, Mage and Rogue, Blizzard are instead removing, in their own words, “lower-performing cards” from the weaker ones. This should (in theory) give players better, stronger options when it comes to building their actual deck, which should hopefully see these other classes performing a lot better overall.

Make sense? Good! Now that we’re on the same page, these are the cards that you won’t be seeing in Arena when the patch drops sometime in future:

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

I’m terrible at deck building as is, so I hardly touch Arena. Honestly, my gold is better spent elsehwhere!

What about you? Do you dabble with the mode regularly? If so, are you happy with these upcoming card removals?

Last Updated: September 9, 2016