Hearthstone Patch 20.0.2 nerfs Mage, Paladin, Rogue, Watch Posts, and Pen Flinger

The first iteration of balance changes for Hearthstone’s new expansion, Forged in the Barrens, is arriving tomorrow.

Blizzard revealed the notes for the upcoming Patch 20.2 today. The update will bring much-requested alterations to notable cards from Mage, Paladin, and Neutrals for a total of six changes. Aside from the card updates for the Constructed Ladder, the patch also includes notable changes to Battlegrounds, Duels, and Arena.

Here are all of the important takeaways from Patch 20.2 notes.

Standard balance updates

• Deck of Lunacy
  • Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 4]
  • Dev comment: Deck of Lunacy moves up to four mana, removing its ability to provide a game-warping effect on turn one or two. When we create cards like Deck of Lunacy, we’re aiming for an experience that lets you do wacky, over-the-top things at the cost of power. There’s a large audience for that (Spell Mage’s play-rate shows!), but Deck of Lunacy very clearly crosses the power threshold we set for these types of cards.
• Sword of the Fallen
  • Old: 1 Attack, 3 Durability → New: 1 Attack, 2 Durability
  • Dev comment: Sword of the Fallen is not only powerful but also creates early-game situations with too many Secrets in play. We’re moving Sword of the Fallen down to two durability to reduce the overall value of the card and make those turns against three to four Secrets less common.
• Jandice Barov
  • Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 6]
  • Dev comment: Jandice Barov benefitted greatly from the Core Set refresh and the rotation of weaker five-cost minions. Looking ahead, we don’t intend to dilute Jandice’s pool of summoned minions and that’s not something we’d want to rely on for her balance. With that in mind, we are nerfing Jandice Barov to six mana where her total stat output is much more appropriate.
• Pen Flinger
  • Old: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage. Spellburst: Return this to your hand. → New: Battlecry: Deal 1 damage to a minion. Spellburst: Return this to your hand.
  • Dev comment: Pen Flinger equips some classes with large amounts of chip damage, whether it be to minions or to the opposing hero. This flexibility makes Pen Flinger an attractive option for many decks. But when that utility is combined with repetition, it takes over the story of a match. Pen Flinger takes out your minions, might deal 10 damage to your face over multiple turns, and even had the gall to call you names throughout all of it. We’re nerfing Pen Flinger to now only target minions, positioning it as a removal option rather than a dual-threat card.
• Far Watch Post
  • Old: 2 Attack, 4 Health → New: 2 Attack, 3 Health
• Mor’shan Watch Post
  • Old: 3 Attack, 5 Health → New: 3 Attack, 4 Health

Dev comment: Watch Posts are meant to act as an interesting tech-package when dealing with certain gameplans. Right now, though, they act as go-to options in many classes, sporting quite high win rates for disruption-based cards. To cut into their power, we’re reducing the Health of both Far Watch Post and Mor’shan Watch Post. This change will make them easier to deal with on turns two and three, lowering the investment barrier for removal to better match the options available on those early turns.

Battlegrounds changes

Returning Heroes

• Queen Wagtoggle
  • Wax Warband
    • Old: Give a friendly minion of each minion type +2/+1 → New: Give a friendly minion of each minion type +1/+1.
• Captain Hooktusk
  • Trash for Treasure
    • Old: Remove a friendly minion. Discover a random one from a Tavern Tier lower. → New: Remove a friendly minion. Choose one of two from a Tavern Tier lower to keep.

Minion updates

• Steward of Time
  • Old: 3 Attack, 4 Health. When you sell this minion, give all minions in Bob’s Tavern +1/+1. → New: 3 Attack, 3 Health. When you sell this minion, give all minions in Bob’s Tavern +2/+1.
• Pack Leader
  • Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health → New: 3 Attack, 3 Health
• Monstrous Macaw
  • Old: 4 Attack, 3 Health → New: 5 Attack, 3 Health
• Herald of Flame
  • Old: 5 Attack, 6 Health → New: 6 Attack, 6 Health
• Wildfire Elemental
  • Old: 7 Attack, 3 Health → New: 7 Attack, 4 Health
• Lieutenant Garr
  • Old: 5 Attack, 1 Health → New: 8 Attack, 1 Health
• Lil’ Rag
  • Old: 4 Attack, 4 Health → New: 6 Attack, 6 Health

Duels balance updates

• Ace in the Hole
  • Old: [Costs 2] → New: [Costs 3]
• Rally the Troops
  • Old: After you play your first Battlecry card in a turn, draw a card. It costs (5) less. → New: After you play your first Battlecry card in a turn, draw a card. It costs (3) less.
• Connections
  • Old: [Passive] → New: [Costs 1]

Arena changes

• Updated the appearance rate of cards in Arena to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50 percent win rate. Specifically, the win rate of Demon Hunter and Priest should now be decreased. The win rate of Druid, Hunter, Rogue, and Shaman should now be increased.
• Removed Far Watch Post, Mor’Shan Watch Post, Crossroads Watch Post, and Kargal Battlescar from Arena.
• Fixed a bug where the Arena could fail to load properly for new players.

Bug fixes and game improvements

• Fixed a bug where Sunwell Initiate’s Divine Should could not be silenced.
• Fixed a bug where Shadowjeweler Hanar could Discover secrets from outside of Standard in Ranked Standard.
• Fixed a bug where the Battlecry for Reckless Apprentice would not apply the Freeze effect from Ice Walker.
• Fixed a bug where the Battlecry for Reckless Apprentice would still trigger if the Hero Power was disabled.
• Fixed a bug where playing Wildfire before Metamorphosis could cause your original Hero Power to gain an extra damage.
• Fixed a bug where Lakkari Felhound could discard newly drawn cards, such as when played in sequence with Hand of Gul’dan.
• Fixed a bug where Celestial Alignment would work inconsistently with cards that reduce mana costs, such as Librams or Cutting Class.
• Fixed a bug with Kazakus, Golem Shaper where the Firebloom ability could target the same minion twice.
• Fixed a visual bug where G’huun the Blood God would leave the blood drop mana cost icon behind when played.
• Fixed a bug where casting Twisting Nether into Oh My Yogg! would not allow for more cards to be played.
• Fixed a bug where the VFX for certain spells would continuously play after being transformed by Oh My Yogg!
• Fixed a bug where Pit Master would appear in Collection results when filtering for Nature cards.
• Fixed a bug where Holy Wrath was not tagged as a Holy spell.
• Fixed a bug where Dragon’s Pack had the Nature spell school tag. It is no longer part of a spell school.
• Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where Minions could show an outline of their Tavern Tier icon when played.
• Fixed a bug where some Boomsday puzzles were causing desync issues.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement It’ll Take More Than That where credit could be granted without playing the Warrior class.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement Barrens Neutral Collector where incorrect Collection quotas were listed.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement Final Frontier where progress would not be credited from discounted minions.
• Fixed a bug with the Achievement Do it for the Vines where Dual-Class cards would not count as progress.
• Fixed a visual bug where Achievement XP and end of match XP gains could show incorrect numbers but reward the correct amount of XP.
• Fixed a visual bug where, in some cases, XP gains benefitting from XP bonuses were not highlighting with a green font color.
• Fixed a visual bug where the Tavern Pass bonus XP displayed on the Achievement detail view would be incorrect.
• Fixed a bug where the mass disenchant preview would count some cards twice but would give the correct amount of dust when used.
• Fixed a bug where the disenchant button would glow regardless of whether there were extra cards to disenchant.
• Fixed a bug where some player ranks and rewards were not populating from the correct ladder on the friends list and elsewhere.
• Fixed a visual bug where names on the friends list could be overlapped by their rank, and where a friend’s rank would show even when they were offline.
• Fixed a bug where a star bonus would appear on the deck selection page for Legend ranks.
• Fixed a bug where an erroneous pop up would appear saying a Demon Hunter class pack was granted for completing the Ashes of Outland Prologue.
• Fixed a bug where the Hamuul Card Back would not show properly during pack opening.
• Fixed a bug where the Play button would always be highlighted in the main menu.
• Fixed a bug where players could become locked out from creating or deleting decks when they previously were not.
• Fixed a bug where “Click to Convert” would persist on decks regardless of what mode you’d swapped to.
• Fixed a bug where mousing over decks that are behind the “You have no Classic Decks. Go create one!” pane would show pop-up info.
• Fixed a bug where mousing over a Classic deck with the mode set to Casual would display a tooltip stating: “Not useable in Wild format”.
• Fixed a bug where players could re-roll into the Win 5 Games of Ranked Play Mode weekly quest after already completing it that week.
• Fixed a bug where the Sir Annoy-o Hero Skin, the Crossroads bundle, and the Barrens Tavern Pass were showing incorrect art in the purchase window.
• Fixed a grammatical error in the card text for Warsong Wrangler.
• Fixed various translation issues across several languages.

You can try out a new meta in your favorite game mode when Hearthstone Patch 20.0.2 goes live tomorrow, April 13.