As we wind down the year that was 2015, we like to look back and think about certain events. Then, if you're like me, you like to ask yourself "Did that happen this year, or the last one?"
No worries. If you're wondering what happened in the world of Hearthstone this year, this article has you covered. And what a busy year it was, with two adventure arcs being made available to play and an expansion that added over a hundred new cards to the game and made the Paladin hero one of the most popular in the current meta.
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Undertaker Nerf - Jan 29th
We started off the year with Blizzard addressing the problem of a card that had been added with the Naxxramas adventure earlier - the Undertaker card. A 1-mana cost Minion, it gained +1/+1 for every Deathrattle Minion that was played after it on the friendly player's side, which led to it sometimes getting bloated quite fast for a simple 1-cost Minion. Blizzard decided shortly after the year started that the time had come to nerf the card slightly, removing its health buffing ability but letting it keep its attack buffing in a patch applied January 29th.
"Undertaker was frustrating to play against. It often gained both Attack and Health stats significantly above those of other inexpensive minions very early in the game. With this change, we expect Undertaker will still be better than other 1-Mana minions when played in a deck with a Deathrattle theme, but more likely to die in combat against other minions."
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Blackrock Mountain - April 2nd/3rd
The first adventure of the year came out at the beginning of April, allowing us to journey through a single-player route that saw the bosses and setting matching that of the Blackrock raid from World of Warcraft (adding in its own Hearthstone twists of course). Having been announced March 6th at PAX East, Blackrock Mountain saw you fighting first against Ragnaros for Nefarian, then later wings saw you then taking on the black dragon himself as well as his sister and other associated creatures from the Blackrock Spire. It also introduced to the game the new Dragon Minion type, with several new Dragon cards being released as well as some older cards being re-designated Dragons. New card effects came to use what was in the hand of players now, such as the combinations of cards that rely on held Dragon Minions that now see wide use in the like of the Dragon Priest decks.
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Hearthstone on mobile - April
April also saw the release of Hearthstone onto mobile devices at last, with the delay being partially down to the need to reorganise the elements on screen to fit the smaller screen of a phone. The mobile versions were to be updated at the same time as the computer and tablet versions and the same account data was shared between devices.
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Tavern Brawl - June 17th
The middle of the year brought a surprise with the implementation of a new game mode that Blizzard had apparently been working on since Hearthstone launched. Starting with the "Showdown at Blackrock Mountain" Brawl that let players randomly play either as Ragnaros or Nefarian as they had appeared in the Blackrock Mountain Adventure, Tavern Brawl launched on June 17th. With new rules every week, the Tavern Brawl opens for five days every week to allow players to take on random other players using pre-constructed decks for the fight or constructing decks to take advantage of crazy rules in play, such as each destroyed Minion spawning a new Minion that cost 2 less mana in its place or both players having the costs of cards in their hand randomised each turn. The first win each week also nets the winner a free Classic pack of cards to open (except for the Gift Exchange Brawl which gifted the Winter Veil Wreath card back).
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New Heroes; Magni Bronzebeard - June
Also at the beginning of June the news was announced that Blizzard were going to make alternative Heroes available for classes, with Magni Bronzebeard being the first as another Warrior. The Heroes were purchasable cosmetics from the store and some criticized them at time of release because it was felt that the price was a little bit excessive, as the Hero Powers remained the same and all the changes were just purely cosmetic.
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The Grand Tournament - August 24th
On July 22, 2015 Blizzard hosted a special event at The Folsom Street Foundry, San Francisco at which Eric Dodds announced the next big Hearthstone expansion that was coming - The Grand Tournament! Released on August 24th and based around the Argent Tournament (or at least what happened in the years after the major lore-important Argent Tournament), Blizzard had an offer on that saw players able to pre-order 50 of the new packs at a discount before the expansion released which also gifted an exclusive cardback. Added were 132 cards, with all the Heroes getting a few decent new spells and Minions from it. A new keyword was added to the game with Inspire - a special effect that triggered upon the player using their Hero Power. Joust was also added, although not as a keyword but rather a sub-type of Battlecry. Jousts require both players to draw a Minion from their decks, and if the Jousting player has the higher cost card, an effect is triggered based on what the Minion has on their card (example: Armored Warhouse gains Charge). This led to an upsurge in the popularity of the Paladin Hero (including with myself mostly due to Murloc Knight), and with the Mysterious Challenger led to the deck now known as the 'Secrets Paladin' (or the Christmas Tree Deck).
In the same patch Ranked now had a change made so that based on how high a rank you achieved during a month, you also now earned golden cards, gold and arcane dust at the beginning of a month. Blizzard made this change after feedback made them realise that players didn't see much point to leveling beyond Rank 20 and getting the month's new cardback anymore. Arena was also changed so that card packs given as prizes could now be of any of the 3 packs types.
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Warsong Commander Nerf - October 30th
Blackrock obviously had brought with it some new cards as well as winnable prizes for completing bosses, one of which was the Grim Patron. A 3/3 5-cost mana Minion that could summon another full health Patron upon being hurt as long as it wasn't fatal damage, it quickly found a place in the hearts of Warrior players and the Grim Patron deck was born. This deck relied on the use of the Patron's effect as well as that of a Warrior exclusive card, Warsong Commander, that gave Charge to all Minions with 3 or less attack. As this was a deck that was almost impossible to fight back against, Blizzard stepped in again for the second time in the year to apply a nerf in the October 20th patch. It was the Warsong Commander who felt the blow, as its effect was changed to merely giving all Charge Minions +1 attack. The change was met with mixed reception, although mainly positive from players there were some that called it the end of the Patron deck (although the deck itself hasn't suffered too much so far, still being played a lot in tournaments).
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Hearthstone World Championship - October & November
The next big Hearthstone event was of course the World Championship where players from across the world competed to become the Champion of the world, succeeding last year's winner Firebat. The best four players from the four representing regions (North America, EU, China and Asia-Pacific) came together at the end of October to fight double-elimination brackets to see which 8 of them would journey onwards to Blizzcon the next week. Then at Blizzcon the eight remaining players were matched up and took on each other to advance higher in the standings for a chance at first place. It eventually came down to Ostkaka of Europe and Hotform of America in a grand final match fought on the 7th of November. Eventually Ostkaka walked away the winner, only the second ever Hearthstone World Champion.
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The League of Explorers - November 12th/13th
Of course, that wasn't the only Hearthstone related thing that came from Blizzcon, with the second Adventure of the year announced in fairly retro and inspiring little trailer to set up The League of Explorers. A slightly shorter Adventure at four wings, The League of Explorers was released on November 12th/13th depending on region and took a break for a week for Thanskgiving part way through. Again, something new was added to the game through this Adventure, and it was the keyword of Discover. Playing a Discover card would then present you with 3 random cards that fit the boundaries of what you were allowed to Discover. You then chose one of the 3 and it would be added to your hand. It also introduced us to a special type of Adventure battle, one where there was no actual opponent and you merely had to survive 10 turns without dying to win.
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Sanitarium.FM Hearthstone Winter Open Tournament - December 5th/6th
Finally on a slightly more personal level, one of the big Hearthstone highlights for us at the Sanitarium.FM was the Winter Open Tournament we hosted at the beginning of December on the 5th and 6th. Eight listeners of the station entered hoping to win the prizes offered to them (first: an Expansion or 15 Card Packs; second: a Hero or 7 Card Packs). The tournament was streamed live from the station's Twitch channel as the matches happened and were commentated upon by myself, with Scarlet and Digmbot joining in as well. The tournament did of course see Agtheo take top prize with a strong Dragon Priest deck and we look forward to seeing everyone for the next tournament as he defends his title.
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And that was what happened in the world of Hearthstone in 2015, big major events and a smaller one too. We've seen the introduction of new Minion types, new keywords, new ways to trigger effects as well as a couple of nerfs to rein in parts of the meta that were getting out of control.
Let's hope 2016 will be just as good for those of us who play this card game.