Blizzard has been on a rampage recently. First they've announced updates for Warcraft 3 & Diablo 2 after years of absence, and now Hearthstone has received a rather massive patch as well.
Today's Hearthstone patch brings with it extra deck slots, Lady Liadrin as the alternate Paladin hero, a new deck suggestion feature and a couple of other fixes. Here are the full patch notes and a short overview of the main feature:
• Unlock up to 18 deck slots!
- Gain access to 9 additional deck slots by unlocking all nine Hearthstone Heroes, bringing your total number of deck slots to 18.
- If you’ve already unlocked all nine Heroes, your new deck slots are waiting for you in the Collection Manager: just delete or edit the Basic decks you’ll find in your deck list.
• Many improvements have been made to the Collection Manager.
• Deck Recipes are now available in the Collection Manager. Use Deck Recipes to quickly experiment with some new deck ideas.
- Right-clicking on card backs in the Collection Manager reveals an improved display. So fancy!
- When building decks, the “Suggest a Card” feature is now smarter about its recommendations.
• It is now possible to search for cards with new search terms, including Attack, Health, Cost, Golden, etc.
• A more complete listing of all the new functions will be revealed in an upcoming blog.
• We have begun preparing for the arrival of Standard and Wild formats with new UI elements.
• The following Hero portrait has been added:
- Liadrin – The new Paladin hero is obtained through an upcoming World of Warcraft promotion.
• Hearthstone has been localized into Thai. Players around the globe can now enjoy Hearthstone in 14 different languages!
• Bonuses provided by Enrage effects now work correctly after a minion’s Attack and Health values have been swapped.
• [iPads with iOS 9.0.2+] Resolved an issue that could cause Hearthstone to crash when launched with the device held in certain orientations.
• [Android] Resolved visual issues that could occur with the League of Explorer’s card back and after League of Explorer matches on Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge+ devices.
• Resolved various issues with AI behavior and gameplay.
• Fixed various audio, graphical, and UI issues.
Let's start with the most interesting part of this update, the new Paladin hero portrait, Lady Liadrin. Unlike the previous overpriced trio of alternate heroes, Lady Liadrin can be earned without spending a single cent.
All that's needed is for you to level a character in World of Warcraft to level 20. Even if you don't own WoW there's no need to worry as the Starter Edition (which is free) is enough for you to do this achievement. If you can't stomach playing MMOs, or simply want to go fast, you can get the whole process done in a few hours by playing as a Hunter, the face is the place after all. Do that and the shiny new hero portrait will be yours.
Next up is the addition of brand new deck slots, a momentous occasion for all Hearthstone players as Blizzard has seemingly deemed us advanced enough to grasp the idea of an arrow! OK, I'm being a bit too snarky about this, but you have to admit its been a long time coming. Next up, we complain about more Brawl Deck slots!
Too many deck slots! Better go buy 50 classic packs!
The final change I wanted to spotlight is the new deck suggestion tool which gives you a choice between three deck archetypes. One is built entirely out of classic cards and serves as a simple and easy way for new players to create a deck with which they will be able to learn the basics of Hearthstone. The other two are heavily themed decks which are able to compete even at higher ranks, but are far more expensive to fully complete.
In order to help out players that might not own certain parts of a deck Blizzard has added a handy card suggestion tool which will attempt to give you the best alternative from your pool of cards. While an amazing idea in theory, in practice its a bit of a joke as the suggestions are often random, lacking in synergy, or simply terrible. On the positive side, at least the deck suggestion tool does its job well, so new players should be much better off from now on.
The Malygos Rogue deck is actually well made, nicely done Blizz!
And that's that as far as this update is concerned. If you'll now excuse me, I'm off to figure out what my WoW account password is so I can grab myself Lady Liadrin.