20.4.2 Patch Notes - Stealer of Souls Ban in Wild, Captain Flat Tusk Nerf and Kangor's Apprentice Buff in Battlegrounds, Bug Fixes
By Stonekeep -
Previously teased Patch 20.4.2 is launching tomorrow and we've got official patch notes. On top of the already announced Stealer of Souls ban in Wild, we're getting two Battlegrounds balance changes. Captain Flat Tusk is getting nerfed (now it will give Blood Gem every 4 Gold and not every 3 Gold spent), while Kangor's Apprentice is getting a buff (stats will go back to the pre-buff ones, but it will go down from T6 to T5). We're also getting a few bug fixes.
Patch should be launching tomorrow (Wednesday, June 16). Stealer of Souls will be eligible for full Dust refunds for the next 2 weeks after the update goes live.
Read more in the official patch notes below:
The 20.4.2 patch, which will release on June 16, includes one update for Wild and two balance changes for Battlegrounds.
Wild Update
- Stealer of Souls has been banned in Wild.
Dev Comment: We've decided to ban Stealer of Souls in Wild, where it caused many games to stray too far away from the type of gameplay we’re aiming for. After deliberating on the appropriate action, we’ve decided to ban the card in order to maintain its current, and healthier, function in standard—as well as eliminate the problems caused in Wild. We do not have plans to ban many cards in the future. Bans will be reserved for cards creating extreme gameplay issues where there is no great solution for all formats. Since this is the first decision of its kind in Hearthstone, we'd love to hear your feedback. We’ll continue to monitor the card in all Modes and formats to determine if further action is needed elsewhere. When Stealer of Souls rotates into Wild, we’ll reposition it for the Wild environment and remove the ban. If there are any balance changes to Stealer of Souls before then, we’ll re-evaluate the ban.
Stealer of Souls will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 20.4.2 patch goes live.
Battlegrounds Updates
Captain Flat Tusk
- Old: After you spend 3 Gold, gain a Blood Gem. → New: After you spend 4 Gold, gain a Blood Gem.
Kangor’s Apprentice
- Old: [Tavern Tier 6] 4 Attack, 8 Health → New: [Tavern Tier 5] 3 Attack, 6 Health
Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
- Fixed a bug that caused a copied Archdruid Naralex to give Dream cards to the wrong player.
- Fixed a bug where Lady Anacondra would not reduce the cost of Nature spells if she was already on the board when a Celestial Alignment was played.
- Fixed a bug with the reconnect feature on mobile.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Battlegrounds Rating to show as “0” when first opening the Player Profile.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Player Profile to show number of Battlegrounds first place finishes instead of Battlegrounds Top 4 finishes, as intended.
Source
11 Comments
2asandab
"we’ve decided to ban the card in order to maintain its current, and healthier, function in standard"
I've never seen this card played in standard. What decks is this card played in?
Stonekeep
It's actually pretty good in Zoo. But Zoo is not good right now :p
If I had to guess, they plan for more Zoo synergies next expansion and Stealer of Souls might be useful then. Otherwise they would probably just straight up nerf it instead of banning it in Wild only.
2asandab
We'll see. Pretty sure Ghuun the blood god has been out awhile and never really see that played either. Dead cards are part of the nature of any of these types of games.
h0lysatan
LOL, lazy as they go. That's Blizzard for you.
Any devs with decent programming skill could easily change the coding to make it more acceptable.
Like paying health by reducing health directly.
Yes, people could argue that there's a lot of cards from past expansion that needs to be reworked.
But that's the job. You want something better, you do the hard work. Not going for the easy solution, where the card become useless.
Besides if I'm assuming correctly, you only need to modify the damage taken from playing health cost cards to directly reduce health. Every cards associated with health cost will be automatically impacted.
(I'm no pro/expert, but I learned basic coding in the past)
h0lysatan
I understand the impact on Wild, but to ban it on Standard is just too lazy. The interactions between new cards is quite small compared to wild.
What happen in the future cards is, they will print whatever they think is cool, and then improvise when something bad happen. We're like beta testers for them.
I don't know about you. But this is awful.
h0lysatan
Unless I read it wrong, and this
“we’ve decided to ban the card in order to maintain its current, and healthier, function in standard”,
does not mean what I think it means.
Irish Seadog
Surely "... to maintain its current, and healthier, function in Standard" makes it pretty clear that it's staying in Standard? Besides, didn't they say explicitly that it was only banned for Wild in the original announcement? As for laziness, I'd say the willingness to consider new options such as this is the opposite, and that this solution is great since it means the issues it had in Wild don't have consequences for its unrelated potential Standard.
JoyDivision
It's only banned in Wild.
vifzor
hey I've been hovering the website for some time already. but I notice every time you post, it's to say something negative. but hey bro could you please cheer up for once?
Never saw you post something positive
h0lysatan
Per your request, sorry can't do. I live to criticize. I can't sit idle watching they did something unjustified, and often they did. But worry not. If when anytime they did something right, I will just go as silence as possible.
Sambidexterous
I welcome the “Kangor’s Apprentice” update; adjustments like these (“Mama Bear”, etc.) help against power creep.
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