Hearthstone 33.2.2 Patch Teaser – Standard & Battlegrounds Balance Update

Blizzard just posted a teaser of the upcoming balance update for Standard and Battlegrounds modes! It’s the third balance update in The Lost City of Un’Goro. It should be the second given regular schedule, but we got a few extra changes in the big Battlegrounds update (Season 11 launch). It’s also the final Standard update

The patch itself, however, is honestly mostly focused on Battlegrounds. In Standard, we’ve only got two card changes – nerfs to Amirdrassil and Reserved Spot. Amirdrassil is a hit to… honestly all Druid decks. The card was basically auto-include in anything, it was just too strong. But the deck they targeted in particular is most likely Owlonius Druid, which has been doing very well OTKing opponents out of nowhere. Reserved Spot is a hit to Handbuff Hunter, which has been consistently one of the best decks in the game for a long time and featured some really unfun gameplay patterns (the whole gameplan revolves around cheating out massive minions early and hoping that your opponent can’t answer them).

However, despite both of them being very strong decks, they had pretty low play rate (especially outside of top Legend). So even though those nerfs are quite meaningful, I don’t expect the patch to shake up the non-tournament meta massively, it just targets some gameplay outliers. We’ll have to wait until the mini-set to see any bigger changes (hopefully).

As I’ve said, the patch is mostly focused on Battlegrounds. It’s the first major BG update after Season 11’s launch. In that mode, we’re getting A LOT of changes (honestly even listing them based on the teaser image would be hard for me because I haven’t been up to date with that mode recently and I just don’t know the card images). But the patch includes ~50 changes, and that’s just to minions & spells. It’s safe to assume that we’ll also get other changes in the patch, like adjustments to Hero Armor or Quest requirements/rewards. No matter how you slice it, it should be a massive meta shake-up in BG.

Until the full patch notes are released, we only know what cards are affected and not how! The patch will drop tomorrow (August 19), most likely around 10 AM PT. Patch notes are usually released an hour before the update itself. It’s not the official timing, but that’s how it works for most of those balance updates.

For now, check out the teasers below:

Standard

Nerfs

• Amirdrassil
• Reserved Spot

Battlegrounds

As I’ve said, I’m not up to date with BG card images, so listing card names is a bit tough for me right now. But if someone more familiar with the mode complies a list, I’ll link to it here.