Quick news – Blizzard just shared that Warlock’s new Quest card – Escape the Underfel – has been banned in Arena.
It was pretty unexpected given that there’s a patch coming next week, but it’s a very welcome change for Arena players. Quest Warlock has been dominating in the mode ever since the buff – the Quest was just too easy to complete and nearly a guaranteed win after finishing it. The only way reliable way was killing Warlock before the Quest’s completion, but it was pretty hard. Last time I checked, it was the highest win rate card in Arena with about 65% WR, which is pretty insane for that mode.
While we’re on the topic of Quests, Priest’s Quest (Reach Equilibrium) is similarly overpowered ever since it got buffed, sitting at above 60% win rate too with similar gameplay patterns. However, Priest overall has a weaker draft pool so it doesn’t stand out as much as Warlock did. But I hope that it’s also on their radar for the next round of adjustments.
Anyway, if you had a currently ongoing draft with Escape the Underfel, you need to manually retire the deck. Don’t worry, your Tavern Tickets will get refunded.
Read the official message below:
We have an update for Arena and Underground players!
The card “Escape the Underfel” has been banned in Arena and Underground. Players that have the card in their deck will need to manually retire their decks and will have their ticket refunded when doing so.
Hi, Will Arena runs expire after the August 8 patch?
August 5*
I don’t think they will – no new season was announced in the 33.2 patch notes.
*Waves hand like a Jedi*
These are not the balance adjustments we were looking for…
To be fair, current Arena meta is probably the most balanced one we had in a long time. It’s still not perfect, but it’s insane how close things are compared to the last few seasons before Arena remake.
Right now the worst class – Paladin – is sitting around 48% win rate according to HSReplay stats (with Warlock at the top with 55%, but it might change after Quest ban).
Before Arena remake, we had a few classes down to 30-35% win rate range. We had some metas where only 2-3 classes were above 50% WR. That was real bad.
Oh, I just realized that you probably mean Standard balance adjustments 😀
33.2 Patch Notes still weren’t announced so there’s a chance we’ll see some soon. I would very much hope so, because I’m really tired of the current Standard meta.
lol ya… I was talking about the standard meta. Got stale after about 3 days, and it looks like another week of it at least.
I keep logging in everyday and just sighing…