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Hearthstone Recap: Unleash the Hounds Nerfed, Patch Notes, New Card + More!

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Unleash the Hounds nerfed in patch, new card reveal and more!

This week's Hearthstone recap is a small one, but comes with some big news! This week, Blizzard has revealed that they have nerfed the popular Hunter card Unleash the Hounds, raising the mana cost by 1 in the hope of providing a better environment for the few of us out there who are not playing Hunter! They have also revealed a new card from Curse of Naxxramas, which we should hopefully see releasing soon™!


Also, the first batch of BlizzCon tickets may have already sold out but remember that there will be another chance to buy on May 10th! Check out the latest news in this week's Hearthstone recap!




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Unleash the Hounds Balance Change


In a controversial decision yesterday, Blizzard has decided to nerf the popular Hunter card Unleash the Hounds, a staple card for the powerful plays commonly seen competitive Hunter play. The card will be changed in a future patch to cost 3 mana instead of 2.

Previously, the card's cost was lowered from 4 to 2 in order to make it less prohibitive, so maybe the 3 mana cost is the "sweet spot" when it comes to balancing hunters. This change will be welcome to many players who have been on the receiving end of a Hunter combo, and cursed by many who loved setting up one-turn kill combos with cards such as Starving Buzzard, Timber Wolf and Scavenging Hyena.

This change went live in the Hearthstone patch released on May 8th. Blizzard has released the following statement explaining their reasoning behind this change:

Blizzard Icon Hearthstone Update: Upcoming Balance Change

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The following balance change will be made in an upcoming patch:
  • Unleash the Hounds (Hunter) now costs 3 (up from 2)
Over the last few months, we have seen hundreds of different decks do well in game depending on many different factors. Our community is incredibly creative, and we’ve seen players constantly trying out new things and coming up with new strategies to counter whatever decks they have trouble with.

At the very highest levels of play there are a lot of different decks performing well, and the decks at the top change from week to week. Since we’ve seen many cards and deck types in the current state of the game rise and fall as players adapt, we did not want to change Unleash the Hounds immediately. However, Hunter decks have become increasingly more dominant and are doing better than we are comfortable across many levels of play.

We do like the idea of decks that have a really big turn and pull off a sweet combo, but when playing against Hunter decks, you may feel punished too much for playing minions. Playing minions is one of the key, fun pieces of the overall Hearthstone puzzle, and feeling like your options are limited by the opponent creates a play experience that may not be particularly enjoyable.

We take any balance changes very seriously, and we will continue to hold true to our stance that we plan on only making changes to cards if we feel it is completely necessary. After much consideration we have decided to increase the mana cost of Unleash the Hounds to 3. This change should make the card more fun to play against while still allowing for some big plays.




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Hearthstone Patch Notes - Build 1.0.0.5314 (May 8)


The first major Hearthstone patch since the iPad launch has been released and with it comes the previously announced balance change to Unleash the Hounds. The patch does not feature any other card changes and is mostly a set of bug fixes and UI improvements (particularly focusing on iPad play, though most are undocumented). Check out the full patch notes below!

Blizzard Icon Hearthstone Patch Notes - 1.0.0.5314

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General
  • Improved friends list sorting based on player status.
  • Breaking News will now properly be shown when Hearthstone is undergoing maintenance.
  • Reconnect functionality has been enabled for Practice Mode.
  • Games in Friendly Play now have a turn timer.
  • [iPad] Deck Rename and Deck Delete is now easier to find.
Card Changes



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  • Unleash the Hounds (Hunter) now costs 3 (up from 2).
    • After much consideration, we have decided to increase the mana cost of Unleash the Hounds to 3. Unleash the Hounds has been dominating all levels of play for quite some time. This change should make the card more fun to play against while still allowing for some big plays when combined with other Hunter cards.
Bug Fixes
  • Winning a game as Lord Jaraxxus will now properly grant credit towards unlocking the Warlock golden hero. You win... BUT YOUR WORLD IS STILL DOOMED!
  • Returning an opponent’s minion to their hand will no longer occasionally leave behind a facedown card on the game board.
  • Resolved issues that prevented the Fireside Friends card back from being properly unlocked under certain conditions.
  • [iPad] Resolved an issue that was causing a client crash when choosing between two options of certain Druid cards.
  • [iPad] Resolved an issue where new chat notification bubbles would appear behind the keyboard when in the chat window interface.
  • [iPad] Adjusted the location of where enlarged versions of cards appear so that they are easier to see when selected.
  • [iPad] Resolved an issue where the client may sometimes use the incorrect default language.
  • Other bug fixes and UI improvements.




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Curse of Naxxramas New Card Revealed


Everyone is anxiously awaiting Hearthstone's first adventure, Curse of Naxxrams, and Blizzard is keeping the hype active by teasing new cards on their Twitter! There is not yet a scheduled release date for Curse of Naxxramas, but Blizzard has stated that, "A release date will be announced at a later time. We’ll have further details, including pricing and availability, in the future, so please stay tuned!" Check out this new Warrior weapon, the first weapon to feature the Deathrattle mechanic!
 

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BlizzCon Ticket Batch #1 Sold Out


The first batch of BlizzCon tickets, which went on sale on Wednesday May 7th at 7 p.m. PDT, sold out quickly (as usual). Eventbrite began notifying buyers that the tickets were no longer available within five minutes after the tickets went on sale! Blizzard has announced the eighth BlizzCon convention for the weekend of November 7th and 8th, 2014. The event will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center as it has in past years and ticket prices have been increased to $199 USD. The next batch of BlizzCon tickets will be available on Saturday, May 10 at 10 a.m. PT on the EventBrite website. Good luck! Check out Blizzard's BlizzCon posts below for more information about the event!

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Uther the Lightbringer, The Paladin Lore


It's been a slow week in Hearthstone (other than the nerf announcement) and Blizzard has decided to make up for it with an excellent lore post spotlighting the life and times of Uther the Lightbringer! Hearthstone is all about playing different heroes (hence the "Heroes of Warcraft" part) and Blizzard feels that these posts are definitely a cool opportunity to get to know more about the technical "stars" of the game! The chosen heroes are cool and all, but I definitely think it would be cooler to be able to "create" and play your World of Warcraft character in Hearthstone! We're heroes, too!

You can check out Blizzard's post on the Hearthstone blog!



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Activision Blizzard Q1 Earnings Exceed Expectations


It comes as no surprise that with the popularity of Hearthstone and the successful reboot of Diablo III that Activision Blizzard's Q1 earning have exceeded expectations! This increase comes even as World of Warcraft subscriptions drop, losing 200,000k subscribers this quarter. As we had previously mentioned, analysts are anticipating high earnings to come from their new free-to-play titles and this quarter definitely shows that they're on the right path. If the data is your thing, you can check out the financial report in the link below!

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    • By Staff
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      (Source)
      Hearthstone: Heroes of StarCraft – The Great Dark Beyond Mini-Set  
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      Today, we're recapping the four Shaman cards revealed by Gamespot. We also have some dev clarifications on how they work.
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      What a way to kick things off; this card looks insane! The dream is that Drakuru takes out two of your opponent’s minions, resurrects them on your side, and survives combat somehow. You’re looking at a 5-for-1 exchange on board.
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      Once again, another big expensive card and a solid showy effect to go along with it. Obvious deathrattle/reborn synergy, as well as good with big minions in general. At 10 cost, it will take up your entire mana pool for the turn, though there are things you can do to play around that as a shaman.
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      This card will get you 2 Mana 2/3 Ghostly Apparitions with the Undead minion type, which can matter for cards like Unliving Champion, or Invincible, for instance. Suppose you trigger the secondary ability here both times. In that case, that’s a pretty sweet deal right there, advancing a Big Shaman win con in 2 ways: The taunt on the Ghostly Apparitions advances your gameplan of stalling the game out until you can stabilize on board enough to play the 5+ Mana minions you’ve tutored out of the deck.
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      AAECAaoICunQBMORBKeNBK/ZBNnsA/rsA4qSBfuRBYfUBKrZBArG+QOs7QS12QTgtQS22QTblATGzgTj9gOGoQX4oAUA
      Next, let’s try to use the standard Renathal Control Shaman archetype that’s doing rather well in the meta as a starting point. One safe idea is to look at slotting Overlord Drakuru and potentially Brightblood Berskerker and From De Other Side into this standard XL Renathal Control Shaman as ways of fighting back on board while getting your infuse cards stacked up.
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      AAECAaoIFKjuA6bvA4b6A6SBBMORBMeyBOm2BOnQBJjUBLjZBJfvBKTvBNWyBODtBIqSBdWyBPuRBfSgBbzwBODtBArG+QPTgASVkgTblATgtQSWtwSywQTFzgS12QS22QQA
      We could instead also try and drop all the duplicates from the list and convert it into a Reno deck, as the deck was already playing a lot of one-offs. That gives us just enough room for one of each of these bad boys, which together with Reno will up the turnaround potential of the deck at the cost of a little bit of consistency. Doing so we can end up with this list:
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      AECAaoICunQBMORBKeNBK/ZBNnsA/rsA4qSBfuRBYfUBKrZBArG+QOs7QS12QTgtQS22QTblATGzgTj9gOGoQX4oAUA
      Why not use both and make it a Reno-thal deck? Prescience and Windchill will try to compensate for the loss of card draw from droping one copy of Gorloc Ravager and Famished fool. We are adding in Convincing Disguise to have still enough evolve effects around. The idea of including Bracing Cold and Far Sight is to hopefully discount From De Other Side or the evolve cards so we make use of any leftover bodies in the same turn. Ozumat’s in here not just to get us up to 40 cards, but because it’s a near guaranteed board clear combo with From De Other side, if you manage your hand and board space just right, that leaves you with all its appendages afterward.
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      AAECAaoIKKjuA6bvA6SBBMORBMeyBOm2BOnQBJjUBLjZBJfvBKTvBMb5A9OABJWSBNuUBNWyBOC1BJa3BLLBBMXOBMbOBLXZBLbZBODtBLzwBIb6A6/ZBPrsA/SgBcSsBNnsA4fUBIXUBLGwBJrUBLzOBIahBfigBYqSBfuRBQAA
       
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      Pretty straightforward card. The effect gives us much more value the larger the minion is. It gets really scary with the potential follow-up with Bulk Up giving you this massively overstated minion in hand twice. Or If you can get this on Mor’shan Elite, that’s another nice double dip of value.

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      Wow, they’re really not holding back with hand disruption this set. One (nearly) guaranteed discard is pretty impactful and becomes a must-remove card in any control matchup. This card will absolutely crush the hearts of some Big Spell Mages in the coming months, that’s for sure.
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      Putting it all together, we have put together an interesting Taunt Control Warrior decklist to try out:  AAECAQcMmu0D784EvIoE2fkDqIoEiN8E784E0qwEmu0DlJUEzJIFiKAECcWSBZTtA47tA5+fBImgBIagBJDUBMSSBcuSBQA= . Slotting in Varian seems like a natural addition to any deck with Silverfury Stalwart and Tealan hops along to be the one divine shield minion you might want to have in your control deck. Rokara and Remornia are just good cards and they’ll go a long way to having your Mor’shan Elite’s active. The rest of the deck is the classic Control Warrior shell that will hopefully give you the armor and removal needed to live long enough to throw down your double-stated taunted win conditions.
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    • By Staff
      Murder at Castle Nathria is Hearthstone's latest expansion. It adds a new Infuse keyword that absorbs anima from your friendly minions, a new card type named Locations, and more.  
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      .blog-detail .gallery figure { width: 100%; max-width: calc((100% / 3) - 6px); } @media screen and (max-width: 600px){ .blog-detail .gallery { justify-content: center; } .blog-detail .gallery figure { width: 100%; max-width: 250px; } .blog-detail h4 { text-align: center; } } Announcing
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      The Murder at Castle Nathria Bundle includes 60 Murder at Castle Nathria card packs, 2 random Murder at Castle Nathria Legendary cards, and the Denathrius card back!

      Pre-purchase
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