Zeriyah, Hearthstone community manager, just announced a major change coming in Year Of The Mammoth. The Arena, a dangerous place where you either win or lose depending (mostly) on luck, will become a bit more strategic. Here are the changes coming to Arena when the next patch drops at the end of February.
Arena Is Moving To Standard- I’m a huge Arena fan, but I’ve always felt that games weren’t about outplaying your opponent, but were instead about pulling the most overpowered cards in your draft. Most of the OP cards that were moved to Wild were must-picks in Arena games. Piloted Shredder, Shielded Minibot and Dr.Boom were picked in my draft, regardless of any of the other two options. With this change, cooler cards that never got to see the play will finally be making it into player’s decks. Goodbye Azure Drake, hello Book Wyrm.
Common Cards Show Up Less- Right now, Common cards show up 78 percent of the time in Arena. After this change, their drop rates will be lower, allowing Rares, Epics and Legendaries to come up more often.
Abyssal Enforcer And Flamestrike Will Appear Less- 50 percent less, to be precise.
More Spells, Less Minions- Arena games are won by achieving a perfect curve with the best minions possible. If you can play a one, two, three, four mana minion on your early turns, you practically win the game. With more spells and removal, minions like Bog Creeper won’t be able to stay around forever.
Neutral Classic Cards Will Show Up Less- My favorite change of all, I hate River Crocolisk.
How do you like these Arena changes? Tell us in the comments.
