Blizzard’s massively popular card battling video game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, will soon be updated at the end of this month. With this update, we can expect two major changes, one will nerf two select cards that are becoming spammed within game sessions while another will adjust the overall ranking system.
Further details can be found at Blizzard’s Hearthstone blog post, but for starters, let’s cover the two cards that will soon be nerfed which are Small-Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws.
Small-Time Buccaneer
As of right now, Small-Time Buccaneer remains the same. It’s a one drop with one attack and two health. However, if you have a weapon equipped then the card will have plus two attack. The problem with this card is that Blizzard is finding more gamers are using it with Patches the Pirate and with these weapon-utilizing classes becoming too heavily utilized, the card will be reduced to one attack to make it easier for additional classes to be removed from the board.
Spirit Claws
This is a powerful Shaman weapon card which was being used way too much for Blizzard. Currently, this card is a one mana drop with one attack and three shield protection. Though, if you have spell damage then the card will have an additional two attack. Because this card is used consistently, Blizzard is hoping to balance games out a bit more by making the card a two mana drop.
Ranking
As mentioned, there are some changes coming to the ranking for Hearthstone. As it stands right now, players can lose their ranking depending on how many losses they achieve in a row. This will soon be fixed as Blizzard will be adding Ranked Play floors.
Essentially, when a player hits Rank 15, 10, or 5, they will not go down below that particular rank. Similar to how players are locked out of going below Rank 20, if a player hits Rank 15 and continue to lose matches, their Rank will not be lowered below 15. This will allow some ease from having to reclaim your Rank in a particular season while also allowing more card deck experimentation between Ranks.