Blizzard’s “Hearthstone” Is Getting A Makeover

"Heartstone" will launch a new format in spring 2016

By Simon Moore on February 3, 2016 at 5:52am

Blizzards “Hearthstone” has two brand new play modes coming this spring as Standard and Wild come crashing onto desktops and tablets worldwide.

The idea behind it is very much in the same vein that of Magic the Gathering, in an effort to keep the game fresh, exciting, and accessible

Standard

Is the new Play mode format, available in Friendly Challenges, Ranked, and Casual play. It won’t affect Arena, Solo play, or Adventures. Standard play will be built using a deck built solely from a pool of cards that were released in the current and previous calendar year, which currently includes Blackrock Mountain, The Grant Tournament, The League of Explorers, and the upcoming spring 2016 expansion, plus all Basic and Classic cards.

In Standard, the metagame that often dictates what decks end up in the top brackets, will be constantly shifting and changing as future card releases will have more impact. Standard will also become the official format of the Hearthstone Championship Tour.

Wild

Is the new name for the "Hearthstone" you already know, it’ll be the format where anything goes. When you queue up for Wild, you’ll be building and using a deck where you can use any of the cards you’ve already collected to build a Wild deck. It will be, just like standard, about finishing quests, earning gold, rank up on the ladder, get card backs, and earning that elusive Legend rank.

Blizzard have also announced that if you’ve unlocked all nine heroes, you’ll also unlock nine more deck slots, raising your total number of deck slots to eighteen.

Out With The old

Blizzard has stated that 'defunct' sets will become craft-only cards. This effectively means they are removing the old adventures and card pack, players will no longer be able to buy these expansions and instead invest in packs to obtain cards to disenchant. This would also mean that future players will not be able to experience what is essentially the “Hearthstone” ‘Story Modes’.

Time will tell as we get closer to the spring release of the next expansion and what we believe will be the release of the new format.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft 5 / 10 Read our Review »

Release: 12/9/2013 [NA]

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Platforms: Mac, PC, iOS, Android