Future patch will be the first attempt to dramatically rebalance Hero viability.
Blizzard has announced plans to ban more than 40 Hearthstone cards from the Arena drafting pool in an upcoming patch. The move is part of a new effort to proactively balance the game mode, where a handful of Heroes currently dominate in terms of pick preference.
All Heroes – with the exception of Paladin – will see a selection of cards removed from their drafting pools. Traditionally strong Heroes are seeing some of their sharpest tools removed, while weaker Arena Heroes will lose some of their worst, increasing the chance of receiving a more powerful pick instead.
This isn’t the first time that Blizzard has chosen to proactively ban cards from the Arena drafting process. C’Thun and his many minion friends were excluded due to the heavy nature of their synergies, and the Priest’s recent Purify card was also dropped, following outcry from the community at the addition of a card that would only weaken Arena’s least effective Hero even further.
Here’s the full list of cards that will be removed from Arena in a future patch.
Banned Arena cards
Druid
- Savagery
- Poison Seeds
- Soul of the Forest
- Mark of Nature
- Tree of Life
- Astral Communion
Hunter
- Starving Buzzard
- Call Pet
- Timber Wolf
- Cobra Shot
- Lock and Load
- Dart Trap
- Snipe
Mage
- Forgotten Torch
- Snowchugger
- Faceless Summoner
Paladin
No changes
Priest
- Mind Blast
- Shadowbomber
- Lightwell
- Power Word: Glory
- Confuse
- Convert
- Inner Fire
Rogue
- Goblin Auto-Barber
- Undercity Valiant
Shaman
- Vitality Totem
- Dust Devil
- Totemic Might
- Ancestral Healing
- Dunemaul Shaman
- Windspeaker
Warlock
- Anima Golem
- Sacrificial Pact
- Curse of Rafaam
- Sense Demons
- Void Crusher
- Reliquary Seeker
- Succubus
Warrior
- Warsong Commander
- Bolster
- Charge
- Bouncing Blade
- Axe Flinger
- Rampage
- Ogre Warmaul
As well as these initial changes, the team intends to explore further opportunities to bring greater balance to Arena, such as tweaked probabilities of any given card appearing during the drafting process.
