Hearthstone Patch 28.4.1 Mini-Set Patch Notes

Hearthstone Patch 28.4.1 arrived to balance some of the previous changes in the Delve into Deepholm mini-set. The goal of Hearthstone's new meta is to improve the performance of the new mini-set launch. Check out all of the changes in Hearthstone and Battlegrounds. 

Hearthstone Patch Notes 28.4.1 Updates

• Patch 28.4.1 Hearthstone - Card Changes
• Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Card Changes
• Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Spell Pool Changes
• Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Arena Updates
• Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Bug Fixes and Updates

Patch 28.4.1 Hearthstone Card Changes

Velarok the Deceiver

• Old: 3/6
• New: 3/3

Shattershambler

• Old: Battlecry: Your next Deathrattle minion costs (1) less, but immediately dies when played.
• New: Battlecry: The next Deathrattle minion you play immediately dies.

Excavate Rogue is an example of a pre-mini-set deck that we wanted to tone down a little to make room for new strategies. We’re happy that our recent buff to Velarok has facilitated this deck that people clearly love playing, and we don't want to undo that, but it’s just a bit too powerful and popular. These changes to Velarok and Shattershambler reduce the early-game blowout potential of Excavate Rogue to keep what’s fun about playing the deck, but give opponents more of an opportunity to respond. 

Cactus Construct

• Old: Discover a 2-Cost minion. Summon a 1/2 copy of it.
• New: Discover a 2-Cost minion. Summon a 1/1 copy of it.

Cactus Construct is a powerful card across Druid decks that had room to be a bit weaker.

Herald of Nature

• Old: Battlecry: If you’ve cast a Nature spell while holding this, give your other minions +1/+2.
• New: Battlecry: If you’ve cast a Nature spell while holding this, give your other minions +1/+1. 

The Herald of Nature change makes early Treant Druid boards a little easier to react to. 

Pendant of Earth

• Old: Discover a minion from your deck. Gain Armor equal to its Cost.
• New: Discover a minion from your deck. Restore Health to your hero equal to its Cost. 

Pendant of Earth was adjusted so that it can still be a strong defensive tool later in the game, but isn’t as strong as an early, proactive stall tool. 

 

Shattered Reflections 

• Old: Choose a minion. Add a copy to your hand, deck, and battlefield.
• New: Choose a minion. Add a copy of it to your deck and battlefield. 

Shattered Reflections was causing too many reflections, leading to repetitive gameplay—so we took one reflection away. 

Dew Process

• Old: [2 Mana]
• New: [4 Mana]

Finally, we weakened Dew Process because the game is less fun when decks like Mill Druid are extremely competitive and meta-warping—we still want cards like that to exist for players who like that type of gameplay, but we don't want them to be the prevailing ladder strategy.

Boogie Down

• Old: [3 Mana] Summon two 1-Cost minions from your deck. Finale: Give them Taunt.
• New: [4 Mana] Summon two 1-Cost minions from your deck. Finale: Summon another.

The Garden’s Grace

• Old: Give a minion +5/+5 and Divine Shield. Costs (1) less for each Mana you’ve spent on Holy spells this game.
• New: Give a minion +4/+4 and Divine Shield. Costs (1) less for each Mana you’ve spent on Holy spells this game.

Paladin is looking strong after the mini-set. Boogie Down is a card that we’ve seen in almost all Paladins since it was released, so we’re making it a little bit slower and adjusting the Finale to partially compensate for the later play. We’re also hitting Garden’s Grace to reduce some of the deck’s from-hand burst potential. To that end, we’ve got our eye on cards like Shroomscavate, but we like that players are trying out the new cards, so we’re making just these changes for now and we’ll make further changes later if needed. 

Thaddius, Monstrosity

• Old: Taunt. Your odd-Cost cards cost (4) less. (Swaps polarity each turn!)
• New: Taunt. Your odd-Cost cards cost (2) less. (Swaps polarity each turn!)

We don’t think combo play patterns are inherently bad, and Thaddius isn’t a power outlier right now, but he has been in Standard for a long time and has facilitated several decks with early one-turn kills and low feelings of agency. We think it’s time to make another adjustment to Thaddius and see what Standard looks like when he’s significantly weaker. Now that we’ve been able to make this change to Thaddius, we're unbanning Pyrotechnician.

Additionally, Pyrotechnician will no longer banned in Standard as of Patch 28.4.1.

Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Card Changes

The purpose of most of the changes here is to prevent players from staying in low Tiers and having the ability to buy a lot of spells. In order to reduce the power spikes of late-game Beast strategies, Titus' Tribute got removed and Hawkstrider Herald  underwent some balancing changes.

Archlich Kel’Thuzad

• Old: At the end of your turn, destroy the Undead to the left of this and resummon it.
• New: At the end of your turn, destroy the Undead to the left of this and resummon an exact copy.

The change is only in the text and not in the card's functionality.

Moroes, Steward of Death

• Old: 6/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +2/+6.
• New: 5/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +1/+5.

Hawkstrider Herald

• Old: [Tier 5] 5/2
• New: [Tier 6] 6/2

Mystic Sporebat

• Old: 5/1
• New: 3/1

Land Lubber

• Old: [Tier 2] 3/4
• New: [Tier 3] 4/5

 Land Lubber has been returned to the minion pool. 

Moon Bacon Jazzer

• Old: 1/3
• New: 2/3

Geomagus Roogug

• Old: 3/6. Whenever a Blood Gem is played on this, play a Blood Gem on a different friendly minion.
• New: 4/6. Divine Shield. Whenever a Blood Gem is played on this, play a Blood Gem on a different friendly minion.

Prickly Piper

• Old: 3/1
• New: 5/1

Paint Smudger

• Old: 3/2
• New: 5/3 

Fleeting Vigor

• Old: [Tier 4] Give a minion +6/+6 until next turn.
• New: [Tier 3] Give a minion +7/+7 until next turn.

Shiny Ring

• Old: [Tier 3]
• New: [Tier 2]

Staff of Enrichment

• Old: [3 Gold]
• New: [2 Gold]

Primal Staff

• Old: [Tier 4]
• New: [Tier 5]

Dreamer’s Embrace

• Old: [Tier 5]
• New: [Tier 4]

Planar Telescope

• Old: [Tier 4]
• New: [Tier 3]

Overconfidence

• Old: [Tier 2]
• New: [Tier 3]

Natural Blessing

• Old: Choose a minion. Give all minions that share a type with it +3/+2.
• New: Choose a minion. Give all minions that share a type with it +2/+2.

Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Spell Pool Changes

• Reckless Investment, Leaf Through the Pages, and Titus’ Tribute have been removed from the Spell Pool.

Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Arena Updates

Arena offering rates received the following changes:

• Forge of Wills and Transfer Student have been removed from the draft pool.
• Butch, Amalgamate, Mage Armor, and Crusty, the Crustacean have been removed from the treasure pool.
• The appearance rate of all Mini-Set cards has been increased.
• The appearance rate of Sludge on Wheels has been decreased.
• The appearance rate of Kobold Miner and Burrow Buster has been decreased in Rogue and Warlock.

Patch 28.4.1 Battlegrounds - Bug Fixes and Updates

• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Shadestone Skulker could cause infinite loops. Now, when the weapon is “given back,” the Skulker will no longer have it—meaning it will only return a weapon the first time the deathrattle is activated on a particular Skulker.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Lightshow showed the wrong text and functioned incorrectly when cast from somewhere other than from hand (like through Void Scripture).
• [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where the enchantment banner for Golden Sprightly Scarab showed the wrong buff amount.

Check out more Hearthstone-related content on our website! 

• Hearthstone Battlegrounds Tier List Best Heroes in Season 6
• Hearthstone Update 28.0.3 Patch Notes: All You Should Know