Hearthstone's next patch takes players back to 2014 with a Classic mode
Along with something called "The Great Unnerfing"
Blizzard are giving their fantasy card game Hearthstone a beefy update this week with its 20.0 patch. 20.0! An excellent number for an important update. It's bringing the usual things you'd expect, like balance changes and a new hero. But the big one for this patch is the addition of the Classic format, which will let players experience Hearthstone as it was back in 2014.
This Classic format is a new mode that will take players back in time to 2014, the year that Hearthstone first launched. You'll be able to craft decks using the game's original 240 cards as they were in that fateful year. All of your Basic, Classic and Hall Of Fame cards will be usable in this mode, however all of their changes will be reverted to Hearthstone's 1.0.0.5832 patch from June 2014.
Patch 20.0 starts rolling on on March 25th, before the Standard rotation (the main game mode that removes older expansion sets) on March 30th, and Blizzard are doing something called "The Great Unnerfing", which sounds slightly terrifying. They have 36 cards rotating to Wild (the game format with no deck restrictions), so they're reverting many of their nerfs, but these cards will exist in Standard for a few days before the set rotation, so expect the meta to be rather broken until the 30th.
On top of all this, there are a couple of balance changes and the addition of Overlord Saurfang, the new hero, and Barrens Blacksmith, the new minion. Hearthstone's new Core Set is on the way too, with a few tweaks, and you can check out all the details in the patch notes here.
The game's next expansion Forged In The Barrens launches on March 30th as well, taking players to the crossroads where the tauren, trolls and orcs first met.If you're a fan of Hearthstone and fancy hearing more about the game from some of the folks who make it, do check out Nate's interview with the developers during BlizzCon, where they discuss how the game's randomness is being curbed for consistency.