In a recent blog post and developer’s insights video, Hearthstone lead developer Ben Brode announced massive changes coming to the premier digital competitive card game coming this spring.

For the first time in the game’s young history, Hearthstone will be introducing a format rotation scheme to balance the game play experience for both new and old players alike.

Starting in the Spring of 2016, the new Standard Format will be introduced while the current every-card-goes format Hearthstone currently enjoys will be renamed into Wild.

In a nutshell, this means that cards released in a given year will rotate out and will ineligible for use in the Standard format once the first expansion is released for the year. The Standard format will include cards released from the last two years, together with the core of Basic and Classic cards.

For the coming Spring season, when the expansion of 2016 is slated to come out, both Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes cards will be rotated out of Standard.

By contrast, Wild will feature all released Hearthstone cards since the dawn of time, creating an Eternal format similar to Magic: the Gathering’s Legacy or Vintage formats.

The game client will include ways to play Ranked, Casual and Friendly Challenge in either format. A separate ranking ladder will be made available for both formats.

A new way to get cards

Along with the Spring update, players will no longer be able to buy rotated out adventures or set expansions. For the coming season, players will need to craft Curse of Naxxramas adventure or Goblin vs Gnomes packs by using Arcane Dust.

Further, cards from rotated out adventures will be disenchant-able — a feature previously unavailable to players.

.@mb0ws3r @bdbrode Poor Maexxna. Yes, when Standard format arrives, your Maexxna can be disenchanted for normal dust value.

— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) February 2, 2016

Standard tournaments

With the release of Standard, all Hearthstone World Championship (HWC) tournaments will follow the Standard format.

Random effects played in the standard format will also adhere to the standard format and only give out cards legal for the format.

New Deck Slots

Finally! After years of community feedback, the Hearthstone development team will also be releasing more deck slots. Players who have leveled up all nine classes will have access to nine other deck slots, bringing the total to 18.

You can read the full blog post by clicking on this link.

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