This patch, coming when you least expect it, includes updates to Standard, Wild, Battlegrounds, and more!

Hearthstone Updates

General Updates

• Cards in your deck will now be in a random order. We’d get more into the specifics about this change, but we’re not sure that’s a rabbit hole worth exploring.
• Before queueing for a match, you’ll now select whether you want to go first or second, and then get paired with a player who has made the opposite selection.
• You’re not imagining it: the toys in Whizbang’s Workshop do move when you’re not looking.
• You can now pet the dog in Hearthstone.

Card Updates

Shadowstep

• Dev Comment: For player sentiment reasons, Shadowstep has been removed from Core. A new card, called Step, will be added into Core in its place. 

Freebird

• Old: [4 Mana]
• New: [0 Mana]

Living Prairie

• Old: Battlecry: If you played an Elemental last turn, summon two 3/3 Cows with Rush. 
• New: Cowlossal +2

New Hero Skin: Boulderfist Ogre

Introducing our bouldist hero skin yet: the Boulderfist Ogre Hero Skin! It’s all ogre now.

Battlegrounds Updates

General Updates

• Battlegrounds is now turn-based! Players must drag their minions during the combat phase to choose where they attack.
• Due to market forces, minions now cost 4 Gold each.
• Selecting A.F. Kay as your hero will now force-close your client for the first 2 turns.
• All players who said Bob was rooting for them will receive a 7-day suspension. He told you not to tell the others!
• Toxic Tumbleweed has been removed from the Tavern Spell pool for saying some really hurtful things.

Introducing: Battlegrounds OCTUPLES

When we announced the upcoming Battlegrounds Duos, we were really excited to see the positive response from the community. Players who tried the mode had a lot of fun playing with their friends. We’ve spent the last few months polishing the Mode for launch and we realized: if playing as a pair is fun, then playing as a team of eight would be four times as fun!

So, instead of Battlegrounds Duos, we’ll be launching Battlegrounds Octuples! In Battlegrounds Octuples, you team up with 7 other players to hang out in Bob’s Tavern. Now, everyone’s a winner!

Hero Change

Snake Eyes

• Old: Roll a 6-sided die. Gain that much Gold. (Cannot be used again for that many turns!)
• New: Roll two 1-sided dice. Gain 2 Gold. (Cannot be used again for 2 turns!)
• Dev Comment: This change applies to regular Battlegrounds and to Battlegrounds Octuples.

Meet the Team: Jeff

Jeff is a big Hearthstone fan, coming to us from the Marketing team as part of a cross-team internship program. A little bit about Jeff: he’s an avid rock collector, an amateur toothpaste historian, and a Control Priest aficionado. Everyone say, “Hi Jeff!”

As part of Jeff’s internship, he’s designed and implemented some of the changes in this patch.

Jeff Updates

• Priest healing can now go over their max life total, like Armor.
  • Jeff Comment: It’s only fair.:)
• Deathrattle has been renamed “Jeffrattle.”
  • Jeff Comment: The word Death is a little bit scary, so I changed it. (◕‿◕✿)
• Anduin is now the default Battlegrounds Bartender. Coincidentally, all other Bartenders have been temporarily removed due to a bug.
• Fixed a bug where the frog from Staff of the Nine Frogs (Doctor Holli’dae’s weapon) turned orange.
  • Jeff Comment: Frogs should be green. (ʘ‿ʘ)

Psychic Scream

• Old: [7 Mana]
• New: [5 Mana]
• Psychic Scream has been added to Core.
• Jeff Comment: I scream, you scream, we all scream for Psychic Scream! :P

Mindrender Illucia

• Has been reverted to its original form.
• Jeff Comment: I LOVE the art on this card. :D

Worgen Greaser

• Has been reverted to its original form.
• Jeff Comment: I lost to this card in my last Arena run. ⊂(◉︿◉)つ

Boulderfist Ogre

• Old: 6/7
• New: 6/8
• Jeff Comment: I thought this card could give a bit more stats for the Cost. :/

New Feature: In-Client Replay

In celebration of 10 years of Hearthstone, upon login all players will be shown a replay of all the Hearthstone games they’ve ever played—cementing Hearthstone’s place for another 10 years to come!

Dev Comment: To make sure you don’t miss anything, the replay will play at .5 speed and will pick up where it left off if your client is accidentally closed while it plays.

Bug Fixes and Game Improvements

• [General] As part of our continued modular download project, you can now choose to download or remove the card art of Stoneborn General.
• [Hearthstone] Playing Warsong Wrangler will now give the King Krush Hero Portrait longer arms so that it can better fire its Steady Shot.
• [Hearthstone] All Mini minions now have a banana in their art, for scale.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Mixtape didn't have the Fire Spell School.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Gaslight Gatekeeper wasn’t obtainable from packs.
• [Battlegrounds] Bob’s Tavern now requires a valid government ID to enter.
• [Battlegrounds] Removed the Pasta the Pirate Hero Skin to clean up some of the spaghetti code.
• [General] The cross-interdisciplinary internship program has been cancelled and Jeff has been sent to a Marketing team upstate.

Bet you didn’t expect this here.