9

I haven't played Hearthstone in a couple of years and I logged in to play and seems like my whole deck is "wild" now. Am I just screwing up somehow, or has standard changed radically?

I used to play a pretty standard Priest Deck (Northshire Cleric, Lightwarden, Inner Fire, Acolyte of Pain etc), where you try to double your health a few times and then change health to attack. However, that entire strategy just seems to be gone. It looks like ALL of those cards are now wild and only a very small set are standard. Also, looking through the set of standard cards, I don't see very many options for synergy.

Am I just doing something wrong or has standard in Hearthstone changed radically?

Improve this question
2
  • 6
    In most TCGs, ‘standard’ is a ‘rolling’ format that only considers cards released in a specific, recent, timeframe (usually the past X sets), with the intent being to force people to keep sinking money into the game and to keep the competitive scene interesting. I suspect, given the usage of such a standardized term, that Hearthstone’s ‘standard’ works in essentially the same way.
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Aug 28, 2021 at 12:08
  • To complete the point: that is made to make balance doable. Every card can interact with every other card, so every time you would add a set it becomes exponentially more annoying to balance that set interacting with every other card from every other set. So by keeping it 'last 3' it roofs the annoyance.
    – Fredy31 ♦
    Apr 6, 2022 at 18:14

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
11

I did some more research into this and the situation is that all the old cards have been removed from the main game which is now Standard and features a "Core" set plus a bunch of expansions. Your old cards are now Wild only.

If you want to play the current game, you will need to buy all the expansions (which is fairly expensive) and learn all the new cards--basically starting over from scratch. If you want to be competitive you cannot just quest your way through because people with the expansions will crush you, so you have to buy the meta if you want to play ranked, plus, as I said, you will need to learn all these new cards.

You can play your old cards in wild, however, those cards will get crushed by newer cards, so that will probably not be fun. Wild is extremely random and aggro.

Finally you can try "Classic" mode, which basically resets the game to 2014 and has the original card set. The problem here is that the state of the game is frozen at a particular date and there are balance issues, like unnerfed Leeroy Jenkins and things like that, that will stick you in that particular meta. In that meta, only a few decks are competitive and they will not be what you are experienced with if you were playing 2015-2019.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    This is not entirely the case; a lot of the cards from the original core set as well as several cards from various expansions are now part of the core set. Some strategies that were viable in 2015 are still viable now, it's just problematic/difficult-to-balance strategies (such as the one your Priest deck was based on) have been phased out.
    – Chase Sandmann
    Aug 30, 2021 at 18:35
  • You dont need to buy packs at all. I have been playing since 2014 and have bought packs with real money three times. Got to diamond 2 on EU wild ladder this last month.
    – Neil Meyer
    Apr 6, 2022 at 6:00
2

Standard is only the last two years of sets. If you want to play standard you are in luck rotation will happen with the release of the new set.

If you want to continue playing with the cards you have the divine favour / inner fire combo is a tier 1.5 deck in wild. You can play that and have reasonable chance at success.

You can also just not care about rank at all play whatever you like on wild ladder and have a hoot.

Nothing quite like having a race between two convoluted wombo combos ending on turn 13 when you clutch draw the 5th piece of your combo for the win.

Dont underestimate the joy that can be had when two bad decks queue into each other.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .