Golden Common!

The next expansion is revealed to be Showdown in the Badlands, releasing on November 14th! (It was kinda spoiled by an accidental leak of a Blizzcon t-shirt design but we'll just pretend that didn't happen.)

The set includes two new keywords:

Quickdraw cards get a bonus if they’re played the turn they enter your hand (topdeckin' and wreckin' as an official mechanic!)

Excavate cards give you a Treasure when played: first a 1-mana Common, then a 2-mana Rare, then a 3-mana Epic. Death Knight, Mage, Rogue, Warlock, and Warrior can also Excavate a fourth time to get a Legendary.

A huge balance patch went live today, including nerfs, buffs and even bans. Check 'em out at the link above.

Notably, Gadgetzan Auctioneer has been removed from the Core Set and is no longer Standard legal.

The Fall of Ulduar will be the next mini-set, launching on September 19th and consisting of 38 new cards.

A new balance patch was announced and released today, including the following Standard changes:

Fox Spirit Wildseed (summoned token) is now a 2/1 (instead of 3/1)

Halduron Brightwing is now a 4-mana 4/4 (instead of a 3-mana 3/4)

Faithful Companions had its Manathirst element reworked so that it now summons a Beast from your hand instead of summoning a second copy of the discovered Beast

The patch going live on August 22 will be one of the game's biggest ever, including:

Battlegrounds starts a new season with a new mechanic, Anomalies (game-changing effects that are randomly set at the start of each game)

A Caverns of Time expansion which will only be legal in the Wild format (it includes only 34 brand new cards, the other 113 are stronger reprinted versions of old cards). Notably, if you already have the cards in your collection from their original release, they will be automatically updated with the patch. But the expansion is released on August 31st, so I'm not 100% sure how this works.

Standard format nerfs to Hollow Hound, Masked Singer, Bioluminescence and Thaddius, Monstrosity

Standard format buffs to 11 different cards

Duels card pool adjustments (but that season is not ending)

A patch is going live today to enact two nerfs one week after the release of TITANS (although one of the cards is not from that set):

Lab Constructor now costs 5 mana (up from 4)

Solid Alibi now costs 3 mana (up from 2)

Mech Rogue was remorselessly clapping robo-cheeks all week so that nerf was badly needed.

Mage is extremely overpowered in Arena at the moment, boasting a winrate above 55% at the time of this writing.

Instead of waiting for the TITANS release date of August 1, you have the option of creating your own Fireside Gathering to open your packs from the set immediately.

In addition to a golden Sargeras, the Destroyer my pre-order packs yielded:

Argus, the Emerald Star (DH titan)

V-07-TR-0N Prime (Rogue titan)

Aggramar, the Avenger (Hunter titan)

Mimiron, the Mastermind (signature version!)

Odyn, Prime Designate

Ra-den

The TITANS expansion launches on August 1st but there will be a pre-release patch going live tomorrow, July 25th. Aside from some Battlegrounds updates, the notable changes are:

Arena and Duels runs still in progress tomorrow will be terminated

The new Twist format will be offline for all of August

Two new Paladin cards (Crusader Aura and Resistance Aura) will be added to the Core Set, meaning everyone gets these cards automatically

Today's announcement reveals TITANS as the next expansion, releasing on August 1st.

Titan will be a new keyword in this set, and I'll just paste the lengthy description: "Minions with the new Titan keyword have three special activated abilities that they use instead of their normal attack. Each turn, including the turn you play them, you can choose to activate one of those abilities. Once an ability is used, that ability can’t be chosen again. Once all three abilities have been used, the Titan attacks normally instead of with its abilities."

Forge is another new keyword: "Cards with the Forge keyword can be dragged over to your deck and upgraded into its Forged form for two mana."

Read the full expansion announcement post here.

Blizzard just announced that Classic ladder will be replaced by a new game mode called Twist later this month. Wait, I liked Classic ladder! Shoot. Anyway...

Twist formats will change "regularly, but not necessarily with every season" bringing new special rules and eligible card pools each time. The rule for the initial "New Age" beta test season of Twist is no neutrals allowed.

We're getting a patch today which includes a lot of tweaks to Battlegrounds and Duels, plus six nerfs affecting Standard:

The Purator now costs 6 mana (up from 5)

Disco Maul now costs 3 mana (up from 2) and has 3/2 stats instead of 2/2

Feast and Famine now costs 2 mana (up from 1)

Lady S’Theno now has 1/4 stats instead of 2/4

Hope of Quel’Thalas now has 3/2 stats instead of 4/2

Pozzik, Audio Engineer now has 4/4 stats instead of 5/4

A tremendously chonky patch was released today and it includes eight nerfs:

Sinful Brand - now deals 1 damage to the enemy hero instead of 2

Felscale Evoker - stats reduced to 3/7 (from 5/7)

Predation - now 2 mana, deals 2 damage (instead of 3 and 3)

Battlefield Necromancer - stats reduced to 2/2 (from 2/3)

Blightfang - now costs 4 mana (up from 3)

High Cultist Basaleph - now costs 5 mana (up from 4)

Anub’Rekhan - Battlecry gains 5 armor (down from 8)

Scribbling Stenographer - now costs 7 mana (up from 6)

There are also six buffs:

Symphony of Sins - now costs 5 mana (down from 6)

From the Depths - now costs 3 mana, discounts the bottom 5 cards in your deck by (2).

Chorus Riff - gives a +3/+3 buff to the drawn minion (up from +2/+2)

Demolition Renovator - is now Tradeable

Rotten Applebaum - stats increased to 4/6 (from 4/5), health gain increased to 6 (from 5)

Pandaren Importer - reverted to a 2-mana 1/3 (from a 3-mana 2/4)

That’s one of the most difficult/annoying Battlegrounds achievements checked off the list.

To illustrate how little Demon Hunter I have played since the class was introduced, I am just now hitting 100 wins with it! For whatever reason I haven’t enjoyed many DH decks in the past but this one has clicked for me. Big Demon DH caught on a few days ago but this new list is even better:

Today’s balance patch includes a major change for Death Knights: cards with three-rune requirements are now removed from Discover pools and random generation effects.

There are also three specific nerfs:

Rowdy Fan gives +3 Attack (down from +4)

Overseer Frigidara is reduced to 3/6 stats (instead of 5/6)

Twig of the World Tree now refreshes mana crystals instead of instantly ramping to 10 crystals (a desperately needed nerf for Wild format)

The first balance patch for Festival of Legends is fairly light on changes:

Construct Quarter has 2 durability (down from 3)

Vengeful Walloper costs 7 mana (up from 6)

Lightray costs 10 mana (up from 9)

We can expect a thiccer patch with more nerfs (and likely some buffs) within a few weeks.

In the meantime, Duels players (there are dozens of us!) lament the fact that Groovy Cat has broken the format in conjunction with the Drek'Thar hero.