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Hearthstone sending Vanish & Mind Blast to the Hall of Fame

Two major Classic staples are saying goodbye to Standard play, but Hearthstone has a few new Classic cards to help fill the void.

Ozzie Mejia

June 24, 2019 11:05 AM

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Hearthstone is not a game to stay stagnant for very long and that applies to more than its expansions. Blizzard has been finding different ways to freshen up the meta over time and that includes making some adjustments to its Classic set and its Hall of Fame. While there was some thought that the Hall of Fame cards for 2019 were already decided, it looks like the publisher still has a few more cards to include.

On Monday, Blizzard revealed that a pair of Classic staples are hitting the Hearthstone Hall of Fame and heading for the vast world of Wild. They are the Rogue's Vanish and the Priest's Mind Blast spells.

Here's the official explanation from Blizzard:

"While we like Rogues' knack for getting out of sticky situations with targeted removal, Vanish allows them to effectively clear an entire board. This negates one of their intended weaknesses, reduces our ability to design towards their strengths, and makes it much harder for players to strategize against a Rogue.

"Mind Blast gives Priests the ability to inflict a large amount of direct Face damage. We want to limit the amount of damage that Priests are able to deal from their hand, which will allow us to make cards that better emphasize their strengths in controlling the game."

This adds to a stacked 2019 Hall of Fame class that includes Doomguard, Naturalize, Divine Favor, and the odd and even deck-building duo of Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane.

What's interesting about today's news is that it comes several months after Shacknews asked about Mind Blast's potential Hall of Fame candidacy. And sure enough, at the time, Principal Game Designer Mike Donais stated that Blizzard had been floating this idea around.

"I think the Mind Blast problem will be temporarily improved because of Shadow Visions leaving, but I don't think that's a hard solve," Donais told Shacknews back during our February interview. "Mind Blast is also on our list, both because it doesn't match Priest class identity. They're not supposed to be the face damage class. And it's also pretty powerful in the right decks. It has had a big design impact on us with the resurrection decks especially. You're seeing people resurrect and do Mind Blast."

As for what's replacing Vanish and Mind Blast, Blizzard has already outlined a pair of new Classic cards for each class. Plaguebringer is a new 4-Cost Rogue minion that will give a friendly minion Poisonous, which should prove deadly with any Rush minion. Meanwhile, Radiance is a new 1-Cost Priest spell that operates similarly to the old Flash Heal spell. But this spell will target your Hero, instead of any target.

These aren't the only cards that Blizzard is adding to the Classic set. Shacknews will break those down in more detail later today, but in the meantime, if you want to see what they are, be sure to check out the Hearthstone website. Look for these Classic changes to take effect in the next Hearthstone update.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?