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Hearthstone introduces Twist mode and retires Classic

Hearthstone's 26.6 update will look to the future and return the past to whence it came.

Ozzie Mejia

June 20, 2023 10:00 AM

Blizzard Entertainment

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Hearthstone players have been climbing the ladders for years, whether it be Standard or Wild. They're about to potentially have a third. On Tuesday, Blizzard announced that Hearthstone is about to get a new game mode that utilizes a mixture of random expansions. Twist promises to offer a slightly different challenge than Standard and Wild. Unfortunately, in exchange, it looks like Classic is about to go back into the Blizzard vault.

Twist will be introduced with Hearthstone's 26.6 update. It will feature regularly rotating card pools, offering a mixture of Standard and Wild expansions. That's not all that will set Twist apart. Twist will allow only class cards. Neutral cards will not be eligible for this format, which should eliminate some of the more killer win conditions while also potentially opening the door to new ones.

Twist will start with a beta season that will run through the rest of the month and through July. The following expansions will be allowed for the New Age season:

• Core
• Ashes of Outland
• Scholomance Academy
• Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
• Forged in the Barrens
• United in Stormwind
• Fractured in Alterac Valley
• Voyage to the Sunken City
• Murder at Castle Nathria
• March of the Lich King
• Path of Arthas
• Festival of Legends

As for Classic, players will recall an initial rush of excitement when it was first reintroduced back in March 2021. However, after two years, Classic's growth has stagnated, and Blizzard has determined that there isn't enough interest to keep it going. The Hearthstone team is hopeful that Twist is an idea that will have staying power and give players a new ladder to climb each season.

Blizzard hopes to give players a taste of Twist with a special preview event that will take place across Twitch through the rest of the week, just before the new mode's deployment. For more on these streams and how to receive Twitch Drops, check out the Hearthstone website.

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?