New Hearthstone Update Nerfs These Two Cards

Hearthstone's new update will overhaul the game's ranking system and nerf two cards.

In a blog post, developer Blizzard detailed the changes coming to its card battler as part of its February update. The first to be balanced is Small-Time Buccaneer. Blizzard says "the combination of Small-Time Buccaneer and Patches the Pirate has been showing up too often in the meta," so it has halved the former's health stat from 2 to 1.

The second card to be tweaked is Spirit Claws, which now costs 2 Mana (up from 1). This is to combat the overuse of the weapon, which has proved to be "extremely efficient" at removing minions, says Blizzard.

Lastly, the upcoming patch will change how the ranking system works. In ranked play, there will now be "floors," designed to aid players' progression. These floors, present at Ranks 5, 10, and 15, will act as checkpoints, meaning that once you get to, say, Rank 5, you can never dip below that back to Ranks 1-4. Look out for the update "near the end of February."

In other Hearthstone news, you can now pay for things inside the CCG using Gold obtained from Blizzard's long-running MMO World of Warcraft. Hearthstone also placed in our list of top expansions of 2016--read why here.