The Hearthstone Hall of Fame 2020 rotation lineup was revealed alongside the new Hearthstone: Ashes of Outland expansion, and it's a doozy.
The biggest targets are Leeroy Jenkins and Mountain Giant, two notorious aggro and combo pieces respectively, but there are also a few surprising staple cards. Here's the full list of cards which are entering the Hall of Fame, complete with explanations from designers at Blizzard, who spoke at a press event in February:
- Leeroy Jenkins: "Currently, Leeroy just ends too many games. It's a lot of face damage in neutral that blurs class identity. By rotating Leeroy into the Hall of Fame, matches will be more varied and end in different ways."
- Mountain Giant: "Mountain Giant has also seen a ton of play throughout its life, and we like the decks that Mountain Giant helps create, like Handlock and these Big Mage decks. But we no longer want Mountain Giant to be the star of that show. We want to lean into those decks with different designs, and rotating Mountain Giant allows us a lot of design space to make new cards with those designs in mind."
- Mind Control Tech: "Mind Control Tech's design no longer fits with how we want randomness to feel. In Standard, it creates a lot of negative feelings. We're happy to see it move into Wild with its current design intact."
- Acolyte of Pain: "This is one of our most popular cards in neutral for card draw, but it makes it very difficult to identify which classes draw a ton of cards and which classes only draw a few. By rotating Acolyte of Pain, we'll actually get to make more cards in the vein of Acolyte of Pain but in different, varied ways."
- Spellbreaker: "One of the conversations we like to have is around a card called Gluttonous Ooze. Gluttonous Ooze offered very strong weapon removal in its expansion. We want to continue to make cards like that, and by removing Spellbreaker here, we'll be able to make more Silence cards in the future."
Those aren't the only cards leaving Standard, either. With the dawning of the Year of the Phoenix, and the accompanying Hearthstone Demon Hunter release, Blizzard is completely reworking the Priest class. It wants Priest to be "good at control and fighting for the board," so several Priest cards are being rebalanced, while others are being rotated and replaced. Here's the full list of those changes:
- Holy Nova: now costs four mana (down from five), but doesn't damage the enemy hero.
- Holy Smite: now deals three damage (up from two) but can't target the enemy hero.
- Shadow Madness: now costs three mana (down from four).
- Shadow Word: Death: now costs two mana (down from three).
- Thoughtsteal: now costs two mana (down from three).
- Power Word: Shield: now costs zero but no longer draws a card.
- Temple Enforcer: now a five mana 5/6 (was a six mana 6/6).
- Psychic Conjurer: new card, one mana 1/1 Common. Battlecry: copy a card in your opponent's deck and add it to your hand.
- Kul Tiran Chaplain: new card, two mana 2/3 Rare. Battlecry: Give a friendly minion +2 health.
- Scarlet Subjugator: new card, one mana 2/1 Rare. Battlecry: Give an enemy minion -2 attack until your next turn.
- Natalie Seline: new card, eight mana 8/1 Legendary. Battlecry: Destroy a minion and gain its health.
- Power Infusion: new card, four mana Basic spell. Give a minion +2/+6.
- Shadow Word: Ruin: new card, four mana Epic spell. Destroy all minions with five or more attack.
- Auchenai Soulpriest: Hall of Fame.
- Holy Fire: Hall of Fame.
- Prophet Velen: Hall of Fame.
- Shadowform: Hall of Fame.
- Divine Spirit: Hall of Fame.
- Northshire Cleric: Hall of Fame.
