Blizzard removes 45 cards from the Arena card pool

Addressing the heavily criticized state of the game mode, Team 5 makes an unprecedented move.

Of late, the Hearthstone Arena hasn't been the go-to place if one looked for diversity. Popular Arena streamer Octavian "Kripparian" Morosan tweeted a picture of his statistics: in one run he came across 1 Paladin, 3 Rogues and 10 Mages. The result comes at no surprise since Mages have long had many strong common cards in Fireball, Flamestrike and many others. To make the situation even worse, in Hearthstone's most recent expansion "One Night in Karazhan", Firelands Portal was introduced: a very strong common tempo card as well.

Many Arena players were upset, to say the least, with the rarity given to the card. It being a common means it'll appear far more often than when it was given a different rarity. Others took it as far as to wonder why the card was even granted to Mages at all, as the class was in no need of strong Arena cards. Following the critique many questions were put to the developers and Ben Brode briefly addressed the issue during a Q&A. Today however, the developers revealed their full plans for Arena in a blog post. 45 more cards will no longer be able to be picked, following Purify and all C'Thun cards in their tracks. Looking at the selected cards it is obvious the developers are mostly aiming at the weaker cards in the suboptimal Arena classes. The exception is Faceless Summoner, which is the third best common Mage card according to Hearth Arena's tier list.

Card bans on such a large scale are unprecedented in Hearthstone, but might open new doors for the future of the game. As for the community, the response to the announcement has been generally positive. Most Arena players are already glad with the fact that the developers are actually acting in favor of them, rather than continuously saying they're thinking of a solution.

Full list of banned cards:

Mage

Forgotten Torch

Snowchugger

Faceless Summoner



Rogue

Goblin Auto-Barber

Undercity Valiant



Paladin

No changes



Shaman

Vitality Totem

Dust Devil

Totemic Might

Ancestral Healing

Dunemaul Shaman

Windspeaker



Warlock

Anima Golem

Sacrificial Pact

Curse of Rafaam

Sense Demons

Void Crusher

Reliquary Seeker

Succubus



Druid

Savagery

Poison Seeds

Soul of the Forest

Mark of Nature

Tree of Life

Astral Communion



Warrior

Warsong Commander

Bolster

Charge

Bouncing Blade

Axe Flinger

Rampage

Ogre Warmaul



Hunter

Starving Buzzard

Call Pet

Timber Wolf

Cobra Shot

Lock and Load

Dart Trap

Snipe



Priest

Mind Blast

Shadowbomber

Lightwell

Power Word: Glory

Confuse

Convert

Inner Fire