Hearthstone 19.4.1 patch notes: Hysteria nerf, Duels balance changes, bug fixes

It seems that as Hearthstone is becoming bigger and bigger, the game is becoming more and more prone to some ridiculously overpowered combos with each new expansion release.

Darkmoon Races wasn't even a full expansion but a mini-set, yet one of its cards created one of the strongest Wild combos ever seen in the history of Hearthstone.

We are talking about the Wretched Tiller/Hysteria/Deathspeaker combo, which allowed Priest players in Wild to do a rather easy 60 damage OTK (one turn kill) with just three cards involved.

(Picture: Blizzard)

With this combo, Wretched Tiller was able to attack endlessly when casting Hysteria on him while being Immune thanks to the Deathspeaker's Battlecry. The effect was capped at 30 attacks, which means 60 damage in total.

With today's patch, players won't be able to cast Hysteria on their own minions anymore, which is also a "design space" nerf in order to prevent any future broken combos with the card, similar to this one.

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This is the only update for the ranked play, but the patch comes with a bunch of balance updates for Duels as well, many of which should have come long ago.

Hunter's overperforming Outlander Hero Power now costs 1 mana instead of being passive, which should help to lower the damage output per turn and stop some insane turns.

Hunter's Death Games Hero Power now triggers on a random Deathrattle minion, instead of allowing players to choose which one they want. We are not sure if this will help to fight for the early tempo against them but should help in mid to late game.

Lastly, Obnoxious Bonecrusher has been nerfed as well, and now cost 8 mana.

(Picture: Blizzard)

It's not all about the nerfs though, as Blizzard wants to improve some underperforming classes and Signature Treasures as well, like Fractured Spirits and Royal Greatsword.

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Finally, the update brings some bugs fixes and improvements, including the one which fixes the annoying Journal notification. Hearthstone is playable again!

Hearthstone 19.4.1 full Patch Notes:

Standard Balance Updates

Hysteria

• Old: Choose a minion. It attacks random minions until it dies. → New: Choose an enemy minion. It attacks random minions until it dies.

Duels Balance Updates

HERO POWER UPDATES

Outlander

• Old: [Passive] After you play the left- or right-most card, gain 1 Attack this turn. → New: [Costs 1] After you play the left or right-most card in your hand, gain +1 Attack this turn.

Death Games

• Old: Trigger a minion's Deathrattle. → New: Trigger a random friendly minion's Deathrattle.

SIGNATURE TREASURE UPDATES

Bonecrusher

• Old: [Costs 6] → New: [Beast, Costs 8]
  • Dev Comment: Turns out Bonecrusher is a silly rabbit.

Fractured Spirits

• Old: [Costs 5] → New: [Costs 4]

Royal Greatsword

• Old: [Costs 6] → New: [Costs 5]

Herald of the Scaled Ones

• Now has the Dragon tag.

TREASURE POOL UPDATES

• Cannibalism has moved from Passive Treasure pool 1 to pool 2
• Sandy Surprise has been removed from the Passive Treasures pool.

Miscellaneous Updates & Game Improvements

• Fixed a bug where Collection Achievement progress could get out of sync with the current contents of your collection.
  • Dev Comment: You will still never lose credit for an Achievement once it's been completed.
• Fixed a bug where Arena could fail to load for new players.
• Fixed a Duels bug where the animation for Harvest Time! would play twice.
• Fixed a Duels bug where Shadow Word: Void would summon minions based on the target minion's default Health rather than current Health remaining.
• Fixed a visual bug where notifications would persist for the Journal after completed Achievements had been claimed.