Hearthstone's planned burst nerfs postponed until patch 20.0 arrives

Blizzard's Team 5 had plans to release a small Hearthstone balance update this week, but due to unexpected issues, nerfs will come later this month.

Hearthstone's next expansion Forged in the Barrens is slated for release later this month or in early April, and initially, Blizzard planned to release a minor balance update this weak to tweak some cards here and there, mostly for the purpose of the competitive scene and Hearthstone Grandmasters 2021 S1.

Unfortunately, it seems that the developers had some issues which prevented them from implanting these planned changes this week, and instead, planned balance updates are pushed for later this month and they will be released along with the huge patch 20.0 which will include many substantial changes, including the Core Set, Legacy Mode, Standard rotation, and preparations for the release of the next expansion.

Patch 20.0 will bring huge changes to Standard (Picture: Blizzard)

This has been confirmed by Hearthstone's senior game designer Alec Dawson.

"Strongly hinted at it, so want to get this out there. We had originally planned on doing a small balance patch this week, but we ran into some issues affecting our timeline. 20.0 is our largest patch to date (Barrens, Core, Classic) and want to make sure it's a smooth launch," he tweeted out.

Alec explains that they are "fairly happy with the current meta" and changes they've planned were related to burst damage, but nothing too problematic.

In addition to these balance changes, Alex also confirmed that players can expect several previously nerfed cards to be reverted with patch 20.0 as well.

Patch 20.0 will be one of the biggest changes since the release of Hearthstone in 2014, which will see many iconic cards being removed from the Standard play and replaced with the new Core set, in order to drastically change the meta and open space for some new deck archetypes and strategies.