Blizzard had to take extreme measures for the first time in seven years: A card in Hearthstone will be permanently banned from the “Wild” mode. The “Stealer of Souls” made the Warlock simply overpowered in that wild mode. Blizzard apparently overlooked a nasty combo possibility.
The card in question: The Stealer of Souls is an epic Warlock minion with the special ability; “After you draw a card, it costs health instead of mana.”
Typically, in Hearthstone, you have a limited amount of health points: If they drop to 0, you lose. You also have a pool of mana points that refreshes every turn.
- Normally, cards you play cost mana points
- But as long as “Stealer of Souls” is on the field, the Warlock plays all newly drawn cards for health points
The card was just added to Hearthstone a few days ago with “Caverns of Time”.
New combo of 3 cards makes the Warlock way too strong
This made the card way too strong: In “Wild” mode, Hearthstone players can use all cards that have ever been introduced to Hearthstone. This allowed for an overpowering combo of 3 cards:
- Players played the “Stealer of Souls” onto the field – which made all newly drawn cards cost health points instead of mana
- Then they played “Violet Illusionist” – this card prevents you from losing health points during this turn
- Next comes the card Plot Twist – which shuffles all cards in the player’s hand back into the deck and allows them to draw a new hand
This gives the player a complete hand of cards that they can play for free, since they cost health points, but they do not lose any health points.
This is how Blizzard reacts: For the first time in seven years, Blizzard had to completely ban a card for the “Wild” mode in Hearthstone. It is said that the card will be banned in a small update next week. Players can disenchant the “Stealer of Souls” for two weeks and get the full dust back.
The patch is supposed to arrive on Wednesday.
As reported by the Korean site Inven, the ban is the first time Blizzard has banned a card. Previously, such cards were “only” nerfed or moved from the “Standard mode” to Wild, where generally “looser” rules apply.
However, the new Warlock combo was apparently too much even for Wild.
How would the French Grandmaster xBlyzes react if someone came to him with this combo? He would probably ragequit:
Hearthstone: Grandmaster ragequits in “the most important game of his life”, disappointing everyone
