Patch 20.4 has been rolled out in Hearthstone, with the developers taking a keen look at Paladin in order to bridge the gap between other heroes and Paladin. Other things introduced include two new heroes and a few minions in Battlegrounds, bug fixes, improvements and more!

Wailing Caverns Mini-Set

The Wailing Caverns Mini-Set has launched worldwide on June 3, 2021, and is available in the Hearthstone store for 14.99 USD or 2,000 Gold. The set consists of 35 distinct cards, 66 cards in total, with 35 distinct cards segregated into 1 Legendary Card, 1 Epic Card, 14 Rare Cards and 16 Common Cards. 

Cards include a barrage of Adventurers, new Synergy cards that enable other minions and heroes along with some advanced neutral cards.

With the arrival of Wailing Caverns Mini-Set, it will be added to the loot buckets and list of eligible cards the summoners can use to build their 15-card starter pack for the Duels. Along with it, the Arena will feature and include cards from the following sets from the 3rd of June:

• Wailing Caverns Mini-Set
• Forged in the Barrens
• Darkmoon Races Mini-Set
• Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
• Scholomance Academy
• Ashes of Outland
• Kobolds & Catacombs
• Goblins vs. Gnomes
• Core

Standard Card Updates

Paladin has been nerfed through some initial cards, with First Day of School, a card with 1 mana, now only adding 2 Random 1-cost minions to the summoner’s hand instead of 3. Hand of A’dal will now give a minion 2 attack and 1 additional health point instead of 2 along with allowing summoners to draw a card.

Unbound Elemental has been reworked to state that the card will gain 1 Attack and 1 Health after the summoner plays a card instead of whenever the summoner plays any card.

Battlegrounds Updates

Two new heroes have been introduced in the Battlegrounds. Mutanus the Destroyer is equipped with Devour, a hero power with 0 mana cost that removes a friendly minion and split its stats onto another while earning 1 Gold. The other hero added is Guff Runetotem who is equipped with Natural Balance, a hero power with 1 mana cost that will give a friendly minion of each Tavern Tier 2 additional Attack and 1 Additional Health. Along with these two additions, Maiev Shadowsong has been temporarily removed from the Battlegrounds pool.

A new minion named Hexruin Marauder has been introduced into the Battlegrounds card pool. Hexruin is a Tier 4 Demon with 3 Attack and Health. However, if, at the end of the summoner’s turn, they have 6 or fewer minions on the board, Hexruin gains both Attack and Health by 3 basis points.

Quillboar will no longer be a guaranteed pull in every Battlegrounds match while Siegebreaker has been removed from the Battlegrounds. Cap’n Hoggarr’s text has been reworded to say “whenever” instead of “after” without any functional change to the card.

Card Backs and Hero Skins

Patch 20.4 also witnesses the return of the favourite card backs and hero skins. As many as 94 Card Backs and 11 Hero Skins will be available after this patch update, with Card Backs set to be available for 500 or 600 Gold while Hero Skins will cost summoners somewhere around 1200 or 1800 Gold. 

These hero skins have been made available from the launch of patch 20.4: 

• Magni Bronzebeard*
• Alleria Windrunner*
• Medivh*
• Khadgar*
• Sylvanas Windrunner*
• Lei Shen/Thunder King*
• Dame Hazelbark*
• Maiev Shadowsong
• Morgl the Oracle
• Lunara
• Sir Annoy-O

The hero skins named with * marks on them will also include their Card Backs as well.

The Launch of Books and Hero Storylines

Three books will be launched throughout the new patch, with the Book of Mercenaries Xyrelia being launched at the time of the release of the patch on June 3, 2021. The Book of Mercenaries will entail the quest of the priest, Xyrelia, rummaging through the Barrens in search of glowing shards that are rumoured to have the power to save her daughter’s life. Defeating all 8 bosses will yield the players 1 Priest Card Pack, containing only Standard Priest Cards. 

The second book will be related to Guff that will release on June 15, 2021. This book of Mercenaries will capture the journey of Guff Runetotem and his companions to the Wailing Caverns, with all to be revealed upon finding what is inside the book. Defeating all 8 bosses will yield players 1 Druid Card Pack, containing only Standard Druid Cards.

The Book of Heroes Malfurion will release on the 22nd of June, with the book encapsulating Malfurion’s harrowing tale as one of the first Druids to take a stance and defend the natural world from threats and incoming peril. Defeating all 8 bosses will yield players 1 Druid Card Pack, containing only Standard Druid Cards.

Bug Fixes & Game Improvements

• Updated Friends List messaging to display the status of friends in Play Mode.
• Fixed a bug where copying Imprisoned Celestial with Mirror Entity resulted in the copied Imprisoned Celestial being unable to activate its Spellburst effect after awakening.
• (NEW) Fixed a bug that prevented the “Borrow Decks” feature from working.
• Fixed a bug where cost-reduction effects on Dormant minions would persist after the Dormant minion was played and awakened.
• Fixed a bug where effects that trigger after or whenever a spell is cast would not trigger if Oh My Yogg! converted the spell into a new spell with no valid targets.
• Fixed a bug that caused Sparkjoy Cheat to use both Scabbs Cutterbutter discounts if it put a Secret into play with its effect.
• Fixed a bug where Guidance’s Spirit Path option was not being counted as an Overload card when selected.
• Fixed a bug where Bogbeam and Ironbark’s cost reduction effects would not activate after casting Celestial Alignment and going back up to at least 7 Mana Crystals.
• Fixed a bug where Crabrider was not recognized as a Battlecry minion by cards like Field Contact.
• Updated the wording of Shield Slam so that it accurately represents the way that the card interacts with Spell Damage bonuses.
• Added language clarifying that both Classic and non-Classic versions of a card are removed from your collection when either version is disenchanted.
• Fixed a bug where Elite Tauren Chieftan would sometimes generate non-Classic versions of cards when played in Classic.
• “Quilboars” has been corrected to “Quilboar” as the proper plural form of Quilboar when displaying Battlegrounds minion types.
• Fixed a bug where Reckless Apprentice’s effect would cause some minion-only Hero Powers to hit the enemy hero.
• Fixed a bug that would result in duplicate treasures being offered in Duels.
• Prevented cards of the same name from different sets being offered in the same Arena run.
• Updated the Player Profile to display total wins for each game mode.
• Fixed a bug where progress related to progression tracks, such as the “Tavern Regular” achievement, would not properly update.
• Fixed a bug where reward pop-ups would sometimes not properly appear when the reward was earned.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from switching accounts on iOS devices.
• Updated the New Player Experience to remove certain restrictions and to better indicate locked heroes, modes, and other features.
• Updated MMR calculation for returning players to better account for their time away from the game.
• Fixed a bug where effects that added copies of Diamond cards to a player’s hand or deck would add Golden versions instead of Diamond versions.
• Fixed a bug that would make some Diamond cards not appear in your collection if owned.
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause cards in hand to arbitrarily change positions.
• Fixed a bug where the wrong description would sometimes appear for items in the in-game shop.