Blizzard Entertainment announced some of the changes players will see when the yearly rotation happens within the next month or so. Every March/April, the first expansion of the new year is released and that means the expansions from two years ago rotate out into Wild Format; however, this year is a little different.
Core Sets
First off, Blizzard announced that Basic and Classic cards are rotating out of Standard and into Wild!
Normally, Standard format consisted of Basic, Classic, 3 Expansions from the Previous Year, and 3 Expansions from the Current Year. Now, all of that is about to change but don’t fret… not ALL of the basic and classic cards are rotating out… for now.
Blizzard is introducing Core Sets. These sets will be comprised of Basic and Classic cards, some cards from the Wild format as well as other expansions. Think of the Core set as an Arena rotation-style system where every year different cards will be swapped in and out.
For 2021, the Core set will contain the following:
- 88 cards returning from Classic (54 class cards, 34 neutral cards).
- 54 cards returning from Basic (41 class cards, 13 neutral cards).
- 55 cards returning from Wild (36 class cards, 19 neutral cards).
- 4 cards returning from Ashes of Outland (4 Demon Hunter Class cards).
- 4 cards returning from Demon Hunter Initiate.
- 1 card returning from Hall of Fame (Shadowform).
- 29 new cards (20 Class cards, 9 Neutral cards).
As for the new cards, players do not have to worry about busting open packs to get them. Any and all new cards will be automatically granted to players for free the day the Core Set for the year goes live!
More Deck Slots
With Standard and Wild allowing for more and more decks to be created, along with the addition of a 10th playable class, Blizzard has answered the call and is increasing deck slots up to 27 total. This is granting players an extra 9 slots! Maybe it should have been 30 (3 decks per class) but who am I to use logic?
Classic Format
World of Warcraft: Classic started a trend because Hearthstone is following suit! If you want to relive the good ol’ days of Hearthstone then you can with the new Classic Format! Just like Standard and Wild, there will be a Casual and a Ranked ladder but the twist is that you can only use the original 240 cards from Hearthstone. The keyword here is ORIGINAL cards.
That’s right! Warsong Commander is going back to giving all minions charge! Leeroy Jenkins is going back to 4 mana! Sylvanas is going back to 5 mana, etc! You will be able to play with the original version of these cards before they were slammed with massive or light nerfs… but ONLY in the Classic Format. Sylvanas will still cost 6 mana in Wild, Leeroy, too, and Warsong Commander in Wild will still be sitting in your collection collecting dust.
Legacy Set
Because of all of these changes, the Hall of Fame is going away. All cards in the Hall of Fame that are NOT going back into Standard (right now, only Shadowform is), will be rejoining the Basic and Classic sets but instead of calling them Basic and Classic, it’ll just be known as the Legacy Set. Same cards, new grouping, new name. Simple as that.
All of this is set to launch the same day as the first expansion of 2021. Typically, that expansion comes in April but there has been talk of possibly launching in March. Blizzard hasn’t said anything as of yet but we’re sure they’ll drop it on us at the drop of a hat so get reading for an upcoming announcement from them Soon™
