If you’ve been following the Hearthstone (Free) Meta ever since Blackrock Mountain Adventure, you’ll know that the Patron Warrior deck has dominated the meta for probably longer than any previous deck in the short history of this game. Well, all that’s about to change as Blizzard has just announced that it’s nerfing Warsong Commander, an essential cog in the Patron Warrior machine, to the point where the card will be unrecognizable. Before this nerf, Warsong Commander gave Charge whenever you summoned a minion with 3 or less Attack. When the patch hits, the card will read “Your Charge minions have +1 Attack." What that means is that Blizzard has pretty much killed Patron Warrior’s ability to send numerous Grim Patrons your way, pretty much removed one of the worst One-Turn-Kill offenders in Hearthstone.

As Blizzard’s community manager pointed out, innovation is an important way a game can evolve, and the best way to shake up the meta and innovate in Hearthstone is by introducing new cards, which is the preferred way of doing things. However, in the case of Warsong Commander, they felt this change was necessary to help “expand both future design space and to stand by our overarching game philosophy that battles between minions and fighting for board control is what makes Hearthstone fun and compelling." This change will be welcomed by many, but there’s an interesting complication that stems from the timing of this nerf. The Hearthstone Wold Championship 2015 is coming in less than a month, so the patch will change the meta quite dramatically just before the biggest event of the year; not the best timing for pro players. Still, I’m glad Blizzard finally took action on a deck that wasn’t only very powerful when played against, but also defined what other decks were viable too.