In what's been a bumper week for Hearthstone news, Blizzard has released a new patch that slightly changes how the game's fishy murloc minions function and introduces 35 new quests.
Four murloc cards that previously affected all murlocs on the battlefield now only affect friendly ones. This applies to Grimscale Oracle, Coldlight Seer, Murloc Tidecaller, and Murloc Warleader. Other murlocs that didn't have the "ALL Murlocs" text still function as before. It's not a huge change—the altered murlocs aren't even eligible for a full-dust refund—but it should improve the murloc mirror-match, Blizzard says.
As a minor aside, it does come after the players designated to compete at BlizzCon next month have already submitted their decks. So let's hope none of them are all in on the murloc plan.
The other big change is the addition of 35 new quests, almost all of them requiring you to play a specific number of a certain type of card. Some examples include a 50 gold quest called Overpowered to play 10 cards that cost 8 or more, and Murlocalypse, a 100 gold quest for playing 75 murlocs.
The additional quests are a refreshing change, and one we welcome. Many of the quests were too win-centric for what is for the most part a casual game. By taking the focus off winning, the new quests encourage players to build more weird and fun decks that wouldn't normally survive in the metagame. It harks back to the week when Blizzard let players complete quests by playing against friends, rather than having to rankle for wins against the masses.
The patch also includes a number of minor bug fixes, a few card text tweaks, and a handful of achievements related to the upcoming BlizzCon "Choose Your Champion" event. Head over to Battle.net for the full patch notes.
