In a recent interview with the Hearthstone development team, the topic of what to do with the game's tumultuous Priest class came up. Senior Game Designer Liv Breeden said, "We want to make sure that people who are playing against Priests are not tearing their hair out," and a new patch for Hearthstone will be released tomorrow.

Good news for druid haters, but druids will also take a hit. Before we get into that, let's talk about the Standard nerf, with a developer's explanation of why such a measure was necessary:

Apotheosis Old: +2/+3 life to 1 minion Old: +2/+3 life to 1 minion. → New: +1/+2 and lifesteal to a minion.

Currently, it sometimes feels like you have to remove all Priest minions for the threat of Divination. A slight reduction in the buff here should reduce that urgency and make it easier to deal with minions after apotheosis. The other side of this nerf is the combo of Samro + Apotheosis. Currently, the punishment for putting minions into this combo is too great. Therefore, we want to maintain the tension of putting resources into the game, but we do not want the punishment to be a full recovery for the opponent. The reduction in attacks here helps to make this combo a healthier push/pull situation.

Renew: old: [cost 1] -> new: [cost 2]

We specifically decided to change Renew because we believe this change will have the greatest impact in curbing the chain of generation in Priest. While Priest will have a different identity in future expansions, we wanted to take this opportunity to curb card generation and build a better match experience for both players.

Giverings Old: [cost 1] -> New: [cost 2]

Currently, giverings are the cause of many "non-games", i.e. matches that are heavily disadvantaged in the early game and the outcome is decided too early. We want to reduce the frequency of this happening, and making the Giverling two mana should result in more games where opponents can deal with this small threat early on in the board.

As always, the above cards will be eligible for a full refund of dust for two weeks after the July 15 update is implemented.

In terms of tweaks and fixes for the update, you can expect the following:

While the Standard update is relatively small, a larger update is coming for Battlegrounds. Alec Dawson, Hearthstone's lead designer, said yesterday on Twitter that the upcoming 21.2 patch will be a "big change" for Battlegrounds. A release date for the patch has not yet been announced, but Dawson said that Blizzard will release more details a few weeks after the release of the United in Stormwind expansion, which will be released on August 3