Hearthstone patches have been arriving with particularly aggressive bus-like frequency lately. They include bug fixes and balance updates for Standard and Battlegrounds. Patch notes are now available, so you can know in advance what to expect. Exciting, right?

The Standard updates include nerfs to Fountain of Refreshment, Hysteria, Crave Rider, and Orgla, Wife of Mankrik, and the First Day at School, which now adds three random 1-cost minions to your hand instead of two, although its cost has increased from 0 to 1. It received an up/down kind of adjustment. Here's the breakdown and why:

Spell Mage is currently showing many explosive turns, of which "Refreshing Fountain" is an important part. By nerfing Refreshing Fountain to 5 mana, we aim to reduce the frequency of extreme turns where Refreshing Fountain draws cards and gains mana in the process. We believe that by reducing the frequency of such gameplay sequences, the range of possibilities for the deck will be in line with the other current options.

Given Paladin's continued strong performance in multiple archetypes, we are nerfing "First Day of School" to take advantage of Paladin's early game strengths. By increasing the mana cost of "First Day of School" and the amount of 1-cost minions it generates, the card will now play a valuable role rather than its original positioning as an efficient curve builder.

Hysteria at three mana becomes an option before opponents can figure out how to best deal with Hysteria. Pushing Hysteria to four mana gives you more space to make a decision to commit to the board and allows the Priest/Warlock's cheap removal to have a clearer purpose.

Crabrider is too efficient in some board-based decks, clearing minions and dealing a lot of Windfury damage, etc. Changing Crabrider's Windfury to only last until end of turn, leaving it for a few turns Reducing the amount of deadly damage, with the goal of ensuring that Crabrider remains a solid option for decks looking to shake up the board, especially when paired with buffs.

To soften the effect of the early Orglas draw, lower the health of Mancryk, the Drunkard of Hatred. Once at 7 health, this token will be more accessible to the mid-game removal available throughout turns 4-6.

There is one surprising omission, however. It is a very powerful mage card, and Hearthstone caster Darroch Brown recently tweeted a supercut of a Grandmaster player's fear and frustration when the card was played last weekend.

And what does Gabriel "Gaby" Jeanne, the recent Hearthstone Masters Tour Ogrimmar winner, think of this decision?

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

Unusually, there are also quite a few buffs available, "primarily focused on improving struggling classes and archetypes." *Shaman.

On the Battlegrounds side, the Barrens Blacksmith has been removed from the minion pool, and a handful of other minions have been tweaked slightly, or in some cases not so much, primarily to keep the recently added Quillboar race in check.

Blizzard is also working on fixing a bug that prevented updated text from appearing on non-English Battlegrounds cards:

And finally, a bug fix:

Hearthstone 20.2.2 patch will be released later today. We will keep you posted when the patch is released. We will let you know when the patch is available.