Hearthstone's history of adding new modes is complicated: Battlegrounds was arguably successful enough to replace the main Standard mode, but Mercenaries was a shuttle crash from start to finish. Classic, as the name implies, gives players the opportunity to time-warp back to a vanilla version of Hearthstone, which was fun at first, but interest quickly waned when Blizzard chose not to add an expansion. So it came as no shock when I learned last week on a conference call with Matt London, the mode's design lead, and Chadd Nervig, the feature lead, that Classic was being discontinued. It will be replaced by a new mode called Twist, which will likely utilize older cards in players' collections.

Scheduled to launch in beta later this month as part of Patch 26.6, Twist is a unique format, with a ranked ladder, monthly rewards, and rotating rules designed to unleash previously impossible synergies and create new deckbuilding challenges It features a set of rules; the rules set to be used in the Twist beta in June and July is called "New Age." When building a New Age deck, players can choose cards from the following expansions.

By combining sets from eras previously unplayable in Standard, all kinds of new combos are possible. Existing archetypes could also become more powerful with the addition of cards that were not in the pool beforehand. For example, the no neutral rule immediately brings to mind the pure paladin archetype, which does not use neutrals anyway. And "Ashes of Outland" includes the "Libram" package, which can be used with more recent cards like "The Countess" and "Elitist Snob.

In talking to the developers, they confirmed that the overall power level of "Twist," especially for New Age testing, is above Standard but below Wild's (completely degenerate) level. One of the driving forces behind this is that the intent behind Wild was to provide players with a fun way to interact with an older part of their card collection. However, by its very nature, Wild's decks only became more and more OP as time went on, meaning that it was not a mode in which one could participate in a goofy way, as the meta revolved around ruthless efficiency.

Once the beta is over, Twist will go into a short hibernation period and will reappear before the end of the year. It remains to be seen what the future ruleset will look like, but Nervig and London have talked about leaning toward dual-class cards, featuring all Mech Expansions, and leaning toward "singleton" cards. In testing, London said they tried a version where all cards cost zero mana. As its name suggests, the gimmicky nature of "Twist" is a feature, not a bug; it is reasonable to assume that Twist is like an enhanced version of Tavern Brawl, only with a ladder.

In speaking with the designers, I got the sense that the goal is to breathe new life into constructed Hearthstone, now that Hearthstone is under more pressure than ever. Currently, players spend (at most) two to three weeks after each expansion resolving the meta, after which many players return to Battlegrounds or other games altogether. Twist, which aims to have a new ruleset every month, is a way to keep players in that fun meta-resolution phase. Inevitably, Blizzard will sell "Battle Ready" Twist decks, which would allow players who don't have much of a collection of the era covered by the ruleset to participate.

As for Classic, I can't mourn its loss. I've been a player since beta, and while I enjoyed revisiting the vanilla era, I wouldn't want to live there, and when asked why Classic was being eliminated, Blizzard admitted their suspicion that there was a lot of interest at first, but quickly lost interest due to the static nature of the format. What is very disconcerting to me, however, is that the Classic packs have always been available in the store until today. Players who invested some money to purchase them would lose pocket money when Classic ended. As digital card games go, this sucks, and combined with the relatively recent closure of Mercenaries, which sold its own packs, it makes Blizzard look bad.

[Update] When we brought this to Blizzard's attention, we received this response from an official spokesperson: "The Classic packs contain cards that were valid in Classic, but those cards are also valid in Wild. True, but if you bought the pack specifically to play the Classic, you won't be able to do that anymore.

Economics aside, I am passionate about Twist. I think it has the potential to provide a refuge when the standard meta becomes obsolete. To that end, I asked if there was any possibility of banning the Priest class altogether in a future Twist format. Nervig and London laughed at the idea, but said they had no idea. They told me that they kicked the idea of allowing each player to choose to ban one class. Not only because it would allow them to avoid their most hated type of opponents, but also because it would give them the freedom to build their decks in new ways, especially by eliminating unfavorable matchups.

A special preview of Twist will be delivered by content creators on June 22-23, during which time up to nine packs will be free to drop on Twitch; for more information on Twist, see the official blog post.