Hearthstone Replacing Two Class Cards That Didn't "Fit And Empower" Class Fantasies

Hearthstone is five years old, but Blizzard is still tweaking its class balance and core cards available to each class. A recent blog post described each class's identity, from mages with their board-clearing spells (but poor taunts and minion buffs) to warriors with their armor and weapons (but poor face-damage spells). Two Basic set cards are singled out as being poor representations of those class identities: the rogue's Vanish and the priest's Mind Blast.

Vanish gives rogues -- who are typically poor against minion swarms -- too strong an option for dealing with a board full of enemy minions. Priests typically play a control-based game, so Mind Blast is too potent a tool for dealing face damage. Both cards will be moved to the Hall of Fame and replaced in the Basic set in a future balance patch -- Vanish with Plaguebringer and Mind Blast with Radiance.

While Plaguebringer isn't too bad, Radiance is notably weaker than other priest cards that heal the same amount of health to any target or to a minion and the priest, for the same one-mana cost. Both of those cards are from expansions that are no longer part of the Standard set, so they're of limited availability, but it's hard to see Radiance getting much use, if any, in any Standard deck.

Eight other cards will be added to the Classic set with the upcoming update as well, including three class cards and two legendary minions. You can see them all below: