The Arena has been pretty crowded lately, thanks to the return of the Wild mode. The devs very well noticed that they have to give it some time to satisfy the players who chose this game mode, too.
Minor balance changes are common in Arena mode, but they aren't always shown on patch notes. This is an overview of stats which will help you in drafts, as well as banned cards that you didn't even know of.
Let's start with stats
The cards clearly have not the same pick rate in the Arena game mode. Spells, minions, weapons... all of this is separately managed by Blizzard to obtain a balanced game overall. Here is some general information which will help you understand why you rarely see some cards.
- An Arena draft has an average pick rate of 60% common, 25% rare, 10% epic and 2% legendary cards.
- Class minions are 100% more picked than neutral minions.
- Class, weapon, and spell cards are 175% more picked than neutral cards.
- Cards of the latest expansion are 50% more picked than cards from older expansions.
- Flamestrike, Abyssal Enforcer and some neutral cards from the Classic set (as Chillwind Yeti and River Crocolisk) are bound to be 50% less picked.
- Many adjustments are made (from 1 to 10% pick rate) on cards considered as popular. It's imperceptible over 1 or 2 Arena sessions, but it contributes to balancing classes over thousands of games.
Here are all the banned cards
When a card is "banned", it means that it can't be directly drafted. However, it can be picked on a random or Discover effect. For the most part, banned cards are considered as too powerful, demanding in deckbuilding or have an impact too important on the outcome of the game.
For Druid
For Shaman
For Warrior
For Warlock
For Priest
For Hunter
For Paladin
For Rogue
For Mage
Neutral banned cards
You were looking forward to it, that's it! The Ashes of Outland extension has just been released and, with it, new archetypes. Here's a recap of the best decks.
Written by Jérémie "Djey" Mathis. Translated from French by Millenium.us.org.
