Blizzard revealed that with its Year of the Dragon update, Hearthstone’s Baku the Mooneater and Genn Greymane will retire to the game's Hall of Fame. While this may initially appear to be an honor, fans and players of the game know that this means the two cards will not be allowed in Standard Mode use.
For those not familiar, Genn Greymane has the ability to allow players to have starting Hero Power costs (1) provided they only have even-Cost cards in their deck. Baku the Mooneater upgrades Hero Power if the player's deck only has odd-Cost cards.
Both cards were introduced in the Witchwood expansion. The move is seen as a surprise for many in the Hearthstone community. For one, this rotation to the Hall of Fame comes a year early compared to other cards. The rotation is not limited to the two cards as well, as cards that synergize with Genn Greymane and Baku will also be moved to the Hall of Fame.
In a blog post detailing the upcoming changes, Blizzard said that since these two cards brought new strategies to Hearthstone when they were first introduced into the meta. Blizzard added that the developer realized these "strategies have been more prevalent than we’d intended in Standard." There was a need to rotate them to the Hall of Fame earlier so that they won't overshadow what is going to be introduced in the Year of the Dragon.
Overall, a total of nine cards will be rotated to the Hall of Fame.
In case you missed yesterday's big news, Year of the Dragon was announced! Hall of Fame rotation is coming, and it's going to be massive this time. Baku & Genn (+their synergies), Doomguard, Naturalize and Divine Favor rotate out. Read more: https://t.co/UWGxe89uof #Hearthstone pic.twitter.com/NHpwxiLRwk
— Hearthstone Top Decks? (@HSTopDecks) March 1, 2019
Other cards rotating to the Hall of Fame include Naturalize, which allows Druids to have better options, especially in matches that don't rely too much on card advantage. With this, Druids once again are weak when it comes to removing large minions.
Removing Doomguard results in Warlocks having the limited amounts of damage they can deal from their hand. Divine Favor is considered one of Hearthstone's most cost-effective draw spells. Moving it to the Hall of Fame means that the strengths of other classes can now be focused on along with giving better control on the power level of future aggressive Paladin decks.
