In a move that is sure to anger people who do not understand how collectible card games work, Blizzard Entertainment Inc has announced the upcoming introduction of a new Standard game mode for Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, which will limit players’ decks to only the most recently released card expansions.

Starting this Spring, players will be able to choose between the current game mode, which is being renamed “Wild,” or the new Standard game mode, which Blizzard says will only allow “cards that were released in the current and previous calendar year, along with a core foundation of the Basic and Classic card sets.”

Goodbye, Dr Boom

Both Wild and Standard will be available for Friendly Challenges, Ranked, and Casual play, but the new modes will not affect Arena or solo gameplay. According to Blizzard, all of the usual rewards earned from the current game, including quest rewards and end-of-season ranked chests, will be available through both Wild and Standard play. Ranked chest rewards will be based on the highest rank a player has earned between the two game modes, but not both.

The first round of Standard will be phasing out Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes, which will eliminate several cards that play an integral part in the current Hearthstone metagame, including Dr Boom, Sludge Belcher, and Mad Scientist.

Blizzard has said that expansions that are phased out of Standard will no longer be available for purchase for new players, but all of the cards from those decks can be crafted using Arcane Dust instead.

Here are the card sets that will be usable in Standard when the game mode launches in Spring:

• Basic
• Classic
• Blackrock Mountain
• The Grand Tournament
• The League of Explorers
• The unannounced Spring 2016 Expansion

Blizzard said that Standard will be the new official format of the Hearthstone Championship Tour, which will have a profound impact on the game’s esports scene.

This is a good thing. Shut up, yes it is.

Plenty of Hearthstone fans are already foaming at the mouth about how “greedy” Blizzard is being by forcing players to buy new cards.

First of all, all of the old cards can still be used in the new Wild game mode, which will allow players to earn all of the same rewards as the Standard game mode. That means that none of the money players have already spent was wasted, as they can continue to use all of the cards they have collected for as long as they want.

Second, this will be good for players for a number of reasons.

For new players and players who have spent little if any money on Hearthstone so far, the Standard game mode should be especially welcome. Currently, if a player wants to spend cash to get caught up on all of the Adventure expansions in Hearthstone, they would have to spend around $70 to buy all three, and that is not even counting the money they would need to spend on card packs from the regular expansions.

If old expansions do not get phased out, then new players would have a higher and higher barrier to entry before they could compete with other players. Thanks to the limit on what expansions are allowed in Standard, however, new players can jump right in at a much lower price point.

The limitation on cards will also be good for the Hearthstone veterans who have gotten bored with seeing the same decks over an over. Aside from removing some of the most popular cards from play, Blizzard will also no longer have to worry as much about how introducing new cards will affect the current balance of the game.

This will give the studio the freedom to be a little more creative with adding new cards and mechanics, and Blizzard has already said that it plans on using this opportunity to “re-evaluate a number of cards in the Basic and Classic card sets.”

Image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment Inc