Normally, the excitement surrounding a Hearthstone expansion comes from seeing what crazy new effects the designers have come up with and theorycrafting innovative decks to play once the cards arrive. The launch of Whispers of the Old Gods, and with it the introduction of the Standard format, however, has almost been overshadowed by the promise of numerous nerfs that will be made to cards from the Classic and Basic sets in order to prevent them from dominating the game in perpetuity, or limiting future design space.

And so, over the past month, almost every single Hearthstone player will have said something along the lines of: “Man, I hope this nonsense gets nerfed in Standard”. Today the wait is over, and the juicy info is at our fingertips. In this gallery I'll take a look at the likely impact of each of the changes, and try and expand on Blizzard’s thinking as to why these cards (and not others) had to feel the sweet kiss of the nerfhammer.