Blizzard is adjusting several Hearthstone minions to make them more 'consistent'

A handful of Hearthstone minions will be changed in the next major update to bring their types more in line with their appearances and place in Warcraft lore. Molten Giant and Mountain Giant, for instance, are both being reclassified as Elemental minions, which adds flexibility to Elemental decks and "also makes more sense from a visual standpoint—these lumbering towers of magma and stone are the epitome of Elementals."

Witchwood Piper, a satyr who's "rather demonic in nature," will be reclassified as a Demon, while the North Sea Kraken will become a Beast. Jungle Moonkin will go the other way: Moonkin are "intelligent humanoids," Blizzard said, and so it's losing the tag. (Their kindred Darkmire Moonkin aren't classified as Beasts, so the change also delivers a little more consistency.)

The card art for Witchwood Grizzly, a spectral beast (and thus one who falls between the category cracks) is being updated "to make it look like a beast instead of a ghost," but Arfus—another spectral beast—is being left alone for now. It seems largely because it's a fun card to combine using Deathstalker Rexxar.

Blizzard also reminded everyone, since it's bound to come up, that "minor consistency changes" do not entitle players to full Arcane Dust refunds. "In this case, since power levels remain essentially unchanged, we will not offer a full Arcane Dust refund," Blizzard said.

There's no word on when the update will roll out, but Blizzard invited players to submit suggestions for other minion type changes in the comments at playhearthstone.com. No legendaries were harmed in the making of this update, so for now our Witchwood power ranking stands.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.