A strange Hearthstone bug has been found that gives your hero Taunt

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A scarily easy to replicate bug can give your Druid hero Taunt, along with bonus attack and health. Permanently.

Update: And that's all folks! In a matter of hours, Blizzard has fixed the glitch. The hasty response should be a good indication of how serious this bug could have been. 

Original story: The Hearthstone community loves exploring fringe interactions after the launch of a new expansion, and always manages to find a few bugs that slipped through the QA cracks—as to be expected with the ever growing number of unique cards and interactions in the game. But this latest bug might be the most ridiculous I’ve seen yet. In the video above, YouTuber Disguised Toast showcases an interaction between the brand new Druid Legendary minion, Fandral Staghelm, and a spell called Dark Wispers that ends up gives your hero +5 Attack, +5 Health, and Taunt. Permanently. 

I imagine Blizzard is working on a hotfix literally as I type this out because, although the interaction is quarantined to the Wild format thanks to Dark Wispers being from the Goblins vs Gnomes set, it’s a bug that's legitimately harmful to the game and incredibly easy to execute. Staghelm combines the effects of any of the Druid’s ‘Choose One’ cards, somehow allowing you to target yourself with the buffing part of Dark Wispers. The result is a boost in health past the maximum of 30, your hero always having 5 attack (dealing damage to anything that attacks him, even on your opponent's turn), and your opponent not being able to attack anything but your hero’s face.

The popular theory is that this is related to a Tavern Brawl from a while back that gave each hero Taunt, so the code for Taunt heroes was already present in the game. Whatever the reason, it’s one of the funniest bugs to crop up so far. Disguised Toast pushes it to its limit by playing six copies of Dark Wispers at once, permanently giving his hero 30 attack and 60 health. Let’s see Aggro Shaman compete with that.  

Tom Marks
Tom Marks
Tom is PC Gamer’s Associate Editor. He enjoys platformers, puzzles and puzzle-platformers. He also enjoys talking about PC games, which he now no longer does alone. Tune in every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on Twitch.tv/pcgamer to see Tom host The PC Gamer Show.