In an unexpected announcement, the Hearthstone development team unveiled the contents of Patch 22.4.3 which is set to go live on Thursday afternoon. Despite the contents being smaller than that of a typical patch, a handful of balance changes and bug fixes are expected to provide an overall better playing experience for players around the world.

The following changes impact Hearthstone Battlegrounds only:

- Players now properly receive boosts to their Buddy Meter when they play against Kel'Thuzad/eliminated opponents.

- Tamsin Roame's Hero Power, Phylactery, has been changed from "[Costs 1] Start of Combat: Destroy your lowest Health minion. Give its stats to all your others." to "[Costs 0] Start of Combat: Destroy your lowest Health minion. Give its stats to four friendly minions."

- Queen Togwaggle's Buddy goes from "[Tavern Tier 4] 4 Attack, 3 Health. Whenever you play a minion of a type you don’t control, trigger your Hero Power." to "New: [Tavern Tier 3] 5 Attack, 4 Health. Whenever you play a minion of a type you don’t control, trigger your Hero Power. (2 left this turn.)"

- Lich Baz'hial's Buddy goes from "[Tavern Tier 4] 4 Attack, 4 Health. Whenever your hero takes damage, this minion gains +2/+2 instead." to "New: [Tavern Tier 3] 3 Attack, 3 Health. Whenever your hero takes damage, this minion gains +3/+3 instead. (2 left this turn.)"

- Vol'jin's Buddy goes from "8 Attack, 5 Health. At the end of your turn, adjacent minions copy this minion’s Attack." to "New: 6 Attack, 5 Health. At the end of your turn, the minion to the left of this copies this minion’s Attack."

- Bru'kan's Buddy soars to Tavern Tier 3 (from Tavern Tier 2).

- Lord Barov's Buddy goes from a Tavern Tier 2 minion with 4 Attack, 3 Health to a Tavern Tier 3 minion with 5 Attack, 4 Health.

- Tamsin Roame's Buddy goes from a Tavern Tier 3 minion with 0 Attach, 12 Health to a Tavern Tier 4 minion with 0 Attack, 14 Health.

- Elise Starseeker's Buddy jumps to Tavern Tier 3 (from Tavern Tier 2) and now reads "At the start of your turn, get a ‘Recruitment Map.’  Your Maps cost (1)."

- Tess Greymane's Buddy drops to Tavern Tier 2 with a 5 Attack, 3 Health from Tavern Tier 3 and 6 Attack, 4 Health.

The following changes impact playable cards across the title's more standard game modes:

- LOCUUUUSTS!!! Has been removed from the pool of Treasures that can be Discovered by Kazakusan.

Comment from the development team: "We’re making a small adjustment to reduce the amount of focus that Kazakusan’s treasure hoard has on from-hand damage. Removing LOCUUUUSTS!!! from the Discover pool will allow for a bit more back-and-forth for both players after Kazakusan has been played."

- SI:7 Smuggler goes from "Battlecry: Summon a random minion with Cost equal to the amount of SI:7 cards you’ve played this game." to "Battlecry: Summon a random 0-cost minion (Upgraded for each SI:7 card you have played this game)."

Comment from the development team: "Smuggler is receiving an effect change to account for improper wording on release. The new wording should now properly track the Cost of the minion which will be summoned while Smuggler remains in hand. Along with this, SI:7 Informant is receiving a wording change to correctly state that it only counts other SI:7 cards that have been played."

- SI:7 Informant goes from "Battlecry: Gain +1/+1 for each SI:7 card you’ve played this game." to "Battlecry: Gain +1/+1 for each other SI:7 card you’ve played this game."