Conspiracy time yet?

[Jonathan]

@ButtStallion

as likely the moment they took out the hero, that inadvertently stopped pet gnomes from dropping.

This doesn’t actually sound too ridiculous to me, or maybe when this happened :

Arena Wins/Losses no longer count to PVP

Any battles lost or won in Arena will no longer count to your PVP Stats. We’re sorry this has caused some confusion and frustration for so long. Previously, this was considered to be working as intended, but we’ve recently re-evaluated how Arena Battles counted for both wins and losses in PVP. Although Arena is technically apart of PVP, both these game modes should be treated separately. Within a few hours, restart your game to be sure you can see these changes - and your Arena losses will n…

When was the last confirmed sighting of a Pet Gnome in Arena, does anyone know?

Agreed that, “we didn’t change anything about Pet Gnomes in 5.2” doesn’t necessarily indicate that “Pet Gnomes can definitely, currently be found in Arena battles”.