We're getting a large patch this Tuesday, 9th of June, with big changes to Hearthstone Battlegrounds! Here's a quick rundown of what's to come:
- Felfire Festival begins. Read more here.
- 20 Pirates are arriving in Battlegrounds!
- Three brand new Pirate heroes + Patches returns!
- 17 new cards, most of which are unique to Battlegrounds!
- With the arrival of new minion type, the minion pool of individual Battlegrounds matches will rotate. The active 5 minion types (out of 6) will be displayed while you’re selecting a Hero. Plan accordingly!
- A fourth new hero will arrive later on.
- The Solo Adventure begins on 17th of June.
- Five free chapters with a card back reward.
- Challenge mode opens on June 24th, where players will build their own deck. Reward for completing is golden Kael'thas Sunstrider.
- Legendary Questline starting on June 17th, with three weekly pack-rewarding quests.
Quote From Blizzard The Felfire Festival is nearly here! The festivities begin on June 9 with the release of patch 17.4, which welcomes a salty new crew of minions to the Battlegrounds—Pirates! On June 17, the Trial by Felfire Solo Adventure will unlock, followed by Trial by Felfire Challenges on June 24. Beyond that, we’ve got some special Tavern Brawls and legendary quests lined up to mark the occasion.
Check out the full Felfire Festival announcement here!
Battlegrounds Shifting Minion Pools
At the start of each game of Battlegrounds, five of the six currently available minion types (Beasts, Demons, Dragons, Mechs, Murlocs, and now Pirates) will form the recruitment pool for that game. The active minion types will be displayed while you’re selecting a Hero—you can also check anytime during the Recruit phase by hovering over Bartender Bob’s deck. To keep things fair, Heroes designed with synergies around a specific minion types will sit out if their corresponding minion type is unavailable.
Pirates will always be available in the minion pool until they join the rest of the shifting minion pool in a future update.
Battlegrounds Hero Pool Updates
Starting June 9, the price of the Tavern Pass will be reduced for the remainder of the Ashes of Outland expansion cycle! Players with the Tavern Pass will have early access to the following new heroes before they’re formally released on June 23.
NEW HEROES
Captain Eudora
Buried Treasure [Cost 1]
- Dig for a Golden minion! (4 Digs Left)
Skycap'n Kragg
Piggybank [Cost 0]
- Gain 1 Gold this turn. Increases each turn. (Once per game)
Captain Hooktusk
Trash for Treasure [Cost 0]
- Remove a friendly minion. Discover one from a lower Tavern Tier.
RETURNING & UPDATED HEROES
Patches the Pirate
Pirate Parrrrty! [Cost 4]
- Get a Pirate. After you buy a Pirate, your next Hero Power costs (1) less.
The Rat King
- No longer always starts on King of Beasts. Now starts on a random minion type, and will not include minion types that are not in the pool.
Queen Wagtoggle
- Updated to include Pirates.
REMOVED
- Professor Putricide has been removed from the hero pool.
- Holy Mackerel has been removed from the minion pool.
New Battlegrounds Minions
Deck Swabbie
[Tier 1, Pirate] 2 Attack, 2 Health.
- Battlecry: Reduce the cost of upgrading Bob's Tavern by (1).
Scallywag
[Tier 1, Pirate] 2 Attack, 1 Health.
- Deathrattle: Summon a 1/1 Pirate. It attacks immediately.
Southsea Captain
[Tier 2, Pirate] 3 Attack, 3 Health.
- Your other Pirates have +1/+1.
Arcane Cannon
[Tier 2] 2 Attack, 2 Health.
- Can't attack. After an adjacent minion attacks, deal 2 damage to an enemy minion.
Monstrous Macaw
[Tier 2, Beast] 3 Attack, 2 Health.
- After this attacks, trigger a random friendly minion's Deathrattle.
Freedealing Gambler
[Tier 2, Pirate] 3 Attack, 3 Health.
- This minion sells for 3 Gold.
Yo-Ho-Ogre
[Tier 3, Pirate] 2 Attack, 8 Health.
- Taunt After this minion survives being attacked, attack immediately.
Salty Looter
[Tier 3, Pirate] 3 Attack, 3 Health.
- Whenever you play a Pirate, gain +1/+1.
Bloodsail Cannoneer
[Tier 3, Pirate] 4 Attack, 2 Health.
- Battlecry: Give your other Pirates +3 Attack.
Southsea Strongarm
[Tier 4, Pirate] 5 Attack, 4 Health.
- Battlecry: Give a friendly Pirate +1/+1 for each Pirate you bought this turn.
Goldgrubber
[Tier 4, Pirate] 2 Attack, 2 Health.
- At the end of your turn, gain +2/+2 for each friendly Golden minion.
Ripsnarl Captain
[Tier 4, Pirate] 3 Attack, 4 Health.
- Whenever another friendly Pirate attacks, give it +2/+2.
Seabreaker Goliath
[Tier 5, Pirate] 6 Attack, 7 Health.
- Windfury Overkill: Give your other Pirates +2/+2.
Nat Pagle, Extreme Angler
[Tier 5, Pirate] 8 Attack, 5 Health.
- Overkill: Summon a 0/2 Treasure Chest.
Cap'n Hoggarr
[Tier 5, Pirate] 6 Attack, 6 Health.
- After you buy a Pirate, gain 1 Gold this turn only.
Dread Admiral Eliza
[Tier 6, Pirate] 6 Attack, 7 Health.
- Whenever a friendly Pirate attacks, give all friendly minions +1/+1.
The Tide Razor
[Tier 6] 6 Attack, 4 Health.
- Deathrattle: Summon 3 random Pirates.
UPDATED MINION
Lightfang Enforcer
- Updated to include Pirates.
Trial by Felfire Solo Adventure & Challenges
Follow the story of Aranna Starseeker (Elise Starseeker’s crafty younger sister) as she embarks on a thrilling journey of self-discovery, assembling a motley crew of outcasts and teaming up with Illidan to take on the mad architect of the Rusted Legion itself: MECHA-JARAXXUS! All five chapters of this Solo Adventure will be available for free on June 17. Complete the Trial by Felfire and you’ll also earn the Rusted Legion Card Back!
Before the adventure unlocks, Aranna Starseeker will enter Battlegrounds on June 16 as an early-access Hero for players with Battlegrounds Perks to try out before she formally joins the fray on June 30!
Aranna Starseeker
Demon Hunter Training [Passive]
- After you Refresh 7 times, always see 7 minions in Bob's Tavern.
- Finally, Trial by Felfire Challenges will unlock on June 24, where players will create a deck and battle Outland’s baddest bosses!
- Face off against the likes of Doom Lord Kazzak, Supremus, and Mother Shahraz in a gauntlet of iconic raid bosses from the Burning Crusade! Complete all challenges to earn Golden Kael’thas Sunstrider!
Legendary Quest Line
Starting on June 17 there will be a new Legendary quest unlocking weekly with pack rewards!
- June 17, 9:00 a.m. PT: Complete Chapter 1 in the Trial by Felfire adventure and earn 1 Ashes of Outland pack, 1 Year of the Dragon pack, and 1 Rise of Shadows pack.
- June 24, 9:00 a.m. PT: Play 4 Trial by Felfire Challenge games and earn 1 Ashes of Outland pack, 1 Year of the Dragon pack, and 1 Saviors of Uldum pack.
- July 1, 9:00 a.m. PT: Play 4 Tavern Brawl games and earn 1 Ashes of Outland pack, 1 Year of the Dragon pack, and 1 Descent of Dragons pack.
Game Improvements and Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug on mobile where your opponent’s mana crystals would be displayed in the side bar during their turn.
- Fixed a bug where Zephrys the Great would not offer Windspeaker in the case where Windfury on an un-targetable minion was highly valuable.
Comments
Seems like this patch also fixed the bug where Nozdormu leaving the board on your turn during the rope would reset the rope & your turn.
Unfortunately this kills a couple fun meme decks, but probably good for the game in the long run.
Really impressed with everything Team 5 has been doing lately.
insert drool emoji
this is actually a rare time when I have no issues with anything. This honestly seems like a very good event. And I wouldn't even care if the battlegrounds minions would be broken because they look so fun! I hope they make all the events in the future like this one.
Patch notes updated because Blizzard. What was added:
The best new is the bug solve of Zephry's.
I've lost two games cuz he doesn't offer me Windspeaker when i have Evasive Drakonid on board.
Windspeaker has been a problem for a very long time. It has happened to me 3 months ago so...
Golden Kael'thas is a pretty interesting reward - WoAH! GolDEN LEGENDARY!!
New content is always great, some of those new heroes look very strong.
I like they're removing Holy Mackerel too, murlocs are usually too strong in the late game and the Mackerel only increases that, also allowing other builds to abuse the refreshing divine shield and poison mechanics.
Edit: The Rusted Legion event would be a great opportunity to let players get Mecha-Jaraxxus again... just hoping.
Hmm why is Salty Looter the only card with a non-neutral border? Is it perhaps a slip up and actually going to also be a constructed card
Because it was a Rogue specific PVE card in Rastakhan's Rumble, I didn't realize this either, until it was pointed out to me.
Wasn’t it a Rastakhan’s Rumble card, like Ghastcoiler? They both have coloured borders if I’m not mistaken...
They've done that with other cards in the past, I'm pretty sure. There's definitely a chance it could be made a HS card, I guess.
Did I miss something or Arena got completely ignored? No info on new mid-set rotation?
The closer we get to mid-year "new game mode" announcement, the more I suspect, they will remove Arena, and replace it with "Arena-like" game mode...
I believe they're keeping Arena Standard for now since Demon Hunter has fewer cards than the other classes.
The new game mode coming sometime during the next expansion is almost without a doubt a rotating set of constructed sets, much like what they've been doing with Arena. It'll push the older wild-only sets into interest again and with it rotating which sets are in the format every couple of months, it should make for some very interesting Hearthstone for those that have larger collections.
It makes sense, but still... Demon Hunter has strong enough cards to dominate Arena regardless of sets they could put in. Before Blizzard over-nerfed class cards frequency in DH Draft, the class was on 1st place by winrates. Even in Wild constructed, DH is strong enough.
And about new game mode, I think you are right. I hope for some limited mode instead, but I think it will use player's collection as you mentioned. We can buy Wild sets with gold since December 2019, so that way we could easily spend our gold... and the new mode. Which would also be good for Blizz, we would have to buy newer sets with cash and not gold :P
Anyways, can't wait for the new mode, whatever it happens to be :)
I really hope that is coming soon, but didn't they ask whether people would be interested in rotating Wild sets after the Year of the Phoenix announcement (along with the news there would be a new game mode coming)? That wouldn't rule it out and perhaps I am misremembering the order things happened in, but I have been thinking the new game mode would be more unique.
Regardless, they definitely did say it would be good for those with large Wild collections, so I'm hopeful either way.
Wait. What with that Macaw? Why did they buff Deathrattle builds?
Because it had like 0 synergy before the new Raptor guy (only Baron)
Well there was also Saurolisk