With the newest Hearthstone update this week pushing 3 new and 1 old hero into Battlegrounds, it's time to take a look at their performance!
Thanks to HSReplay who provided some early metrics from the top 20% of players, we can definitely say that things could be better for some of these commanders of the fleet.
Captain Hooktusk - The Best of the Bunch
We first met Captain Hooktusk in Rastakhan's Rumble all the way back at the end of 2018. She returns to Hearthstone post-rotation as a hero in Battlegrounds and she packs a serious punch. In builds where you are buying higher-tier cards to receive their buffs and then get rid of them, Hooktusk gives us another opportunity to seek out treasure once per turn. If it doesn't work out, we can always trash it again.
With this strong hero power, it shouldn't be any surprise that she is considered a Tier 1 hero with an excellent 3.77 average finish - the highest of the bunch. The 62.1% pick rate shows that people have really clued into her excellence.
Captain Eudora - Not Perfect But Fun
Buried Treasure is incredibly fun to play with and this is 100% reflected in the 72.3% pick rate when Eudora shows up on your hero choices. For those that aren't aware of how our Captain works, you'll receive a random golden minion from your current Tavern Tier or below when the power activates. This means you can either get some really strong early-game or wait until later on to press your luck.
The unfortunate part here about our Vulpera friend is that you're losing the game on average with a 4.41 average placement.
Skycap'n Kragg - Pocket Change
The Grand Tournament introduced us to this Orc Pirate until he was taken away from us in the evil thing Blizzard calls the Standard rotation. Having the ability to skip a Tavern Tier later in the game makes you one mad lad and fortunately, people have caught on. With an abysmal 47.9% pick rate, the worst of all our new Pirate friends, we've got a poor outcome on the field with an average placement of 4.61.
Not everything has to be about success though, the fun aspect of the hero power gives you a good reason to play them and provided that you try to stay away from pirates, which are clearly being hoarded by everyone right now, you should be able to make up for a hero power that provides little usefulness early on by getting your non-Pirate synergies to gold.
Poor Patches the Pirate
Our buddy patches came back from the dead with a new hero power but unfortunately, it doesn't look like things are panning out for him with an average placement of only 4.73 - what a loser! The biggest obstacle in the way of Patches being ultra good has to be everyone experimenting with the new Pirates and taking them out of the pool. Given some time, our friend should rise up in the ranks as strategy changes.
So what's the verdict on our new Pirate friends? They've all got fun aspects to them, some more than others, and you'll really want to experiment with them early on before the new meta is figured out. These statistics are likely to change very quickly as more data becomes available and people are less likely to pick characters that they've already experimented with and haven't had much success.
Good luck out there and see you in the Battlegrounds!
Comments
I know this is about the heros, but I had a pretty good run with Illidan and pirate minions. Place the pirates with deathrattle to summon another pirate that attacks immediately on the wings, arcane cannons next to those if you can. Buffs to pirates and Southsea Captains are key. Also had 6 triples and the guy who buffs 2/2 (4/4) each turn for every friendly golden.
I think that Captain Eudora power level is similar to hooktusk, maybe both are tier 2 :D
That's a bit odd to read. I tried out Hooktusk and had a hard time with her, since her hero power felt so useless. It was good with token minions and buff minions, but rather bland beyond that. Patches, on the other hand, was grand. I don't think I've placed outside the top 3 with him yet. You get a free minion on turn 4 or 5 if things go well, and in the later turns a free minion almost every turn - not to mention, with a much better chance of getting a high tier Pirate than there is while relying on the regular Refresh. Since many Pirates (Salty Looter, Goldgrubber) rely on having a lot of Pirates, Patches ends up being much better than Ysera.
Pirates on the whole just feel great to play with and against. They're very powerful, but there's no divine shield or poisonous mucky muck.
As an idle thought, it would be neat if we could buy alternate Tavernkeepers. I wish I could mute Bob. (Blasphemy, I know.) Maybe that would reduce the price of the Tavern Pass.
Edit: Fixed!
A small correction is needed: Eudora can give you minions from your current tavern tier as well, not just the ones below it, as the article formerly stated. See this Savjz clip.
That is correct, Chakki confirmed that in Twitter earlier.
Edited the post to reflect that.
I gotta say the pay for play has me not wanting to do any of it...
Yeah, that too... I played just a couple of games after not touching battleground for months and after a game Bob showed up suggesting to get the "extra" to "improve your strategy" or something like that
Would play them if it wasn't hidden behind a paywall :(
I hope for next expansion they don't put the "choose 4 heroes" behind the perk system or at least gradualy unlock it it's not fun to not being able to explore, the no emotes is fine.. the no early access is annoying but ok.. the 2 less choices every game between heroes.. now that's demoralizing.
Or maybe just give them one extra choice and everyone else gets 3.. even that is better than a measly 2
Or they could make it not so ridiculously overpriced.
One thing you can do if you don't care about your rank is just concede every match until you find a Hero that you want.
I got to play Patches once and he seemed pretty good. The ability to get a minion for less than 3 is great, and even when you use it for 3 mana it is still better than buying because you know it is going to be a minion that synergies with your board. I agree that it is probably kind of hard to play Patches just because of how many people are playing Pirates. Patches just makes your Pirate strategy more consistent by handing you extra Pirates at a discount, if pirates are good Patches will be good, if Pirates are bad Patches will be bad, If Pirates are really hard to use because everybody is buying them, then Patches will be really hard to use.
I played Patches once also, and had a hard time finding pirates to buy. I think if he allowed you to Discover a pirate, he'd be way better (maybe even too good). Just giving you a rando is not so powerful.
The average placement is 4.50, so Eudora is actually slightly above average.
Higher score is worse. You want to place #1. So 4.5 means she usually places outside of top4.
I think you misinterpreted my comment. If a class places equally (12.5% apiece) from first down to eighth, that's a 4.5 average, and any hero that does better than 4.5 would be above average. If the average were 4, then only two heroes, Hooktusk (3.51 currently!!) and Rafaam (3.97), would be above average.
I'm inclined to believe that most people are playing Eudora and Kragg wrong at the moment, not optimizing the hero powers. I'm always Top 4 when I pick either of them,.
Interesting, I have had much less success with Hooktusk, b/c I'm playing her wrong. I wouldn't be surprised at all if she gets nerfed.