Battlegrounds Changes Arriving in Hearthstone's Next Patch - Tier Changes and Minion & Hero Balance

Published 5 years, 7 months ago by (Updated 5 years, 7 months ago)

A plethora of Battlegrounds changes are arriving in the next Hearthstone update. Here they all are!

Minion Updates

Removed

  • Gentle Megasaur has been removed from the Battlegrounds minion pool.
  • Arcane Cannon has been removed from Battlegrounds minion pool.

Stat Changes

  • Rabid Saurolisk now has 4 Attack (Up from 3).
  • Monstrous Macaw now has 4 Attack and 3 Health (Up from 3/2)
  • Mama Bear now has 4 Attack and 4 Health (Down from 5/5)
    • The effect now gives Beasts +4/+4.
    • Tavern Tier moved from 6 to 5
  • Goldrinn, the Great Wolf now gives minions +5/+5 (Up from +4/+4)

Tier Updates

  • Rat Pack is now in Tier 3 (Up from Tier 2).
  • Pack Leader is now in Tier 2 (Down from Tier 3).
  • Primalfin Lookout is now in Tier 4 (Down from Tier 5)
    • Now only Discovers minions from your current Tavern Tier or below.

Reworks

  • Nat Pagle, Extreme Angler - After this attacks and kills a minion, add a random minion to your hand.

Hero Updates

  • [REMOVED] Lady Vashj has been removed from the Battlegrounds Hero pool.
  • [NERF] Captain Eudora's Buried Treasure Hero Power now starts with 5 Digs left (Up from 4).
  • [BUFF] Reno Jackson's Gonna Be Rich! Hero Power now costs 0 (Down from 2)
  • [BUFF] The Lich King's Reborn Rites Hero Power now costs 0 (Down from 1)
  • Galakrond's Greed Hero Power now freezes the minion added to Bob’s Tavern.

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Comments

  • I hated the cannon. It wasn't really op or anything, just extremely annoying to play with and against.

  • It may well be that the patch is something of a buff to Fungalmancer Flurgl. With murlocs taking such a knock, few will be forcing them anymore from the start. That leave the pool full of murlocs to drive the Flurgl engine. They might not be DSP murlocs in the end, but they will still scale pretty well.

  • Prepare for Amalgadon meta boys. The all tribe is gonna rule once more.

    Some analysis: Beast tribe seems weird, the “swarm” style seems to be pushed more, but it gets countered pretty easily by a few lucky snipes. We’ll have to see how these changes go.

    Megasaur is finally gone! Good riddance. This will almost certainly make those stupid transition plays disappear for good.

    Besides that, Murlocs have finally received a major buff in that Primalfin is tier 4. It helps them to tide over the midgame where they transition from tier 4 to the big important stuff on 5. I remember when Primalfin at 4 broke the game, so we’ll have to see how this shakes out. Overall I’d say that murlocs will still be very good, because they can still go galactic on their stats way faster than any other tribe.

  • Finally some love for Beasts despite Baron polarity.
    I hope to see this kind of love for demons.

  • Finally some major changes! I'm really happy that Arcane Cannon is being removed. That card was so obnoxious! It's also good that i won't die to Nat Pagle's s*** anymore.

    Moving Rat to Tier 3 is something they should have done a long time ago. Pack Leader on Tier 2 is a little weird. He is only truly good with minions from Tier 3 and above. Saurolisk with 4 attack is... something. Macaw with +1/+1 is okay. Mama Bear on Tier 5 with less stats and weaker buff but it's probably still good. Goldrinn with +5/+5 will improve the Macaw build a lot but it's still kinda slow.

    Eudora needed a nerf and this should slow her down significantly. Reno is going to have a much easier time adopting a strategy now. The Lich King is going to become a little better but i don't think it's going to be all that great. I didn't understand some things about the change to Galakrond. The minion is frozen but can i still roll and it will remain frozen in the shop (kinda like Maiev)? And Vashj wasn't very interesting anyway so i won't miss her.

    Now, the big one. Megasaur is gone. I'm sure a lot of people is happy about that. I'm also happy because dying to unstoppable Murlocs was never fun. However, no compensation for the tribe? Absolutely nothing? Instead they get another massive nerf with Primalfin Lookout being unable to discover their bigger buffs? Bagurgle is alone on Tier 5 now. I wanted the tribe to be nerfed but this is too much. They look pretty much unplayable, right now. Murlocs are not fun in the early and mid game and only become interesting to play with once you start hitting those big buffs but who's going to bother with the massive risk of playing a boring weak tribe that can get outscaled by other tribes easily? Dragons still have Nadina, Kalecgos and Razorgore. Mechs have a refreshing Divine Shield minion and all of them can obtain Divine Shield through Annoy-o-Module. Demons scale from the very beggining of the game with Wrath Weaver and Floating Watcher comes earlier than Brann + Bagurgle. Pirates will stomp them before they can even start growing. Beasts are getting some big buffs. Murlocs don't even have access to plant tokens anymore (except for Amalgadon but everyone else benefit from it). What is this tribe supposed to do now? Brann isn't even optional anymore. Without him they have no chance whatsoever. Just... wow.

    Edit: I made a mistake. Primalfin can still discover Bagurgle but only after you upgrade to 5. It's not as hopeless as i thought but i still think the tribe is going to be too weak and too dependent on Brann to get anywhere.

    • You will still have Toxfin to give your Murlocs Poisonous. I guess they will now be a hero-dependant strategy rather than something viable for everyone, as they will probably now need heroes like George or Brann to either speed them up or give them keywords that you would normally get with Megasaur. And because you don't have to go to tier 6, yu can use that gold to instead buff your units more.

      • They are going to be a Pogo level strategy. Only work with certain heros and you will still be playing a highly risky game that probably won't pay off in the end. As i said, Murlocs are too dependent on Brann (the minion) to get anywhere. Poison is countered by Divine Shield which means mechs and dragons are now superior to them. Murlocs were always weak and inconsistent in the early and mid game but they had a huge pay off in the late game. The pay off is gone so why bother playing with such a weak and boring tribe and risking an early loss if other tribes can easily outscale and beat them in the late game? It's not worth it anymore. Murlocs were too dominant and needed a change but not giving them any worthwhile compensation was wrong.

  • Megasaur dead and no more cannon. Well thats a big change. But even bigger is perhaps dropping primalfin by a tier. Sure you dont get those divine shield murlocs anymore but its still only a brann away from complete domination and now you dont even have any incentive to get to tier 6 anymore.

    I'm surprised that monstrous macaw didn't get a bigger nerf boot. Could've sworn that eveytime I see it in battlegrounds its always accompanied with plenty of divine shields and 4 damage bombs that instantly takes down my squad to nothing.

    Friendly

  • Great changes overall, now I might have to buy the perks again.

  • I'm thrilled with these changes.

    Arcane Cannon was a problem, Gentle Megasaur could make the murlocs ridiculously strong if you weren't prepared for them.

    didn't care for Lady Vashj. 

    having pack leader at 2 now instead of 3? perfect, beasts needed the buff

    Also now that Mama bear can be found a tier sooner and the wolf gives more stats is amazing. 

    Nat Pagle adding a random minion to your hand is pretty interesting, giving you at least an extra gold if you want to just sell the minion. 

  • Phew... I was bad at murlocs to begin with, now I don't need to worry about them too much...

  • God Lich King might actually be broken. It's like having an extra minion in battle each round for free

    • while true it is not THAT good in mid to late game because in late game you had that anyway, in early game it is very powerful though...

  • I'm happy with Megasaur being removed, but I don't think the change to Primalfin is going to be enough to make up for it. I hope that if murlocs end up being too weak that they find a way to add an interesting tier 6 option that isn't as polarising as Megasaur, but is still impactful enough to make a murloc build worth the effort.

    Thank god for cannon being removed. I'm pretty sure almost everyone hated that card being in the game.

    The change to Pagle is really interesting. By himself he is really weak, but buffing him up can give you some nice value and this could make him an interesting option in a menagerie build.

    The beast changes are interesting as well. The Pack leader and Mama bear buffs seem a bit scary, but rat being moved to tier 3 is a pretty big deal as well (and a change about which I'm glad it finally happened).

    All the hero changes seem great to me. Lady Vashj just wasn't very interesting or fun to play. Captain Eudora was in basically every game and was killing people way too fast. Adding more digs to the hero power seems like a good way to nerf her and I hope its enough. I didn't expect them to buff Reno again, but I like playing him so I'm totally okay with it. The buff to the Lich King is deserved and even a little scary, but he was just way too weak compared to a lot of other heroes before. And finally the Galakrond change is one I'm really happy with as well. Before it would feel so bad to have to freeze every turn for one minion while not being able to remove the other shitty low-tier minions, and getting a bad high tier minion from your hero power would straight up lose you the game.

  • Eudora is gone! (again) Murlocs are gone! (Finally!) and the beasty boys are back in town! (To kill you) really though imo that mama bear and Goldrinn swap seems crazy.

  • "Alas, poor murlocs, I knew thee well!"

    -- Murrrgl Shakespeare

  • Kripp and Dog won't like this patch at all!

    • Meh they just always played murlocs because that was the way to win. Theyre probably happy they dont have to force murlocs anymore

    • Kripp actually not sure how to feel (in his twitter). Because he hated cannon, but he also lost Megasaur...

  • Murlocs will be dead until they receive a serious buff. This change makes them probably the weakest tribe we have ever had in BGs.

    Beasts will be the "easy win" build, ahead of Demons and Mech. I don't know, however, if they will be able to get 1st place often.

    I love the move away from high RNG.