In addition to the much-requested multi-friend Battlegrounds lobbies, the format will get some fresh heroes and minion changes as well in Patch 18.2.
New Heroes
Three Scholomance "professors" will be joining the fray: Lord Barov, Jandice Barov, and Forest Warden Omu. These heroes will be officially released on September 22, but players with Battlegrounds perks will have early access to them, as accustomed.
Lord Barov
- Friendly Wager [Cost 1]
- Guess which player will win their next combat. If they win, get three Coins.
Jandice Barov
- Swap, Lock, & Shop It [Cost 0]
- Swap a friendly non-golden minion with a random one in Bob’s Tavern.
Forest Warden Omu
- Everbloom [Passive]
- After you upgrade Bob’s Tavern, gain 2 Gold this turn only.
Minion Changes
One new minion will be added: Micro Mummy! It will essentially replace Mecharoo, which will be removed with the patch.
Additionally, Pack Leader will get a small nerf where both its own Attack and the Attack buff it gives will be changed from 3 to 2.
Comments
Oof. And the power creep just keeps piling on. Lord Barov isn't even remotely balanced. You can buy nothing turn one and bet on your opponent to win. Next turn, buy a minion, don't play it, bet on your opponent to win. Turn after, you got 11 gold to play with, so you level for 3, buy 2 minions, bet on your opponent to win (leaving you with one coin). Turn after that, 6 gold turn, you have 10 gold so you can buy 3 like you were Milhouse and bet on yourself to win cause now you have 6 (!!) minions on the board. You're essentially always drowning in money from turn 2 and all it cost you is like 5 health. Meanwhile, in Bazhial land....
Omu is just strictly better Bartendotron, to the point of making me question why Bartendotron still exists in his current form.
Jandice is Hooktusk 2.0. Broken with tokens, middling with everything else. Except if you roll with your last coin and hit gold, you can toss your worst minion for, say, a tier 3 minion on 7 gold.
And they didn't nerf Lich King, so apparently they are comfortable with making more and more heroes crushingly OP while leaving others just as unplayable as before.
Celestalon has confirmed that you'll never get your own matchup unless there are only two players left. That statement also suggests you'll only get one (random) matchup to choose the winner from.
I bet Barov is like a discover effect, so you can only pick from 3 random choices.
Everbloom is a really interesting hero power. It reminds me of pre-nerf Millhouse in which it will allow you to level up every turn after the 7-gold turn and still buy the strongest minion in the board. It would even allow you to roll once from the moment you have a full board. Looking forward to play with her!
The change to +2 attack to pack leader makes sense. I don't know if the -1 attack to the minion itself was really necessary, but we'll see how it goes.
How will Lord Barov work? You can't Discover, so will you drag from the HP to a hero icon? Or will you choose from up to 8(!) heroes?
I bet is a discover-like effect.
Eagerly awaiting a buff to Bartendotron.
A rework would do as well.
I mean... He probably should've been reworked into that new Hero.
The difference between Taverns costing less and gaining gold after upgrading is only relevant when you can't afford to Tavern up. In every other case, it's virtually the same.
I believe they didn't do it that way because a new Hero has a feeling of novelty that a buff hasn't.
Good changes. I always felt pack leader was just a little too good when it worked well with a full beast package. Especially if it was tripled with a rat pack. Way to op