Blizzard have released a blog post detailing the changes that players can see in the Battlegrounds update rolling out today.
- Sindragosa, Elise Starseeker, Brann Bronzebeard and Sir Finley Mrrgglton are all joining the fight as new Heroes
- King Mukla, Giantfin, Millificent Manastorm and Lich Baz'hial are rotating out for the time being
- Four minions have changed Tavern Tiers for balancing
- The ranking system has been altered slightly to provide better rewards for wins after you've played many games
- Future plans are discussed, including a promise for continued balance changes and hero rotations, as well as new minions
Quote From Blizzard Bob the Bartender has been hard at work keeping the tavern tidy for Hearthstone’s heroes, and it appears that the news has started to spread. Hearthstone Battlegrounds is about to add some extra chaos—and a few Explorers—with a new update coming to the mode today.
Sindragosa, Elise Starseeker, Brann Bronzebeard, and Sir Finley Mrrgglton are the latest heroes to enter the Battlegrounds. Each one comes with a new hero power to give you more options to push toward a first-place finish. Read on for details on these new heroes, as well as some additional updates coming to Hearthstone Battlegrounds.
Please note that these updates do not require an additional download.
Heroes Entering the Battlegrounds
The following Heroes have been added:
- New Hero: Sindragosa
- New Hero: Elise Starseeker
NOTE: The "Recruitment Map" recruits a minion from your current tavern tier after upgrading Bob's Tavern.
- New Hero: Brann Bronzebeard
- New Hero: Sir Finley Mrrgglton
Heroes Leaving the Battlegrounds
To make way for new challengers, the Heroes below have left Hearthstone Battlegrounds for the time being. We may see them return in a future update.
- King Mukla
- Giantfin
- Millificent Manastorm
- Lich Baz'hial
Balance Updates
Minions:
- Primalfin Lookout
- Moved from Tavern Tier 5 to Tavern Tier 4
- Voidlord
- Moved from Tavern Tier 6 to Tavern Tier 5
- Junkbot
- Moved from Tavern Tier 4 to Tavern Tier 5
- Coldlight Seer
- Moved from Tavern Tier 3 to Tavern Tier 2
Developer comments: We wanted to buff both Demons and Murlocs, so we moved those minions down a Tavern Tier. Junkbot was a bit too strong for Tavern Tier 4 and often made it so mech players never had a good reason to upgrade to Tavern Tier 5. With these changes, we think the minion types are closer together in power level.
Ranking System
We’ve made adjustments to the number of points given for first place. In the original system, you got 240 points for a first place on your first game, and 24 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game. Now, you will get 190 pts for a first place on your first game and 95 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game.
Bug Fixes
- Infested Wolf
- The Triple version of Infested Wolf has been moved from Tavern Tier 2 to Tavern Tier 3, consistent with its base form.
- Rat Pack
- The Triple version of Rat Pack has been moved from Tavern Tier 3 to Tavern Tier 2, consistent with its base form.
- Plant tokens spawned from Adapt effects are now Tavern Tier 1.
- Snake tokens spawned from Snake Trap are now Tavern Tier 1.
Future Updates
As of today, we are planning our next Battlegrounds update for early December. Below is a brief preview of some of the things we’re working on.
- We’d like to continue balancing minions and Heroes based on how they’re performing. We don’t have the changes solidified yet, but we’ll be watching things closely and will have more to say soon.
- We’d like to continue rotating new Heroes into the game while rotating some existing Heroes out. We have some recognizable faces we’re working to include in December.
- We have two new minions in the works that we’re currently planning to include in the December update: King Bagurgle, a brand-new card, and Floating Watcher, which you may recognize from the Goblins vs. Gnomes set.
- We have been working on the first iteration of the Stats feature, to give you more insight into your performance. We’d like to surface some fun stats, like how many Triples you’ve created, your top five Heroes by wins, and more. An updated version of Stats will be available next year.
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Comments
I'm really glad they moved Junkbot up a slot. I simply stopped levelling at tier 4 whenever I went mechs and wondered why anyone would be stupid enough to pay gold to dilute their minion pool with all the assorted T5-and-up crap, none of which is vital to the all-mech strategy. As it stands, I still wonder if it's enough, because for any other tribe the highest payoff is still at level 5-6 (Gentle Megasaur, Mama Bear, Jaraxxus & Voidlord). Junkbot is also not a card you need immediately for the mech strat to work, you can easily afford to lean on Cobalt guardian and Security Rover for most of the midgame, so it's probably still better to stay at Tier 4 for a while for triples and magnetic buffs.
I'm really wondering what economic model are they gonna use for the game
Pay to Play Heroes maybe?
I think with what we have currently, you have to buy packs to get benefits, e.g. choosing from 3 instead of two heroes, every expansion.
First impressions of the new heroes: Brann is fairly decent provided you go for a tribe that benefits well from battlecries, and getting a Humonculus on 1 makes you really strong for the first few rounds. You do need your bonuses to land in the right place though, since they trigger after the battlecry comes in, meaning they can hit your battlecry minion you intended to resell.
Syndragosa can be really powerful, especially if your taverns align really well where you want to buy multiple minions from the same board. Even if you don't get lucky, just freezing the first board through turn 1, your tavern upgrade on 2, then buying on 3 and on 4 what you previously froze gives you a powerful start.
Elise is...eh...she's not bad, but I think her hero power could use a discount. When you have to pay a full 3 gold, it doesn't seem like that much of a benefit, especially since you only get to make use of her power a handful of times.
Finley though. Finley is actively atrocious. The token stacking and reselling mechanic of Deryl doesn't work since you have to pay for it, making it extremely gold inefficient, and your hero power will often end up hitting the tokens you intend to sell. Cycling battlecries to keep refreshing your hero power is awful since you forego your rerolls to do it and end up with measly +3/+3 to show for it a lot of the time. It's just. Ugh. I sincerely hope there is something utterly broken I'm not getting, because this guy makes Giantfin look OP.
Damn, I always picked Millificent, she was a boss. She's like, the complete opposite of her pitiful husband.
Everyone talks crap bout Millhouse till he opens a can of whoop-ass.
Careful there, you don't want to trigger a Manastorm in here
I find it funny that they corrected a bug that had Rat Pack and Infested Wolf tiers switched when this is how it actually should be. Rat is insanely more powerful than wolf. The power level difference between these two minions is so big it's pretty ridiculous. Rat should be moved to tier 3 (maybe 4) and wolf to tier 2.
Right? It makes no sense whatsoever. Sure there are maybe 2 turns where the +1/+1 on the wolf matters more than the ratpack swarm, but by the time you can actually buy T3 minions in the tavern Infested Wolf's advantage is already completely negated. I wouldn't mind seeing the wolf removed from the game: it's bad, it's redundant and something more interesting could be put in in its place.
I think Wolf at 2 is way above the curve compared to the other minions available on that tier (e.g. Harvest Golem). They should both be at 3 or Wolf should be removed completely, since it's frankly just bad and upgrades really poorly.
Just played as Brann and he seems pretty strong. Even dropping a Murloc on turn one and buffing the token to a 2/2 is pretty effective, and it gets crazy from there. I played pretty well, but made some sloppy plays experimenting with Battlecries and board space, and still walked out in first place with 28 health. That's obviously not a large enough sample size, one match, but I can definitely see some potential, given that you can buff minions that are typically harder to buff, as a passive. With the frequent Battlecry mental gymnastics players tend to do, I'm curious (and wary) at what some of the outcomes might look like.
What do you think about Sindragosa? Is there any significant freeze synergy?
It's about freezing the minions you want to buy in Bob's tavern
Demons need some kind of poison or divine shield buffs available.
Demons don't need poisonous. Demons generally are much bigger than the other tribes, so poisonous wouldn't really fit.
The tribe that really needs some love is Murlocs. There are no special minions or keywords that help murlocs in the late-game. Demons have soul juggler and giant dudes. Mechs have junkbot and divine shield/token spawning/Magnetic stuff. And beasts have Hyena and token spawning/lots (and lots) of buffs. But merlocs just have all of their usual cards, nothing special and nothing that can make murlocs a reliable way to win.
Perhaps Blizzard will try to address this with King Bagurgle (who, I suppose, could be something other than a Murloc, but that seems unlikely).
Murlocs got a huge buff. It finally feels like they are a legitimate aggro tribe now. TT2 Coldlight Seer changes the maths a lot in their favor.
The issue is, you will never get first place playing murlocs. They are very powerful in the early game, but when playing against 100/100 demons (I have actually seen minions this big before) or 30 attack divine shield mechs, Gaining 2 health a tier sooner isn't going to matter.
You can't win Battlegrounds with an aggro strategy, you can only make other people lose before losing yourself.
My first game after the patch I went murlocs and got an easy first place, no other army was close to mine by the end. I think they maybe have the strongest late game of any tribe, it's just that you rely on megasaur on 6 and don't have anything on 5. If you can get brann + a couple of megasaurs though, giving everything divine shield, poison and windfury plus at least 60 health on everything is an easy win. I think the patch has helped a lot surviving long enough to do that.
My very first win in Battlegrounds was with a Murloc strategy, with Giantfin too.
A successful run heavily relies on you getting a copy of Brann though. I would have been surprised if anyone could crack my 5/7 board of Divine Shield + Windfury + Poisonous minions.