With the recent 24.0.1 Hotfix, Team 5 stepped in to operate some changes across several game modes. Among them, Battlegrounds saw the tier 6 unit Grease Bot removed from the pool.

While Grease Bot has been a rather problematic unit since its buff, many people questioned Team 5's move: why straight up remove it and thus harm Mechs' viability? Why not just nerf it a little?

Hearthstone Battlegrounds Lead Designer John McIntyre decided to take a moment and answer these reasonable questions, providing insights regarding how Hearthstone patches work and why nerfing this minion wouldn't have been possible.

Long story short, Hearthstone's balance patches take a big amount of work to be pushed live: therefore, their dates are locked in ahead of time. At this point, Team 5 had to choose between leaving Grease Bot as it was only to nerf it in a few weeks or to remove it and return it to the pool with its power level adjusted.

Quote From John McIntyre

Just learned they removed Grease Bot in a hotfix today (2 days after main patch). After breaking the game for a month, it gets killed off along with the Mech archetype? Why not just nerf it a little?

Unfortunately, the dates for balance patches are locked-in in advance due to the amount of work they take to get them into the live environment. Our options this time were

  1. Leave Grease Bot as is then nerf it in a few weeks.
  2. Remove Grease Bot and have it return with a nerf in a few weeks.

We went with what we thought was the best option for the health of the game. We are working on improving messaging for BGs changes in-game so these changes don't catch players by surprise in the future.

Knowing these insights, we agree with Team 5's call on removing Grease Bot: Mechs won't like this, but Battlegrounds' gameplay will feel healthier. And what do you think about this change? Let us know in the comments below!