Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 4 Will Bring New Hero and Huge Minion and Keyword Changes!

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  PopeNeia Darkmaster 640 841 Posts Joined 07/06/2019
  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  R.I.P to Murlocs and Pirates, these tribes got done extremely dirty :(

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  lMarcusl 390 389 Posts Joined 06/03/2019
  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  Really hard to assess how the game will play out with the removal of poisonous, but my early feelings about individual minion types:
  
  Beasts: no more token start with Beasts in the game, cause Alley Cat is gone. With the removal of Goldrinn, Frogger tokens is now pretty much the only way to play Beasts, which is a shame, it means less variety. Beasts no longer have cleave but with the removal of Goldrinn that wouldn't have done anything unless you're really going nuts on the Felstomping (which has generally been a bad way to play the tribe). Not sure the whole Octosari thing is gonna float, but I guess I'm just too skeptical about One Big Giant Idiot playstyles, without poisonous in that might just work and Rivendare can always double dip on it if he doesn't get blown up early. I assume if you give Octo Reborn the summoned tokens still start huge and don't reset to basic size. I have absolutely no clue what Rylak Metalhead is supposed to achieve in beasts. There are barely any battlecries there, none of the minions with battlecry want to stay in your band (Bonemare, Rattler) and some are actively detrimental if triggered on the wrong thing (like having Bonemare taunt your Felstomper). Granted, since the Metalhead has taunt, if you give it reborn you are pretty much guaranteed to get two triggers on some battlecries, I'm just not sure what battlecries those are supposed to be. Maybe you splash it into murlocs or do something funky with Felemental? In beasts it seems out of place.
  
  Murlocs: I...like...the fuck? With the removal of Toxfin, Swolefin, Seafood Slinger and Felfin Navigator, battlecry Murlocs feel kinda gutted. Some of the good cards that made you want to get Primalfin are gone and there are a whole lot more bad discovers without battlecry. That combined with the fact Murkeye didn't get unnerfed means battlecry Murlocs just tanked HARD. With the return of Honcho, the new Upbeat guy and the presence of Coldlight Seer Murlocs can stack up a lot of health but attack will be an issue. There's no more Warleader for earlygame safety, there's no way to grant Poisonous or Venomous on a Battlecry, and with Poisonous gone your big butt Murlocs may get one kill off of Venomous but then you'd want them to have some attack to work with afterwards and yet Bagurgle is currently the only way to grant your Murlocs any attack. This makes them feel pretty toothless. And the handbuff stuff...I...I don't even know. When is the last time we've been able to just waste gold sitting with minions in our hand so we can capitalise on them later? I can't recall that ever being the case. Now Bream Counter wants you to do just that and Bassgill rewards you for it, sure. But are you telling me we have to hold out for Scourfin to get any attack on our Murlocs before tier 5? That seems wishful. It feels to me like Murlocs are gonna be a lot about a bunch of supporting cast with some shopping phase effects and not a lot to show in combat, and then there's gonna be a bunch of giant morons like Bream Counter in hand, the new tier 6 that nabs its stats and a Magmaloc that you incidentally got to mediocre size along the way. Really hard to judge if this is gonna fly.
  
  Dragons: all forms of firebreathing are gone so Divine Shields are again a thing against dragons. On the opposite end the Divine Shield-buffing dragon on 5 is gone so that makes Divine Shields on dragons and mechs less of a threat. The tier 3 attack buffer is gone but the Low-Flier just seems like a better version of it and if you have Stormbringer...hoooboy. I would say that makes the new Drakkari Enchanter an interesting inclusion in dragons, except Razorgore is gone...again...so probably less so. Otherwise, Dragons don't seem to have lost much and Tarecgosa is back on 3 so yay for them. The tier 1 Dragon generator seems kinda scary in terms of both board power and economy. Dragons might be able to power level pretty fast with that thing, which could get nutty. Oh and Sanctum Rester is simultaneously going to be responsible for absolutely terrifying blowouts when discovered off of an early triple on tier 4, while also being possibly the worst tier 5 card in the game cause...what the fuck are you supposed to do with that thing after like turn 10? You're not gonna be keeping it for your tarecgosas instead of Promodrakes. Maybe a filler before you find more Tarecgosas and Drakes?
  
  Lelementals: No more Party Elemental, Garr (again?!), Rag or Master of Realities so the whole Elemental spamming thing with Magmaloc is gone. No more Lightspawn but Dancing Barnstormer just seems like a better Lightspawn that doesn't force stupid token shenanigans and doesn't turn off the moment you replace your board with big elementals. Seems like an overall buff to elementals to me, even though they lost their Mega-Windfury blowout against beasts and scam mech shenanigans. The Gusty Trumpeter seems like an absolutely atrocious card but the fact it can be tripled with the Elemental of Surprise means you can make it potentially huge with Divine Shield and then it just slots kinda nicely into the whole Nomi + Recycling Wraith thing. And the new Rock Rock seems on the whole like a better Rag (more stat gain overall regardless of minion tier) though a tier higher. Also no Gentle Djinni anymore. What a fall from grace. Broke the fucking game on release, now goes out with a whimper cause nobody even uses it in their Mental builds anymore. Oh, and the removal of Ball of Minions meganukes Nomi highrolls.
  
  Nagas: Shoal Commander replaced with arguably better versions a tier higher and a tier lower (Reef Riffer, Deep Blue Crooner). Eventide Brute now more accessible for earlier permascaling, which is scary. Surprised Snail Cavalry survived the massacre, especially with the Deep Sea Angler buff, feels like the big butt aspect is pretty covered already. Not sure about Silent Swimmer, the Stealth doesn't seem to have much of a purpose other than the fact that it can protect your Lava Lurkers from Leeroys and Venom if you've taunted it early on. But it means you'd have to attack late with your Lava Lurker, which will generally be your biggest minion. Also, no more Windfury for Nagas which is a pretty damn massive nerf against deathrattle builds like Beasts, Undead or Mech. Hell it's probably a pretty big nerf against Nadina Dragons as well. Doesn't seem like much but I think Nagas just got pretty nerfed. Oh, also no Greta but that seems a bigger deal for Pirates...although...nah, Nagas could get good mileage out of that too, so that's another nerf.
  
  Undead: Why are Undead suddenly stealing copies of enemy minions? I get it, we're digging up graves or something (not sure how it connects to the card flavour)  but what are Undead gonna do with that shit? The tier 1 Gnoll carry is gone. The Reborn flavour is getting amped up with Xylobones but not sure how far that's gonna go, you'd need a lot of permanent attack buffing for that to be worth anything. In fact I'd wager the removal of Jelly Belly, as bad as it was, a tier earlier has more overall impact on the tribe's performance than the introduction of this guy, cause lategame you'd much rather just have Abom anyway. Soulsplitter on the Venomous Undead Murloc is the new and much worsened Rattler + Maexxna scam. Taking up two slots on your board to get exactly two poison hits in...doesn't feel right. Well, actually it feels very right, cause screw the scam. Overall, seems like Undead came out on top, they lost some of the unnecessary fat, gained a little bit more unnecessary fat here and there, but the majority of the core stayed the same.
  
  
  Pirates: Ok, on the plus side, you no longer need to rent a second heart as a backup when playing full on Pirates, cause no more APM insanity. There's now a hard cap on how much you have to do per turn to play Pirates. On the other hand I'm not sure about the replacements. So a golden Record Smuggler can give us up to 14 extra gold. Golden Hoggar generally gave more, though potentially with less consistency, would be my guess. Issue is, we no longer have Southsea Strongarm to catapult ourselves forward in power after a good Pirate turn, there's no more free buffs off of a ball of minions and we no longer have Greta to instagold some of our boys (affects Nagas too but seemed bigger for Pirates). So to get our engine going we need to find a Record Smuggler and then either find another one and play it, or find another one and keep it in hand, find the Upbeat guy to gold the Smuggler and then the golden Smuggler doesn't do anything until the start of the next turn...seems a lot harder to put the thing together, and that's already been a problem for Pirates. Though, admittedly, making our Pirates golden in hand gives us discovers on the "triple" we play, so that's a plus, especially since the tier 6 pirate (the only one Pirates get, which is weird) seems to be pretty important. Removal of Salty Looter drops some scaling, but then we gain Gunpowder Courier on the same tier (which together with Cannoneer makes for some pretty glassy pirates) and Underhanded Dealer a tier higher, which has worse stats to start but I think it grows faster (not sure if it gains +1/+1 per gold you gain, or +1/+1 whenever you gain any gold). To make up for the glass cannon side, we got the Lovesick chick on 4 to buff health individually, but Southsea Strongarm seemed more well rounded. On the other hand, Lovesick works off of just any gold spent, while Strongarm required us to already be running Hoggar Pirates to do anything, so it's probably a buff overall. But the big thing...Pirates now have an actual effect on them!! Pirates have cleave instead of beasts! Yay! For the record, the last time Pirates had an effect was when Seabreaker Goliath was in the game (windfury + overkill). With the addition of cleave, all that glass cannon buffing makes a lot more sense for pirates and it's pretty flavourful that pirates would play aggresive.  On the other hand, Eliza is gone so there go any remnants of the Pirate deathrattle scam or early blowouts off of a lucky triple on 5 on an existing Pirate board. Oh and removal of Goldgrubber potentially nerfs menagerie but...oh we'll get to that.
  
  Demons: Soul Rewinder is an absolute must have if you're doing anything with demons other than Felbat + tavernbuffing. Pretty much nothing in Demons happens prior to tier 6 without Rewinder. 7 other Demon cards now either require you to take damage or reward you for taking damage, so that's a whole build onto itself that requires Rewinder somewhere in the lineup. It looks like a helluva fun and thematic way to play demons though. Kinda wish they put Floating Watcher back in for nostalgia, Other than that, not sure why the token Demons stayed in the game. Bigfernal is gone, as is Soul Juggler (thank god), Impatient Doomsayer, and Kathranatir. The only reward remaining for demon tokens is Felstomper which...lol. They buffed Annihilan in theory but nerfed it in practice cause now Demon builds will not be sacrificing health to play their game cause of Rewinder. It's a poor man's substitute for Impulsive Trickster for menagerie. Overall seems like Demons are gonna be a lot more interesting and gonna have a lot more options. Also the fact that they don't have any effects doesn't really matter as much cause poisonous is gone.
  
  Quilboar: Thorncaller moved down an replacing Roadboar is a buff, but the loss of Bristleback Brute hurts the early game. Agamaggan replaced by two permanent buffs frees up board space on one hand but pulls Quilboar in a strange direction on the other. One buff effect is on a deathrattle, the other on a battlecry. We're not gonna use both a Brann and a Rivendare so probably those minions are not gonna be as effective as, say, an Anub'arak is for Undead that already benefit from Deathrattles on other things. The rest of the stuff seems pretty much the same or not particularly noteworthy (yeah the tier 5 will be a decent big dumb idiot but Bristleback Brute already did that two tiers earlier) but the new Tier 6 is a damn joke. I'd rather they keep the Darkgaze Elder in so Quilboar menagerie has more to work off of. Now Aggem is kinda stuck with just spamming Quilboar with Prophets of the Boar on the board (or Scrapsmiths, if you're nuts). Removal of Groundshaker eliminates some midrange blowouts so that's a positive. Overall full on Quilboar seem better off but Quilboar menagerie lost some options.
  
  Mechs: So much cool stuff here. Greasebot and Mecherel are gone, so on one hand a big sad and on the other a big yay (I'll let you guess which one goes where). But the magnetic shit is so cool now. Pretty much all magnetics are now a must buy, except it's not immediately very gold efficient, so it's an investment now for payoff later (if you find the tier 5 magnetize buffer, if you get the gold generating or growing magnetizer, etc.). On the other hand, starting to magnetise late is also good cause then you can double dip off of the tier 6. Very cool stuff. And the mech deathrattle scam is still intact (Kangor is still in, it's just included in neutrals and not mechs for some reason). It's a shame about the whole divine shield build with the dragon and Grease bot, but having Divine Shields is kinda payoff enough in itself so playing off of that any further probably didn't seem worth it when cooler stuff could be included in its place. Also, we will no longer curse the presence of Mechs in the game alongside murlocs cause while there is Mistake in place of Ball of Minions, there is no more divine shield + poison to be had. At worst we got Selfless + Venomous, which is a very different story.
  
  Neutral: Menagerie is dead but not really. The inclusion of Drakkari Enchanter (which I'm surprised didn't happen ages ago) makes Lightfang better (along with bunch of other stuff like The Walking Fort, Magmaloc, Rag (the hero)...not sure how it works with Patient Scout and all the upbeat guys). But with Teamaster gone the high end on Menageries has taaaaanked. And Quilboar menagerie is now more limited in options too. Overall seems like menagerie has powered down but seemingly so have some of the other builds, so maybe it's balanced? The tier 4 Upbeat dude, especially in multiples, could make some hilarious things happen with Fireworks Fanatics and will be a really good find for heroes with early access to high tier minions (like Galakrond or Toki). As long as they can stay alive they can potentially print a golden tier 6 before other players even get their first. Not sure about the Boogie Monster, it can theoretically slot into anything but if it only goes up and never goes down, you'll eventually get stuck on having to keep buying tier 6 minions to get any buffs and then the build kinda turns off. Otherwise it could be a decent-ish replacement for Teamaster, except it gives you no reason to actually run menagerie. So it might just become a thing you slot into your complete build as minion number 6 and then you just cycle through the tiers to buff what you already have. Maybe. The downside is, in that respect it kinda works like a non-tribal Kalecgos, except Kalecgos has the benefit of being in the same tribe as Nadina. With no tribal association I'm not sure Boogey Monster has the payoffs it needs. Other than that, a bunch of new battlecries and deathrattles have been added across the tribes, with a bunch of Deathrattle Murlocs and Battlecry Demons and Deathrattle + Battlecry Quilboar. It's gonna be a lot harder to decide whether or not Brann and Titus are a good keep off of an unlucky triple cause a lot more tribes will be able to find some use for them. Might make for a whole mess of weirdass builds, or it might just end up being a failed experiment, we'll see. And yes, the bastards did make sure Mantid Queen can still become a goddamn 2 for 1 cause now it can get reborn instead of divine shield. Fuck. But at least Tavern Tipper is gone! Screw that card. Goddamn midrange players sitting on tier 2 by 8 gold with 2 Tippers in play...
  
  

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  linkblade91 Senior Writer Serra Angel 1720 2910 Posts Joined 02/09/2019
  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  Removing Hoggar and Eliza seems like a bullet right to Pirate's face; we'll see how well they survive those losses.

  Probably won't buy the Pass for this one - frosty Death Knight flavor was cooler (no pun intended), and I'm trying to cut back on Hearthstone expenditures.

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  Caro Draconic Rager 2225 2544 Posts Joined 03/12/2020
  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  I'm assuming Hogger was removed coz of the newly introduced Underhand Dealer (After you gain gold, gain +1/+1) It would scale too quickly with Hogger is my guess. Looks like Record Smuggler is the replacement for Hogger.

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  Horus Detective Pikachu 2575 3348 Posts Joined 05/29/2019
  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  Removing mega-windfurry & Poisonous, may on its own, balance significantly things out - kinda curious as to how it'll play out

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  linkblade91 Senior Writer Serra Angel 1720 2910 Posts Joined 02/09/2019
  Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

  Quote From Horus

  Removing mega-windfurry & Poisonous

  Don't worry, all the furries are still there to ogle, if you're into that sort of thing lol XD

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