Battlegrounds Hero Tier List
Today we bring you our take on the Battlegrounds Heroes and how they stack up.
Introduction
It's important to start with the knowledge that the Heroes are only as good as their Hero Powers, cause that's what sets them apart, and to realize that there are wildly different effects, from buffing minions to dealing damage, to getting more health for your Hero, making it very tricky to do 1 on 1 comparisons.
The very first week of a Beta may seem early to start on a Tier list, but we feel this is a valuable tool in getting discussion going and to see what the community thinks of the game so far. In order to do that we played a whole bunch of Battlegrounds, watched streams of people playing Battlegrounds and read far and wide to seek opinions. And we turned that into the list below.
Before we dive in one note: the Heroes are separated into Tiers, but within those tiers we do not feel that strongly for one Hero over another. So let's get started and please, leave a comment with your agreements or disagreements, because that's what this article is for!
Tier 1: Best of the Best
Nefarian: Early in this Battlegrounds meta there are 2 significant keywords: Divine Shield and Poisonous. Nefarian's Hero Power let's you quite easily take care of Divine Shield on minions (with the exception of Cobalt Guardian) for just 1 gold. It's not quite as strong in the early game where pinging the enemies board for 1 damage is only going to be mildly advantageous but that doesn't matter when you get such a distinct advantage in the mid and late game.
Tier 2: Real Difference Makers
The Lich King's Hero Power is cheap, which means it can be used early and often. It can be used in multiple creative ways: use it to get a Deathrattle to trigger twice, use it to protect an important minion from an untimely death. A very powerful effect when used correctly.
Queen Wagtoggle's Hero Power is a cheap way to get a lot of health on your minions, but it requires you to run a variety of minions or, more usually, some Nightmare Amalgams.
Shudderwock's Hero Power allows you to double up on powerful Battlecries. This can come in a variety of ways, from buffs on various minions to increasing your Pogo-Hopper. Not a Hero Power that will easily shine in the early game, but gets powerful with more and more buffs that take advantage of it.
Ragnaros' Hero Power is a random damage effect, which lowers it's value, but with 8 damage, it's significant enough to influence your opponent's board. It's going to matter less in the late game if it hits a 32/20 Amalgam, but it can still usually ping a Divine Shield or maybe snipe that unbuffed Khadgar that would have otherwise made life hell.
Tier 3: Strong but Specific
A.F. Kay's Hero Power is special. You are guaranteed to lose the first 2 turns, with nothing to show for it, but you then make up for it with the 2 minions you get for free. These are typically far more powerful minions than your opponent has at this point, but you are very much reliant on these minions being any good to build around. If you do, you get a head start, allowing you to build your tavern up sooner and snowballing. If you get bad minions offered then you are behind on everything with little ways to make up ground, as your Hero Power will do nothing the rest of the game, which gets significantly more painful in the later turns.
George the Fallen's Hero Power would be the best in the game if it were not for it's cost. 4 gold coins means you will not use this Hero Power early and by the time you get to late game there are often easier (and cheaper!) ways to put Divine Shield on a minion than with this. Divine Shield is still really powerful however so it's hard to place him much lower.
Gallywix's Hero Power is one of the more skill testing ones. It demands that you make the right call and decide when you need to save and spend your gold, when it's wise to roll again for another chance at better minions and when it's best to save that coin and use it on later turns to perhaps upgrade your tavern sooner. It gets held back by it's lack of any direct board influence however.
Millificent's passive Hero Power is one that absolutely rocks the early and mid game. By the time you get to late game however, getting +1/+1 on a minion is not impactful at all. So the choice here is to be very aggressive and bank on winning early. Obviously also pidegonholes you into running mechs, but since that's one of the stronger early game tribes, that's perfectly okay.
Patchwerk's passive Hero Power is a tricky one. If you play the game normally the extra health is nice and it will likely allow you to get a decent ranking, but it won't do much itself. You have to use your health as a resource, banking on weaker early turns and taking a bit more damage in order to set up more powerful late turns. The obvious way to do this is by going hard on the Tavern upgrades. This is also riskier and might result in not getting the breaks you need or running into a buzzsaw in the early turns and losing too much health. You have to risk something to gain something however... Patchwerk want to play!
Akazamzarak's Hero Power may seem like a joke, but his secrets are very impactful and can make a significant difference in how your turn plays out. They also last between turns, adding to their value. Use this search filter to see which Secrets are available. There's something for every archetype!
Dancin Deryl's Hero Power is far more random than we would like, but, when the main dev on Battlegrounds says that "I like Dancin Daryl the most though because he is incredibly skill testing and goes from worst to best hero depending on how well you understand him and how much experience you have with him." then we should probably take note, since he probably has the data and experience to back up his statement.
Tier 4: Interesting but Flawed
The Rat King's other Hero Powers: King of Mechs, King of Murlocs, King of Demons
He does well when you build for a diversified board. It then allows you to cheaply and effectively buff it. But, as with a lot of things in this game mode, building to 1 particular strength typically works better than diversity, unless you can get a Lightfang Enforcer early or even better Triple it. The fact the buff only works on minions when you buy them in their particular turn is a definite downside here.
Patches' Hero Power is basically the exact same as Ragnaros' but cheaper. And in this case cheaper is definitely not better. It will allow you to do well in the early game and it allows you to pop Divine Shields in late game just the same, but 3 damage is pitiful, and even on turn 4 or 5 that damage won't make much difference any more.
127373
Professor Putricide's Hero Power can be used in a way that brings some very nice benefits. If you have a Divine Shield minion or a taunt minion that will survive a hit or 2, you can make this take out several bigger minions. At least, you can in the early game. By the time you reach late game, adding 10 attack is not that impactful. And once the initial minion you put it on dies, it's gone, meaning it's impact is typically short lived.
Giantfin's Hero Power is good in the early game, much like the Murloc tribe in general and it scales a little with the amount of minions you have, which is nice. But in the end, what good really are 1/1 murlocs? Unless you have Deathrattle synergies of some kind the impact of them is quite low, and Deathrattle synergy is not really a first choice when playing Murlocs.
I'm a Lord Jaraxxus fanboy. It's been my favourite card since the first introduction of Hearthstone. It finds itself here because getting +1/+1 on demons is pretty nice early game, but once you get to the late game it's not that impactful. The main problem however is that some of the minions you want to buff do not benefit at all, like Soul Juggler and Lightfang Enforcer. Lastly it forces you into Demons from the start where the board and offered minions might suggest a different way.
The Curator's passive Hero Power is nice on the surface. Nightmare Amalgam's are good, so a smaller, free version of them would be good too, right? Well, in some ways yes. It functions as a free Amalgam, allowing you to use any early buffs you see effectively. But you start getting actual Amalgams pretty early in the game, and you can Triple those into better versions. So it's nice, but it means you have 1 small minion and no Hero Power benefit the rest of the game. That does not translate well into late game.
Pyramad's Hero Power would be really good and definitely a tier up from here if it were not random. Being able to let your minions go 2 for 1 is a good mechanic in any game state. But not being able to control where the benefit goes tanks it's value. A missed opportunity that might still get corrected, with the game being in Beta, because we do not feel this Hero Power would be overpowered even when it's targetable.
Praise Yogg! Or, more likely, Curse Yogg. Yogg-Saron's Hero Power takes random to the extreme. Yes, it can make you end up with game breaking minions in the early game, potentially allowing you to snowball, but the chances of your gambles continuing to pay off are more like a snowball's chance in the Firelands. So let's look at this from another perspective: This Hero Power is PERFECT if you want to just have a random run of insanity and weird turns, with just enough of a power up that you won't just throw the game even when you get less ideal minions. That's worth something too.
Tier 5: Needs Work
Toki's Hero Power is meh at best. Yes, you get a chance at a higher tier minion, but you only get 1 shot at this per turn. The chances that it's a minion that fits your build aren't exactly great. So while it's not totally useless, we feel this one could benefit from another look and maybe think about making it a full time refresh replacement, instead of just once per turn.
Bartendotron's passive Hero Power is a bit of a headscratcher. Yes, it makes sense to get the Tavern upgrades sooner, but in the end all this Hero Power does is give you a maybe 1 turn advantage, provided that the game flow doesn't alter your game plan where it comes to Tavern upgrades. Looked at in another way, the only tangible benefit from this is that you save 5 gold coins. There's got to be a better way to convey a Tavern upgrade benefit then this. Perhaps making it a one time use Hero Power to get a free Tavern upgrade would give a more direct step up, since it would allow you to get to certain upgrades more than 1 turn ahead of the pack.
Lich Baz'hial's Hero Power is pretty good if your intention is to die early. There's a real benefit to having more coin than your opponents, but the price you pay for it seems out of whack. Let's say you use this Hero Power for 3 turns. That's basically a 1/4th of your health gone and your benefit is....1 extra minion. That does not seem to come anywhere near close to being worth it. Lowering the damage might make this worth using, but we are not so sure if that will be the case.
King Mukla's Hero Power makes us wonder if this was actually a very different Hero Power at first that got changed to what it is now because it was too powerful. That seems the only thing we can think of to explain this inexplicably underpowered Hero Power. We can only hope that this Hero Power receives some kind of attention and upgrade cause as it stands we feel this is the worst one among the ones we have.
Conclusion
We thought long and hard about this list and tried to do our best to make an actual ranking, devoid of the commonly used trick to put certain things much higher or lower than they should be just to spark conversation, but we are certain that the community is going to disagree with us on how we ranked these Heroes. And that's okay! Let's have a conversation about how you feel these stack up and we will try to come up with a better list next week, when the game might have seen changes and is officially into Open Beta, with more people able to lend their thoughts!
Descent of Dragons Card List & Guide
Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated expansion guide.
"Come disagree with us in the comments"
Well considering they put Toki in bottom tier, they gonna get a whole lot of disagreement. XD
Famous last words...
Like I commented elsewhere, I'd played her twice and stuck to my game plan instead of letting Toki's higher tier minions dictate what I was doing and I just didn't see the value, untill I saw her being played the way she should be played by Kripp and then I was like "ah, now I get it."
That was slightly too late to prevent the mockery though. xD
Lesson learned, we'll do better next time. :)
Haha XD, at least you fall with pride :)
I think it would be fabulous if Blizzard released a list of which heroes are picked the most, win the most, and get top 4 the most.
It would be even better if those lists were divided into player-ranking strata.
who made this list didnt play enough
Completely agree with that, the very fact they have Lich Baz'Hial so low on the list shows they don't understand the hero. Lich is the fastest hero to get to Tier 6 when done right, even beats Bartender there.
Giantfin... bad? No. People that don't know how to use his hero power properly or build a murloc board shouldn't pick him, he's certainly not bad though.
With Giantfin it's not all about stats, not at all. What I had on board when I finished #1 - Didn't even need to go above Tier 4 and I crushed Junkbot/Mama Bear players.
Infinite Toki is an amazing hero. I haven't gone less then top three with her each time. Definetly not bottom tier.
Btw just now pick up Tokie (+1/+1 Mechs) and was consistantly offered nasty Beasts instead Mechs:D
So i decided to pick 'em all up and managed to finish 1st due to lucky Bar synergy.
Based on watching battlegrounds streams for quite a few hours, I’d say this list is pretty garbage.
TIER S
Nefarian - Clears all Divine Shields.
The Lich King - Pair it with a Taunt/Divine Shield minion and you've got yourself a hard minion to kill. Works especially well with Mechano Egg.
Millificent Manastorm - Mechs reign supreme, so +1/+1 for all Mechs is absolutely crazy.
TIER 1
A. F. Kay - Taking minimal damage on your first two turns to have access to a tier 3 and 4 minion can take you to the top super quick.
Infinite Toki - This one is still up in the air. Seems to be pretty 50/50 when it comes to the consistency of that higher tier minion. Could be dropped to tier 2 or 3.
TIER 2
Ragnaros - Absolutely destroys everything early and mid-game. As it gets to late game, Divine Shields and big Deathrattles start to become a factor, therefore steers you to focusing on your minion play toward the end.
Patchwerk - Extra health helps you focus on big buffed minions by late game. Not necessarily a super helpful hero power - could be bumped down to tier 3.
The Curator - having a 1/1 Amalgam on the board immediately helps a lot with Mech and Beast synergy through to the early late game. Although toward the late game I find myself selling the Amalgam for something better.
TIER 3
Trade Prince Gallywix - A lot of times during mid game you'll find yourself having spare gold, choose wisely and take advantage of using his hero power whenever you get the chance, because those gold coins come in VERY handy in the late game.
The Rat King - Not sure why I put this here, too inconsistent when it comes to choosing minions. Single-tribe synergy is proven to be much better. Consider this an Honourable Mention if you have nothing better to choose from.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Shudderwock - Battlecries just aren't good enough to keep up against Deathrattles. But if you can find yourself pairing his hero power with the Menagerie minions, things can get pretty buffed pretty quick.
Yogg-Saron, Hope's End - An extra minion with +1/+1 for a discount is usually pretty good, even if it is random. Helps heaps to keep you safe and stable until mid to late game where you can start synergising properly.
TRASH
Queen Wagtoggle - +1 health just doesn't cut it. Especially when there's no synergy between your minions.
George the Fallen - 4 gold for one single Divine Shield? Nah, I'm good thanks.
The Great Akazamzarak - Good for mid game. Trash everywhere else.
Dancin' Deryl - 😂😂😂
Patches the Pirate - Good for early and mid game. Just not good enough for late game.
Professor Putricide - Again, good for early and mid game. A bit too weak for late game.
Giantfin - Fantastic for early game swarm strategies. Not so good for late game.
Lord Jaraxxus - 3 gold to give your Demons +1/+1 just isn't good enough and way too expensive. Plus Demons aren't overly strong and are quite hard to synergise properly with due to the strangely rare nature of them.
Pyramad - +2 health just doesn't cut it. Perhaps if it wasn't random it could be moved to an Honourable Mention. But no.
Bartendotron - Cheaper tavern tiers isn't good enough considering how easy it is to level them up regardless of the discount. Cboose your levelling turns wisely and this hero power quickly becomes irrelevant.
Lich Baz'hial - 3 damage for one gold coin is A LOT. See Gallywix for a much better version.
King Mukla - Beast synergies are very close (if not, on par with Mechs) for the top tier synergies, and quite often will even overpower Mechs given the right choices were made up to the end. But +1/+1 whenever you sell a beast, at the cost of 1 gold is just awful. Pick any other hero and you can still do equally as good as Mukla, usually better even.
INFORMATION
Keep in mind that all trash category heroes can still very easily win you the game if you choose your minion synergy well. By choosing well, I mean actually being blessed with what you need, rather than a bunch of shitty Murlocs and tier 1 minions.
If you've got sufficient evidence as to why certain heroes shouldn't be in certain tiers, by all means speak up.
This tier list is actually good. The one in the article doesn't make sense.
Yeah, this is much more closer to the actual meta right now. In a game where winning or losing depends on getting your high lvl win condition first (mama bear, junkbots), Toki is extremely powerful. Getting a mama bear on t5 is usually enough to guarantee you top 2, even if you didn’t plan to go beasts. Card is that broken.
The Great Akazamzarak can actually be really good in the late game, when it's down to the final four, purely because he can give you iceblock. If you're at a point where you have 10 health left, which would almost certainly be a death if you were to lose, iceblock can save you and give you another round to finds pairs etc.
tier list for this and i cant even play yet smh
That's no one's fault but yours.
I had played with Toki twice, and every single time I got crap minions I couldn't use in my build and I figured that was the way things went.
Then luckily I tuned into Kripp right after writing this and hearing the "Toki should be higher" complaints and he had a Toki run while I was watching.
Turns out if you play to Toki's strengths, by making use of her Hero Power and letting the minions you get dictate your build, instead of letting preconceived notions dictate your build and discarding the Toki minions as "useless" you actually end up with a stronger build in the long run.
This is not the kind of build I usually play. I typically go from the first few turns to dictate what I get and then more or less stick to that game plan unless I get some of the really good minions that shape builds.
But seeing how Kripp played it with Toki, I certainly see why people would have her rated far higher than I did with my write up.
Sometimes you need to see someone play through something to realize how it's supposed to be played, but honestly, I'm still pretty sure I would not be able to get out of Toki what Kripp did, cause there's a kind of magic to seeing someone decide to throw away minions and go with a new plan mid way through, and, this is the important part, it actually working for them cause they end up with a strong build afterwards.
So, if I had to do this whole article again, Toki would certainly be higher, but my personal experiences with her would probably still rank lower than builds I would make with Nefarian or whoever. It's an interesting play between personal experience and observations.
Infinite Toki definitely should be in tier 1-2
Yogg is also very strong (I always finish in top 4 when I get him).
Can't say I agree with this. I agree that Nef should be pretty high up - maybe top 3-5, but can't say for sure... but Curator and Infinite Toki should definitely be top 5.
To have Curator as 'interesting but flawed' shows that the person rating these underestimates how powerful Amalgams are. I have won a couple games with Curator, and I have yet to find a time that it's appropriate to sell that starting Amalgam - it's that good. "Not having a hero power for the rest of the game" may seem like a big drawback - except that hero power, the Amalgam, is going to be sticking with you for the rest of the game, and absorbing a ton of buffs to boot. Admittedly it does steer you towards the menagerie strategy, but that strategy is one of the best 2-3 in the game right now (and two Amalgams make the multi-tribe-buffs so much easier to fully utilize).
And then to have Toki as "needs work" - wow. Her hero power is a strictly better tavern refresh, once a turn. It guarantees you a minion one tavern level higher. Isn't AFKay the only other one who does that, once per game? Beyond that, it offers rewards to technical play. For example, off the top of my head I believe turn... 5 is when you usually go to tier 3 (4 coins to upgrade + 3 to buy a unit that's out). If there's a unit out that you actually want, great, grab it, tier up the tavern, sell one of your likely low power units (like a 1/1 token) and Toki hero power to roll a 4 star unit, freezing it in place if it actually ends up being worth of a purchase next turn (keeping in mind 4 star units include stuff like Cave Hydra and Junk Bot). If it's a less useful 4 star, no worries, don't freeze, and with 8 coins next turn you'll be able to buy 2 units next turn, while having another chance at a good 4 star. Beyond that, we know how freaking good 6 star units are (Foe Reaper is very useful in both the mech and menagerie strats, and Mama Bear is crucial to the beast strat, as well as a few other units being all around good additions like the 7/10 windfury that snipes small units behind taunts), so guaranteeing one will show up each turn from tier *five* onwards is brilliant. I get why on the surface she may seem 'weak' - her hero power barely does anything that the game doesn't offer by default - but being able to have much easier access to higher tiers is very, very strong (just ask AFKay).
Beyond that, Patchwerk seems overvalued (sure, it could let you go for early taverns, but you'd leave yourself very weak on board if you went that gung-ho, and 20 extra health isn't going to be that big a deal when that much damage is easy late game. I don't get how you could rate this tier 3 and then Toki tier 5 when she cheats higher tavern tiers, guarantees the higher star unit and doesn't sacrifice board to do so?). Also, Lich King should be at least a few notches lower. Reborn is good, especially on some minions, but the fact it comes back with far less buffing than it had (not exactly sure what sticks on or not, but I know Amalgams don't retain poisonous from Toxfin) is a pretty big deal, especially when they're only coming back with 1 health. The best case I could see for it would be putting it on the deathrattle beast that gives all other beasts +4/+4 (or +8/+8 if triple) while it has taunt to ensure it dies early - but then, the problem with that is that the returned one won't have taunt, and will have to wait a while to get a chance to attack, reducing the impact of its buff.