Battlegrounds - New Heroes Potentially Datamined
Spoilers ahead!
Datamined info is not guaranteed to be in the game or accurately represented here. Some things may be work-in-progress and changes can still occur!
While importing the data from the game files we noticed something interesting. There were a few more files than the announced 24 Heroes, so what could they mean? Well, we already knew that Blizzard had announced there would be 4 more heroes next week from when we posted about it in our Balance Patch post. Could these be the Heroes then? We will let you decide. Here they are:
Sindragosa
Sindragosa: It's not a complete surprise to find a Dragon among the new heroes, in an expansion all about Dragons, right? Her Hero Power reads "At the end of your turn, Frozen minions get +1/+1." which is all nice and well, but exactly how do we freeze minions? As the comments pointed out, the mechanic likely refers to the act of freezing Minions in Bob's Tavern until your next turn. Again, nothing is certain here because of the datamined nature, but it sounds like a lackluster effect, depending on how often you feel the need to Freeze minions. On the whole you will usually only have 1 or 2 minions you would want to buy and for an effect that only gives +1/+1 that seems meager.
Elise Starseeker
Elise Starseeker: Her apparent Hero Power seems to have to do with Discovering a minion after upgrading your Tavern Tier. This kind of power is definitely interesting because it would allow for you to still gain minions on turns you spend your gold upgrading, which is otherwise hard to do. A fun twist!
Brann Bronzebeard
Brann Bronzebeard: His datamined Hero Power plays well into current late game strategies of playing a ton of Battlecry minions to buff specific minions. The effect is random so it makes for occassions where the buff might land on the buffing minion you plan to sell, but on the whole this effect could be quite strong if it comes to pass in the way it is in the files right now (which is always the question with datamining).
Sir Finley Mrrgglton
127437
Sir Finley Mrrgglton: The most technical of the Hero Powers we datamined. It seems to involve being able to refresh your Hero power when you sell minions. The potential in the late game for multiple bouts of using your Hero Power, buying a buff minion, using it, into selling the buff minion and using Hero Power again, could lead to big jumps in stats. The fact it still costs gold and only buffs random minions makes this tricky however. Play order will matter with this Hero, just like it does in the card game at times.
The Missing Link
With the above Heroes datamined there is one really big question on our minds: where is Reno Jackson?! The League of Explorers is not complete without him! Is he still being planned? Will he replace Sindragosa at the last minute? Is there a further Hero introduction planned with him in it, perhaps after release of Descent of Dragons? Questions questions questions, to which we sadly have no answers yet.
Elise, Sindragosa, Brann, then Finley.
I really like discovering from a certain tier pool. If you upgrade on 4 gold like a lot of people do, then you get a guaranteed 2 drop next turn with discover so easier time finding the one you want. Then you're also set up to upgrade on gold 7, where you can also discover and play a 3 drop.
Sindragosa is interesting. Already I've seen a lot of streamers try and freeze triple minions over and over so they can get the bonus for the tier they want. This rewards that strategy pretty nicely.
I really don't like buffing minions at random. I like it even less when they want me to pay 1 gold for it to not hit the correct card.
interesting 🤔
Sir Finley puts Jaraxxus to shame...
Edit: Ignore this actually, misread it when I was half asleep, read it as "Gives all minions +1/+1"
The very first match you played was a tutorial. Remember when bob was giving you tips?
On the screen with the play button just left of it there is a (?) button ... click that.
Sindragosa sounds kinda bonkers in the early game. If you don't tavern up and keep freezing you get +3/+3 in stats free each turn. In the early game that is really strong. In the late game it is still a few stats here and there. Especially in triples, as you often freeze your tripling minion and all buffs are kept when combining minions into golden.
"...as you often freeze your tripling minion and all buffs are kept when combining minions into golden."
Only the stats of the first two are combined and you usually freeze the third one, so not all in all great in this scenario you talking about. Overall I think it's pretty good hero
A golden minion has double the minion's normal stats plus any buffs any of the combined minions had. So it would add.
Sindragosa is one of the bosses in the tutorial so she is probably in there as her portrait is already in battlegrounds
On the screen with the play button just left of it there is a (?) button ... click that.
These powers all seem very strong and versatile. It's nice to see them rewarding a variety of behaviors.
>>Elise Starseeker: Her apparent Hero Power seems to have to do with Discovering a minion after upgrading your Tavern Tier. This kind of power is definitely interesting because it would allow for you to still gain minions on turns you spend your gold upgrading, which is otherwise hard to do. A fun twist!
maybe I misunderstood the map, but it costs 3, it is not free, right ?
how good will be tier 0 minions ? we start at 1
everybody comments refer to this card like reward for getting 3 minions of a kind in BG, but it doesnt seem to be the case. Not free and not from a tier higher than your current one
I think it is tier that you upgrade to. But the cost 3 gold really make it weak
New Tier (Best to Worst):
Brann - Finley - Sindragosa - Elise
Forcing you to spend 3 gold to possibly discover what you want is way too much. (Should've at least made it 2 gold)
With the caveat that this is all datamining and that we won;t be sure until we see it in action but, this is MY interpretation:
If you look here: https://www.hearthpwn.com/cards?filter-set=1117&filter-type=5&display=3
That's all the spells in the Battlegrounds section. You will see that the mana costs of the spells in there is all over the map. ALL of those are free at the moment. None of the cost gold directly. The map costing gold would be a first among them.
There's also a technical issue, Battlegrounds doesn't use mana, so how would they even display a spell costing gold? There would have to be some kind of behind the scenes way to display that on a card and have it be intuitive and easy to understand. From what we know there is no such way at the moment.
So yeah, I think the Discover card for the minion is free to play, and will discover a minion from a certain tier, most likely the tier you just upgraded to.
Reno Jackson is Sindragosa's human form confirmed
"I'm basically a dragon"
Elise is super powerful. In average this is 4 gold (1 to refresh tavern and 3 more to buy). But even something more, you dont lose temp.
Other heroes are good as well.
Anyone else notice that Elise's hero power feature's a troll's hand? I know they reused a lot of the art but this is bothering me.
Yes, they could have drawn a version with elf hand.
It's the icon for Toomba's hero power. Likely a placeholder, since the other ones are also from Uldum solo player content, though they make sense, since it is the characters' hero powers. At least the explorers.