Frequently asked questions regarding Descent of Dragons expansion and Battlegrounds...
Expansion:
[Q] -> Will Sathrovarr's copies retain buffs after being shuffled into your deck or hand?
[A] -> They will only retain buffs from the board summoning phase.
[Q] -> If you burn/discard your Galakrond, will you be able to activate his Hero Power by invoking him?
[A] -> Yes.
[Q] -> Can you activate Galakrond's Hero Power multiple times per turn?
[A] -> Yes, you can, It's basically working like build-in effect, which will happen no matter what.
[Q] -> Any chance of seeing Zephrys the Great getting improved in the future?
[A] -> Yes, further fixes to Zephrys the Great will be in Descent of Dragons; we'll post details with the patch notes.
[Q] -> Does playing an Invoke minion as Galakrond count as using your hero power (eg. new Hunter minions - inspire)?
[A] -> Nope, they're separate. Invoke doesn't use up your hero power, or count as using your hero power. They just provide the same class-specific effect.
[Q] -> Will we also get a free Legendary Dragon with expansion release?
[A] -> No. You already received Sathrovarr as an expansion preview. You will also receive all 5 Galakrond Hero Cards along with 2 Shield of Galakrond minions for free when the expansion launches.
Battlegrounds:
[Q] -> About balance in BG and new things...
[A] -> Start of December we will do a patch adding a couple units and balancing lots of stuff. In between we are adding 4 new heroes.
[Q] -> About new BG heroes: "4 new Heroes leaked (Sir Finley Mrrgglton, Elise Starseeker, Brann Bronzebeard and Sindragosa)"
[A] -> Reno had design and visual effect issues so he was sent packing.
[Q] -> If you could pick one card to add to the Battlegrounds pool to wildly change the meta, what card would it be and how much would it cost?
[A] -> We playtested Sylvanas and Faceless and it was too busted! We used to have a hero that made your left most minion poisonous (Putricide) so we passed over unstable ghoul. Now that he gives +10 attack (+20 in the future actually) we can include ghoul.
[Q] -> ...I'd also like the ability to flip between games and spy your opponents a bit...
[A] -> In a future patch, you’ll be able to see a count of how many minions of each type players have when you mouse over them. (So you can tell that "XXX" has “4 Mechs, 1 Beast, 1 Demon, 1 Murloc”, so they’re probably playing Mech synergies.)
[Q] -> Will we be able to play Battlegrounds together with 2+ other friends in the future?
[A] -> For initial launch, we used the existing Challenge a Friend tech in order to get duo-queue working, since Hearthstone doesn't have a party system. That's something we're working on for a future patch.
[Q] -> If I have golden Shifter Zerus, will I also get a golden minion out of him?
[A] -> Yes. But they can’t be mid shifting, you have to play them on the board immediately or buy all three on the same turn.
[Q] -> Can Shifter Zerus transform into any minion or only to minions who are left in the shared pool?
[A] -> Shifter Zerus can transform into any Battlegrounds minion, it doesn't pull from the shared pool.
[Q] -> Will cards that player owned be given back to the shared pool when he dies?
[A] -> Yes.
[Q] -> Does dead player’s unit get returned to the pool immediately or wait until the Kelthuzad copy is gone?
[A] -> Immediately
[Q] -> Do discovered/Zerus minions affect the pool?
[A] -> No.
[Q] -> Do magnetize minions return to the pool?
[A] -> Yes, after they're sold (if you magnetize them, they return to the pool when you sell the minion that you magnetized them onto).
[Q] -> Is there a cool-down on discovering Ice Block back to back? (The Great Akazamzarak in BG)
[A] -> There's no cooldown, but if you've had gotten an Ice Block once, the chance of you being offered another one decreases a lot.
[Q] -> I was wondering if Gentle Megasaur can get full 10 Adapt options in Battlegrounds just like it does in normal game.
[A] -> In Battlegrounds, Gentle Megasaur has 8 of the original Adapt options. Shrouding Mist (Stealth) and Liquid Membrane (Can’t be targeted by spells or Hero Powers) won’t appear.
[Q] -> Do the minions you or your opponents have or pick affect the minions that you are offered?
[A] -> Yes.
[Q] -> When you tier up your tavern, how does this effect the offering rates of the different tiers of minions
[A] -> Higher tavern tier gives you access to higher tier minions. There are 18 copies of each tier 1 minion and 15 copies of each tier 2 minion (and 13,11,9,6). All the copies of all minions on your tier or less are thrown into a pool and you get one randomly from that pool. If someone else buys one and is still alive then you have less chance of getting it because it isn't in that pool. There are no other multipliers, its just those numbers.
[Q] -> How about when people combine three of a kind? Will the three individual minion cards return to the pool, or will they be "attached" to the golden copy and remain so while the golden copy is still in play?
[A] -> Golden minions count as all 3 minions from the pool. When golden minion's player dies the three copies go back into the pool along with all things magnetized to them.
Mike Donais: We are adding an existing Demon in December to the Battlegrounds, bonus points if you can guess which one.
Editor notes: If you want to check out the source yourself, feel free to click on the "Q or A" word for a specific part. Also, be aware that some of the questions and answers were smoothed out to improve the reading experience.
Makes sense.
It can only be Despicable Dreadlord! Fearsome Doomguard is also an option.
An existing demon getting added to the pool - we should be able to work this out. First, the ones that have potential:
Flame Imp, Doubling Imp*, Nethersoul Buster, Void Terror, Pit Lord, Void Ripper, Hooked Reaver, Floating Watcher, Fearsome Doomguard
I think we can rule out Flame Imp, Doubling Imp, Void Terror and Pit Lord right out of the gate. Flame Imp and Pit Lord are too weak (given that every minion costs the same, their stats don't justify the self-harm like Vulgar Homunculus does). Doubling Imp is too problematic for goldens (2 copies = 1 golden, 3 copies = 2 goldens) and Void Terror, while cool, could be too strong with Brann (Brann + Void Terror = still only destroy one minion but gain double the stat buff, which is insane given that you can Void Terror on another Void Terror and keep them in the pool).
Nethersoul Buster is probably a bit weak. Floating Watcher isn't quite as weak given that it's a constant effect and not a battlecry, but there's no much self harm beyond Homunculus and Wrath Weaver, so it wouldn't scale enough I think - though the effect might be interesting enough that they want to try it.
Fearsome Doomguard is a vanilla creature. I don't think they'd include it when they already have Siegebreaker for near identical stats but taunt and a good tribal effect.
So my vote is on Hooked Reaver at 3 stars. 4/4 isn't great at that point, but the battlecry is interesting enough, and demon builds are likely to take some early damage (Wrath Weavers if they've started well, face damage if they haven't, plus Vulgar Homunculus). 7/7 taunt at 3 stars is way above curve if they're behind (allowing for some catchup) and the golden one would be strong even before other buffs (20/20 I think without any other buffs, if you combined two 7/7s together and it got +6/+6 as the golden buff). It might be too strong, and if so they'd put it at 4 stars - but I think it's interesting enough while not being too weak, strong, or difficult to work in.
Backup vote would be Floating Watcher - but I think that's a bit dangerous. A golden one would be at least 8/8, and if you have a Wrath Weaver out it'd get +4/+4 whenever you play a demon. Pretty much the only thing that would keep it in check is that you'd have to stop when you got to 1 health. Would that be enough to balance it? Possibly.
One final note - I think I forgot to talk about Void Ripper. Could be a possibility - that battlecry would be a big introduction into the game though, and could make some things unbalanced, but we'd have to wait and see. One thing that it'd be strong with is static buffs (think Dire Wolf Alpha and Siegebreaker). - If a demon is 3/4 because of a siegebreaker buff, when flipped it would become a 5/3 - initially a 4/3 because that's what the stats were when swapped, then buffed again by Siegebreaker to 5/3. That's only one buff though - it would be veeeery strong for any tribe that had multiples of these types of minions - which I think is primarily demons (Siegebreaker, Malganis) and a little bit murlocs (Warleader). Like, if you had Brann out and played Void Ripper while you had a Malganis + 4 demons on the board, they'd swap twice, getting +2/+2 each time - so that's a +4/+4 buff to 4 minions from one Void Ripper (or +2/+2 to 5 if you swapped Brann to another demon, which would be easier to set up).
It's definitely something they could include and see how it goes, but it has the potential to be quite a powerful battlecry.
My first thought was blood imp
Obviously a 1 star but it could help get some health on some demons.
It's gonna be Doubling Imp, as seen at 0:20 in the Battlegrounds trailer. Still, I like your enthusiasm; this game desperately needs more demons!
Check out the reddit thread I wrote about the subject. TL;DR is that there are nearly twice as many beast- and mech-related cards currently in the game, and demons lack good late-game "payoff cards." While I'm glad they're adding something, demons still need more!
I think the possible ones are:
Doubling Imp, Hooked Reaver, Pit Lord, Void Ripper, Illidan Stormrage
I think Void Ripper would be the best.
I also would like to see Void Terror for some deathrattle action or for openning up a space on board, but that kind of mechanic does not exist right now in battlegrounds.
Illidian could be really interesting to use for battlecry cycling/token selling. That or Ripper would be sweet.
Wouldnt see play even as 4 starlol
I mean, it has decent synergy with Wrath Weaver, so it's not terrible. Would probably need to be a tier three or even tier two minion to be played, but then again, the demon tribe needs a lot more support in general.
I think the major issue with Floating Watcher is that it only really works in a few specific circumstances: with Wrath Weaver and/or Vulgar Homunculus, and with Lich Baz'hial. Doesn't exactly make for a very consistent BG minion, and the fact that one hero potentially has a significant advantage with it could be problematic.
Floating Watcher is 2 star max. Gaining +2/+2 only when you have the guy that deal damage to you is really bad.
Void terror or void ripper can work. But not much more. Flamemp as a 1 drop maybe? But that would be by far the worst one so quite useless.
Maybe Floating Watcher as 5star drop?
Great guess