Battlegrounds Balance Changes - 4 New Heroes - 4 Old Heroes Removed
As we posted about last week in our datamining post, 4 new Heroes were added to the Battlegrounds game mode, and simultaneously 4 others were removed! There were also balance changes made to the Mech, Demon and Murloc tribes. Read all about it below!
Quote from BlizzardBob the Bartender has been hard at work keeping the tavern tidy for Hearthstone’s heroes, and it appears that the news has started to spread. Hearthstone Battlegrounds is about to add some extra chaos—and a few Explorers—with a new update coming to the mode today.
Sindragosa, Elise Starseeker, Brann Bronzebeard, and Sir Finley Mrrgglton are the latest heroes to enter the Battlegrounds. Each one comes with a new hero power to give you more options to push toward a first-place finish. Read on for details on these new heroes, as well as some additional updates coming to Hearthstone Battlegrounds.
Please note that these updates do not require an additional download.
Heroes Entering the Battlegrounds
The following Heroes have been added:
- New Hero: Sindragosa
- New Hero: Elise Starseeker
NOTE: The "Recruitment Map" recruits a minion from your current tavern tier after upgrading Bob's Tavern.
- New Hero: Brann Bronzebeard
- New Hero: Sir Finley Mrrgglton
Heroes Leaving the Battlegrounds
To make way for new challengers, the Heroes below have left Hearthstone Battlegrounds for the time being. We may see them return in a future update.
- King Mukla
- Giantfin
- Millificent Manastorm
- Lich Baz'hial
Balance Updates
Minions:
- Primalfin Lookout
- Moved from Tavern Tier 5 to Tavern Tier 4
- Voidlord
- Moved from Tavern Tier 6 to Tavern Tier 5
- Junkbot
- Moved from Tavern Tier 4 to Tavern Tier 5
- Coldlight Seer
- Moved from Tavern Tier 3 to Tavern Tier 2
Developer comments: We wanted to buff both Demons and Murlocs, so we moved those minions down a Tavern Tier. Junkbot was a bit too strong for Tavern Tier 4 and often made it so mech players never had a good reason to upgrade to Tavern Tier 5. With these changes, we think the minion types are closer together in power level.
Ranking System
We’ve made adjustments to the number of points given for first place. In the original system, you got 240 points for a first place on your first game, and 24 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game. Now, you will get 190 pts for a first place on your first game and 95 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game.
Bug Fixes
- Infested Wolf
- The Triple version of Infested Wolf has been moved from Tavern Tier 2 to Tavern Tier 3, consistent with its base form.
- Rat Pack
- The Triple version of Rat Pack has been moved from Tavern Tier 3 to Tavern Tier 2, consistent with its base form.
- Plant tokens spawned from Adapt effects are now Tavern Tier 1.
- Snake tokens spawned from Snake Trap are now Tavern Tier 1.
Future Updates
As of today, we are planning our next Battlegrounds update for early December. Below is a brief preview of some of the things we’re working on.
- We’d like to continue balancing minions and Heroes based on how they’re performing. We don’t have the changes solidified yet, but we’ll be watching things closely and will have more to say soon.
- We’d like to continue rotating new Heroes into the game while rotating some existing Heroes out. We have some recognizable faces we’re working to include in December.
- We have two new minions in the works that we’re currently planning to include in the December update: King Bagurgle, a brand-new card, and Floating Watcher, which you may recognize from the Goblins vs. Gnomes set.
- We have been working on the first iteration of the Stats feature, to give you more insight into your performance. We’d like to surface some fun stats, like how many Triples you’ve created, your top five Heroes by wins, and more. An updated version of Stats will be available next year.
This Mode needs Despicable Dreadlord as fast as possible.
I know they just buffed Murlocs, but now they are way too strong - divine shields and poison dominate every late game match and if you are not packing it yourself or playing Nerfarien you pretty much lost.
came back to play hearthstone for THIS game mode i love it.
Lightfang Enforcer needs to get hit by the nerfbat next. The effect is so powerful you literally just leave your tier 2s and 3s in play the entire game because their raw stats simply outweight any effects of tier 5/6s. Either nerf the buff to +1/+1 or make him tier 6. If you get lucky enough to find one of these on your first T5 roll it is quite literally almost a free win.
Am I the only one who doesn't understand why Infested Wolf is tier 3 and Rat Pack is tier 2? I mean, Rat Pack is much much stronger, while Infested Wolf just sucks.
Nope, you are not the only one.
its because Rat Pack rarely pop on the tavern while you can see infested wolf sleeping there.
I've only played around 15 games of this game mode and I know for a fact that Amalgam is a problem, so why a whole team can't see that when they've been working on the mode for god knows how long is beyond me. It makes cards like Lightfang seem OP when actually it's because Amalgam is OP, the only reason it buffs 3+ minions at once is because of Amalgam. Usually it's very unlikely/impossible to have a good board with 3+ different races and a Lightfang. It just steals the best parts from races that are struggling, like posion from Toxfin, and proceeds to steam roll. It at the very least needs to go up one tier, I'd suggest even 2 or removing it completely. It's one of those cards that limits design space and is already becoming tiresome to see every single time you reach the late game. I can't be bothered to commit time to another game were the balance team is clearly incompetent and will proceed to make more bad decisions. Enjoy realising you can't make any more strong class specific buffs ever again because Amalgam exists.
Just say Amalgam is a problem.
You need to play more games - Lightfang is good even without Amalgam. With that said I do agree that Amalgam would be more fair at tier 3.
But Amalgam makes it stupid good. I'm not an expert and haven't had Lightfang many times, but the point is they haven't realised Amalgam limits design space and is too strong when it's stupidly obvious.
Amalgam moving to 3 would be a huge buff, lol. Yes, you would get it later, but once you had it, it would deal more damage to the face.
Good point on the damage part - I like Amalgam and would hate to see him go because I like him more than going full on one tribe like beast or mech or even murloc these days - Murloc tribe counters multitribe decks pretty hard late game if they get poison and divine shields unless you are Nerfarien ofc.
I don't think design space should revolt around Battleground because they can choose which minions to include and even create new minions that fit the mode - They can just choose to not create more support cards for multitribes and instead focus on making murlocs and demons more powerfull right now - a new demon minion is needed.
Got 100 rating for 1st place at 5724 - felt really good - thanks Patchwerk and triple Lightfang.
After 4 t4 in last five, Beasts and Mechs are almost incomparable in strength, so I like the Murlocs getting buffed. Except Nightmare Amalagm not going to tier3 and Elise's card costs 3 (which is silly, because it's regular buy without refresh, should cost 2), the changes are nice. Also, I reckon we need some tech non Tribe minions so Tribes won't be the only game in town.
What I'd like to see is Babbling Book or Blink Fox with relevant text like 'add a random [class (optional) card/spell/minion] with original (not tier) cost per your/opponent's tavern tier [and/or] their class'. At tier 3, I guess they should be fine, at tier 2 I'd do between 0 and tavern tier.
That's good, I might be a less-than average player but I always got stomped by Milificant players. You may be forced to go mechs, but when it's one of the 2 best tribes anyway (arguably the best) getting even more power really made her imbalanced.
While I watched youtubers, I tried to learn the tiers by myself without any real guides, so I actually got my first #1 just recently, but still (mostly) had fun even getting lower that #4 and losing points (actually had less than 4k at some point). This is a really nice addition to the game, Just wish it would be more rewarding for casual players in the future (as one game can take as long as 2-3 "regular" ones)
Those adjustments to the ranking system they claim haven't been made yet. I just got 54 rating points for a 1st place with Sindragosa...
get rid of amalgam (exept the 1/1 hero power) and give brand new double race minion. (murloc/beast, murloc/demon, murloc/bot, demon/beast, demon/mech, beast/ mech )
This can spicy up things a lot with double race deck strategy.
Sources said they will nerf Amalgam to 2/2, patch likely comes in January. People may take it anyway but at least taking a vanilla 2/2 is a price to pay in the early game.
I'm actually inclined to mostly agree here. You compare this to pre-nerf Toki. Pre-nerf Toki was essentially a tavern reroll, that you'd use instead of the normal reroll for no loss - but the main thing is that you were never committed to taking the higher tier dude if it wasn't actually that good. The issue here is that you're committed to taking one of the 3 minions, and spending the 3 gold for it - so if they all suck, tough luck, you *have* to buy one. You're basically gambling that you're going to get something better than you could buy in your current tavern offerings (otherwise, you'd just buy something on offer).
And the reason I'm comparing to pre-nerf Toki - admittedly strong - is because there was no major gamble element there, if you didn't want there to be. You'd use the hero power as a straight up substitute for rerolling the tavern. With how she is now, there is a gamble element, which is why she's dropped down in the power rankings quite a bit.
Right now, it looks pretty meh - I won't go so far as to say bad as I imagine you'll usually at least be able to find a half decent battlecry, or a minion that can help hold down the fort, whereas at tiers 4 and up being able to force one of those minions could be nice - but honestly, it could be buffed. Easy solution would be to include a 4th option (similar to Vulpera Scoundrel) where you get 2/3 gold back (depending on how they think it'd be most balanced) if you don't like your options. 3 gold seems like it'd be fair - if you whiff fairly hard on the offerings for all 5 upgrades, you'd end up with a hero that literally gave you nothing. That said, because of the potential high rolls 2 gold might be more balanced (see above with the pre vs post nerf Toki situation - because 3 gold would mean a no-gamble situation, 2 might make more sense, though given that Elise would only do it 5 times in a single game they may not need to keep the gambling element in her power).