Some exciting news from Hearthstone's Battlegrounds today as we've learned of some huge changes coming via a blog post on the official website.
The patch will go live on February 26th and will not only include 7 brand new Heroes, but the addition of the mode's first new minion type: Dragons! We’ve highlighted the key attributes of the new minions below and included Blizzard’s official statement about the upcoming patch.
Dragons
- 18 new Dragon minions are being added.
- Some dragons become more powerful as you increase the size of your Dragonflight.
- Tactical positioning of Dragons can unleash powerful effects.
- Like many Battleground minions, Dragons can grow very large in size through synergies.
Non-Battleground Highlights
- Twitch Drops returns! Potential for 2 Descent of Dragons packs!
- Hearthstone is turning 6, which Blizzard celebrates with an Anniversary Event starting March 4th
- Events include special Tavern Brawl, Legendary questline and a heaping helping of log in rewards.
- There's also 2 special bundles on the store. A Mage specific one and the Khadgar Hero Set.
- With the patch also comes the usual bug fixes and new Arena Rotation.
Quote from BlizzardWith the 16.4 patch on February 26, we're adding Dragons as a new minion type to Battlegrounds! Galakrond and Reno Jackson, who recently spread his scaly wings for the first time as the mighty Renegos in Galakrond's Awakening, will join the five original Dragon Aspects as new Heroes!
18 new minions will be added alongside them, 12 of which will be the new Dragon minion type. All but two of these minions are new to Hearthstone altogether, exclusive to Battlegrounds! You can read more about the Dragons update below.
We're celebrating the first new minion-type in Battlegrounds with Twitch Drops! From February 26 at 11 a.m. PT - February 29 at 5:00 p.m. PT, watch 3 total hours of any Hearthstone stream on Twitch to get 1 Descent of Dragons card pack. Watch for 6 hours (consecutive or non-consecutive) to get another one! Watch time accumulates across the entire Hearthstone category, so long as your Battle.net and Twitch accounts are linked.
Link Your Accounts
Before you can receive awards, you'll need to link your Twitch.tv and Battle.net accounts. Here's how:
- Log in or create an account on Twitch.tv.
- Navigate to the Settings menu by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the home screen.
- Navigate to the Connections tab of the Settings menu.
- Find the Battle.net section, then follow the instructions after selecting a region and clicking Connect.
- When connecting accounts, be sure that you're currently logged into the Battle.net account on which you'd like to receive your rewards.
The official rules for Twitch Drops can be found here.
That's the Spirit!
More celebrations are in order, as Hearthstone is turning six! To commemorate the occasion, we've planned a limited time anniversary event beginning March 4 that will bring special Tavern Brawls, a new legendary quest line, and a heaping helping of log-in rewards. Log in between March 4 at 10 a.m. PT - March 17 at 10 a.m. PT to receive 2 Rise of Shadows packs, 2 Saviors of Uldum packs, 2 Descent of Dragons packs, and the Year of the Dragon card back!
Mage Pack Bundle
For the first time ever, we’re offering a class-specific pack for a limited time! From February 26 – March 4 you can get 5 Mage Packs containing strictly Mage class cards from Standard (The Witchwood, The Boomsday Project, Rastakhan's Rumble, Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum, and Descent of Dragons) for $9.99!
Khadgar Hero Set
Khadgar is back! For a limited time from February 26 – March 4, you can add the Archmage Khadgar to your collection for $9.99, complete with unique entrance and Hero Power animations, voiced emotes, and a thematic card back!
New Battlegrounds Heroes
Galakrond
- Galakrond's Greed [Cost 1]: Replace a minion in Bob's Tavern with a minion from a higher Tavern Tier.
Deathwing
- ALL Will Burn! [Passive]: ALL minions have +3 Attack.
Ysera
- Dream Portal [Cost 1]: Refresh and add a Dragon to Bob's Tavern.
Nozdormu
- Clairvoyance [Passive]: Your first Refresh each turn costs (0).
Malygos
- Arcane Alteration [Cost 0]: Replace a minion with a random one of the same Tavern Tier.
Alexstrasza
- Queen of Dragons [Passive]: After you upgrade Bob's Tavern to Tavern Tier 5, Discover two Dragons.
Reno Jackson
- Gonna Be Rich! [Cost 4]: Make a friendly minion Golden (Once per game).
New Battlegrounds Minions
Battlegrounds Balance Changes
George the Fallen
- Boon of Light Hero Power cost reduced from 4 to 3.
Sneed's Old Shredder
- Moved from Tier 6 to Tier 5.
Mama Bear
- Old: 4/4 Beast, Whenever you summon a Beast, give it +4/+4 - New: 5/5 Beast, Whenever you summon a Beast, give it +5/+5.
Tavern Tier 6
- Starting cost of Tavern Tier 6 has been reduced to 10 Gold (down from 11).
Dev Insight: Tavern Tier 6 has a lot of exciting minions and we'd like players to have more of an opportunity to reach it than they have. We're also trying to make Tavern Tier 6 more interesting by adding some of these powerful new minions.
Removed Heroes
- Professor Putricide
Dev Insight: We'd like to go back to the drawing board with Professor Putricide. We're going to disable him for now to make way for our new Heroes, but you'll likely see him return in the future with some changes.
Removed Minions
- Shielded Minibot
- Annoy-o-Tron
- Mounted Raptor
- Phalanx Commander
- Psych-o-Tron
- Tortollan Shellraiser
- Piloted Sky Golem
- Festeroot Hulk
- Boogeymonster
- Sated Threshadon
Dev Insight: We're removing some minions to help make room for the new minions. We also want to balance out the minion pool a bit. For example, there were way more Mechs in Battlegrounds than any other minion type. We're also removing some of the minions that aren't performing very well and ones that have generally been less exciting to play with.
Game Improvements and Bug Fixes
- Speeding up animations from 0.8s > 0.2s across all game modes for Overkill, Lifesteal, Poisonous, Inspire, and cards that reference "Whenever" and "After" in their text, outside of some special cases.
- "Recruit" will no longer be displayed on the turn timer when a player is about to lose in Battlegrounds.
- Rafaam's Hero Power will no longer trigger a Triple notification before you transition to the combat phase in Battlegrounds.
- Fixed a visual issue in which Golden Primalfin Lookout would sometimes display Golden Murloc cards.
- Fixed an issue where the scoreboard would not sort players correctly on the first turn if they conceded during the mulligan in Battlegrounds.
- Fixed an issue where the scoreboard could appear unsorted when reconnecting to a game in progress in Battlegrounds.
Arena Rotation
Starting March 4, the Arena will include cards from the following sets:
Holy crap, that Reno ability - it's only one use, but if your build can keep you alive to 5, you're very likely getting a golden Brann each time you play him.
In terms of dragons, I wonder how successful they'd be as a tribe - beyond Hangry Dragon at 3, the only ones that actually grow stats well are at 5 and 6, which is pretty late to pivot and you wouldn't survive the earlier turns if you don't have at least some cards that can grow stats. I don't know if Red Whelp is enough value to carry you to tier 5; you'd probably need a golden one and a near full board of dragons to be able to reliably kill anything (and even then that reliability tanks as the game goes on).
When stats - and in particular health - matters so much in battlegrounds, dragons don't seem to gain enough early enough. I mean, 2-4 Razorgores could become fearsome if you get up to tier 5 quickly enough, and Kalecgos can help things along, but the point is that in the current meta you can't just expect to speed up to tier 5 with a weak board and not... be dead. Cobalt Scalebane is good, but health is generally much better than attack when it comes to buffing stats.
Most of the new hero powers seem at least ok, with the possible exception of Malygos... how often are you going to transform a minion and care about the random minion you get back? Once in a blue moon you might get a second or third copy of something you're actually keeping in your lineup, but 95+ times out of 100 you're turning something that you'd be selling, into something else that you'll still be selling for no extra benefit.
I think for all this, the thing I'm most excited about it is, again, Reno's hero power. Golden Brann is *nuts*, with the prior drawback being that getting 3 is really tough and a huge investment. Getting one Brann isn't too bad, and paying 4 to golden it is absolutely worth it. Brann works well with most builds, but I imagine we're going to see a lot or Reno players going murlocs, who golden Brann will lead to many game wins.
Khadgar is back PogU
One tip about Reno: turn a minion into golden won't give you a battlecry and discover, it just double its stats.
It's a trash hero power. Never pick Reno
Yeah, say that to free golden rivendaire/brann on turn 7/8 and all the strategies that open up.
what about rivendare brann mama etc?
Does Ysera add a dragon from any tier to the shop?
If so, she will be borderline broken if you pick up an early copy of Kalecgos.
Seemed like it was only from the same tier to me, the one time I had her.
Garokrond is Tier Z
Razorgore has the best self buff ever made
Garokrond is Tier Z
Razorgore has the best self buff ever made
So maybe 1 legendaries in mage´s pack? Good.
So the update is only for shitgrounds?
For Shitrena and Fungrounds
Also animations speed up also new arena rotation.
Ooh. That's an interesting idea!
A little disappointed they removed phalanx commander, he was actually good in builds that leveled fast to prop up mid game taunts and start winning, to then move into getting 5 and 6 star units early.
My god they managed to fuck the matchmaking AGAIN ! 3 of us alive, one is ridiculous murloc dominating. I face the 3rd one, then murloc guy, then 3rd one again, then murloc again.... In the meantime, both of them could face the ghost twice.
And not even speaking of some games when I just don't see 2 or 3 players in the lobby at all.
but most tier 4 and 5 minions are decent early on, you don't need to focus in until late game... Just watch how bebe plays if you don't believe me.
Is patch out for pc? Cos I can’t see it on iOS
There's one MASSIVE difference you are overlooking. Say I have 1 mana left on an early turn at tier 2. I can change a minion to tier 3 and freeze it. On the next round I can change it in to tier 4. I can potentially get out a snowballing game winning minion very early with mana that was probably mostly going to be wasted anyways.
I mean, I don't know if it's going to be good but it is very different from Toki with very unique advantages too.
You could....or it could be a complete waste of money when that tier 4 minion is bad. And then you wasted three full refreshes that you could have used to improve your board. It's risking three gold for potentially no payoff....which is very bad in the early and mid game.
Mid-late game turning a 4 into a 6 might be quite good, but that's basically Toki, who gets a full refresh when she does it and doesn't need to get a minion of your current tier on your final roll for the trick to work.