Patchnotes 23.2 - Rise of the Naga - Buddies Rotating - Amalgadon Gone!
Prepare for the Rise of the Naga! New Naga Tribe, new Keyword: Spellcraft, 21 new minions and 1 new Hero: Queen Azshara! That's not all! According to Dom Calkosz in the Dev interview with Kripparrian, Buddies will rotate with the Naga Patch!
Also, during their reveal Educated Collins and Shadybunny revealed that Amalgadon is being removed from Battlegrounds while Nightmare Amalgam is seeing a return! As part of another reveal, Carry Potter and Gotorkun announced that Captain Flat Tusk will be removed!
Ninaisnoob just mentioned 2 cards being replaced: Deadly Spore and Seafood Slinger!
A section with frequently asked questions was added at the bottom with official answers!
Ninaisnoob Reveal
Ninaisnoob just revealed 4 new Rise of the Naga cards and mentioned 2 cards being replaced: Deadly Spore and Seafood Slinger!
小孩无敌 (Kid Invincible) Reveal
Source: Huya. Twitter official confirmation: PlayHearthstone.
Carry Potter and Gotorkun Reveal
As part of this reveal, Carry Potter and Gotorkun announced that Captain Flat Tusk will be removed!
Educated Collins & ShadyBunny Reveal
During their reveal Educated Collins and Shadybunny revealed that Amalgadon is being removed from Battlegrounds while Nightmare Amalgam is seeing a return!
Educated Collins and Shadybunny just revealed a new Rise of the Naga card: Deep-Sea Angler
Kripparrian Reveal
Kripparrian just revealed a new Rise of the Naga card: Glowscale
Quote from BlizzardBow down before Queen Azshara, for soon her army of Naga will flood into Battlegrounds! Patch 23.2, launching on May 10, will bring with it the first ever Battlegrounds Season, Rise of the Naga. The new season will bring a Battlegrounds Rating reset, a new hero, and an entire new minion type, the Naga!
New Minion Type: Naga
Naga are spell-thirsty minions that are drawn to magic. They tend to give you spells or get more powerful when spells are played around them.
New Keyword: Spellcraft
Some Naga have the unique new keyword, Spellcraft! Minions with the Spellcraft keyword grant a temporary spell each turn. That spell can give your minions a buff that lasts until the start of your next Recruit phase.
The Queen Comes for the Crown
Queen Azshara will be the newest hero to come to Battlegrounds. The Highborne Queen and her people were cursed to live out their days as vengeful Naga. After transforming into Naga Queen Azshara, wave after wave of Naga will be under your command! Do you have what it takes to lead them to victory?
Master the Magic
The Naga were destroyed by their inability to control their own insatiable thirst for magic. Don’t fall victim to the same fate! Here are few tips about how to play with Naga and Spellcraft to best channel their power:
- Each Spellcraft minion generates a Spellcraft spell every turn.
- Spellcraft effects only last until your next Recruit phase. That means that each turn you get to choose where you put your spells for the next Combat.
- Spellcraft spells leave your hand at the end of your turn—if you don’t use them, you lose them!
- Spellcraft spells are generated as soon as you play the Spellcraft minion, and at the start of each Recruit phase.
- If your hand is full, Spellcraft spells will “wait” until there is a free space in your hand, instead of getting destroyed or being delayed a turn.
- Golden Spellcraft minions will generate Golden versions of the Spellcraft spells, with double the effect.
- Some Naga care about when you play spells. That includes Spellcraft spells as well as things like Coins, Blood Gems, and triple rewards.
The Naga Await
In total, 5 minions will be removed from the minion pool with Patch 23.2, to be replaced with 16 new Naga minions, 5 other new minions, and 2 returning favorites! More Naga will be revealed over the coming days, along with Developer Insights and other tidbits. Tune in as some of your favorite content creators preview some of the upcoming minions and mechanics before all updates are revealed on May 9.
- May 5, 12 p.m. PT/ 7 p.m. GMT – Kripp
- May 6, 10 a.m. PT/ 5 p.m. GMT – Edcuated Collins/Shadybunny
- May 6, 12 p.m. PT/ 7 p.m. GMT – CarryPotter
- May 7, 9 a.m. PT/ 4 p.m. GMT – 小孩无敌 (Kid Invincible)
- May 7, 12 p.m. PT/ 7 p.m. GMT – NinaisNoob
Make sure to also keep an eye on PlayHearthstone for daily recaps, art showcases, and more during this reveal weekend!
Battlegrounds: Lobby Legends
Be sure to watch 16 of the best Battlegrounds players in the world as they showcase Queen Azshara and the new Naga minions in Battlegrounds: Lobby Legends – Noblegarden on May 14 – 15, on YouTube and Twitch! For future Lobby Legends-hopefuls, a Battlegrounds reset means a new season, and the fourth Battlegrounds: Lobby Legends qualifying period will take place May 10 – May 31. Follow Hearthstone Esports on Twitter for updates, future event announcements, and tournament details!
Frequently Asked Questions:
Quote from BlizzardSome clarifications on new BG minions since I've seen some folks asking:
- Mantid Queen does not keep the Start of Turn effects permanently
- If you play a Reef Explorer with all minion types, it'll give you an ALL minion (e.g. Amalgam)
- Macaw/Baron don't do anything with Leeroy
- Murk Eye works with Brann
- Though it isn't a Naga, Orgozoa will only appear in Naga lobbies
- Stormscale Siren will trigger "cast a spell" effects (e.g. Athissa, Critter Wrangler)
- Spells generated from Pashmar (Avenge) disappear at end of turn like normal spellcraft spells
- Mantid Queen will not roll keywords it already has (e.g. Taunt from Argus)
- Mantid Queen can roll +5/+5 multiple times
- Mantid Queen can roll buffs in any order and the chance to roll any of them is equal
- You can still get Mantid Queen, Reef Explorer, Leeroy the Reckless, and Nightmare Amalgam in non-Naga games.
- Start of Combat minions start with whichever player will attack first, starting with their left-most Start of Combat minion. Then it passes to the other player, starting with their left-most Start of Combat minion (that hasn't triggered yet), and repeats back and forth.
I prefer the old meta with buddies, without them many heroes are unplayable and unviable
That Leeroy card is giving me a tiny bit of hope that it serves to replace some or all poison minions. No more devine shield + reborn + poison? Please?
They said five cards being removed and so far I see: Amalgadon, Seafood Slinger, Spore and Flat Tusk. What else is being removed?
And what's the other minion returning?
I was hoping SI:sefin and Tarecgosa would leave, but with buddies leaving, tarecgosa is probably ok so I hope it’s Sefin. Returning? Beats me but I hope Elistra, maybe faceless taverngoer. I think I hit a raw nerve with arcane cannon as a blind half guess half joke.
The thing is, if murlocs don't have poisonous, they don't have much else. They cannot generate large combos. They don't have Divine Shields, Windfury or potent procs on attack. All they have is the potential for massive stats and poison. They need a niche. I'll agree that poison is just broken but if they remove it, they need to add a new mechanic to them.
Taresgosa? When was it last time she has been seen in a viable comp since nerf?
Actually Brann Murlocs with the new t6 is easily the best stat stacking tribe.
It’s the quillboar with divine shield that gets it back if it survives a hit. Also it’s 5/8 now not 4/8 as before.
What never fails to amaze me is, How is there such a large playerbase revolving around a mode that gives you literal seconds to cram in 1000 decisions. Since Beta testing I've never touched that junk again, also the auto battles are beyond boring.
BG = Bland Garbage
Should have fixed that awful Nellie Bug instead, laddering is kinda impossible when you get freezed out every second game. It's maybe funny here and there as a April Fools Joke, but c'mon now we are in May and this is STILL on-going !!
For whatever reason, Battlegrounds is the most "streamer friendly" mode, so that's what all the kids glom onto. Can't stand the mode myself, but who am I to dictate what people do and don't like?
I do, however, have a nice lawn I would like them to vacate.
Young punks, get off my
lawnNaxxramas themed board!Considering spellcraft spells only last until your next turn, you need the few minions that actually benefit from spells cast on them or other friendly minions, wich are very limited, thus, you need luck to get many of those, or at least some of those being triples.
Yooooo these new cards are sick. I love that 6* murloc and 2* naga. I can't wait for the patch to drop
I have an awkward feeling about this naga minions... I feel like thye might be kind of underwhelming, since you need a lot of understatted minions for the spellcraft to feed a few lucky ones who will get real benefits of those synergies.
What do you mean lucky ones? It's not like the spellcraft is random. It gives you the spell which you can play on anything. Also there's a lot of minions that work with the spells so they seem great.
The thing is, you need to balance board space between the nagas that produce spells and the nagas that interact with spells. There are only a few that can become large threats on their own (Lava Lurker and MAYBE Eventide Brute). I do wonder what golden Lava Lurker does because if it just increases base stats you would never want a golden one. I think you will want to have a flex spot on your board to play certain nagas and then just sell them the next round after you grab their buff for lurkers, especially given both Azshara and Orgozoa let you pump out nagas every round. The issue is that the naga that can consistently buff your entire board instead of just 2-3 slots are all high tier (Athissa at 6, Wrangler at 5).
The good thing is that you could potentially build a couple of massive lava lurkers with divine shield AND windfury. You still have no solution to a full board of poison murlocs with massive stats though.
Honestly I think you might get a better board mixing naga with quillboar for blood gems.
Oh joy. More Murloc scaling for free... I can't wait for Young Murk-Eye to pretty much destroy any build not playing poison.
Honestly Murloc has way too easy a time scaling as is, this is just rubbing rock salt into the wound.
I'm a bit sad about flat tusk. He was super cool with peggy and would be rad with naga, but I guess this new guy is better in most cases without game breaking potential. I wish he could hit non-boar thou...
Buddies are getting ditched (at least for a time) with this patch? I look forward to the heroes not getting armor adjustments for 3+ weeks and leaving certain heroes like Skycap'n Kragg being worthless again.