Diablo has entered Hearthstone Battlegrounds for a limited time! Diablo is available to all players for the duration of the event. Someone is offered the role of Diablo in every lobby, but they can also choose to play with a regular Hero instead. If Diablo is not picked, the lobby is played as a regular game.
In this Diablo event guide, we’ll take a look at how Diablo changes a Battlegrounds game and what you can do to succeed as or against Diablo.
How Diablo Changes the Game
Diablo has no active Hero Power. This is generally considered to be a major weakness, and before the hotfix, Diablo was a tier 3 Hero overall and a tier 4 Hero within high-MMR lobbies. Diablo was improved in a hotfix just before the release of this guide, so it is at least a little better now. Diablo can be a lot of fun regardless, and because Diablo has a tendency to snowball in a successful game, it wins more often than your average low-tier Hero. (And it has lower lows when it fails to get rolling.)
In a Diablo lobby, every fourth round is fought against Diablo. All other players face Diablo’s warband with the addition of a Diablo, Lord of Terror minion. Players take damage as usual if they lose, but there is also a secondary goal to destroy the Diablo minion. The Diablo minion was hotfixed to be stronger on November 5th, and it is now a 5/5 on turn 4, a 10/10 on turn 8, and a 20/20 on turn 12. If you destroy the Diablo minion during the battle, you get a treasure. If you don’t, Diablo gets two treasures.
When you play as Diablo, you see one of these battles, and you take damage as usual if you lose the one fight that you see. However, you get treasures based on the results of ALL the battles. This means that a strong Diablo can get a lot of treasures from these rounds, and those treasures can make Diablo even more difficult to defeat.
The treasures are single-use cards that affect the next battle. As the game goes on, the treasures from Diablo rounds become more powerful. For example, Claws of Terror from the first Diablo round gives a minion a +2/+2 buff for a single round, whereas Magic Claws of Terror from the second Diablo round gives a minion a +6/+6 buff.
The treasures available from the first round (turn 4) are:
- Black Soulstone. Secret: After your last minion dies, summon a random Demon. (Two Demons from the second round)
- Claws of Terror. Give a friendly minion +2/+2 for next combat only. (+6/+6 from the second round)
- Hellfire Hooves. Give your minions +1 Attack for next combat only. (+2 Attack from the second round)
- Magma Horns. Give a friendly minion Windfury for next combat only. (Reborn from the second round)
- Sigil of Hell. Start of Combat: Deal 1 damage to 3 random enemy minions. (Three damage from the second round)
As Diablo, you can get up to ten treasures at once if your hand is empty. Note that you can only use one copy of Black Soulstone and one copy of Sigil of Hell for each combat.
Playing Against Diablo
Diablo is weak on the first three rounds but can be difficult to defeat on the fourth round where you have to face an additional 5/5 Diablo minion in its warband. If you are too greedy, Diablo can use the tempo from treasures to run away with the game before your team is ready. Try to time your strong turns to the special rounds and optionally save the treasure to help you in the next special combat.
Diablo lobbies are often a little faster than regular lobbies because a strong Diablo deals a lot of damage to multiple players at once. Depending on how strong the Diablo player is, you may need to plan for a more tempo-based and less greedy game. Make sure you have a good warband for turns four and eight.
Playing as Diablo
Life is not easy for the Lord of Terror. With no active Hero Power, it can be difficult to build a strong team.
The additional Diablo minion on the special rounds helps, but you need to play a strong tempo game. The usual Tavern tier progression, upgrades at four Gold and seven Gold, works well enough. There is no reason to get greedy, as you need to put together a good warband for the fourth turn (six Gold) so that you can win several battles and get treasure cards. Having a strong Taunt minion can be especially valuable to protect the special minion. The special Diablo minion has to survive the battle to give you loot!
You want to use your treasure cards sparingly, as they are the only Hero Power you have. You may get multiple copies of Black Soulstone and Sigil of Hell, but you can only use one copy of each per round. Therefore, you want to use some of them to help you make it to the next special round. Then, you can unleash your full power and use several treasures to – hopefully – defeat everyone on the special round.
At its best, Diablo can eliminate multiple players from the game at the same time during its special combat rounds! This makes Diablo the fastest Hero to win the game and allows a strong Diablo to skip the late game altogether. You can use this to your advantage and time your strong turns to the special combat rounds.
