Mike Donais has shared some information about the upcoming Battlegrounds patch (and not only) on reddit! The mode is still in beta, so there’s a lot to do both in terms of balance and QoL stuff. This will be the first major Battlegrounds patch, and here are some of the things it’s going to introduce with some of my own comments:
- 3 new Heroes and re-balancing some of the old Heroes (by the way, Mike has confirmed elsewhere that one of the new Heroes is Rafaam!)
- 2 new minions – Floating Watcher and King Bargurgle (unique BG minion, 5* Murloc, 6/3 with “Battlecry and Deathrattle: Give all your other Murlocs +2/+2”). Murlocs are already looking much better after moving Coldlight Seer to Tier 2 and Primalfin Lookout to T4. King Bargurlge is definitely going to help the tribe – Murlocs have a pretty much useless T5 now (the only reason to level up is to try to discover Gentle Megasaur after getting a triple), and it’s going to get way better.
- Lightfang Enforcer will now give +2/+1 instead of +2/+2. The nerf seems pretty mild to what most of players were suggesting – either nerfing it to +1/+1 or to reducing the number of affected tribes to 2. However, the nerf might be enough, given that the extra health really mattered in the long run.
- First version of stats page will be introduced to the game. A more in-depth version 2 should come early next year (January-February). This is something I’ve been waiting for – I always said that I would love to see in-game stats in the regular Hearthstone, but having them in Battlegrounds is also sweet. Not having to use third party tools is a big step up.
- Like we’ve already said previously, no changes to Amalgam this patch – the card should get nerfed in January next year. The initial plans were to change it to 2/2 to reduce the immediate impact it has on the board – while it will still have the same snowball potential, it being weaker early might mean that going for it will cost players some health (a fair trade-off).
- While not specifically in this comment, Mike Donais has mentioned a few times that they’re working to improve animations, including Poisonous. Animation times tend to be too long, especially on mobile devices, which are naturally slower. Poisonous in particular triggers its animation even if a minion would be killed with regular damage, and that’s a bit unnecessary too. No words whether animation improvements will come in this patch, but let’s hope that at least some of them do!
3 new heroes.
Balancing some old heroes.
2 new minions.
Amalgam change isn’t until January.
Balance Lightfang to +2/+1.
Version 1 of stats page. Version 2 is January or February.
Patch notes will be out on Dec 5th most likely.
I would like rewards for my time playing Battlegrounds especially when I get first place!
I’ve been enjoying BG a ton but there’s something that bugs me a bit: does the game detect what tribe you’re going for in order to offer you less stuff from it? At the beginning of the game you decide your tribe or composition given what Bob offers. But then in the later stages of the game you roll and roll and many times you don’t get what you’re looking for. I’ve seriously been in rounds where I had two copies of two different minions looking for a triple and wasted my whole mana rolling, seeing all the other tribes but not my tribe. This makes it extra RNG since many times I feel I will win if I can get that one minion which will break my composition, but lose if I don’t. A great example of this is if I’m going Murlocs and I have a Brann: if I can find a Megasaur I probably will win since I can give my Murlocs Divine Shield (and maybe even Windfury or Poisonous), but if I can’t find the Megasaur then I just lose.
Remember there are only 6 Megasaurs in the pool. If you’ve got 2 people going for them, plus possibly people nabbing them to stop someone else having one – it’ll deplete the pool quickly.
… and as people get knocked out, the pool will get diluted with their cards, making it less likely you’ll get the ones you really want; unless the person knocked out had a copy (or copies) of it.
Currently, it seems the strongest strategy in Battlegrounds is Menagerie, which isn’t really reliant on any specific tier 6 card. It’ll be interesting to see if the Lightfang nerf weakens the strategy significantly – I suspect it’ll just make Voidlord or Annihilan Battlemaster more popular picks for the Demon slot.
Just today I read some of the guides in this site (had been playing blindly until today) and realized that there’s a shared pool between all players, as you say. That explains what happened to me: if several people were going Murlocs I would have little chances of seeing what I was looking for. That’s annoying but I guess needed to keep balance in the game (if one tribe was OP everyone would force it and games would be mirrors constantly). I guess that adds the strategy of maybe pivotting out of a tribe if you see others with it, or hate-picking a card that others need.
Yeah Menagerie decks are always at least decent, especially if you get early Amalgams. My favorite ones are Deathrattle Mech ones with Baron. The problem is that Baron gets hard countered with the Windfury minion that snipes it at the beginning of the combat. 🙁
1 off topic question.
I never tested this, but it’s better to know.
Does minion that summoned by a battlecry such as Alley Cat etc also form a golden one if there are 3 of them?
because if they does, then it means, it’s better not to sell them, and gain a discover higher tier minion. and if they not, I can just sell one immediately.
They don’t. I discovered this by trying to get 3x of the extra Murloc from Tidehunter.
yes they do combine but the 1 token you get from summoning the gold will not work you need 3 none golden tokens
Okay so I had this happen the other day, the only way to get a triple with battlecry tokens is to have Khadgar. He will summon 2 when you play your second battlecry and you’ll effectively get a triple off 2 minions instead of 3.
does king bargurgle also have “murloc” tag?
because I would very much like Primalfin Lookout to be able to discover him.
(IMO murloc is so much better than mech since Mukla rotated out)
I mean, since beast and king mukla is not an option anymore.
Yep, it has a Murloc tag too! So I assume that you will be able to get him from Primalfin Lookout. Looks pretty strong tbh. Murlocs are already solid, just went #1 last night with Murloc composition (although using Brann as a Hero definitely helped too :p)
Good for you.
I recently had Brann hero with golden Brann + Murloc deck: was absolutely silly. Chaining battlecrys with Murlocs is so satisfying.