Battlegrounds Patch 16.4 – Dragons, 18 New Minions, 10 Minions Removed, 7 New Heroes, Balance Changes, Bug Fixes

Patch 16.4 is coming out today! (Keep in mind that it might be released a few hours later on mobile devices.) It’s the biggest Battlegrounds update we had so far. Here’s a quick summary:

  • A new tribe was added – Dragons! It was teased a few times, even soon after the release, and they’re finally here.
  • 18 new minions added (including, but not limited to Dragons).
  • 10 minions removed (to accommodate new additions).
  • 7 new Heroes added (and one removed).
  • A few balance changes.

And here’s a detailed list of things coming in the patch.

Trailer

New Minions

Tier 1

 

Tier 2

   

Tier 3

 

Tier 4

  

Tier 5

 

Tier 6

   

Removed Minions

New Heroes

(Professor Putricide got removed, although he wasn’t meant to be added in the first place – it was a mistake, but I guess that they decided to keep him around.)

Balance Changes

There are also some balance changes coming in the patch. Here’s a full list:

George the Fallen

  • Boon of Light Hero Power cost reduced from 4 to 3.

Sneed’s Old Shredder

  • Moved to 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).

Improvements & Bug Fixes

And finally, some improvements and bug fixes introduced in the latest patch. The first change applies to other formats, not BG, but the rest is related to Battlegrounds:

  • 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.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

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Leave a Reply

17 Comments

  1. Njuns
    February 27, 2020 at 8:31 AM

    Why some of the new BG cards have some class colours on their design knowing that they just got released for this mode ? (Herald of Flame in red like warrior, glyph guardian in blue like mage etc…) Will they release them in standard as well at some point ?

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      February 27, 2020 at 6:26 PM

      I’ve been wondering about the same thing! But given that the cards don’t have rarity crystals (unlike actual Constructed cards, which do have them even in BG), I don’t think that those mean anything. I think that they just felt that a given card “belonged” to a certain class and decided to color it this way to keep it thematic.

      I would be surprised if they first released a card in BG and THEN added it to Constructed, but who knows? 🙂

  2. Aleksandr
    February 26, 2020 at 10:45 PM

    Anyone has issues with update on iOS?
    I have downloaded update manually from Store but game insists that I must go to Store and download the update…

  3. Raemahn
    February 26, 2020 at 7:45 PM

    This is a significant Tirion nerf. Not only did a lot of tribeless get removed without replacements but the one real addition kills bubbles (which Tirion builds excel at).

  4. Remarkablefrisbee
    February 26, 2020 at 6:30 PM

    Completely unrelated, but dude, thanks for putting so much into the community. As a new player, your budget decks and concise guides to each of them amaze me. You’re incredible, man. Keep up the good work.

  5. Dragnar
    February 26, 2020 at 12:05 PM

    What does golden Nadina the Red do?
    couldn’t get the 3rd one unfortunately

    • Sand-12
      February 26, 2020 at 12:12 PM

      I imagine it doesn’t have any extra effect. It would be weird if they introduced some kind of ‘double divine shield’ mechanic just for battlegrounds. Although come to think of it, it would be cool if the golden version gave divine shield as a deathrattle as well…

      • Winybulldogge
        February 27, 2020 at 2:47 PM

        golden version is just double health and attack, deathrattle is the same. If anything, it’s a major downgrade from a regular version as deathrattle failed to trigger for me a few times

  6. Sand-12
    February 26, 2020 at 12:00 PM

    Maybe I’m stupid, but I’m struggling to see the win condition for dragons. A massive Razorgore and a bunch of divine shields? How is that going to beat the late game demon or mech builds?

    • OldManSanns
      February 26, 2020 at 12:38 PM

      I imagine its going to play out a lot like the inverse of Murlocs: it has a weak start (due to small population) and weak late game, but it has a nice power spike mid-game. I could see a lot of players try to start with another tribe, transition to this shortly after reaching Tier 2 when they roll dragons instead of what they wanted for Plan A, then stick with dragons until after Tier 4 when they start trying to either get a Razorgore off a triple or prep for another transition to say Brann + Murlocs for late game.

    • MilesTegF
      February 26, 2020 at 12:47 PM

      I think another key dragon is tier 1 red whelp, by the midgame a golden red whelp would be very good at removing divine shields, and in some cases killing key low health minions (such as soul jugglers or pack leader) its effect is similar to Nefarians HP (better in some regards, worst in others) it might be worthy to even consider trying to get two golden red whelps…

      I get your point tho, dragons in general seem good, but i dont see a clear abusive synergie such as Cobalt Guardians in mech or wrath weavers+watchers in demons. i think ill be more clear once we get to play with it.
      Another thing, is that i think it should be more difficult to construct a specific tribe army now,. With a larger pool of minions, the chances of getting what you need diminishes…

      • MilesTegF
        February 26, 2020 at 6:25 PM

        Ok, i missunderstood how Red Whelp works, he actually does all the dmg to only one minion (2 if golden). Still, quite a powerful effect…

  7. OldManSanns
    February 26, 2020 at 11:34 AM

    It’s interesting to me that they add in 18 new minions but only remove 10–and that those 10 are almost entirely the bottom of the proverbial barrel. I had thought they were going to rotate out a tribe instead of just increasing. I guess we’ll see what happens. 😛

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      February 26, 2020 at 11:43 AM

      I think that they can still fit Dragons by just removing a bunch of other minions. But if they ever add e.g. Pirates, Elementals (or maybe even make a new tribe for BG) then I’m pretty sure that they will have to temporarily rotate one out.

      Another thing is that four of the new minions are Tier 6, while no Tier 6 minions were removed. Between that and being able to go to T6 for one less gold, things might get interesting, since we have more choice and easier way to get there 🙂

      We’ll see how it goes!