Our Beasts minion and composition guide goes through everything you need to know about the Beasts tribe in Hearthstone Battlegrounds! This guide will teach you when and how to use Beasts in your warband in Battlegrounds!
Introduction to Beasts
Beasts are one of the most numerous and one of the most flexible tribes in Hearthstone Battlegrounds. They are currently also one of the strongest tribes.
You can play Beasts at any stage of the game: early Deathrattle Beasts with Scavenging Hyena or Rabid Saurolisk can give you a good start to the game, and Mama Bear can make your Beasts a force to be reckoned with in the mid-game. Finally, Goldrinn, Cave Hydra, and Baron Rivendare can be combined into a truly powerful late-game army that can contest almost anything.
All of this means that there is no single way to play Beasts. In an individual game, you may go for Beasts early in the game, pivot away from them to play something else, and then come back when you find a Mama Bear or Goldrinn. Sometimes Beasts are there to help you part of the way in the early-game or mid-game, and sometimes they are your late-game strategy after using something else to get there. Just because you play Beasts early on is no reason to stick with them all the way, and they are easy to pivot into later on if you find the key pieces because they do not require slow and steady buffs over multiple turns.
Table of Content
- Beasts and Beast-related Minions
- Best Heroes for Beasts
- Beasts Early Game Strategy & Compositions
- Beasts Mid Game Strategy & Compositions
- Beasts Late Game Strategy & Compositions
Beasts and Beast-related Minions in Hearthstone Battlegrounds
Tier 1
Alleycat is a classic. In general, buying a token-generator on your first turn is the best thing you can do because it gives you an additional minion to sell later on to finance more moves, and Alleycat is one of the three token generators currently in the game. It is the weakest of the three, you’d be happier with Murloc Tidehunter or Sellemental, but it is still a good minion to start the game with.
Scavenging Hyena is one of the first growing threats you can buy. It is not a great minion to pick up on turn one, as it needs other Beasts to grow, but it can be a fine addition to an early Beast board. Later in the game, it cannot keep up with other minions, but it is a fine inclusion in an early-to-mid-game Beasts board.
Tier 2
Kindly Grandmother is one of the weaker tier-two minions: while it provides decent overall stats, it is important to hit hard early and as the initial body is small, the bigger minion that comes out of the Deathrattle enters the board a little too late. It has some synergy with an early Scavenging Hyena or Pack Leader, which are the only ways to make it an attractive buy.
Rabid Saurolisk was a big deal when it was a tier-one minion, but a nerf up to tier-two and the general increase in board stats have made it a fair bit weaker. Rabid Saurolisk is one of the earliest scaling minions you can buy, and it keeps growing as you buy and play more Deathrattle minions. It is crucial to get the Rabid Saurolisk on the board early to give it enough time to grow, but it can still get outpaced by Elementals too easily, so it can be difficult to make it work. Every now and then a Rapid Saurolisk can nonetheless make a difference and if you’re offered one early together with a Deathrattle minion, it can form a part of your strategy.
Pack Leader can buff up your Beasts, both the ones you play from hand and the ones summoned during combat, and it can be a useful minion in early-to-mid-game Deathrattle-based Beast boards. Overall though, it is not particularly strong and it plays no role in late-game Beast warbands, so you usually only pick it up early in the game if you also have some Beasts immediately available to capitalize on the buff effect.
Tier 3
Infested Wolf is a fairly weak Deathrattle Beast. You mostly buy it when you already have a Mama Bear and you’re looking for any Beasts to make the most out of Mama Bear’s buff effect.
Monstrous Macaw is a great minion with the right board. As it triggers a random friendly Deathrattle when it attacks, you want to position it as your first attacker to maximize the odds that it gets to attack and you want your Deathrattles to be buff effects instead of summoning effects. It does not work well with a board of Infested Wolves and Rat Packs, but it can do good things with Spawn of N’Zoth early in the game and with Goldrinn in the late-game.
Rat Pack is the strongest Beast-summoning Deathrattle minion in the game when properly buffed. A vanilla 2/2 is not great at all, but add a Pack Leader or Mama Bear to the mix, and those rats can take over the board. Rat Pack is a great minion in mid-game Beast compositions that have just found their first Mama Bear. It becomes weaker later in the game when summoning effects, in general, become weaker.
The Beast is one of the least-used minions in Battlegrounds. Its Deathrattle effect summons a minion for your opponent and that is generally not a good idea. However, do not underestimate The Beast. It may not be universally great, but it can be situationally useful, as it comes with a ton of stats. Used early enough, it can punch through your opponent’s Taunt minions with ease. Later in the game, it does become rather useless.
Houndmaster is a great buff minion that gives a friendly Beast +2/+2 stats and Taunt. Be careful where you use it because you really don’t want to Taunt up a Rat Pack and have it summon only one Rat. Later in the game, Houndmaster is essential to give Goldrinn Taunt.
Tier 4
Cave Hydra is one of the few cleave minions in Battlegrounds. If you can buff it up, it can devastate the opponent’s warband and this makes it one of the most desirable Beast minions in the game. Late-game compositions that focus on buffing up your Cave Hydra are some of the most power Beasts as a tribe can offer.
Savannah Highmane is a decent minion. It can be good early in the game for pure stats and in some Mama Bear compositions, but it is not a perfect fit for a late-game army.
Virmen Sensei is an alternative Beast buff. Unlike Houndmaster, it does not give the minion Taunt, but you only really want to Taunt up Goldrinn anyway, so that is more of an upside. Virmen Sensei can also help you to buff up your Cave Hydra.
Tier 5
Ironhide Direhorn has fallen behind as stats in the game have increased. It is difficult to activate Overkill effects unless you can buff up your minion way beyond what can be done with Beasts, so Ironhide Direhorn is a temporary minion in the mid-game at best.
Mama Bear is one of the key Beast minions, and typically the reason to go for Beasts in the first place. It makes all the Beasts you play afterward that much better and also makes Deathrattle minions that summon other Beasts a scary threat in the mid-game.
Baron Rivendare is not a Beast, but there are lots of Deathrattle Beasts in the game, and most of the strongest late-game Beast armies are built around Baron Rivendare and Goldrinn. Baron Rivendare does not work that well with summoning effects, but it is phenomenal with buff effects.
Tier 6
Goldrinn, the Great Wolf is the heart of most late-game Beast compositions. Taunt it up with Houndmaster and trigger it multiple times with Monstrous Macaw and Baron Rivendare and you have some very scary Beasts on the board. Goldrinn is a reason to pivot to Beasts all by itself.
Ghastcoiler is a great tier-six minion. It can even go into some non-Beast compositions and it fits into many Beast warbands as it has great synergy with all the key players except the Monstrous Macaw as you do not want to trigger Ghastcoiler’s Deathrattle at the start of combat.
Maexxna is Poisonous and also a Beast. Works great with Goldrinn and Mama Bear and helps you fight against some of those big Elemental stats.
Amalgadon is also a Beast, so it gains the buffs from Mama Bear and Goldrinn as well. Add in Divine Shield, Taunt, and Poisonous, and you’re good to go.
Heroes With the Best Beast Synergies
Any Hero can succeed with any tribe, and many of the most powerful Heroes can use almost all tribes with a high rate of success. However, some Heroes have a greater affinity to specific tribes, and Beasts are no exception.
The Lich King has extremely strong synergy with Beasts. Mid-game Beast boards often struggle if they lose their key minion, usually Mama Bear, and Lich King’s ability to give a minion Reborn can help with that. In the late-game, Reborn on Goldrinn can be devastating.
Al’Akir can be incredibly strong with Beasts. Divine Shield and Windfury on a Monstrous Macaw can activate Goldrinn multiple times and buff your Beast board to high heavens.
A Golden Mama Bear is one of the scariest things Reno can cook up in the mid-game, so Reno has a strong affinity with Beasts.
Illidan always gets the first hit, and when that first hit is from a Monstrous Macaw that triggers Goldrinn, it can be a combat-deciding hit. Illidan is not doing very well overall at the moment, but if you have to play as Illidan, Beasts are your best option.
When and How to Use Beasts in the Early Game
In the early game, you are mostly going for stats over synergies. On the first turn, it is useful to pick up a token-generator to have access to more minions and more gold as you can sell the token later, and Alleycat is one of the three token-generators available in the game. It is weaker than Murloc Tidehunter and Sellemental, but it is still one of the better minions to buy at the start of the game.
Other than that, early-game Beasts are usually built around Scavenging Hyena or Rabid Saurolisk, sometimes Pack Leader. Remember, at this stage, you want to go for stats first and foremost, so only pick up the synergy minions if you have something to use with them immediately.
An example of the early game for a Beasts player:
Turn 1: Alleycat
Turn 2: Upgrade your Tavern
Turn 3: Sell Tabby Cat, buy Kindly Grandmother and Scavenging Hyena
When and How to Use Beasts in the Mid-Game
In the mid-game, the reason to go for Beasts is Mama Bear. If you pick up a Mama Bear from your first tier-five Discover (your first completed triple when you’re on Tavern tier four), that’s an immediate reason to go for Beasts. Because Mama Bear buffs all the minions you play after it immediately, there is no need for a slow accumulation of buffs over multiple turns: just grab the Mama Bear and any Beasts you can find and go.
Examples of mid-game Beasts boards:
Mama is coming: Spawn of N’Zoth, Selfless Hero, Kindly Grandmother, Infested Wolf, Murloc Tidehunter, Murloc Warleader, Mama Bear (this would be a typical board after picking up the Mama Bear and still transitioning to more Beasts)
Mama: Spawn of N’Zoth, Selfless Hero, Cave Hydra, Savannah Highmane, Infested Wolf, Rat Pack, Mama Bear (a more Beastly version of the above, adding more Beasts to the mix)
When and How to Use Beasts in the Late Game
Late-game Beasts are almost always built around Goldrinn, the Great Wolf. The main trio is Goldrinn, Cave Hydra, and Baron Rivendare: this enables Goldrinn to activate multiple times to buff up the Cave Hydra, which will then cleave through the opponent’s board. You often want to Taunt up Goldrinn with Houndmaster or Defender of Argus to make sure it dies first. Optionally, you may use Monstrous Macaw to trigger Goldrinn’s effect even more, but this prevents you from using other Deathrattle Beasts, such as Ghastcoiler.
Sometimes, you may be able to use your Mama Bear board all the way to the end even without Goldrinn.
Examples of late-game Beasts boards:
Goldrinn cleave: Selfless Hero, Goldrinn (with Taunt), Cave Hydra, Cave Hydra, Amalgadon, Amalgadon, Baron Rivendare
Goldrinn buffs: Monstrous Macaw, Monstrous Macaw, Goldrinn, Maexxna, Mama Bear, Mama Bear, Baron Rivendare
Mama: Deadly Spore, Maexxna, Savannah Highmane, Ghastcoiler, Rat Pack, Mama Bear, Mama Bear
