Battlegrounds Quilboar Guide: What Are They and How Do They Work?

Battlegrounds’ long-awaited patch saw the introduction of a brand new minion type revolving around Blood Gem synergies and some surprisingly effective interactions with other builds. Here’s what you need to know about their units and synergies to rack up all that juicy MMR!

What are Quilboars?

Quilboars are “a race of aggressive, primitive boar-like humanoids” according to Wowpedia, native to Kalimdor and Kul Tiras in the WoW MMO. Basically, think humanoid pigs with big sticks and you’ll have a good approximation.

Quilboars are not entirely new to Hearthstone: some of the units, like MSoG’s Tanaris Hogchopper, Spiked Hogrider and Leatherclad Hogleader alongside the Hench-Clan members have retroactively received the type tag, though there are no Quilboar Constructed synergies to speak of at this time.

Their culture revolves heavily around magic and shamanism, which ties in well with their BGs mechanic, Blood Gems.

What are Blood Gems?

Essentially, they are Bananas with benefits. They are spells that provide a +1/+1 buff to a friendly unit, with additional synergies with certain other units. Since their standard payoff is so low, you’re often better off holding onto them until a high-tier Quilboar unit comes into play, unless you’re aiming for a very aggressive, tempo-heavy strategy.

Though it may seem like you need to go for a dedicated Quilboard build to make use of these spells, there’s surprising versatility at play here.

How to Play With Quilboar Builds in Battlegrounds

Quilboars will be hogging the limelight in BGs for the foreseeable future, being featured as one of the five minion types in every match, as is customary whenever a new tag is introduced to the game mode. This means that Quilboar builds and synergies will be a part of every Battlegrounds match you get into for the next period of time – and their monstrous scaling means you need to keep an eye on them at all times.

Starting on tier one, you’ve got Sun-Bacon Relaxer, a hilariously named unit with more implications in the late game than in the early stages of the fight. Since you want to get the most bang for your Blood Gems, and you can only expect that to come into play at the higher tiers, sacrificing the first two combat encounters while leveling on the regular curve is a bit too steep of a price to pay to pick this as your starting unit. However, once you have your synergies online, two gold for two Blood Gems is a great deal. The logic is similar with Razorfen Geomancer, but it’s more serviceable as a tier 1 4/2 if you’d like to go for draws.

Tier 2 introduces Roadboar, which becomes your first source of regularly recurring Blood Gems. Four health at this stage of the game pretty much ensures that the Frenzy effect will trigger. Whether it’s enough of a payoff to keep buffing it depends on the game state. Tough Tusk, on the other hand, is worthless without continuous Blood Gem investments and doesn’t tend to scale well into the mid-to-late game. Prophet of the Boar, meanwhile, is nothing to write home about in terms of base stats, and once you factor in how limited your gold is, especially keeping in mind your leveling responsibilities, you’ll find that it quickly slides down the pecking order too.

Tier 3’s Bristleback Brute can easily get out of hand for an early-mid-game minion, and it’s the main reason Bannerboar has anything to offer at this stage of the game for your composition. The latter rarely serves as a long-term tool on your board but it can offer some powerful short-term synergies with high-tier Quilboar units. Thorncaller is the real deal if it’s looking like you’ll be leaning into Blood Gem shenanigans later down the line, serving as another reliable source of these spells.

Tier 4 is where Quilboars can being to take over with some real strong synergistic payoffs for your Blood Gem collection. Getting an early Bonker and buffing it to the point where it reliably survives its first attack can be enough to scale into a late-game Quilboar build by itself. Obviously, Dynamic Duo is of little use to you without something else already present to pair it up with, but if you can pick up an early Groundshaker, it can be enough to push you into the top tavern tiers where the real synergies wait for you.

Even if you haven’t made a full commitment to Quilboars by tier 5, Aggem Thorncurse has a lot to offer to you: with a Bonker on board, this is essentially a larger Lightfang Enforcer with further synergistic options coming down the pipeline. If you do have a large board of honkers in place at this stage, Agamaggan, the Great Boar is what you’re looking for to further leverage what should be a steady stream of Blood Gems.

Tier 6 units offer unprecedented scaling and economy opportunities to you. Captain Flat Tusk guarantees that you can spend your gold in an efficient way and keep on scaling. The same goes for Chariga: turns out Tirion Fordring’s hero power was so good it needed a tier 6 card to replicate it – of course, this is before any and all Blood Gem synergies get involved.

All in all, it’s the massive late-game payoffs rather than the small early tempo spikes which make Quilboar builds work, and the question is just how greedy can you get with your Blood Gems on your way to the powerhouse units of tier 4 and above.

A Quick Breakdown of the New Heroes

On top of Quilboar minion type, Patch 20.2 also added three new Heroes.

Death Speaker Blackthorn is the Quilboar synergy hero, giving you two Blood Gems each time you level up. It’s a lesser payoff than Forest Warden Omu’s on average but offers insane power spike potential. It goes without saying that you should force Quilboar builds with it, and early results suggest it has a pretty decent power level, though it’s no doubt overplayed on account of its newness.

Xyrella has a straightforward early game thanks to her two-mana hero power, and though the ability can smooth out your curve and offer some marginal trickery when the minion stats don’t matter, it’s a limited econ effect at the end of the day. It’s worthwhile but not mind-blowing stuff.

Similarly, Vol’jin’s ability can help you tempo out early on but has fairly limited utility as the game progresses. It’s certainly a brain-teaser to play with though!