We’ve got some news for Constructed & Battleground fans – well, mainly for the latter, because Constructed ones are not a huge change.
First of all, Risky Skipper was confirmed to be a Pirate – it’s missing a tribe tag:
We’ve got a fix in testing, hope to release it soon. It might be a few days.
— ✨???? (@Celestalon) February 3, 2020
Risky Skipper herself probably won’t benefit from the tag, since she won’t fit into Pirate builds anyway. On the other hand, it’s another small nerf to Sky Raider worse, because it makes you less likely to get one of the great Pirates. The card was already “nerfed” in Galakrond’s Awakening through Sky Gen'ral Kragg, which is just a 4 mana 2/3 with Taunt in Pirate Warrior (since it runs no Quest). Sky Raider is still a great card, though, it just became less consistent.
The second Constructed change is the way Zephrys treats 10+ mana cards. In general, Zephrys puts mana weighing on minions. When he sees something that costs a lot, he really wants to steal it if he can, because he thinks that it’s worth A LOT. While it usually works up to 10 mana, mana costs above 10 mana get tricky. For example, Shirvallah, the Tiger is a 25 mana minion and Zephrys will often offer Mind Control against her, because he really, really wants to steal her due to high mana cost. Molten Giant is a similar story. But in reality, minions above 10 mana aren’t really “worth” that much, because they always come with some sort of mana discounts which makes them playable. Zephrys should take that into account with the next patch. It might not be a huge change, but the card is getting smarter with each patch!
We’re going to teach Zephrys that costs over 10 are likely not really indicative of value, in a later patch.
— ✨???? (@Celestalon) February 3, 2020
Update: We’re also getting another bug fix – this time to Boompistol Bully. The card did not increase the cost of Battlecry cards previously discounted by Galakrond, the Nightmare or Wondrous Wand. It was confirmed to be a bug with aura priority and should get fixed soon.
Nah it was a priority issue with the aura actually. The fix should be in game shortly! (Not sure exactly when, but soon tm)
— Cora (@Songbird_HS) February 6, 2020
Battleground fans also shouldn’t be disappointed, because new Hero and minion were datamined – they might be coming next patch, but nothing was officially confirmed yet, so take it with a grain of salt.
The Hero is Reno Jackson. Notably, it was already supposed to come into Battlegrounds alongside other Explorers (Brann, Elise and Finley), but he was replaced with Sindragosa due to some issues.
Reno and his hero power in Battlegrounds.
At the start of next combat,
If you have no duplicate minions, fire 10 missiles. pic.twitter.com/pBlqkpdYr6— ZelKnow (@ZelKnow) February 5, 2020
His current, datamined Hero Power is “At the start of next combat, if you have no duplicate minions, fire 10 missiles.” – however, devs have already confirmed that this is not the Hero Power it will be shipped with (Source). I figure that they decided that it’s too weak and decided to add something different. Because in a current state, it would often be inactive throughout the early game, when you usually have multiple duplicates. Then, in the late game, it would be just a weaker Nefarian’s Hero Power (since it wouldn’t guarantee to hit everything = might miss some Divine Shields) for 1 more mana with an extra condition.
A new Amalgam minion was also datamined, but… in two versions. Both are Tier 2, but one is a 2/2 and the other one is a 2/1.
身材咋又变了。
Maybe this is the right one. pic.twitter.com/mJNYy8eall— guouey (@guouey) February 5, 2020
I’m not really surprised here, because Mike Donais said that they plan to remove Amalgam and then later introduce back a weaker version soon after Battlegrounds launched. While nerfing it from 3/4 to 2/2 or 2/1 might not seem like a big deal, the difference is pretty massive, especially if it will turn out to be a 2/1 after all. Early tempo is very important in Battlegrounds and if you fall behind you might take a lot of unnecessary damage, which can result in a quick loss. Picking a 3/4 minion was a solid tempo move, while picking a 2/1 with no effect whatsoever (until you find some buffers to combo with it) can be difficult. I still suspect Amalgam to be vital in some strategies.
There’s no confirmation when those will come and if they will come at all – sometimes stuff gets added to game files and doesn’t end up getting used after all, because they decide against them. I’m pretty confident that both of those will come out, but we still don’t know Reno’s actual Hero Power (any guesses?), and we don’t know whether Amalgam will drop as a 2/2 or 2/1.
I know this is theoretic but … does ’10 missiles’ equal ’10 damage’? Because then … this would absolutely dominate the early and beginning of mid game in Battlegrounds. I would go as far as to say that you’d only need the minimum number of minions required an could concentrate on leveling up during that period?
Tbh it is important what ‘have no duplicate minions’ means. I asume ‘in play’ which means you could still go for a tripple.
I would assume that it means 10x 1 damage, just like Reno the Relicologist works in Constructed.
And yes, you would probably win most of the early and mid game matches by using it. But the more you would press this Hero Power, the weaker you would become. 2 gold is a lot in the early/mid game, and it gives you no permanent advantage – e.g. no extra minions, no stats on the board, no extra gold over the long run.
Look at Ragnaros – his Hero Power dominates most of the early and mid game matches (2x 8 damage = you usually kill 2 minions immediately) and yet it’s a bad Hero. That’s because when you spend 2 mana Hero Powering instead of buying / rolling more, you get weaker. At one point (and pretty quickly in my experience) the extra stats your opponent has because he was spending the gold elsewhere lets him win against you even with your extra damage from HP.
And unlike Ragnaros, this comes with a restriction too. You could most likely still go for triples, but not being able to drop a duplicate on the board is a huge disadvantage. Buying something and not playing it when you still have space on the board in the early/mid game is often a suicide, because even just a few stat points make a big difference.
It probably wouldn’t be the WORST Hero Power in the game, but it would be one of the least useful ones.
Me dumb. Thought that the upper half of the hero portrait was the upper half of it’s hero power … and thought it’d cost 0. 😀
One upside of this HP, though, would be that it would most likely crack all divine shields your opponents have. Against compositions like Divine Shield Murloc or Mechs, this HP should be much better than Rags.
Reno HP: 2 mana “At the start of the next combat, make random enemy minion disappear”
*Poof*