About James Law
James can usually be found wearing dungarees.
The Hearthstone team are working hard to keep their Battlegrounds game mode updated. Here’s all the latest changes made.
Thankfully, we’re seeing a fair few changes in Battlegrounds already, with new alterations and tweaks added throughout the early period of the game’s release. Navigation: The first Scholomance Academy balance patch has arrived, and we've seen some balance changes throughout the game. Here's what's new in Battlegrounds, including a LOT of minion tweaks. A couple Hero changes were also made: Lady Vashj has also been removed from the Battlegrounds Hero Pool. 30th July Update Scholomance Academy is almost here, and the Battlegrounds has been given a few new toys to tide us over. Here's what you can get into the game with immediately. There's a new Hero in Battlegrounds: We also have new minions in Battlegrounds: Also, Zoobot and Menagerie Magician have been removed from the minion pool. 14th July Update Along with the announcement of Scholomance Academy, the newest upcoming Hearthstone expansion, a fair few tweaks were made to the Battlegrounds experience too. New Heroes, minions, and balance changes are here. Here's the new Hero in Battlegrounds: If you have Battlegrounds Perks, you'll have early access to Tess before she's fully released on July 28th. Some Heroes are returning to the fray with some changes to their functionality. Here's some familiar faces returning: As well as Heroes being added and brought back, some existing Heroes have been tweaked. Aranna has been buffed, whilst Captain Hooktusk faces a nasty nerf. As well as all this, Pirates are now no longer guaranteed to show up in every Battlegrounds game, making Pirate-based heroes slightly less consistent. Minion Changes We're getting one new minion and one little nerf. Here's what to expect: 18th June Update The most recent update to Battlegrounds, Patch 17.4.1, includes a few buffs, some nerfs, and even a few bug fixes. Here are the changes to the Heroes in Battlegrounds: Some tweaks have been made to minions in Battlegrounds too, most notably in the Beasts category. Here's what to look out for: Also, a couple of bug fixes occurred, but they're not likely to be something you noticed that much. On June 17th, a Hero became available in addition to the Pirates revealed in the previous update - see below what they do. In the June 8th update, a new balancing system is in place to ensure smoother games. Now, 5 out of the 6 minion tribes will be present, removing one at random each game to streamline the experience. You'll be able to see the active minion types when selecting a Hero too, so keep an eye on that while making your decision. That's because Pirates are here! In Battlegrounds, you'll now be able to use Pirate minions to overwhelm your enemy, and they'll always be in the minion pool listed above until the next update. Listed below are all the available new minions in Battlegrounds, including the Pirates. A few tweaks have been made to include Pirates too, with Queen Wagtoggle, The Rat King, and Lightfang Enforcer now buffing Pirates too. 3 new Heroes have been added, with big changes to one existing Hero. Finally, a few removals have been made to make room. Professor Putricide is no longer available as a Hero, whilst Holy Mackerel has been removed from the minion pool. A bunch of tweaks are coming in May, with the full update coming on the 26th. However, if you have Battlegrounds perks, you'll be able to playtest the new Heroes before the release date. Full patch notes are on Hearthstone's website, but we've put them all below for your convenience. Dire Wolf Alpha has been removed from Battlegrounds to make room for a new tier 1 minion - Rabid Saurolisk. This minion is exclusive to Battlegrounds, and is a great starter for Deathrattle builds, scaling well early on and encouraging a variety of builds from Mechs to Beasts. We've got three new Heroes to choose from. Their names and Hero Powers are listed below: Only a small change this time, to the all-powerful Millhouse. We'll be keeping an eye on how he performs post-nerf. Finally, Illidan is a hero in Hearthstone. Sure, it's in Battlegrounds, but we'll take what we can get. Here's all the changes in the latest Hearthstone patch 17.0 that impact Battlegrounds. Illidan can now be chosen as a Hero in Battlegrounds. His hero power is Wingmen, and it's a passive ability which lets your left- and right-most minions attack immediately. Two minions have been added to Battlegrounds. Here's what we've got: The Deflect-o-Bot, when upgraded to golden, gains +2 Attack per mech summoned instead, whilst Felfin Navigator upgrades your Murlocs by +2/+2 each. A few changes have been made to Battlegrounds, including new Heroes being added and some balance changes being made. Here's everything you'll find if you update your game: 3 Heroes have been added into the pool: The Heroes of the Battlegrounds have been changed - here's all of the tweaks: Heroes aren't the only things getting changed in the latest patch. Ahead of Ashes of Outland, minions are getting shuffled in the Battlegrounds too. Here's all the changes: New content keeps on coming for Battlegrounds. Here's what to expect. Illidan enters the Battlegrounds. His Hero Power, Wingmen, will make your left and right-most minions attack immediately. February 26th's update is a huge one for Battlegrounds. Dragons are finally here, bringing in a huge number of brand new minions, as well as a couple of old favourites. We're also getting a whopping 7 new Heroes, and it's all live now on PC. The full post is on Hearthstone's website, but we've put all the changes below for your convenience. New Heroes That's a whopping 7 new Heroes, all with some pretty wildly powerful effects. We'll be updating our Hearthstone Battlegrounds Tier List accordingly. New Minions 18 brand new minions have been added to Battlegrounds to make Dragons a proper thing. Here's all of them: We're also seeing some balance changes for existing minions and heroes, as well as a bit of rotation to compensate for all the brand new heroes coming in. Battlegrounds Balance Changes Removed heroes Removed minions According to the devs, minions have to be taken out to make room for all the new ones coming in. These ones have been chosen to balance things out a bit - there are far more Mechs than other minion types, so some of them have been removed. Minions who haven't been performing brilliantly have also been taken out. General improvements and bug fixes Finally, there's a few miscellaneous changes to be made. Here's what's in store with the update: February contains just a small update to Hearthstone's Battlegrounds mode. Community Manager Chris Sierra posted the full notes on Blizzard's forums, but we've put the change below for your convenience. This'll nerf Demons ever so slightly, as their self-damaging ability was often able to snowball ridiculously. In addition to this, an issue with Galakrond, the Nightmare's cost reduction priority was fixed. Now, it doesn't usurp effects like Loatheb and its cost-increases. With the launch of Galakrond's Awakening, we're seeing some new Battlegrounds content too. New minions, a Hero rotation, and a couple buffs and nerfs. You can find all the info on Hearthstone's Blog page, but we've put it below for your convenience. New Heroes: New Minions: Additional Changes: Bonus Stats Minion lineup history has been added to the Bonus Stats page. You'll beb able to go through your last 5 board states before you won or lost. When hovering over opponents on the scoreboard, you'll be able to see how many of the majority minion Tribe they have in their lineup. This'll help you plan your buys around the opponents' board. In-game Matchmaking adjustments: You'll no longer face the same player, or Kel'thuzad, more than once every 3 combat rounds. Battlegrounds Improvements Battlegrounds Bug Fixes We're about to be hit with a brand new update this week. Along with some Standard format balance changes, the Battlegrounds are impacted too. You can find the full blog post by Kurt Ocher on Blizzard's forums, but for your convenience you can find it below. Expect buffs to heroes who have been performing poorly over recent weeks, as well as a couple old faces returning to the game mode. Here's a quick roundup of patch 16.0.8 in Battlegrounds: Minion Changes Golden Soul Juggler has been changed to deal 3 damage to a random enemy minion twice when a friendly Demon dies (instead of 6 damage one time). Quality of Life Changes Selfless Hero's Deathrattle, which gives a friendly minion Divine Shield, will now only target minions who don't already have Divine Shield. The 16.0.5 balance update isn't as extensive as its predecessor, but it's still likely to have a big impact on the metagame. We're seeing a number of cards who've felt a bit too expensive get moved down a tier, while others which have felt too strong get a price hike. Here's a quick roundup of the tweaks: Three new heroes, plus plenty of buffs and nerfs have hit the battlegrounds. First, here's a look at all the new heroes: A number of heroes have been temporarily benched. They'll be back at some point in the future, likely with some tweaks to make them a touch better to play. Here's who's taking a break: Some have made a triumphant return, though. Here's who's back: Finally, here's a roundup of all the buffs and nerfs: On November 19th, we saw the 2nd ever Battlegrounds patch. It’s brought about some brand new Heroes to play for the first time since the mode’s launch. Members of the League of Explorers - Brann, Elise, and Finley - have been added to the mode, as well as Sindragosa. You can find their specific Hero Powers and abilities below, and we’ll be updating our Hearthstone Battlegrounds Tier List accordingly. With these additions, some Heroes have been dropped. King Mukla, Luch Baz’hial, Giantfin, and Millificent Manastorm have made way, but we’ll probably see them again soon. We’re also getting some long-awaited balance changes to the Tavern. Mech synergies have been given a nerf, with Junkbot upped from rank 4 to 5, meaning you’ll need to upgrade your Tavern an extra level to get that ridiculous snowball effect. Murlocs and Demons have received some buffs too. Primalfin Lookout and Coldlight Seer can now be accessed a rank earlier, and Voidlord has been moved from tier 6 to 5. This should make these two builds more viable. The development team has promised more updates too, including balance changes, new Heroes, and new minions, including King Bagurgle (a completely new card) and Floating Watcher (from Goblins vs. Gnomes). Early December is the date of the next update, so keep an eye out - we’ll keep you abreast of the situation. We’ve put the full patch notes below for your convenience, but you can check out the blog post on Hearthstone’s site if you fancy. Bob the Bartender has been hard at work keeping the tavern tidy for Hearthstone’s heroes, and it appears that the news has started to spread. Hearthstone Battlegrounds is about to add some extra chaos—and a few Explorers—with a new update coming to the mode today. Sindragosa, Elise Starseeker, Brann Bronzebeard, and Sir Finley Mrrgglton are the latest heroes to enter the Battlegrounds. Each one comes with a new hero power to give you more options to push toward a first-place finish. Read on for details on these new heroes, as well as some additional updates coming to Hearthstone Battlegrounds. Please note that these updates do not require an additional download. New Hero: Sindragosa New Hero: Elise Starseeker NOTE: The "Recruitment Map" recruits a minion from your current tavern tier after upgrading Bob's Tavern. New Hero: Brann Bronzebeard New Hero: Sir Finley Mrrgglton Heroes Leaving the Battlegrounds To make way for new challengers, the Heroes below have left Hearthstone Battlegrounds for the time being. We may see them return in a future update. Balance Updates Minions: Developer comments: We wanted to buff both Demons and Murlocs, so we moved those minions down a Tavern Tier. Junkbot was a bit too strong for Tavern Tier 4 and often made it so mech players never had a good reason to upgrade to Tavern Tier 5. With these changes, we think the minion types are closer together in power level. Ranking System We’ve made adjustments to the number of points given for first place. In the original system, you got 240 points for a first place on your first game, and 24 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game. Now, you will get 190 pts for a first place on your first game and 95 pts for a first place on your 150th (or later) game. Bug Fixes Future Updates As of today, we are planning our next Battlegrounds update for early December. Below is a brief preview of some of the things we’re working on. We’re in the process of releasing a new update, which is now live on PC and rolling out over the next few hours on mobile operating systems. This update contains a variety of optimizations to improve performance when playing Battlegrounds, especially on devices with fewer than 2GB of RAM. Please note that players on devices with lower memory may still experience degraded performance. As a note for iOS users, please ensure you have updated to the latest version of iOS to receive the greatest performance increase from these optimizations. There were some balance changes that we identified based on our initial testing that didn’t quite make it in for release, so we’re making those live with today’s update. Balance Changes Minions: Hero Powers: Game fixes and improvements We’re aiming to make updates fairly regularly – every month or so, or perhaps a little faster. We’ll have more information on future updates over the next few weeks. While I’m here, I wanted to talk a bit about Battlegrounds and what we’re seeing and feeling since we launched in beta last week. Overall, we’ve been thrilled by the response players have had to Battlegrounds, and we’ve been closely watching the feedback coming in. We’re continuing to work on a variety of things coming in the future, but I’d like to call out to a few of them. Please note all of this is future-looking – none of this is getting added quite yet. New Heroes and Minions! We’ve been cooking up some new heroes and minions, and we’ll be making them live within the game with our next update. We don’t want to say too much right now, but a couple of very familiar faces will be included. Stats! We know the amount of gameplay information that informs how players are performing is limited right now, and we are already hard at work on an advanced stats screen that will be available in the next update. We’ll have much more detail soon, but expect things like your top 5 heroes by wins, most played heroes, how many first place finishes you’ve completed, and more. Leaderboard Updates We want to give players more useful information about their opponents so they can make more informed gameplay decisions and build more complex strategies. On the left-hand leaderboard we’re going to be adding some addition information on the minion types that your opponents have. For example, you’ll be able to see that one of your opponents currently holds three murlocs and two demons. The Selling Experience We want to make some improvements to how minions are sold, allowing minions to be sold from your hand. We think this will make it into the game some time early next year, and we’ll have more updates on how that is progressing, especially if we think it will come later than January. Open Beta begins tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 12th @ 10am PT! We hope to see you all in the Tavern! That’s all the patch notes from Hearthstone Battlegrounds! We’re expecting updates monthly, and will keep you updated whenever new changes are made. We’ve got more help on how to access the mode, as well as a helpful tier list detailing the best Heroes to pick too, so give them a browse if you need a hand! August 2020 Updates
July 2020 Updates
June 2020 Updates
New Heroes
May 2020 Updates
Card changes
New Heroes
April 2020 Updates
17th April 2020
March 2020 Updates
26th March 2020
Illidan added as a Hero
New minions
Early March 2020
New Heroes
Battlegrounds Hero Balance changes
Battlegrounds minion balance changes
Updates for March 26th
February 2020 Updates
February 26th 2020
February 13th 2020
January 2020 Updates
January 21st 2020
January 8th 2020
December 2019 Updates
December 19th 2019
December 5th 2019
November 2019 Updates
November 19th 2019
November 11th 2019
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