Hearthstone Battlegrounds - Updates and Patch Notes

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.

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• November 2019 Updates

November 2019 Updates

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.

November 19th 2019

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.

• King Mukla
• Giantfin
• Millificent Manastorm
• Lich Baz’hial

Balance Updates

Minions:

• Primalfin Lookout: Moved from Tavern Tier 5 to Tavern Tier 4
• Voidlord: Moved from Tavern Tier 6 to Tavern Tier 5
• Junkbot: Moved from Tavern Tier 4 to Tavern Tier 5
• Coldlight Seer: Moved from Tavern Tier 3 to Tavern Tier 2

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

• Infested Wolf: The Triple version of Infested Wolf has been moved from Tavern Tier 2 to Tavern Tier 3, consistent with its base form.
• Rat Pack: The Triple version of Rat Pack has been moved from Tavern Tier 3 to Tavern Tier 2, consistent with its base form.
• Plant tokens spawned from Adapt effects are now Tavern Tier 1.
• Snake tokens spawned from Snake Trap are now Tavern Tier 1.

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’d like to continue balancing minions and Heroes based on how they’re performing. We don’t have the changes solidified yet, but we’ll be watching things closely and will have more to say soon.
• We’d like to continue rotating new Heroes into the game while rotating some existing Heroes out. We have some recognizable faces we’re working to include in December.
• We have two new minions in the works that we’re currently planning to include in the December update: King Bagurgle, a brand-new card, and Floating Watcher, which you may recognize from the Goblins vs. Gnomes set.
• We have been working on the first iteration of the Stats feature, to give you more insight into your performance. We’d like to surface some fun stats, like how many Triples you’ve created, your top five Heroes by wins, and more. An updated version of Stats will be available next year.

November 11th 2019

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:

• Mama Bear: Changed from 5/5 giving +5/+5 to 4/4 giving +4/+4.
• Kangor’s Apprentice: Changed from 4/8 to 3/6.

Hero Powers:

• Infinite Toki: Changed from 1 cost to 2 and now reads “Refresh Bob’s Tavern. Add a minion from a higher Tavern Tier.”
• King Mukla: Changed to “Passive Hero Power: Whenever you buy a beast, add a Banana to your hand.”
• Jaraxxus: Hero power changed from 3 cost to 2.

Game fixes and improvements

• Squelch now works as intended + no longer causes crashes under certain circumstances
• Daily Quests can now be rerolled
• Hallow’s End Arena Daily Quest can now be completed
• A variety of Android crashes have been fixed
• Memory optimization for Battlegrounds for devices with less than 2GB of RAM

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!