Hearthstone Battlegrounds - What does golden Shifter Zerus do?

Unlock the tier three shop in Hearthstone Battlegrounds and you’ll unlock the chance to encounter Shifter Zerus, the one and only. It’s a 1/1 minion with a twist. The twist being, it’ll shift into a random minion at the end of each turn.

In Battlegrounds, you can combine three minions to turn them into one, bigger, beefier unit. They’ll gain increased stats and often a better ability too. When you purchase Shifter Zerus, you’re essentially crossing a virtual limb, hoping for a chance at earning a very strong, high tier unit. Even if you buy three Shifter Zerus’, your chances of every single one randomly selecting the same unit and combining into a higher tier version are practically zero.

However, it’s actually possible to combine three Shifter Zerus’ into a higher tier version - but it’s super risky, and your chances of survival aren’t high. The only time it’s not a major risk, is when three pop up in the shop at the same time and you’ve got enough gold to purchase them in one go. Your chances are super slim, but we’ve managed to do it!

So, what happens?

Well, get lucky enough to purchase three Shifter Zerus’ and you'll be presented with a shiny, golden version of the card which’ll lie dormant until your current round ends. It might seem like you’ve wasted your cash at first, but wait, the payoff can be game changing.

A golden Shifter Zerus will transform into a golden version of the minion it randomly selects at the end of each round. This means you’ll get have a tier two, fully combined unit sitting in your hand at the end of each round; upgraded stats, abilities and all.

Of course, your options are all down to luck, but our golden Shifter Zerus instantly transformed into a golden Ghastcoiler! It was a glorious 14/14 golden snakeyboy, who also gave us the usual card choice when we slapped it down. Absolute scenes.

Another way to secure a golden Shifter Zerus is to purchase one at any point throughout the game and slap them on the board. This way they don’t transform, but remain as neutral 1/1 minions - not ideal. Obviously, they’ll be taking up board space and are pretty useless, so unless you’re really far ahead, we wouldn’t recommend doing this.

If you’ve got two on the board, you’ll want to snap up the third and last one whenever you spot it and they’ll finally auto combine, hopefully granting you something big at the end of the round. Again, it might not, so don’t get your hopes up too high.

What minions are you looking out for?

Ideally, Shifter Zerus will gift you with Ghastcoiler or a Sneed's Old Shredder. Even if you’re not building Beasts or Mechs, a golden version of these minions will be incredibly beneficial to your lineup no matter what. They’ll have big stats and deposit a whole host of strong minions on your board when eliminated, so definitely opt for one of them if they spring up.

Otherwise, a Cave Hydra or Foe Reaper 4000 as they’ll both deal big damage to adjacent minions as well.

To round things off, here's a video by Legend Stuff which shows what happens when they combine. Unfortunately, they don't get as lucky as we did...

What is the Effect of Golden Shifter Zerus in Hearthstone Battlegrounds?

Watch on YouTube