Hearthstone’s Patch 17.6 is finally live and Blizzard has released the full notes, which include massive changes to the popular game mode Battlegrounds.
The patch features one new hero, two returning heroes, a single buff to the underperforming hero Aranna, a nerf to the best hero Hooktusk, a new minion, and a nerf to Beast comps. Aside from the adjusted and new content, an important change was also made to shifting minion pools. Going forward with this patch, Pirates will no longer be guaranteed in shifting minion pools since everyone has been able to practice them enough with their release during the Felfire Festival.
Here’s all the new content coming to Hearthstone Battlegrounds in Patch 17.6.
Tess Greymane
Bob’s Burgles [Cost one]: Refresh Bob’s Tavern with minions from your last opponent’s warband.
Players with Battlegrounds Perks will have early access to Tess Greymane before the hero is formally released on July 28.
An entirely new hero, Tess Greymane is entering the ring and her effect looks like a controlled version of Rafaam’s Hero Power. While Rafaam’s Hero Power provides a lot of immediate tempo due to getting often powerful minions for one gold, Tess’ Hero Power allows players to get key minions faster and lets her potentially hit easier triples if many players in the lobby are playing similar compositions.
Returning heroes
King Mukla
Bananarama [Cost one]: Get two Bananas. At the end of your turn, give everyone else one.
King Mukla returns with a new Hero Power that allows him to get two bananas for one mana at the cost of everyone else in the lobby getting a free banana (each banana is free to cast). While giving away free stats to an opponent may sound risky, Mukla does get double the stats first and enemies need to wait one turn to use them to the fullest.
Dinotamer Brann
Battle Brand [Cost one]: Refresh Bob’s Tavern with Battlecry minions.
Brann’s old Hero Power was generically strong since Brann could get a ton of free stats by just constantly buying Battlecry minions. This reworked Hero Power makes him more inline with synergy-type heroes by letting Brann focus on potential Battlecries. This allows Brann to find triples more easily if he has a ton of Battlecry pairs.
Besides having specific rolls, this Hero Power has potential implications for hyper rolling strategies on level two if mechs are in the pool since Brann could find a bunch of Pogo Hoppers. An additional way to use his Hero Power is with Kalecgos. If you have a Kalecgos, it’ll guarantee you six Battlecry minions, giving you a wave of board-wide buffs in the late game.
Updated heroes
Aranna Starseeker
Demon Hunter Training [Passive]
- Old: After you Refresh seven times, Bob always has seven minions. → New: After you Refresh five times, Bob always has seven minions.
Captain Hooktusk
Trash for Treasure [Cost zero]
- Old: Remove a friendly minion. Discover one from a Tavern Tier lower. → New: Remove a friendly minion. Get a random one from a Tavern Tier lower.
Battlegrounds minion pool updates
- Pirates are no longer guaranteed to appear in every Battlegrounds game.
New minion
Amalgadon
- [Tier six, All] Six Attack, six Health: Battlecry: For each different minion type you have, Adapt randomly.
Update minion
Goldrinn, the Great Wolf
- Old: [Tier five] → New: [Tier six]
What this means for the meta
Aside from the new heroes, the nerfs to Goldrinn will make Beast comps come online slower since finding a Macaw in tier three and a Goldrinn in tier five usually ended games fairly quickly. Deathrattle Beast comps will now need to find more suitable replacements until they can get Goldrinn in the late game. In addition, the new Amalgadon unit will allow Menagerie comps to find a late-game strategy beyond Lightfang and Brann since the Amalgadon has a fair chance of finding Poisonous Divine Shields if your board is varied enough in the late game.
Pirates no longer being guaranteed will also allow some previous heroes and strategies to shine once more whenever they don’t show up for the game. Curator was a previously high-tier hero, but with a chance for Dragons, Beasts, or Murlocs to leave the pool, Curator experienced a slight fll from grace since Pirates didn’t interact as favorably with his 1/1 Amalgam as other tribes did. In addition, token-based strategies can finally appear once again since Pirates punished wider and weaker boards more consistently because their buffed stats mainly came from prolonged combat.
Hooktusk getting nerfed removes her spot as the undisputed best hero in Battlegrounds. While the nerf will definitely make her weaker, it’s unclear if the new version of her Hero Power will make her unplayable or still a viable mid-tier option. Tess Greymane looks to be a strong hero in the mid to late game because if your opponent has a strong comp, you can steal away key parts to find yourself on a proper path to victory.
Overall, these new changes will make meaningful shifts to the Battlegrounds meta until the next content update for the game comes out during the Year of the Phoenix’s phase two release in the Scholomance Academy expansion.
You can try out all of these new Battlegrounds changes now since Hearthstone Patch 17.6 is live.
