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While hype continues to build for the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Un🦂ited In Stormwind Hearthstone expansion, Hearthstone Battlegrounds continues to chug away in the background with a brand ♏new patch, 𝔉highlighting new minions, significant hero changes, and the reintroduction of the Darkroom Faire Prizes.
This list covers all the fresh changes to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Hearthstone Battlegrounds, as well as a deep dive into the strengths and weaknesses of the new hero and minions. It's likely the randomness of the new Darkmoon Faire prizes will also shake up the meta, heavily dominated by the Quilboars.
New Hero: Kurtrus Ashfallen
Kurtrus Ashfallen is one of the most innovative new heroes Battlegrounds has seen for a while. His ability has three 🌳different stages, Final Showdown, Gain Momentum, and Close The Portal.
These are basically mini-quests you have to complete. During the first stage, Final Showdown, you need to purchase three minions in one turn. This gives all the minions you've just bought +2/+2, but won't buff the minions on your board.
The next stage, Gain Momentum, requires four bought minions, but it gives both yꦆo♕ur purchased minions and your board +2/+2.
The ღfinal stage, Close The Portal, requires five purchased minions, and this gives every minion you own +2/+2 for the rest of the game.
Completing one stage moves your🍌 ꦦpassive on to the next stage.
How Does Kurtrus Ashfallen Fit Into The Meta?
If anything, Kurtrus Ashfallen is a little on the weak side. Not terrible, but definitely a top-tier hero on release. The hero power is awkward to use, forcing you to make inefficient plays into the mid and late gamജe.
That being said, the hero power works excellently with minion tribes that require you to rotate out minions frequently, like Pirates and Demons. Activating the hero power is much easier when you're buying every minions each turn. It's harder to work with if you're trying to scale a board with Quilboars or a Lightfang, for example, where you want to keep your minions for a long time.
Other Significant Hero Changes
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Alongside the new hero, Battlegrounds is getting a large refresh of heroes and their abilities. The Lich King is back, and Shudderwock has been rotated out, and a 🌳bunch of other heroes have had their abilities tweaked.
Trade Prince Gallywix
The prince with the many chins, Gallywix has had a total overhaul of his ability. Rather than an active "spend one gold gets one gold coin', Smart Savings has been reworked to a passive ability, giving you an extra gold the turn after you sell a minion. This sounds much, much stronger in the early game, but is arguably less flexible than a gold coin that stays in your hand.
Galakrond
The nerf hammer comes down on Galakrond. His ability, replace a minion in Bob's Tavern with a minion of a higher tier, now costs 1 gold rather than 0. It's a pretty substantial hit to Galakrond's kit, but the hero will remain relatively strong for all the high-rollers out there.
Maiev Shadowsong
A nerf, a tweak? Probably a nerf to Maiev. Her ability, putting a minion dormant in the tier to receive it two turns later with +1 attack, now takes three turns but receives +1/+1. This slows down Maiev in the early game, slowing down that snowball we've all come to know and love/hate depending on whether you're playing her or not.
Edwin VanCleef
Always undersung, it was about time that Edwin received a buff. His ability, give a minion +1/+1 for each minion you purchased this turn, now gives a minion +2/+1 instead. It's a small change, but it might boost his power level. A tiny bit.
Dinotamer Brann
A massive change for Brann with a♛ totally reworked ability. Rather than refreshing the tavern with Battlecry minions, Brann will now just give 🧜you a Brann Bronzebeard after you buy five Battlecry minions. This can only be activated once. If are blessed with RNG, this could be extremely strong. Might even be worth sticking on a low tavern tier to spam rerolls on the hunt for Battlecry minions.
Illidan Stormrage
A tiny, tiny change for Illidan, that probably won't make a huge difference. Both minions on the left and right of your board still attack immediately, but now get +2 attack. Decent for the early game, but still not overly powerful.
Sindragosa
Interesting change for Sindragosa. Freezing minions now gives +2/+1 every turn rather than just once. Introduces some intriguing strategies with freezing early game minions for a big mid-game power ♓spike.
Guff Runetotem
Nerf for Guff. His ability now gives +1/+1 to a minion of each tavern tier rather than +2/+1. It's a small change but could be significant in certain situations, especially during early game fights. Those few attack stats are important.
Overlord Saurfang
A buff for Saurfang, albeit a small one. Rather than +1 attack to the next minion you buy, it's now +2. This still upgrades each turn. A mild power spike for Saurfang.
N'zoth
A buff for N'zoth that should give everyone's favorite squid monster a power spike in the early game. Your 1/1 fish is now a 2/2 fish. It will be interesting to see how much this does for N'zoth's slow early game.
The Curator
A bit like the buff for N'zoth, The Curator's Amalgam receives a small boost from a 1/2 stat line to a 2/2. That small boost to attack damage will make the Amalgam more potent against early tavern tier minions.
King Mukla
A very small buff for Mulka in the form of an increased chance to get Big Bananas when you activate the hero power. It's up to 50 percent from 33 percent.
New Minion: Archdruid Hamuul
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Archdruid Hamuul is a new tier six minion with a Battlecry that refreshes the tavern with minions of your most common type. This is very potent for Pirates, Demons, Murlocs, etc. Any build that focuses on a single minion type. It's not a minion that you're likely to hold on to, as its 4/4 stat line is pretty useless, and you probably want to stick it back into the minion pool for the chance to get another one.
Other Minion Buffs And Changes
Alongside the new minion, a bunch of minions have been changed and tweaked. Here's a quick look.
- Deflect-o-Bot - A buff for the bot. Rather than a +1 attack boost each time you summon a minion, it's now +2. This gives mechs a better chance at becoming a viable build in the swarm of Quilboars.
- Lieutenant Garr - Garr now starts at 8/8 rather than 8/1, a pretty significant change that makes Garr an easier pick up when you see the minion in the tavern. Should help Elementals during those early tavern six turns.
- Refreshing Anomaly - A small buff to this little guy, with a new stat line of 1/4 instead of 1/3. Just provides a bit of extra strength, and might make a turn one buy more viable.
- Bigfernal - Bigfernal didn't really get off the ground, so this buff to its stat line, 6/6 instead of 4/4, should make this an easier choice for a Demon build.
- Razorgore - Another minion buffed to bring its power in line with some of the new minions, Razorgore gets a pretty big buff to its stat line, up from 2/4 to 4/6.
- Pack Leader - Small buff to give this unloved card a bit of a boost, changing its stat line from 3/3 to 3/4.
- Mama Bear - Bigger change for the Mama Bear. Not only does it get a 1/1 boost to its stats, taking it to a 5/5, whenever you summon a beast it now gets +5 instead of +4. A necessary tweak to the underpowered Beast tribe.
- Soul Juggler - Oh no, the Soul Juggler got a buff. Everyone's favorite RNG turret now has a bigger health pool of 3/5 rather than 3/3. Good luck.
- Nathrezim Overseer - Lastly, the Overseer gets a stat boost of 2/3 to 2/4, a small change, but yet another positive for the Demons.
Overall, it looks like most tribes here got a small buff to bring their power up to 🎐the level of the Quilboars, a positive change for the game 🐈and hopefully one that will balance out the meta over the next few weeks.
Darkmoon Faire Prizes Are Back
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Darkmoon Faire Prizes make a returꦬn to Hꦗearthstone Battlegrounds, but things are a bit different this time around. The prizes will appear in one out of every four games, but it's not consistent. You might have several games in a row with prizes, then several without. Plus, if you're in the lower half of the leaderboard you're more likely to see powerful prizes. Really interesting change, that, and one which might highlight Blizzard's attempts to balance out the skill cap and make the game more enjoyable for new players.
A couple of the prizes have been changed as well:
- Might Of Stormwind - Rather than a +1/+1 boost for all your minions, it's now three random minions. Mild nerf to what was a must-pick prize if you had a full board.
- The Good Stuff - This now gives all minions +2 health instead of +1 for the rest of the game.
- Great Deal - Now gives a three gold reduction to tavern tier upgrades rather than two. A small buff to encourage players to pick it up every now and then.
