“Trying to cobble together a warband from the halt and lame minions”
The latest update to HEARTHSTONE BATTLEGROUNDS is dragons all the way down
For some people, going to the theater solo is a deal-breaker because of the worry about being silently judged as a dangerous loner. That doesn’t bother me, but I have started worrying about what the staff at my local bar make of me playing endless Hearthstone Battlegrounds while drinking dark and stormies on a Saturday night. In my defense, my other half is out of town, and the new update to the auto-battlerinspired mode is really good.
In a late February update, Blizzard added 18 new minions, 12 of which were dragons, and seven new heroes. Most of the new minions were designed exclusively for Battlegrounds and enable spicy synergies. Red Whelp deals scaling damage based on the number of friendly dragons, Drakonid Enforcer gains power from divine shields popping, and Hangry Dragon grows whenever you win a round. In the same patch, ten underperforming minions were rotated out to prevent the pool from getting too crowded.
Many things are impressive to me about the success of Battlegrounds, but what surprises me most is
Blizzard’s ability to keep refreshing the mode without sacrificing what made it fun in the first place.
Part of the reason the dev is able to make big changes to Battlegrounds at such a regular clip is because the mode is ostensibly free. Yes, you need to buy a few packs to get access to a third hero choice at the start of each game, but it’s hardly necessary. That means Blizzard can remove a hero without much warning, without worrying about players grizzling about wasting cash on crafting him.
ANGER MANAGEMENT
Another big difference between Battlegrounds and regular
Hearthstone is that I don’t get anywhere near as furious. Even when you take a bad beating in Battlegrounds, you still have some amount of fun trying to cobble together a warband from the halt and lame minions you’ve been offered. In contrast, I often feel like games of Standard can be decided on turn three, and the rest is just bleeding out or coasting to victory.
A colleague on GamesRadar puts it more succinctly, “Battlegrounds is about the excitement of what can go right, whereas Standard is the fear of what could go wrong.” Because finishing anywhere between first and fourth out of the eight players generates positive MMR, competing in Battlegrounds feels less brutal and binary. Saving a bad run by pivoting to Murlocs and scraping fourth is almost as good as coming first.
Where I was wrong about Battlegrounds is I thought that interest would dry up due to lack of depth, but there’s a ton to think about in any match: Timing when to Tavern up, deciding to switch strategies, refining how to exploit the hero powers… there’s real mastery here. Just be aware that if you play drunk you’ll convince yourself that the barman is backing you to win.
MOST OF THE NEW MINIONS WERE DESIGNED EXCLUSIVELY FOR BATTLEGROUNDS