Blizzard has just announced new details about their upcoming content patch for Hearthstone, which will bring a slew of changes to the Battlegrounds game mode.
Patch 26.2 for Hearthstone will be coming out on May 9. Alongside changes to most game modes, Season 4 of Battlegrounds will also be tied to this patch. Sadly, if you were a fan of the new buddy system, all of them will be removed from the game. While it seems like a weird decision, most players didn’t enjoy their mechanics. And since fixing each of them would have been a lot of work, they are scrapping them altogether.
Brand new hero
Season 4 will be bringing along a new hero named Rockmaster Voone. This Troll Berserker looking hero likes to keep the rhythm going, which shows in his hero power. You will receive a plain copy of the leftmost card in your hand every third turn. While slow, it’s still a great way to make a golden minion. For decks that rely on particular cards to reach golden status to win, Rockmaster Voone could be a great hero.
Upbeat Minions
Similar to Rockmaster Voone’s hero power, a new minion ability is also coming out. While not a specific faction, these “Upbeat” minions share the same ability. Every few turns their effects will trigger, slowly giving you more and more cards or buffs.
Updated keywords
Season 4 will also be bringing some much-needed tweaks to certain keywords. Most players unanimously hated Poisonous since you could lose a round to a player who simply had poisonous on as many minions as possible. So luckily, poisonous will be completely removed from Bob’s Tavern and replaced with a new ability called Venomous. The main difference is that Venomous will only destroy the first minion it deals damage to in a particular turn.
Windfury will also be modified, particularly the Mega-Windfury ability. Mega-Windfury will be removed entirely from the game. The decision was made on the principle that Windfury was the only keyword to give a minion a double buff when he became golden. While taking out four enemy minions with a single buffed Mega-Windfury minion felt satisfying, you have to admit it was a bit imbalanced.
New minions
A total of 59 minions will be completely removed from the game. To take their place, 58 new minions will be brought into the fray with 3 returning minions as well. Some of the remaining minions will also be receiving some changes. You can check out the full lists for each minion type right here.
These are some really good news for Battlegrounds fans. While the removal of the buddy system seems rather odd, most of the other changes are clearly due to listening to players. Poisonous has been a huge problem for a long time, and it’s good to see Blizzard finally listening to the complaints. Full patch notes will be out on May 8, a day before Patch 26.2 releases. If you need some help with Battlegrounds, check out our Hearthstone Battlegrounds hero tier list.
