Battleground Beta Tips

Multiplayer Discussion
1

1 Pick a good hero. These are my picks according to vids and experience.
Top Hero = The Curator

Tier Godlike = Millhouse, Bartendotron

Tier Excellent = Patchwerk, Mukla, Shudderwock, Yogg (borderline good for yogg for me. I keep getting muddles strategies and suffering. Kinda hard to use)

Tier Good = Lich King, Ragnaros, Toki, The Rat King, Nerfarian (downgrade recently. Great vs mechs useless otherwise), Akazamzarak ( I love this guy late and treat him like almost like an excellent hero just discover iceblock over and over and take second if you start losing.)

Tier Average = Trade Prince Galawix, George, Lord J (another downgrade for lord J, doesnt work higher mmr)

Tier Meh = Queen Wagtoggle, Professor Putricide, Pyramid

Tier Garbage - Giantfin, Baz’hial, Patches

Tier Variable - AF Kay, Dancin D
These heroes have huge variance and/or skill cap. While you can hits the nuts with AF kay you can also get crap and Dancin D you can dominate if you are an APM master and know when to freeze the board and buy and sell but for most of us Dancin D is going to suck. Overall I would say AF Kay is good to excellent and Dancin D is meh for average user.

Edit 11/11 --> Blizzard balanced some heroes.
Infinite Toki = 2 cost power is just like befure but costs 2. Shes good still just not godlike or excellent I think.
Mukla = The bananas are free so this hero is really strong. Get a cave hydra and go nuts. A cave hydra at 20+ attack is a nice addition to a team. It will win you games.

Lord J = hero power now costs 2. No testing needed Lord J is now an excellent hero. Already got first twice with this guy now. +8/+8 over the coarse of game seems decent.

2 Dont ever ever ever ever pick murlocs as a tribe. They suck. You will never live till tier 6 to get gentle mega. And even if you do you might miss on poisonous and divine shields and still facepalm. Beasts have great upside late with mama bear but mechs seems to be more consistent. Demons are good early but they dont have sick synergy late like beasts and mechs do. You have to pray you get the wrath weavers and soul jugglers are you are done. Battlecry and rainbow tribe can work well as well especially if you get brann.
The one bonus to murlocs is they are usually available because everyone is busy not going murlocs and if you can live to get gentles going and get poison and shields on all murlocs it can win games so perhaps the don’t ever pick murlocs is mainly for beginners.

3 Fill your board up then worry about upgrading tiers after the upgrade almost everyone does at turn 2. If you are Patchwerk or Bartendotron or other hero then risking it and focusing on early taverns can get you first.

4 Amalgum is a an all star minion because you can put all buffs on it. Aim for divine shield and taunt from annoy o and poisonous from toxfin. I took 3 second in a row with a semi meh deck because I just got amalgam and made it into a poison fattie. You can also get toxfin from discovery and put it on amalgum from primalfin.

5 Mechs are great at tier 4. You can get many of them at that tier so dont feel forced into going higher early. You can win on mech on tier 4 just fine but eventually you want to hit 5 so you can at least discover some 6s.

6 Any strategy based on khadgar or baron rivendare is difficult to pull off because you need taunts to protect them and space to make them work. If your taunt or taunts die and then khadgar dies then your sunk and take massive damage. This is different for beasts because with beasts you can get many taunts, you just need one rat pack to fill the board, and beasts can win in other ways while with deathrattle deck you almost have to have khadgar or baron live until the end or you may be done for. Lich King is good for this reason for this strategy as tier 6 minion Ghastcoiler is nuts with lich king.
NEW: I have tried this strategy more and more and can say with confidence stay away from it. It doesn’t work. Don’t bother with khadgar or baron riven for builds.

7 Beasts you have to get to tier 6 for momma bear. But hanging out at tavern two for a bit is ok for scavenging hyna and ratpack. Shifter zerus is a good early investment for most builds but esp beasts. You hit mama bear early and its gg for you.
NEW: The nerf to mamma bear dint really change anything. Its still nuts good to get a whole new board of beaters with just this and ratpack.

8 Dont go out of your way for low tier triples over just upgrading and getting better minions.

9 If you get a super high health but low attack minion like annihilation battlemaster put it right so it lives after poisonous minions are dead. Most ppl will put poisonous as their first couple attacks.

10 IF you not sure what you are going then buy alley cat or murloc tidecaller. It fills board and only costs you 1 gold to buy because you sell it back for 2. It should also be your pick on turn 1 most time because you can sell the cat for 1g on the turn you have 5g and buy two guys.

11 Put your taunt minions away from your key minions like mamma bear so they dont get cleave sniped and Put you key minions far to right so they attack last.

12 Put chump low attack low health minions far to left so they attack first and get rid of divine shields. Esp if opponents are mechs.

13 If you freeze board and change mind you can unfreeze it by hitting it again.

14 NEW General Placement Strategies:
A) Early: Highest attack left so stuff dies. If attacks are close put highest attack with lowest health so it attacks before it dies to stuff like soul juggler or kaboom bot.
B) Midgame:
C) Menagarie: You probably have lightfang and brann and useless minions during combat. Space them between your huge guys you have buffed so they don’t get cleaved with taunts on sides so less guys get cleaved.
D) Late: Chump attackers left if possible to kill shields. IF its down to last couple dudes and opponent has many divine shield taunts all bunched up sell one of your units even if huge and buy a cleave swiper.
E) Poisonous: Cleave poison you want first so attacks before it dies. Regular poison with low health put near front. Regular poisonous with high health put late so whatever ends up huge health at end like junkbot or battlemaster you can kill it. Poisonous late put a bit after chump attackers have removed shields.

My tier score is 4800 now. Im not a complete expert. I struggle pulling off the menagerie build. Any more tips from others I add them in at 14+

7 Likes
2

I’ve won plenty with Jaraxxus. He’s nowhere close to “garbage” as you claim.

I’ve won with murlocs plenty. You just need to remember to include Nightmare Amalgams with your murlocs and use plenty of buff cards.

Also you don’t need to wait til Gentle Megasaur for poison for murlocs as there’s also Toxfin.

This is a terrible “tip”. You should never fill your board up with random minions. Always have a strategy going in and work towards that.

And this is why murlocs are viable :slight_smile:

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3

Disagree with 3. Turn 2 is always level up for me. Higher tier is so much better that getting there early is important. The most powerful thing is triple on a good tier and getting 1 above that tier is just ownage. I once got junkbox when most is still at tier 2 because I upgrade to 3 early and just score a good hit.

Also netferian is beyond God tier if curator is there. Only toki can match netferian in power. No one else. You know what is good in BG? Divine shield. You know what’s better? Removing them.

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This game is awesome and learning a new game is the most fun there is. Learning in general is kinda difficult though so here is my tips:

Step 1 : watch tides play for at least 4 hours,preferably much more.
Step 2 : copy what tides is doing.

That is the starting point.

There are some minions he never picks,dont pick those minions yourself. You will learn what works and what does not pretty quickly by simply watching.
The tactical plays are more difficult,to understand those you have to analyze the position.
For example I saw him beat the only other left over player by recruiting an 1/3 taunt and another weak taunt before the final fight,based on the fight before. I don’t think I have seen any other player make tactical plays like that, a 1/3 taunt and another weakling to win against a fully leveled up board. When you study even one of those situations a bit more carefully you will learn so much.
One of the things I saw him do which I did notice is that he rerolls a lot in not only the lategame but also the midgame.
In general he seems to reroll much more then someone like krip. He knows exactly what he wants from the cards and he will reroll till he gets that.
In lategame when he has a good composition he will “buy out” key cards that can hurt him,simply recruiting them and not using them to make the chance lower for other players.
There is many things to this game and you can learn the best by simply starting to watch (and not even think about it). Then after a while you will start to see patterns and then you can start to think why those patterns make sense and slowly you will get to an understanding.
For example:

  • he always levels up at t2 unless he is afk. This is easy to notice and easy to learn from:always level up at t2.
    -he always recruits the murloc that let you discover another murloc (if he has at least 1 murloc on the board that can still be upgraded). Can have 2 reasons:buying the card out or getting the battlecry is actually worth it in almost any situation. this as opposed to krip,who I saw skipping this minion while he had murloc several times).

There is one thing I think that everyone misplays,tides included.
The 2/2 minion that buffs 3 different tribes with +2/+2 at the end of the turn. People keep this guy around for to long even tides imo.
They say:well first turn its a 2/2, 2nd turn its an 8/8 3rd turn its a 14/14.
But this is very wrong,if you sell it after the first turn you wont lose the stats you gained so basicly this minion is an 8/8 every turn and it caps at that.
I think this minion is meant to be used during a round of battlecrys because it is the best un=upgraded card and people have to pick 1 minion after they have used all the battlecrys to fill up the board again. If you can manage to combine 3 of them its great but I don’t think it is worth having 2 separate ones on the board or even keeping around a single one for a long time unless you are far ahead and can afford to be very greedy. But maybe I see this minion wrong.

5

Sorry but he is. Sure you can get top place but so can any hero. This is for the best chance to get first and you have less of a chance with jarraxus. I have never done good with him. The times I did get top 3 I would have done better with another hero. Regis Kilbin did a conglomerate on pros opinions and he just isnt good. 3 is too much. It just doesnt work out. Its a noob trap hero.

By all means if you are a murloc pro go for murlocs. Guess how many games I have seen murlocs win in streams, videos, my own games. 1 win and that guy had gentlemega triple. His murlocs were god mode. But thats the anomoly. More often than naught you get creamed with murlocs.

Sorry If i was unclear but I dont advise just filling with random minions. Of coarse go for synergy but I see alot of players just upgrading when its better to wait and get a full board. That discount each turn is nice too. And yes upgrade on turn 2 is fairly well known to be good. I will fix the tip.

6

Sorry but he isn’t.

We can go back and forth over this but it’s pointless. Just because he doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean he can’t work for anyone else.

Yep, hence why threads like this are pointless.

You may have less chance with Jarraxus. I do not. He’s one of my faves.

I have done good with him.

Given the random nature of the game mode you cannot say that with any certainty.

That’s great for you, but again, your game experience does not equate to anyone else’s.

You can get creamed with mechs and demons too. It all depends on what RNG gives you and what it gives your opponents.

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RegisKillbin went over what the current top ranked Battlegrounds players thought of the individual heroes and calculated a composite ranking based on those:


Overall, Jaraxxus is ranked as the 4th worst, above Pyramad, Giantfin and Professor Putricide and slightly behind Wagtoggle and Patches.

Top 3 are Curator (#3), Millificent (#2) and Infinite Toki (#1)

But he also notes that personal preference and playstyle will skew which heroes are good for you and that all of them can work well.

8

Given the amount of RNG in Battlegrounds I think it’s a bit much to rank any of the heroes as “worst”.

Personally I’m having most success with Lich King, Jaraxxus & Akazamzarak.

That’s the glory of Battlegrounds - everyone’s play experience will be different. Heroes that work for me won’t work for you, etc etc.

9

Even with random elements, it is fair to those that perform the worst on average as the worst. If across thousands of games played, a hero has less than 48% games ending in top 4, it is fair to say they’re below par (or primarily picked by players that are below par).

With a large enough sample size the random fact will even out.

10

Jaraxxus is the shiznit. I’ve won so many games with him and Af Kay. Those are my two favorite heros. Now if you get poor choices for minions then jaraxxus can bomb pretty hard but should still be able to get you a 4th place win lol.

1 Like
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I think OP start with a good personal guide.

Would any others be willing to also input your favorite hero/es*, and what strategy you deploy (picks and tips/tricks) ?

  • no need to do all heroes, just hero/es you like

It should help in my basic guide for the forum.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/players-guide-hearthstone-battlegrounds-work-in-progress/

12

My first win was with jaraxus but jaraxus is bad for a few reasons.

  1. Demon just ain’t as good as mech or beast
  2. His heropower is basically a tier 3 minion which isn’t strong nor weak.
  3. He limit your draft. If you don’t draft demon, you are basically playing with no hero power.
  4. His heropower is expensive to use early yet not good enough late game. A +1/+1 buff is certainly nice but mama bear is giving everyone +5/+5 wolf is giving +4/+4.
13

I just won with him yet again :slight_smile:

If that’s the case, why is it that I defeated 3 strong mech teams in a row to win as Jaraxxus just now?

No, his hero power is +1/+1 to all demons, not 1, so you obviously don’t use it til you have multiple demons that can benefit from it.

Incorrect. There’s more you can draft than just demons to help form a strong team.

Sure, but Mama Bear and Pack Leader have to survive to grant their benefits. And by the time you face off against someone that has Mama Bear, you should have sufficiently buff demons from using your hero power strategically.

14

  1. I have never seen a well drafted beast or mech losing to a top demon before. The power gap is just too big. Name me a demon board that is capable of beating golden wolf with golden naemaxus, amalgam with taunt and poison and divine shield, golden hyena, golden rat, golden scavenging hyena and golden mama bear. Paired with nerfarian hero power. Even if not all is at golden, no demon board stand a chance.

  2. Tier 3 minion - crystal weaver. Its exactly the same except the other give you 1 gold refund when selling.

  3. If you don’t draft demon, yes you can win but it still don’t change the fact you are playing without heropower while everyone else have theirs. It’s inherently at a disadvantage.

  4. There is so many taunt option to keep mama bear alive. Giving adjacent minion taunt is a tier 4 minion, a 2/4 magnetic divine shield taunt magnetic on amalgam etc. Not too hard to protect them.

15

Mama bear is great indeed… But it’s temporary buff. Jaraxus is a permanent buff. The 6/6 rat have a hard time against a wall of 20/20 demon.
Again… That is if you survive to that point and pick the right demon.
My personal favorite formation are 1 hydra, 1 reaper, 2 nightmare and as much possible 5star creature that give +2/+2 to a murloc, beast, mech & demon. A have yet to loose against any thing with that combo.
My last game… Hydra and reaper were cleaving for 30+ damage.

16

So your demon strategy is to win with buffed amalgams, a beast and a mech?

17

If you don’t get that 1 drop that scales when you play Demons, the demon strategy is pretty bad. If you do, I hope you get to T5 and Mal’ganis before you die to buffing your own minions. It seems pretty unreliable.

A Beast and a Murloc (and an Amalgam) are pretty sweet if you’re not going all-in on tribes, since you can bag a lot more buffs that way (and Dragons aren’t in the game yet).

Short answer; Amalgam is really, really good.

18

I think what a lot of you are missing here is that winning consistently is pure RNG but making top 4 consistently can be a guarantee. Jaraxxus is outstanding at pushing you into top 4 slots and then you need to either be very lucky with your tier 1 picks or Amalgams or you need to pivot into something else.

I also don’t quite understand why everyone is preaching to always upgrade on turn 2. Ya I get that a lot of the top guys are doing this but if you can get significant damage done early while banking sellable minions for later you’re greatly increasing your chances at a top 4 finish. Every bit of damage eked out contributes to someone going out before you. After the first 3 turns is when you need to start getting into a build because in 5-7 if you don’t have one you will just get evaporated.

19

So your demon strategy is to win with buffed amalgams, a beast and a mech?

Yeah… obviously… My Demon formation include 0 demon…
I explained why Mama bear was limited as her buff was temporary to the current battle.
I explained why Jaraxus was strong as his buff were permanent to the whole run.
Than I proceeded to explain what was my favorite formation which was neither Mama bear or Jaraxus.

20

Then you obviously haven’t played enough :slight_smile: