Blizzard Releases Their New Auto-Battler Contender
Nov 8, 2019
On November 5, Blizzard released the early access version of their new auto-battler, Hearthstone: Battlegrounds, with full release scheduled for November 12. What this means is that Blizzard has given most Hearthstone Twitch streamers access to Battlegrounds, along with the ability to enable random key drops for their viewers. This marketing campaign has been highly successful, as the number of Hearthstone viewers has increased dramatically since it started a couple of days ago.
In a recent Reddit post, many Hearthstone community members theorized why their was a sudden spike in views, with some suggesting that they were simply bot views hoping for a free drop, while others were suggesting that many of them were likely old-school players who were looking forwards to a brand new mode to explore within the game.
But, regardless of their motivation, their does seem to be a legitimate reason for the hype, as this isn’t just another copy/paste and slightly improved version of Dota 2 Auto-Chess as Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords were. Rather, Blizzard seems to have truly brought a unique interpretation to the genre.
This can be seen in that rather than simply creating a spin-of game using the characters from World of Warcraft for a standalone game, they have actually incorporated the heroes from the World of Warcraft along with existing Hearthstone cards and mechanics in order to develop a faster and more thematic auto-battler experience.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds’ game flow:
Players get to choose a hero with unique powers from a randomized option of between 2 – 4 heroes, depending on whether more heroes have been unlocked. Each hero has a unique ability, with some being passive and others requiring mana cost.
They will then be taken to the Tavern, where Bartender Bob offers the player three random minions to choose from. Each minion costs three mana, regardless of its associated tier level.
As with Hearthstone, players start with mana, although in this case its three mana rather than one. They will then gain one more mana each round for a total of up to ten mana. This mana works like gold in other auto-battlers, as it enables players to either:
Purchase minions (3 mana)
Upgrade the tavern tier for more powerful minions (the first tier upgrade costs 5 mana. At the end of each round, the cost decreases by one mana. Each subsequent tier costs more mana to unlock than the previous tier.
To activate a hero power.
As with Hearthstone, players can only have a maximum of seven minions on their field at a time, with a hand limit of ten cards as well.
Minions can also be sold for one mana, so its wise to sell them after purchasing your first minion once you are at ten mana.
Certain minions offer boosts to certain other tribes or specific cards, with all boosts being permanent, even once a minion is upgraded.
As with regular auto-battlers, minions can be upgraded when you have three of the same minion. It will then merge into a golden minion, with the card returning to you hand. When played, it will retain all boosts to the original minions that it comprises of and will also give the player a free minion from a tier above their current tier level from a choice of three possible options.
Unlike Hearthstone, players can arrange the order of their minions, which means that players can exercise a bit more strategy in their minion placements than is the case with other auto-battlers. However, although their minions will take turns attacking from left to right with each players minions alternating attacks, the minion being attacked will be completely random unless there is only one minion with taunt on the opponent’s board.
As the mana increases, so do the turn lengths, with a maximum of 75 seconds being permitted to decide on minion purchases, sales and field arrangements.
There can only be a maximum of 89 rounds per game, at which point all remaining heroes will explode for a tie.
As Battlegrounds is another mode, rather than a separate game, it is questionable whether it will be awarded its own category the way Teamfight Tactics and Dota Underlords.
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