Hearthstone Battlegrounds - Combat Basics Guide

Hearthstone's Battlegrounds mode is a new take on the hugely popular auto-battler (auto-chess) genre, in which eight players battle each other to defeat all other decks. Let's take a look at its features.

Hero selection

At the beginning of the game, you will have a choice of several heroes. If you've played Hearthstone, then you'll notice that these aren't the usual nine classes, but just a selection of characters that you've seen in Taverns or single-player content.

All heroes are different and have their own skills and mechanics for their use. These features are definitely worth using, they determine the main tactics of the game from the very beginning. The strengths of your hero can significantly strengthen your creatures and make life difficult for the enemy.

opponents

On the left side you will see a line of icons. These are your opponents, and their place on this list depends on how much health they have left. You will notice that one of them will be in a red box - this is your opponent. Note that if this red glow is coming from someone who has already been eliminated, you will be playing against the AI ​​instead. This is because an odd number of players can remain in the game. Your character will be in the blue frame.

Recruitment

This is the first phase at the very beginning of the game. If you look down at the bottom right corner of the screen, you will see your coins. You only have three coins in the first round, but as you progress through the rounds, their number will constantly increase (+1 per round).

Pay attention to the character at the top - this is the bartender Bob, he will offer you to improve the tavern and buy creatures. During the game, he will cheer you up and give you advice.

Tavern levels

The icon on the left increases your tavern level. Upgrading the tavern means that higher level creatures will appear on the board that you can buy. And they will have more stars. These stars translate into damage if those creatures are still on the board at the end of the round (after auto-combat). Upgrading costs coins, the number at the top of the icon will tell you how much.

Update

The icon on the right with a round arrow is the tavern upgrade. This will only cost one coin and will replace all creatures on the board with new ones. Do not press this button if the desired creature is there, but you cannot buy it right now. Use the freeze button.

Freezing

The last snowflake icon is free. Clicking on it will freeze the creatures you see on the board until the next turn. Therefore, if you cannot afford them right now, then you can purchase them at the next stage of recruitment.

Buying Creatures

Each creature, regardless of the level of the tavern, costs you three gold. This applies to those creatures that you can buy from Bob. Just click and drag the selected creature onto your hero to add it to your roster. Once purchased, play a card by dragging it to your side of the board.

selling creatures

To sell creatures back to Bob, drag them to his face. Bob only buys back minions for one gold, so don't make the mistake of selling something for less than it's worth. This will force you to make tough decisions when determining which creatures you want, but be prepared to sell creatures that you thought would define your deck early in the game.

Triple Upgrade

At the recruitment stage, it is important to look for three identical cards. They combine to make one more powerful version of this card. You also receive a bonus prize in the form of a special card. She unearths three creatures from which one can be chosen. This can be very helpful. When you have three identical cards, then you will not have a choice - the merger is automatic.

Placement of Creatures

Even though this is an automatic battle, the order of your creatures can make you win or lose. If you have a creature with a really good deathrattle, such as creatures that buff the rest of your creatures when they die, put this card to the left. She will attack earlier, there is a chance that the creature will die immediately, and this buff will be applied to all your other creatures. If you put such a creature to the right, then the death rattle may work too late and not be useful in combat.

The order will depend on your deck, so there is no clear answer on how best to order your creatures. Pay close attention to the effects of your cards, and where you think they should be placed and in what order. At what stage of combat the creature should die or take damage.

Creature Growth

The buffs that occur during the recruitment phase are permanent. In other words, if you play a card with a warcry, then even if you remove the card from the board, the minions will not lose the buff, it will remain forever. The same applies to stat boost buffs. You can upgrade smaller minions so that when higher level minions come into play, lower level minions are not useless.

The battle

The first thing to realize about the combat phase is that you are not in control of it. Your creatures will fight on their own.

Order of battle

Your creatures and your opponent's creatures will attack each other from left to right, one after the other. Creatures will attack a random target if there is no taunt creature in the way. As soon as all "provocateurs" are destroyed, random attacks will continue.

Buffs during combat

Any effects that are applied during combat are not permanent. If a card has, for example, a deathrattle that gives other creatures +1/+1, then this buff only lasts until the end of that fight's phase - it doesn't carry over to the next.

Victory

Your creatures will constantly attack each other until the creatures of one of the parties disappear completely. If there are no creatures on either side, then there will be a draw and nothing will happen, and you will return to the recruitment stage. If there are creatures left on the board, then the damage will be dealt.

Tavern levels are important because they increase the value of your creatures. If there is one creature on the board, and the tavern is the first level, then it will have one star. This one star means one point of damage that you can deal to the health of the enemy. This applies to all creatures that are present on the board.

In the later stages, your tavern level will be added to the values ​​of the creatures, so this will allow you to deal additional damage. At the beginning, your character will have 40 health (unless you upgrade it with a hero ability). It's not that much, a large group of pumped creatures can easily deal more than 30 damage.