With the 16.4 patch on February 26, we're adding Dragons as a new minion type to Battlegrounds! Galakrond and Reno Jackson, who recently spread his scaly wings for the first time as the mighty Renegos in Galakrond's Awakening, will join the five original Dragon Aspects as new Heroes!

18 new minions will be added alongside them, 12 of which will be the new Dragon minion type. All but two of these minions are new to Hearthstone altogether, exclusive to Battlegrounds! You can read more about the Dragons update below.

We're celebrating the first new minion-type in Battlegrounds with Twitch Drops! From February 26 at 11 a.m. PT - February 29 at 5:00 p.m. PT, watch 3 total hours of any Hearthstone stream on Twitch to get 1 Descent of Dragons card pack. Watch for 6 hours (consecutive or non-consecutive) to get another one! Watch time accumulates across the entire Hearthstone category, so long as your Battle.net and Twitch accounts are linked.

Link Your Accounts

Before you can receive awards, you'll need to link your Twitch.tv and Battle.net accounts. Here's how:

• Log in or create an account on Twitch.tv.
• Navigate to the Settings menu by clicking your account name in the top-right corner of the home screen.
• Navigate to the Connections tab of the Settings menu.
• Find the Battle.net section, then follow the instructions after selecting a region and clicking Connect.
• When connecting accounts, be sure that you're currently logged into the Battle.net account on which you'd like to receive your rewards.

The official rules for Twitch Drops can be found here.

That's the Spirit!

More celebrations are in order, as Hearthstone is turning six! To commemorate the occasion, we've planned a limited time anniversary event beginning March 4 that will bring special Tavern Brawls, a new legendary quest line, and a heaping helping of log-in rewards. Log in between March 4 at 10 a.m. PT - March 17 at 10 a.m. PT to receive 2 Rise of Shadows packs, 2 Saviors of Uldum packs, 2 Descent of Dragons packs, and the Year of the Dragon card back!

Mage Pack Bundle

For the first time ever, we’re offering a class-specific pack for a limited time! From February 26 – March 4 you can get 5 Mage Packs containing strictly Mage class cards from all expansions in Standard (The Witchwood, The Boomsday Project, Rastakhan's Rumble, Rise of Shadows, Saviors of Uldum, and Descent of Dragons) for $9.99!

Khadgar Hero Set

Khadgar is back! For a limited time from February 26 – March 4, you can add the Archmage Khadgar to your collection for $9.99, complete with unique entrance and Hero Power animations, voiced emotes, and a thematic card back!

New Battlegrounds Heroes

Galakrond

• Galakrond's Greed [Cost 1]: Replace a minion in Bob's Tavern with a minion from a higher Tavern Tier.

Deathwing

• ALL Will Burn! [Passive]: ALL minions have +3 Attack.

Ysera

• Dream Portal [Cost 1]: Refresh and add a Dragon to Bob's Tavern.

Nozdormu

• Clairvoyance [Passive]: Your first Refresh each turn costs (0).

Malygos

• Arcane Alteration [Cost 0]: Replace a minion with a random one of the same Tavern Tier.

Alexstrasza

• Queen of Dragons [Passive]: After you upgrade Bob's Tavern to Tavern Tier 5, Discover two Dragons.

Reno Jackson

• Gonna Be Rich! [Cost 4]: Make a friendly minion Golden (Once per game).

New Battlegrounds Minions

Battlegrounds Balance Changes

George the Fallen

• Boon of Light Hero Power cost reduced from 4 to 3.

Sneed's Old Shredder

• Moved from Tier 6 to Tier 5.

Mama Bear

• Old: 4/4 Beast, Whenever you summon a Beast, give it +4/+4 - New: 5/5 Beast, Whenever you summon a Beast, give it +5/+5.

Tavern Tier 6

• Starting cost of Tavern Tier 6 has been reduced to 10 Gold (down from 11).

Dev Insight: Tavern Tier 6 has a lot of exciting minions and we'd like players to have more of an opportunity to reach it than they have. We're also trying to make Tavern Tier 6 more interesting by adding some of these powerful new minions.

Removed Heroes

• Professor Putricide

Dev Insight: We'd like to go back to the drawing board with Professor Putricide. We're going to disable him for now to make way for our new Heroes, but you'll likely see him return in the future with some changes.

Removed Minions

• Shielded Minibot
• Annoy-o-Tron
• Mounted Raptor
• Phalanx Commander
• Psych-o-Tron
• Tortollan Shellraiser
• Piloted Sky Golem
• Festeroot Hulk
• Boogeymonster
• Sated Threshadon

Dev Insight: We're removing some minions to help make room for the new minions. We also want to balance out the minion pool a bit. For example, there were way more Mechs in Battlegrounds than any other minion type. We're also removing some of the minions that aren't performing very well and ones that have generally been less exciting to play with.

• Speeding up animations from 0.8s > 0.2s across all game modes for Overkill, Lifesteal, Poisonous, Inspire, and cards that reference "Whenever" and "After" in their text, outside of some special cases.
• "Recruit" will no longer be displayed on the turn timer when a player is about to lose in Battlegrounds.
• Rafaam's Hero Power will no longer trigger a Triple notification before you transition to the combat phase in Battlegrounds.
• Fixed a visual issue in which Golden Primalfin Lookout would sometimes display Golden Murloc cards.
• Fixed an issue where the scoreboard would not sort players correctly on the first turn if they conceded during the mulligan in Battlegrounds.
• Fixed an issue where the scoreboard could appear unsorted when reconnecting to a game in progress in Battlegrounds.

Arena Rotation

Starting March 4, the Arena will include cards from the following sets:

 

• Basic
• Classic
• Goblins vs. Gnomes
• The Witchwood
• Saviors of Uldum
• Descent of Dragons
• Galakrond Awakening

 

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