Battlegrounds Removals/Suggestions/

General Discussion
1

Played a lot of battlegrounds now and want to give some suggestions - reasons:

Remove murloc tribe entirely - The tribe is still broken. Removal of megasaur was a great first step. Made next to no difference. If murlocs are in the pool murlocs finish top 4 with a DS mech or two thrown in. The reason being they are the only tribe with easy and fairly low star cost access to poison. As it has no other use toxfin is usually readily available as well. No I am not including the 6 star beast. Any strategy formed around getting to 6 stars for the one poison beast is crazy.

Add more poison minions - So people, myself include, stop crying over murlocs ruining good builds. Dragons, mech and beasts have poison minions to add to the pool already. No tribe has several. Shouldn’t be too hard to design a poison or two for demon and pirate.

Add Nightmare Amalgam back, add another amalgamation - Simple, diversity. Gives more answers to murloc

Add Elemental Tribe - New tribe equals renewed enjoyment. Gives time to rework murloc tribe. Interested to see how a freeze or elemental stacking would work. Freeze a minion so it cant attack next game or cant be swapped out in tavern. So many options.

Consider undead tribe - Give the scourge some love. More variety, minions such as abomination with big damage all deathrattles etc

Reintroduce Tyrion hero - hero power was for neutral tribe. Removed as at the time HP was op. Dont feel it would be any longer, bring our boy back home.

Increase chance of class drop by hero - if you take the chance to roll with a tribal hero you should be rewarded with increased chance of rolling your tribe, however slight. Ridiculous to play Jaraxxus, Patches, Maleficent or the murloc one and not roll a minion of your tribe for the first 4-5 rolls. Got to 3 stars without rolling a single demon for Jar or Pirate for Patches on multiple occasions.

Nerf Goldgrubber - Zilliax of battlegrounds, can grow to huge stats in virtually any build with enough golds so fits into most builds. 2/2 and then 4/4 is ridiculous. Golden version or not It out grows the 5 star dragon Razorgore.

Drop Maexxa down to 5 star - Beast class has more 6 star minions than any other tribe, potentially double the closest if memory is correct

6 star Murloc - If keeping murloc give them a 6 star. Gives a target other than amalgam.

Allow minion pool view when selecting hero - Quality of life

Veto option for tribe prior to hero selection- Variety, quality of life and also just good business. Customer tells you which tribe they don’t like so you can improve it. If same tribe vetoed constantly then it needs a rework whether that be nerf or buff. Let the gamers decide.

What are peoples thoughts?

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Poison minions trade 1 for 1. They lose to divine shields and deathrattles, on bigger minions which (thankfully) they can no longer get. Also a cleave going 3 for 1. Plus it’s now very slow to give multiple murlocs poison.

Not sure where I stand on poison to be honest. Feels bad when my big minion i’ve worked on dies to a small minion, but yesterday I had an opponent that lived on at 1 hp, then when I faced them 3 turns later they had a golden Brann + Battlemaster and killed me. Just as toxic (ha).

Adding Amalgam back reduces diversity by so much because just like it was back then, you see amalgam, you pick amalgam, so boring an bland having a minion being the right choice every game no matter what you’re playing. Plus I hate the idea of any minion that can get poison plus divine shield. I hate the 6 drop let alone letting it happen earlier.

New (good) stuff is always a plus.

Rigging the class heroes sound like it would be incredibly imbalanced. It is possible to win without the hero powers and I actually don’t mind playing to the unusual outs, so I’m not really for this.

Not sure on Goldgrubber. Since the digs got changed to 5 I haven’t seen it as that big of a problem, but that might be because pirates are weak. So whilst he does get those buffs, you are often having to play cards that it gets no other synergy from. So you need to get luckily and start hitting relevant goldens.

Sure Maexxna to 5 sounds fine.

Whilst you can check it on the hero select and it never gives you an anti-synergy hero, there should be a sentence below the heroes saying what’s in.

I’m happy not waiting on average 6 times longer for a game.

I get that you hate murlocs, they are my least favourite tribe as well, but I don’t get why you think they’re so strong? Since megasaur got removed I’ve very rarely had murlocs be in the top 2. It’s usually something else plus divine shield + poison amalgadons that beat me.

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1- The removal of Megasaur was a big thing. Just one Megasaur and every Murloc had Poison or Divine Shield, or both if with a Brann and lucky. It was a big deal, giant if i may say, cause now there is no divine shield and you need to apply poison manually through Toxfin. Very slow, but rewarding if you play it correctly. So personally speaking never had a problem with Murlocs since the removal of Megasaur, i’m actually glad. I had stopped cause of Murlocs, now i play more gladly.

2- This is one thing i proposed myself at one point. It would be nice to have an alternative option for poison minion to help when the enemy gets a giant build that can’t be beaten. At the moment if it happens or you get Maexxna, or you have to switch rapidly to Murlocs hoping to manage. So yeah, even if Poison is the least favorite thing in the game it would be good to have other possible options for big Battlemasters or any big minion in general.

3- I didn’t like Amalgam, as i don’t like the new Amalgadon. They were so strong, could literally play with anything, can get buffed easily and were in every game. It was a race to get them first and make them as big as possible, nothing healthy in my opinion. Amalgadon at least you get him late and it’s highrolls with the adaptations, but Amalgam at 3 was a big no for me.

4- That too is something discussed. Adding new tribes will always bring new life (sort of) to the gamemode. Elementals and Totems are the two tribes i think that are missing, not sure if Blizzard will add new ones for the purpose of Battlegrounds (or even for Standard, but i doubt). I’m assuming the new tribe will arrive next year, maybe second expansion, just a pure guess. Will gladly accept new things anyway.

5- Again, would be cool, we should hope they think something like that.

6- Not sure what to think. One side of me is like “yes, that would be great!” but the critical side of me says that the hero power specifically aimed at a tribe are already quite powerful. Giving them more chance to get what can get into synergy will make them grow exponentially. Even thou i would like it personally, critically i have to say that it would make them more stronger, making neutral heroes weaker.

7- Goldgrubber is a minion that is strong if you manage to find him early and have goldens. At one point it will be too late and even if you got many golds it grows too slow. Not sure it needs a nerf, but it surely is a card to keep and eye on for the future as it can grow very fast.

8- I could see Maexxa at 5, doesn’t seem overly strong or wrong. After all beast comps rarely care for the poison, they tend to buff big stats and that is how they kill and win.

9- Well, depends on the new choice. The old 6 star Murlocs was horrible and unbalanced, but if they can think of something new i would gladly accept it.

10- Indeed, quality of life for sure

11- I did propose this once, but i resort to that idea only because Murlocs were really terrible and obnoxious, and i didn’t want to remove Megasaur. With the removal of Megasaur and the game getting balanced once more, i don’t feel we need a veto. I did propose it at the time, taking in consideration they would not remove Megasaur, but now i don’t think it’s needed. Would only make longer queues, and when they will add new tribes it might get weird.

Many good ideas indeed, especially when you propose to add new stuff. We always welcome with joy new content. For the balance stuff i’m not an expert, even because i don’t play BG that much anymore, but i think with the Murlocs it’s a strong bias. For the Goldgrubber as i said, not sure myself, but it didn’t give me many problems for now.
Good ideas anyway, glad you shared them!

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agree with all of that , its like i wrote it myself , people who say murlocs are not a problem any more , are in denial , removing the megasaur was a great start , one i thought would fix the issues but the poison is the deal breaker , to the person that said murlocs trade 1 for 1 ? well no they dont always ive seen plenty of murlocs survive a huge hit on a taunt only then to get a free hit on a huge minion, swipes work well against them but only mechs and beasts have access to that attack , ive seen bubbled mechs and dragons beat murlocs with ease but considering how weak dragons are mid game your lucky to be alive at rank 6 trying to find bubble , mechs are in a similar boat , i would like to see toxifin moved to rank 6 with the other poison and replaced with something else maybe a DR of some sort

5

Well yeah if they’re big enough they don’t trade 1 for 1 but that has nothing to do with poison.

6

Sorry to ask but how does it not? Two big minions going at it - without poison it comes down to stats, with poison it is one hit kill. Prime example just finished a game. Came 3rd with decent dragon comp, all buffed two of the 6* dragon, waiting on DS deathrattle. Other two left in top 3 both murlocs. Player 2 = poison on 3 murlocs with a ds/poison amalgam, 2 of 5* deathrattle murloc and one seer. All mid buff nothing above 25/25. I win with only DS dragon and the 4* grow from DS break left on board. Player 3 has Bran, 2 poison murlocs one of which is 5* deathrattle murloc, golden seer, and a buff tide hunter and 2 ds/poison amalgams. Smallest minion is an amalgam at 12/12, two large minions at 62/46 and 32/26. He wins game with both amalgams and bran left on board. They survived as his 2 poison murlocs had big enough hp to tank a hit killing a minion and then attack and kill another. Withouth poision it probably would have ended in a draw.

This brings me back to your original reply Ix, you seem to contradict yourself a couple of times so really not sure on your stance. You start by saying poison on murlocs is not a big deal, trade one for one (which in most cases they dont), can be beaten with DS (true) and cleave kills 3 to 1 ( you must have been very lucky my friend, cleave can kill 3 in 1 but most kills one or two but at worst damages 3 murlocs with +20hp for minimal impact) but you then go on to say you don’t like the poison mechanic and don’t want it shared to other classes to make it more common and balance it out as it can ruin big plays. If it not such a big deal on makes then why would you be concerned about it on other tribes?

Have to disagree on your response to the class hero getting preference as well. As the example I gave and happened last night. While testing I picked Jaraxxus. Levelled and rolled as would expect of a typical game. First woundweaver spotted on 5 gold, first demon spotted on 7 gold. Stopped levlling on 3 stars. Resolved to the loss at this point i put all gold into reroll for next couple of turns. 17 gold spent from that point to see a grand total of 3 demons and 1 more woundweaver. No jugglers in sight.
Where is the point of having tribal heroes if the first time they can use HP is turn 5? What is point of tribal hero if you then are at a disadvantage due to not rolling the tribe? Also had similar but slightly better experience with Patches. Get to 7 gold with no pirates to be found. On 8 gold play a game against dude that has full board of pirates. WTH? Lmao tribal hero for why?

Final paragraph - I don’t hate murlocs. I think it ridiculously unbalanced to have a single class have virtually sole access to a one hit kill ability. Yes I know DS and cleave counters blah blah. Doesn’t help dragons unless they roll lucky into 6*, doesn’t help pirates ever, same goes for demons. That rules out half the playable tribes? Your experience clearly differs from mine, and based on the threads on this forum the majority of people who all agree Murloc is unbalanced. I think murloc is strong because as I have said 8/10 games where murloc tribe is an option 2-3 of the players who finish top 4 have murloc. Consistently. Sometimes I am one of them if that is what the rng gives me. And I then hate myself for having a board of 3-4 poisons with +30hp, a ds/poison amalgam and a 5* deathrattle and baron thrown in there which annihilates decent builds and finally some poor smuck who finishes second who has built up an otherwise unbeatable or amazing comp.

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I don’t think poison is a big deal on murlocs because it’s a slow build to get going, plus you can’t give them divine shield or deathrattles. All the other tribes have other synergies that would make them murlocs+. Sounds to me like you didn’t win that game because of Amalgadon, which is a minion I hate. Remove it and your dragon comp would have beat the murlocs, right?

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Let’s say that they introduce what you say, a higher chance or more chance to find what has the perfect synergy with your hero. You would find very fast and right away cards from or for that tribe, and then you can simply abuse the hero power, something that already happens in late game.
As soon as you have a board full of demons with Jaraxxus, just click the button for +4/+4 ~ +7/+7. If you keep getting pirates with Patches you’ll keep getting free value through hero power, worst when you’ll start getting the one that makes pirates cost less. Millificent keeps finding mechs to magnetize or buff her board. Flurgl would potentially start right away with token Murloc, and manage to cycle through Murlocs with a heavily consistent buffing, making the build faster and ironically making Toxfin more dominant and easy. These are just a few examples i can think of. As soon as you get the board with tribe heroes you just go forward with might, and if you pop off soon you are good to go.
Can’t imagine how it would work with Rat King, considering his hero power is multiple things. How would it work for menagerie? Because if it doesn’t change for them then there are possibilities for them to not find a specific type of minion or keep rolling the same ones. Heroes like Ysera on the other hand become worthless: why have a HP that guarantees a tribe minion if you introduce a more highly chance to get tribe minions anyway?
And neutral hero powers would become more irrelevant: Edwin buffs one minion having to buy stuff, George can put DS but can’t outstat others that keep getting stuff. Lich King, Illidan and other have synergies with Deathrattles, do you make them more frequent for them? As you can see, if you make tribal minions more frequent, tribe heroes will dominate cause they can rush much faster, while others have to still subdue the normal RNG.
And remember that many tribe minions give buffs. With demons you could easily find the taunt imp, then keep finding the +2/+2 demon and there you go, overly stated minions, with the extra of the hero power. Mechs have the +2/+2 buffer that you could more easily encounter, and magnetize to make minions bigger or giving them DS (and DS with big stats is not that different from a Poison minion with DS). Dragons too have the buffer +2/+2 and many synergies between them. Murlocs have literally only buffs, with Coldlight Seer for +2 health, Burgurgle with +2/+2 and so one.
The reason Tyrion was taken out was cause he could buff neutral minions, a very dominant type that many times had even upsides. The 1/1 with DS, even just Selfless Protector, many minions right away that you could buff as early as you liked and snowball out of control with strong effects like DS or DR. Making tribe minions more dominant for tribe heroes would create the same situation, where you buff right away and down you go.

And if i may add, hoping to not be rude, i think the problem is that you rely too much on the HP and tribes. Let me explain: BG is an RNG mode where the strategy is to know what to pick for the moment. Keep rolling for a specific tribe? Not the greatest strategy. Having a HP for a tribe and not buying anything else cause you want to rely on it? You’re dead, for sure. The core of the gamemode is to adapt: i have and seen players that even with tribe heroes go different tribes cause they didn’t find what they needed or cause they found something better and went with it. If i play Jaraxxus and low roll demons, but manage to put together a different still good comp, i don’t have problems going with that one and still win or place well. Besides, you should know that if people start getting minions of your tribe there will be less in the pool, and a good strategy is knowing what people are going for and avoid it, or better, build something that could eventually counter them. And even in late game there had been many times where i changed completely my comp cause it wasn’t working with what the enemy does. Am i good at it? Nope, not that much, even if manage to still place well. But if you see competitive players for BG you can see a board of Dragons and the next round they bought and sold everything and built Murlocs out of the blue to counter a strategy.
My suggestion is to not rely too much on the HP or tribes. If you want to go beast, but everyone is going for that route it’s better to start building a different comp than getting even worst RNG as many will fight for the same minions in the pool. Not rolling right away what you need? Still buy minions to strive and stay alive, act instead of waiting and dying.

And we all agree Amalgadon is not what this game needs xD