Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 2 Brings Great New Changes

There is some amazing news for those who enjoy playing Hearthstone Battlegrounds, as Season 2 is coming on August 30th . This update will be quite big, as it will change not only the gameplay of Hearthstone Battlegrounds but also give you a way to earn some fascinating rewards.

Two new heroes and eleven new minions

Those who have been playing standard Hearthstone since the Murder at Castle Nathria released might already be familiar with Murloc Holmes and Sire Denathrius, but if you are not, you certainly will be now as they are joining the hero roster with the new season.

Sire Denathrius is an Armor Tier 1 hero who has a passive “At the start of the game, choose one of two Quests.” Murloc Holmes has an active ability for 0 gold “Look at 2 minions. Guess which one your next opponent had last combat for a Coin.”. Do not worry if you are unfamiliar with Quests, as we will cover that mechanic in just a bit.

Image Credits | Blizzard

While heroes are quite exciting, you will probably not get the opportunity to play them as often as you will play some new minions. Of course, not all eleven minions are exciting, but Rendle the Mistermind and Tea Master Theotar, who are legendary minions, definitely are.

Rendle has the ability to steal the highest Tier minion from Bob’s Tavern at the end of your turn, and Theotar will give 3 friendly minions +2/+2 after you play a minion with no minion type. Both of these seem quite powerful, especially when their strength is increased in their golden versions.

Of course, there are a bunch of other changes to a couple of heroes and minions, but they are not that interesting to receive a highlight, sorry Patchwerk.

New gameplay mechanic: Quests

Another mechanic that is inspired by standard Hearthstone that is now joining battlegrounds is quests. The way these mechanics work is that once you get to the 4th turn (the one where you have 6 gold), you will be able to choose between three quests. These quests will have some kind of condition that you should fulfill, such as buying 7 minions, adding 15 cards to your hand, playing 6 Battlecry minions, and many other options (of which there are about 13 at the moment).

Once you complete the quest, you will receive some kind of reward which will be different based on the type of quest you have chosen. Here are a few examples of quest rewards:

• Snicker Snacks: At the end of your turn, 2 friendly minions trigger their Battlecries.
• Ritual Dagger: After a friendly Deathrattle minion dies, give it +4/+4 permanently.
• Mirror Shield: After each Refresh, give a minion in Bob’s Tavern +4/+4 and Divine Shield.

For the full list, you should check out the official post. To see which ones are better than others, make sure to watch the best Hearthstone players in action while they are streaming.

New Battlegrounds Track

You might be familiar with the Rewards Track that lets you progress through the levels in order to unlock portraits, gold, and standard cards, but the Battlegrounds Track will now have its own progression that will give rewards specific to each season. While this might not impact your experience in betting on Hearthstone, if you are playing the game, you should certainly look forward to it.

Like the Reward Track, the Battlegrounds Track will have both a free and a premium version, where you can earn all kinds of goodies. The cost of the Battlegrounds Season Pass will be equivalent to what Battlegrounds Perks cost in the past, and speaking of Battlegrounds Perks, that will all be available to all players for free(except the additional hero choices).

Image Credits | Blizzard

In order to progress through the Battlegrounds Track, you will have to gather Battlegrounds XP by playing Battlegrounds and completing Battlegrounds Missions that you will get three of every week (you will be able to reroll one of these missions once per day).

Regarding the actual rewards that the track offers, you can expect pretty much similar things that the current Rewards Track is giving. Free rewards include things like emotes, hero skins, and strikes. They are given out every few levels, so you will have some levels that reward you with nothing if you are using the free Battle Track.

With a premium Season Pass, you will get two hero slots (like with the Battlegrounds Perks right now), and you will get even more emotes, hero skins, and strikes on pretty much every level of the pass. There seem to be only 40 levels of the Battleground Pass at the moment, for which you will need 2000 XP in total (the three weekly missions will give you 60 XP each, and it is unknown how much you will get for winning a game of Battlegrounds).

Last but not least, Runestones

The last news we got in store might not be that exciting, as no one is a fan when an in-game currency is announced, and that is exactly what Runestones are. This currency will be replacing real money purchases for pretty much any product in the Hearthstone store.

Not the best addition to the game, but considering all the other amazing things that this Battlegrounds update received. We all knew there was bound to be a stinker somewhere in this update.