Hearthstone Introduces New Armor System to Battlegrounds with Patch 21.8

By Jason Nieva @jnievaplayerone Published 11/17/21 EST

Some interesting changes to Battlegrounds. Blizzard

A new patch has been released to Hearthstone which brings a new armor system to Battlegrounds and a new hero. There’s also an update to some heroes and minions in Battlegrounds.

Let’s start with the new hero, Tamsin Roame. Her skill is Fragrant Phylactery (Costs 0) which destroys a player’s lowest health minion at the start of combat and gives that health to all other minions. This new hero arrives on November 30, and players with Battlegrounds Perks get early access to Tamsin.

One of the new things introduced by the patch is the Battlegrounds Armor System. This one awards heroes Armor at the start of each game. The actual Armor that heroes get is random but within a range based on their power levels. That means the strongest heroes get zero armor while weak ones can get as much as 10 armor.

Blizzard revealed they’re going to review the ranges and placements as part of the Battlegrounds balancing moving forward. However, they also want to hear feedback from players who have tried the system.

Card Balance Updates

In addition to the changes and improvements made for Battlegrounds, Patch 21.8 also makes changes to these cards:

Razormane Battleguard
- Old: 2 Attack, 3 Health
- New: 2 Attack, 2 Health
- Dev Comment:
  - Battleguard is being scaled back so that players are allowed a few more answers to it in the early game.
Arcanist Dawngrasp (Mage Questline final reward)
- Old: Battlecry: For the rest of the game, you have Spell Damage +3.
- New: For the rest of the game, you have Spell Damage +2.
- Dev Comment:
  - Lowering its lethality should give an additional room for slower strategies to work.
Garrote
- Old: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 3 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn.
- New: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. Shuffle 2 Bleeds into your deck that deal 2 more when drawn.
- Dev Comment:
  - This change hopes to increase the breakpoint of Spell Damage needed and at the same time make Armor a more effective counter to the strategy.
Renew
- Old: [Costs 2]
- New: [Costs 1]
- Dev Comment:
  - Priest archetypes outside of Shadow have been found to be underperforming relative to the field. This change should give a bit of power back to those strategies.