With the newest Hearthstone update this week pushing 3 new and 1 old hero into Battlegrounds, it's time to take a look at their performance!

Thanks to HSReplay who provided some early metrics from the top 20% of players, we can definitely say that things could be better for some of these commanders of the fleet.


Captain Hooktusk - The Best of the Bunch

We first met Captain Hooktusk in Rastakhan's Rumble all the way back at the end of 2018. She returns to Hearthstone post-rotation as a hero in Battlegrounds and she packs a serious punch. In builds where you are buying higher-tier cards to receive their buffs and then get rid of them, Hooktusk gives us another opportunity to seek out treasure once per turn. If it doesn't work out, we can always trash it again.

With this strong hero power, it shouldn't be any surprise that she is considered a Tier 1 hero with an excellent 3.77 average finish - the highest of the bunch. The 62.1% pick rate shows that people have really clued into her excellence.

Captain Hooktusk Card Image Trash for Treasure Card Image


Captain Eudora - Not Perfect But Fun

Buried Treasure is incredibly fun to play with and this is 100% reflected in the 72.3% pick rate when Eudora shows up on your hero choices. For those that aren't aware of how our Captain works, you'll receive a random golden minion from your current Tavern Tier or below when the power activates. This means you can either get some really strong early-game or wait until later on to press your luck.

The unfortunate part here about our Vulpera friend is that you're losing the game on average with a 4.41 average placement.

Captain Eudora Card Image Buried Treasure Card Image


Skycap'n Kragg - Pocket Change

The Grand Tournament introduced us to this Orc Pirate until he was taken away from us in the evil thing Blizzard calls the Standard rotation. Having the ability to skip a Tavern Tier later in the game makes you one mad lad and fortunately, people have caught on. With an abysmal 47.9% pick rate, the worst of all our new Pirate friends, we've got a poor outcome on the field with an average placement of 4.61.

Not everything has to be about success though, the fun aspect of the hero power gives you a good reason to play them and provided that you try to stay away from pirates, which are clearly being hoarded by everyone right now, you should be able to make up for a hero power that provides little usefulness early on by getting your non-Pirate synergies to gold.

Skycap'n Kragg Card Image Piggy Bank Card Image


Poor Patches the Pirate

Our buddy patches came back from the dead with a new hero power but unfortunately, it doesn't look like things are panning out for him with an average placement of only 4.73 - what a loser! The biggest obstacle in the way of Patches being ultra good has to be everyone experimenting with the new Pirates and taking them out of the pool. Given some time, our friend should rise up in the ranks as strategy changes.

Patches the Pirate Card Image Pirate Parrrrty! Card Image


So what's the verdict on our new Pirate friends? They've all got fun aspects to them, some more than others, and you'll really want to experiment with them early on before the new meta is figured out. These statistics are likely to change very quickly as more data becomes available and people are less likely to pick characters that they've already experimented with and haven't had much success. 

Good luck out there and see you in the Battlegrounds!