We're getting a January Battlegrounds update that brings two Legendary friends to the Hero pool and a couple of new Demon Minions.
- Floating Watcher has been removed from the Battlegrounds Minion pool.
- Two new Demons are being added to the minion pool. Details below.
- Tickatus joins us as a new hero - Passive: Every 4 turns, Discover a Darkmoon Prize.
- Greybough's friendly face is also arriving as a hero - Passive: Give +1/+2 and Taunt to minions you summon during combat.
The update goes live on January 21 alongside the Darkmoon Faire mini set. Here's the full Battlegrounds patch notes.
Quote From Blizzard Tickatus
- Prize Wall [Passive]
- Every 4 turns, Discover a Darkmoon Prize.
Greybough
- Sprout It Out! [Passive]
- Give +1/+2 and Taunt to minions you summon during combat.
Soul Devourer
- [Tier 3, Demon] 3 Attack, 3 Health
- Battlecry: Choose a friendly Demon. Remove it to gain its stats and 3 Gold.
Ring Matron
- [Tier 4, Demon] 6 Attack, 4 Health
- Taunt. Deathrattle: Summon two 3/2 Imps.
Bug Fixes & Game Improvements
- Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where Argent Braggart would not retain stat buffs when tripled.
Comments
I don't understand why they are removing Floating Watcher. The card enables a bigger pay off for the whole self-damaging thing with Wrath Weaver. It's also the tribe's second biggest scaling card. Demons are a lot weaker now and Wrath Weaver also became worse. Soul Devourer is interesting but it requires a demon with a decent size in order to become relevant. I guess it refunds the gold which makes it technically free...? So, it's like a free +3/+3? It sounds incredibly underwhelming. And Ring Matron is just a Savannah Highmane for demons. These changes look like nerfs to a tribe that doesn't warrant any right now.
Idk if that's good or not but seems to be a buff for demons, since now there's no point for not picking Mal'Ganis (since with the current situation if you want to buff Floating Watcher you have to go near 1 health can afford only) plus Ring Matron is a buff for Bigfernal wich lastly I scaled more than the watcher. Another strat that I can see is big demons with Mal'Ganis, Bigfernal, Wrath Weaver, Soul Juggler, and a demon spawner which we now have another solid option that doesn't have taunt, so to have both big demons and juggles which I always found nice.
- Edit: various format fails.
I have to disagree. I get the appeal of Floating Watcher, but Bengalaas is right. It was broken on tier 3, but it's very underwhelming on tier 4. That's because there are really only two situations where you're happy to see a floating watcher:
1. You're playing Wrath Weaver demons and you still have enough health left to scale them.
2. You're playing Lich Baz'hial (which isn't exactly the most popular hero) and you have enough health left to get a decent amount of buffs on the Floating Watcher.
Those are two very fringe situations since you often don't have that much health left by the time you find a Floating Watcher to scale it enough. Then there's also the thing that FrostyFeet pointed out, which is that a Wrathweaver build generally wants to include Mal'Ganis as soon as possible to continue to scale the wrathweaver, which completely goes against what Floating Watcher asks you to do.
I think Ring Matron is a much better card to have in the game instead. It's so much more useful than floating watcher in most situations. It's still a good card if you're playing a wrathweaver build, it synergizes very well with Bigfernal which is often already a better option to scale in a demon build than floating watcher, it synergizes much better with Soul Juggler, it makes tripling into a tier 4 discover more relevant because it is much better than floating watcher (or other more synergy driven tier 4 cards) for non-demon builds, and it even fits into taunt focused builds (which need all the help they can get right now).
Why not have both? More options means more flexibility. And as i said in my other comment, tokens are absolutely horrible against many builds nowadays. Pirates in particular are going to destroy you by just farming the tokens for stat gains mid combat. Floating Watcher is anti-synergistic with Mal'Ganis but it still benefits from the other usual demon buffs after that point. The faster early scaling of the card also allows you to stabilize a little bit more easily in the mid game. Yes, Floating Watcher is a bad discover if you are not playing demons with Wrath Weaver which makes it very limited but removing it will only make demons a lot weaker instead of helping the tribe. And taunt builds are still hopeless regardless of the addition of this one extra taunt to the game (and it's not really a good taunt if its health is lower than its attack). I don't know. I think they should have kept it in the pool for now.
I know you are hinting at a 3-4-5 big demons comp, I had those and was really good. However, it's also true that now I'm seeing much more scam builds like last turn you can easily add 2 poison minion and if the turn is right even with divine shield.
Floating Watcher was removed because as a 4* it was irrelevant while as a 3* it was broken. Therefore there is no space for it.
Ring Matron combos with Bigfernal which is the direction they are pushing Demons to.
Based on Soul Devourer's text, it should work with Brann and get double the stats of the consumed minion, which can lead to some obscene sized demons. Also, in the midgame it is essentially a 1 gold +3/+3, although you are losing any abilities.
I have seen people playing Floating Watcher and having success with the card several times. It's certainly not great but it is not irrelevant. This token direction isn't good, in my opinion. Tokens in general have become pretty bad due to power creep. Token strategies can't hope to compete with elementals, dragons and murlocs. Pirates and the Goldrinn beast build just eat them for breakfast. Mechs can only use tokens for refreshing Deflect-o-Bot because Junkbot is... junk. And Soul Juggler is strong early on but falls off a cliff really fast and can barely tickle the enemy board in the late game. With Floating Watcher and Bigfernal together, demons had at least more chances at gaining enough stats to compete with other late game builds. Soul Devourer might work with double battlecry but i simply dislike the fact that they keep adding cards that only work when abused with Brann.
Maybe I'm just playing Demons wrong (my track record would suggest that I very well might) but you usually want Mal'Ganis there, right? The moment you get one, Floating Watcher stops scaling. I'm hoping that Soul Devourer will become more useful in those situations, although it lacks the early scaling that Floating Watcher has.
Soul Devourer with Brann is probably going to be the most stats we've seen on battleground, just imagine it triple.
I want to know who the hell was tripling Argent Braggart and can I see the youtube clip
Not removing Kadgar... :(
Greybough could be very interesting with reborn and token stuff. Looking forward to trying him.
When are the Darkmoon Prizes going away? Next expansion? So will Tickatus have double the Prizes for the duration? That would actually be pretty strong.
Greybough tho, I don't see a direction you want to take with him. He will carry you through early with ease, but then? I guess if you get a head-start, you can go into any composition.
I guess the prizes will be going away when Tickatus comes, because it would be awkward to have to choose twice.
Greybough looks like he would be great with Mama Bear Beasts, as all tokens from one deathrattle die before the next deathrattle triggers.
It should also work with Baron or Khadgar and random Deathrattles scam comp for the same reason. He might even be able to make Junkbot a real card again!
In the early games of battleground, junkbot was always my build, also would be great if the mama bear + greybough work
It would still work, if it was Tier 4 probably.