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Hearthstone update 17.6 patch notes adds Tess Greymane to Battlegrounds

In addition to several balance changes to Standard and Wild, Hearthstone's 17.6 update brings Tess Greymane and a few returning heroes to Battlegrounds.

Ozzie Mejia

July 14, 2020 11:20 AM

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It's an exciting day for Hearthstone now that Blizzard has announced the game's next expansion. Today is also the day that the game receives a major balance patch, bringing some of the main game mode's minions down a few pegs. However, that's not all that today's update brings. There's also a major update to Hearthstone Battlegrounds, adding a handful of new Heroes and new minions.

Tess Greymane is making her Hearthstone Battlegrounds debut and her Hero Power is an interesting one. Were you bested by a roster of powerful minions? Now you can take them... sort of. Tess' Bob's Burgles Hero Power allows her to refresh Bob's Tavern and fill it up entirely with minions used in the last Combat Phase. Tess will be available to anybody with a Tavern Pass starting today, while the rest of the Hearthstone player base gets her starting July 28.

Tess isn't the only Hero joining the battle. King Mukla and Dinotamer Brann both make their return, each sporting all-new Hero Powers. Here are the full details on all three characters being introduced to Battlegrounds:

• Tess Greymane: Bob's Burgles (Refresh Bob’s Tavern with minions from your last opponent’s warband.)
• King Mukla: Bananarama (Get 2 Bananas. At the end of your turn, give everyone else one.)
• Dinotamer Brann: Battle Brand (Refresh Bob’s Tavern with Battlecry minions.)

Two of the existing Heroes in Battlegrounds are also getting adjustments. Aranna Starseeker is getting buffed to always have seven minions in Bob's Tavern after only five refreshes, down from seven refreshes. Meanwhile, Captain Hooktusk is getting a significant nerf, as her Trash for Treasure Hero Power will now give her a random minion of a lower Tavern Tier after removing a friendly minion. This is changed from players being able to Discover a minion of a lower Tavern Tier.

A new minion being added to Battlegrounds, as well. Amalgadon is a new Tier 6 minion with 6/6 stats that is classified as all tribal types. This has a Battlecry where it will Adapt randomly for each different minion type that's on the board. On top of Amalgadon debuting, Blizzard is sending Goldrinn, the Great Wolf from Tier 5 to Tier 6 in an effort to curb the combo build with Monstrous Macaw.

On top of today's Battlegrounds update, Arena will soon rotate to the following sets:

• Scholomance Academy
• Demon Hunter Initiate
• Ashes of Outland
• Galakrond's Awakening
• Descent of Dragons
• Saviors of Uldum
• Rise of Shadows
• Classic
• Basic

Those changes will take effect with the release of Hearthstone's next expansion.

The Battlegrounds changes take effect with today's 17.6 balance patch, along with all of the changes to the various cards in Standard and Wild. Here are the full details on those changes. For the full patch notes, be sure to visit the Hearthstone website. And if you haven't read the news already, brush on today's announcement for the new Scholomance Academy expansion.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?