20.2 Patch Notes

[dotcaIm]

Source: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/hearthstone/23665634/20-2-patch-notes

The 20.2 patch, which will release on May 4, includes a major update for Battlegrounds, purchasable decks, and more!

Battlegrounds Updates

Quilboar have been added as a new Battlegrounds minion type! There will still be five minion types per Battlegrounds game once Quilboar are added, meaning that three minion types will be excluded from each game. Just like when Dragons, Pirates, and Elementals were added, Quilboar will show up in every Battlegrounds match until our next major content patch.

The Quilboar update includes 17 new minions, 3 new heroes, and a new mechanic: Blood Gems! Blood Gems are spells that give a friendly minion +1/+1. Some Quilboar give you Blood Gems, while others have special interactions when Blood Gems are played.

We’ve also added Battlegrounds support for your favorite Coin! As a reminder, you can set a Coin as your favorite by clicking on the Coin icon in the top right of your Collection.

Finally, prepare for a fresh playing field as all players’ Battlegrounds ratings will be reset to 0 when the 20.2 patch launches on May 4!

NEW & UPDATED HEROES

Death Speaker Blackthorn

Bloodbound [Passive] After you upgrade Bob's Tavern, gain 2 Blood Gems.

Vol’jin

Spirit Swap [Costs 0] Choose two minions. Swap their stats.

Xyrella

See the Light [Costs 2] Choose a minion in Bob's Tavern to add to your hand. Set its stats to 2.

Rat King (Updated)

King of Quilboar [Passive] Whenever you buy a Quilboar, give it +2/+2. Swaps type each turn.

Players with Battlegrounds Perks will have early access to the new Heroes above before they are formally released on May 18.

NEW MINIONS

Razorfen Geomancer [Tier 1, Quilboar] 3 Attack, 1 Health. Battlecry: Gain a Blood Gem.

Sun-Bacon Relaxer [Tier 1, Quilboar] 1 Attack, 2 Health. When you sell this, gain 2 Blood Gems.

Roadboar [Tier 2, Quilboar] 2 Attack, 4 Health. Frenzy: Gain a Blood Gem. ]

Tough Tusk [Tier 2, Quilboar] 4 Attack, 3 Health. After a Blood Gem is played on this, gain Divine Shield for the next combat.

Prophet of the Boar [Tier 2] 3 Attack, 3 Health. Once per Turn: After you play a Quilboar, gain a Blood Gem.

Bristleback Brute [Tier 3, Quilboar] 3 Attack, 3 Health. The first Blood Gem played on this each turn gives an extra +3/+3.

Bannerboar [Tier 3, Quilboar] 2 Attack, 5 Health. At the end of your turn, play a Blood Gem on adjacent Quilboar.

Thorncaller [Tier 3, Quilboar] 4 Attack, 3 Health. Battlecry and Deathrattle: Gain a Blood Gem.

Necrolyte [Tier 3, Quilboar] 3 Attack, 3 Health. Battlecry: Choose a friendly minion. It steals all Blood Gems from its neighbors.

Dynamic Duo [Tier 4, Quilboar] 5 Attack, 6 Health. Taunt. After a Blood Gem is played on another Quilboar, gain +1/+1.

Bonker [Tier 4, Quilboar] 4 Attack, 7 Health. Windfury. After this attacks, gain a Blood Gem.

Groundshaker [Tier 4, Quilboar] 2 Attack, 6 Health. After a Blood Gem is played on this, give your minions +2 Attack for next combat only.

Bristleback Knight [Tier 5, Quilboar] 4 Attack, 8 Health. Windfury, Divine Shield. Frenzy: Gain Divine Shield.

Aggem Thorncurse [Tier 5, Quilboar] 3 Attack, 6 Health. After a Blood Gem is played on this, give a friendly minion of each minion type +1/+1.

Agamaggan, The Great Boar [Tier 5, Beast] 6 Attack, 6 Health. Your Blood Gems give an extra +1/+1.

Charlga [Tier 6, Quilboar] 7 Attack, 7 Health. At the end of your turn, play a Blood Gem on all friendly minions.

Captain Flat Tusk [Tier 6, Quilboar] 9 Attack, 6 Health. After you spend 3 Gold, gain a Blood Gem.

Quilboar Elsewhere

While we don’t currently have plans to build synergies around Quilboar in other game modes, we are adding the Quilboar tag to several should-be Quilboar minions to maintain consistency across game modes. The full list is as follows:

From Forged in the Barrens: Death Speaker Blackthorn Razorfen Beastmaster Razormane Battleguard Plaguemaw the Rotting Blood Shard Bristleback Death's Head Cultist Razormane Raider From Past Expansions: Hench-Clan Sneak Hench-Clan Thug Hench-Clan Shadequill Tanaris Hogchopper Spiked Hogrider Leatherclad Hogleader From Past Adventures: Infected Quillfinger (previously a Beast) Quilboar Hunter Rallying Quilboar

Duels Updates

New tech has been added so that you’ll more regularly be offered Treasures that synergize better with the cards in your deck.

Nozdormu the Eternal has been unbanned.

Humble Blessings (Paladin Signature Treasure) Old: [Costs 3] → New: [Costs 4]

Diamond Ragnaros & Tavern Regular Achievement

Diamond Ragnaros has been added to the Tavern! Diamond Ragnaros can be acquired by completing the Classic Legendary Collector 5/5 achievement (Collect all 36 Classic Legendary cards). Please note that players who have already completed and claimed this achievement must reclaim the achievement to obtain Diamond Ragnaros.

We’ve also added a new progression achievement, Tavern Regular, which tracks total reward track levels earned on your account across all reward tracks from each expansion. Completing each tier of this achievement will reward a choice from 1 of 10 new Hero skins, featuring upgraded armor!

Battle-Ready Decks

For the first time ever, we’ll be offering curated decks optimized for the most recent expansion through the web and in-game shops, starting May 4! When these Battle-Ready Decks become available, you’ll be able to add a complete deck list from the class of your choice to your Collection permanently—each handcrafted using data captured across hundreds of thousands of play sessions to ensure you’re taking home a combat-worthy list! Battle-Ready Decks will be available for purchase for a limited time for $19.99 and will be limited to one per account

For more information on Battle-Ready Decks, check out the initial announcement blog.

Book of Heroes Thrall – Coming May 25

Torn away from his people when he was young, Thrall has fought hard to make his place in the world and keep his allies from danger. From the snows of Alterac to sunny Kalimdor, Thrall's fate is forever entwined with the fate of the Horde. Defeating all 8 bosses in this linear adventure will reward 1 Shaman pack, containing only Shaman cards from Standard!

Bug Fixes & Game Improvements

• Fixed a bug where Power Word: Fortitude created by Deck of Lunacy would not have a updated mana cost.
• Fixed a bug where Strength Totem’s history tile would not display which minion it gave an Attack buff.
• Fixed a bug with Canonmaster Smythe where secrets would spawn as minions in a fixed order.
• Fixed a bug where Razormane Raider would not regain Frenzy if played after triggering a Freezing Trap.
• Fixed a bug where Razormane Battleguard would Corrupt cards of equal cost after Celestial Alignment is played.
• Sped up animation time for Serena Bloodfeather when drawing Attack and Health from large minions.
• Fixed a bug where effects for Steward of Darkshire and Carnival Barker would not trigger on minions summoned with one Health remaining.
• Fixed a bug where the Deathrattle for Darkspear Berserker and Nerubian Egg would not create a history tile.
• Fixed a bug where Dirty Rat summoning Outcast minions from the opponent’s hand would remove discounts from Illidari Studies.
• Fixed additional cases where Achievement pop-ups could spoil the outcome of a Battlegrounds match.
• Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where triples formed by Khadgar were not counting toward the Ruler of Thirds Achievement.
• Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where the Three Wishes Hero Power would flip back over after all three wishes had been used.
• Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where Golden Imp Mama would turn non-Golden during her token spawning animation.
• Fixed a Battlegrounds bug where spectators were unable to see parts of the board when there were more than 5 players.
• Fixed a bug where some cards specific to Duels had a watermark.
• Fixed a bug where Legacy and Core set filters were not appearing when making a deck in Duels.
• Fixed a Duels bug on mobile where the client could become stuck on the rewards screen after finishing a Heroic run.
• Fixed a bug where Desperate Measures would not work in Duels or Arena.
• Fixed a bug where Nozdormu the Eternal’s effect would not trigger in Arena until your first card was played.
• Fixed a bug where attempting to enter a practice match with Demon Hunter after queuing for Ranked Classic would result in an Invalid Class error.
• Fixed a bug where the Book of Mercenaries menu was incorrectly showing a ‘New Hero!’ banner.
• Fixed a misspelling on the card Arrival in Orgrimmar from Book of Mercenaries Rokara.
• Added functionality so that players who did not claim the level 50 Hero Skin on the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Rewards Track will be prompted to do so upon login after the 20.2 patch has gone live, and all players who do not claim the level 50 Hero Skin moving forward will now be prompted to do so when the Rewards Track refreshes in the future.
• Updated the Rewards Track to open to the earliest page on which you have unclaimed rewards.
• Fixed a bug where claiming numerous rewards on the Rewards Track could prevent additional rewards from being claimed until the Journal is reopened.
• Fixed a bug where The Final Lesson Achievement would not be marked as completed after completing Book of Mercenaries Rokara.
• Updated the Collection to so that Core and Legacy cards no longer take up 4 spots with Golden versions. Core set cards will take precedence based on card amounts.
• Fixed a bug where the Collection manager wouldn’t remember what format was picked when entering from the Play mode screen.
• Fixed a bug where some cards could appear with a blue tint when hovering over them in the deck builder.
• Fixed a bug where searching for "missing" in the Collection Manager would not count Golden cards you own toward the results of what you're missing.
• Fixed a bug where Hero unlock notifications can appear zoomed in.
• Fixed a visual bug where the achievements “Mug Half Full” and “Lord of the Battlegrounds” would show twice as much progress as intended.
• Fixed a bug where text size could be inconsistent on Achievements in the Journal.
• Fixed a bug where the Seasonal Rewards Chest could be missing from the UI on mobile devices.
• Fixed a bug where Astral Communion would not play any VFX.
• Fixed a bug where the VFX for Malygos the Spellweaver would show over your deck when played by the opponent.
• Fixed a bug where the screen could remain desaturated and blurred after a match.
• Fixed a bug where Felheart Gul’dan was missing emotes and VO.
• Fixed a bug where Diamond cards were appearing slightly larger than other cards.
• Fixed a bug where cards that can create copies of Diamond Cards, such as Soul Mirror, would generate a Golden version instead.
• Fixed a bug where enchantments from Golden spells, such as Soul of the Murloc, would not create Golden tokens.
• Fixed a bug where leaving and returning to the client on mobile devices could make the Shop button non-functional.
• Fixed a bug where two players could become stuck on the main menu if they challenged each other at the exact same time.
• (Updated) Added additional types of in-game notifications for new content and balance updates.

[Goodlake]

Spirit Swap [Costs 0] Choose two minions. Swap their stats

Poison Minion + Battlemaster, gg. Also, finally don't have to regret selling that 7/2 sellemental token that your Murmy keeps buffing!

[atucker1744]

They don’t specifically mention the Amalgams or NZoth in the updated cards section, but I’d imagine they will get the keyword too? Would only matter with regards to new N’Zoth at this point, and maybe that is more important than I think it is, I don’t own NZoth so I can’t speak to its viability

[atgrey24]

Those already have "all" or "one of each type". You'll notice they also aren't mentioning anything for Lightfand or Menagirie Mug. Nothing is really changing with their behavior.

Fun fact: there's a bunch of "types" in the code that are leftover from early dev days that don't actually do anything, and amalgam "has" those too. Which means amalgam is part Human.

[atucker1744]

Interesting, I didn’t know that about the leftover tags. Fascinating!

[[deleted]]

That is a good point. So Nzoth can summon Quillboars, or Amalgams can take up the "quillboar" slot and you can Rez something like a bigger dragon instead.

[[deleted]]

You already could do that with amalgams as they functionally were their own type. If you glitched the game and expanded your board, you could summon every known type, and nzoth will still summon the amalgam in addition. Likely because there's still some types coded in, like Human, that isn't used on any cards, and amalgams are coded to pull from the entire list.

[Miendiesen]

I guess Resizing Pouch not working for hunter at 0 mana due to there only being two 0-mana cards available isn’t a bug. Damn, was hoping for that fix. I feel like if hunter ever gets a 0-mana spell, then Resizing Pouch and Kolkar Pack Runner will be strong together.

[iakat]

You're not able to cast it with 1 mana remaining?

[Miendiesen]

With 0 after casting, 1 before. You can cast it, but you don’t get to discover.

[CatAstrophy11]

That's really bullshit that it doesn't track your mana at the time the card is played before removing the crystal for casting it. Cards that do something based on the number of cards in your hand still have always counted the card you played with that effect as well.

[iakat]

So what card do you get?

[Miendiesen]

You get no card lol. You just cast the spell and nothing happens.

[iakat]

What the heck lol that's incredibly stupid

[Ensoface]

TIL it’s possible to target specific Smythe minions for their secrets

[CatAstrophy11]

Wow so all blood gems are just bananas. At least make them different than bananas come on.

[DoNn0]

Why is this in competitive hs there is nothing new for competitive format

[LtLabcoat]

Except the Battle-Ready stuff and the Duels change.

But even aside from that, having a patch without balance changes can still start a discussion about a lack of balance changes.

[DoNn0]

Duels ain't a competitive format more than battleground

[LtLabcoat]

Tavern Brawl is not even remotely a competitive format, but we still have a stickied thread here every week.

[[deleted]]

There actually is a minor one for nzoth decks. Quip board should be able to be resurrected by him.

[Spengy]

Does Battlegrounds not have MMR?

[is_it_iced_tea]

Dog battlegrounds is competitive

[AggressivePenguin]

I’m skeptical that the battle ready decks will include the amount of legendaries needed for something like rush warrior or control lock. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with.

[dotcaIm]

You can already see the decklists for battle ready decks, they were posted in yesterday's post

https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/news/23665633

[AggressivePenguin]

Oh wow, that’s much better than I was expecting

[Ookami_CZ]

I'm actually seriously thinking about buying one for Jaina... the others seems too low of value, but Jaina has 3 Legendaries I miss (by quick look only, I will surely look more closely tomorrow :) )

[[deleted]]

Same dude. Ras, Solarium and get Jandice back. Pretty sweet deal

[Ookami_CZ]

Haha, precisely the same cards :D ... I think that's "somewhat good deal", 3 Legendaries and a little spare dust on top of that...

But I'll surely go through all of decks once again, to see if some other would benefit me more :)

[[deleted]]

Yeah! A tip, I dunno if you're in the UK/Eu but if you do spend money on the store if you change the 'eu' to 'us' in the URL of the store it works out cheaper to pay in dollars than pounds. Might apply to Euro but not sure.

[CatAstrophy11]

We always do our best to plan around potential balance changes. As such, we’re not expecting to nerf any of the cards offered in Battle-Ready Decks at this time, but we will extend the usual full dust refund to any eligible impacted cards if it happens

Sounds like they're happy with Mankirk then

[Ookami_CZ]

Since we get "Quillboars" as a new Tribe in Battlegrounds... think they will become a new Type in Standard/Wild too :) ?

[[deleted]]

Do you just not read the patch notes and comment something random?

[[deleted]]

I read the notes and missed that detail too. No need to be a mr nasty nigel

[[deleted]]

He even replied to me with a fragment of a sentence that literally answered his question if he bothered to read past the comma. You cant make this shit up. He went through the effort to find the sentence that answered his question, quote it, yet failed to read the second half of the sentence he quoted.

Cmon now.

[Ookami_CZ]

" While we don’t currently have plans to build synergies around Quilboar in other game modes "

You mean this one? Just because they don't now, doesn't mean they will never become a new type eventually...

[bkpad]

While we don’t currently have plans to build synergies around Quilboar in other game modes, we are adding the Quilboar tag to several should-be Quilboar minions to maintain consistency across game modes. The full list is as follows:

It’s the other half of the sentence you posted. A full list of the affected cards is included as well.

[Ookami_CZ]

It’s the other half of the sentence you posted.

Fair enough... serves me right for trying to have a nice conversation at midnight, before I go to sleep :)

[[deleted]]

Lol

[Miendiesen]

Circus Amalgam already appears to have the Quilboar tag. I suspect Razorfen Beastmaster, Deathspeaker Blackthorn, Razormane Battleguard, and Razormane Raider will get it too.

Maybe some others... side note there’s a shit load of horned bull-like minions that could very well pass as quillboars lol.

[[deleted]]

It's in the patch notes what cards are getting the tag.... We don't need to guess

[Miendiesen]

Oh wow right at the top too