Hearthstone Battlegrounds Mechanics Guide (2025)

After queueing into Hearthstone Battlegrounds, you will be matched with7 other players to play against. The first thing you will need to do is picka Hero to play as. You will be asked to pick 1 of 3 different Heroes, similarto Hearthstone's Arena mode. Each Hero has their own Hero Power that willinfluence your game. There are a total of 24 different Heores available andevery player is offered a choice of 3 different Heroes to pick from, thisresults in all Heroes being available every game.

The only thing that separates each Hero is their Hero Power, which have arange of different effects. Some Heroes will come with Passive Hero Powersthat will influence the game in some way, whereas others come with moretraditional active Hero Powers that can be used once per turn, for acost.

For more information about the available heroes, please refer to our tier list.

Once all players have picked a Hero, you will be sent to the tavern for therecruit phase of the game and the beginning first round.

At the start of the first round, you will be given 3 gold, which functionsexactly the same as Mana in a normal Hearthstone game. Gold can be spenton a variety of actions at the start of the round. Each subsequent round willreplenish your gold and increase your maximum gold by 1, up to a maximum of10. Any unspent gold at the end of a round will lost, so make sure to spend asmuch as possible!

While in the tavern, you will see an assortment of random minions on theopposite side of the board. These minions can be purchased for your ownuse dragging them from the opposite side of the board and dropping them ontoyour Hero's portrait. Doing this will add the minion's card to your hand andcost you 3 gold. Minions purchased will remain in your hand until they areplayed, or upgraded, and will not be removed from your hand at the startof a new round.

For more information about the available minions, please refer to ourMinion tier list. We also have a guide on minions and cards specific toBattlegrounds.

If you are not happy with the minions you can purchase in the tavern,you may wish to to refresh the minions on offer. Refreshing minions willremove any minions that are currently being offered and replacing them withnew ones. If any minions have been purchased, there will also be anotherminion offered in their place.

There is no hard limit as to how many times you can refresh minions in aturn, however, it costs 1 gold to do each time, so think carefully beforedoing so.

At the start of each round, all minions in your tavern are refreshed bydefault. However, you may encounter situations where there minions from theprevious round that you wanted to buy, but could not afford. In these situationsyou have the option to freeze the board. Freezing the board will ensure allpurchasable minions will persist between rounds, allowing you to save themfor the following round, however, you will lose out on the potential of beingoffered better minions.

Any minions you have added to your hand can be freely played onto the boardwith no additional cost attached. However, once played, they cannot be returnedto your hand.

Minions played typically follow Hearthstone's normal rules. For example,Battlecries like Screwjank Clunker can be used to buff friendlyminions, as can Magnetic effects like Replicating Menace. Similarly,cards like Brann Bronzebeard being on the board will enhance Battlecryeffects further.

When minions are played, they cannot be returned to your hand, but theycan be rearranged as you see fit. Rearranging minions can be done by dragginga minion in play around on your board and can be used for various tacticalbenefits like placing a Dire Wolf Alpha next to aRat Pack to gain an additional minion from the Deathrattle effect.

Once you place a minion onto the board there is no way to return it toyour hand, so choose carefully as you may fill up your board and preventa stronger minion from being played. If this happens, you may be forced to sella minion.

Selling minions follows a similar system to purchasing them, to sell aminion similar drag a minion from your board and drop it onto Bob the Bartender'sportrait to sell it. Selling a minion will provide you with 1 gold that canbe spent immediately. All minions will sell for the same cost regardlessof how strong they are, this includes tokens summoned from cards likeAlleycat and Murloc Tidehunter.

An important part of Hearthstone Battlegrounds is buffing your minions.Minions can be buffed in a range of different ways, some of which aretreated differently to traditional Hearthstone games.

Any buffs applied to minions during the Recruit Phase willpermanently buff them. This includes Battlecry effects and buffs fromHero Powers and minions that trigger when a minion is played or summoned.Even if the minions responsible for the buff is sold, all buffs will beretained.

Conversely, any buffs that are applied while minions are fighting arecompletely temporary and will be reverted at the start of each round. Thisincludes Deathrattles and on-death effects like Junkbot andScavenging Hyena.

The last kind of buff comes from aura effects like Dire Wolf Alphaand Siegebreaker. Buffs from these minions are applied during theRecruit Phase of the game. However, as the effects are tied to the minion, thebuffs are removed when the minion dies or is sold.

Each every minion available in Battlegrounds has a specific tier assigned toit, represented by a number of stars in the upper left corner of its card,where a Mana cost would normally be.

When refreshing the minions in your Tavern, only minions up to and includingyour currently current Tavern Tier will appear under normal conditions. Thismeans that in order for higher tier minions to spawn, you will need toupgrade your tavern.

When starting the game, you will initially begin at Tavern Tier 1. In orderto upgrade your tavern you will need to pay a cost in gold in order toupgrade it. Upgrading your tavern can be expensive and very risky as a resultas it will take away from the gold you have to buy minions to improveyour board. However, at the start of each round, the cost of upgrading yourtavern will reduce by 1. This means that the longer you wait to upgradeyour tavern the cheaper, and safer, it will be.

Hearthstone Battlegrounds features a minion upgrade system very similar tothat found in other autobattlers. If you are fortunate enough to possess3 of the same minion, your minion will automatically upgrade and provide arange of benefits.

When purchasing the 3rd copy of a minion, all 3 minions, wherever they are,will combine and return to your hand as a single, golden, minion. By defaultgolden minions will have double the stats and effects of their non-goldencounter parts. For example, a golden Imp Gang Boss would be upgraded to4/8 stats and would summon 2/2 imps each time it is damaged. As a furtherbonus, it will retain all buffs applied to any non-golden minions used tocreate it.

Golden minions are the only upgrade possible for minions and they cannotbe upgraded further, even if you managed to get 3 golden copies of the sameminion.

At the beginning of turns 4, 8, 12, and 16 you will be offered the chance todiscover a spell from a selection of 3. The spells are unique to Battlegroundsand will be added to your hand in the form of a 0-Cost card, that can be playedat a time of your choosing and will not expire at the end of your turn.

Spells are divided into 4 different tiers, and every 4 turns you will beDiscovering spells from one tier higher than the last. Ranging from small buffslike giving your minions +1/+1 in Tier 1 up to effects like being able toimmediately turn a minion, in the Tavern, golden at Tier 4.

For more information about the available spells, please refer to ourSpell tier list.

The range of Hero Powers available in Hearthstone Battleground and isvery broad. However, they can be split into 3 main categories, see ourHero Tier List for more information:

• Passive
• Tavern
• Battle

Passive Hero Powers will usually give you a passive bonus, usually at the startof the game. This can include things like starting with minions or additionalHealth, or providing buffs to minions when you purchase them.

Tavern Hero Powers are active Hero Powers that will cost you gold to use andwill aid you in the tavern phase of the game.This can include buffing your minions, giving you minions at a discount, oreven giving access to higher tier minions.

Battle Hero Powers also cost gold to use and will give you a temporarybonus during your next Battle. Effects include damaging enemy minions invarious ways and giving temporary buffs to your minions. As these Hero Powersdo not provide a lasting effect, it is inadvisable to use them every turn.

During the Recruit Phase of the game, you will be able to see thenext opponent you are due to play against, highlighted as red in theside bar. After the Recruit Phase ends, players will pair off and do battlewith their opponents.

Battles take place following a set of rules, with an added level of arandomness. Player's minion will attack a random enemy minion, attacking fromleft to right and alternating the player who attacks after each attack.Minions will prioritise targets with Taunt first, unless they have an effectthat bypasses it, but targets are otherwise completely random. This process willcontinue until at least one player in the battle has no minions left on theboard.

For more information on the battle itself and how to win, please referto our strategy guide.

Once one player in a Battle has no minions left, the damage calculationtakes place. Damage is calculated by totalling the tier of every minion thatsurvives onto the board and adding it to the tavern tier of the player whowins the battle, dealing the combined total in damage to the enemy. Anynon-purchasable minions that survive are counted as tier 1 and there are nodamage bonuses given to upgraded golden minions.

After damage has been calculated and applied, all surviving players returnto the Recruit Phase with the minions returned to the state they werebefore the Battle Phase.