SirSalty Hearthstone

Battlegrounds Guide
 Introduction
Hello! I’m SirSalty, currently #1 in Europe, and decided to write this detailed guide for Hearthstone
Battlegrounds which I will be constantly updating. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the reddit
thread, or pop by my stream twitch.tv/HS_SirSalty.

Contents
1. Fundamentals and Advanced Interactions
2. Shop Probabilities
3. Hero Tier-lists
4. General Early Game
5. Early Game Positioning
6. Late Game Positioning
7. How to Play Mechs, Beasts, Menagerie and Murlocs (coming soon)
8. How to Pilot Each Hero (coming soon)
9. Links
 Fundamentals
1) Minions attack from left to right. Their targets are random unless there are taunts.
2) Player with more minions attack first. If both players have equal number of minions it is random.
3) Hero damage is calculated by your tavern tier + the sum of the star value of remaining minions.
4) The star level of a golden spell card is determined by your tavern level when you play the golden
minion (not when you play the spell nor create the golden unit).

Advanced Interactions
1) 3 tokens (not the ones from combat, but the battlecry summons) can combine into a golden unit
(keep in mind if you have for example 3 Alley cats, the 3rd token it creates is a 2/2 so won’t
combine. Ie. you need 4 alley cats for 2 goldens).
2) Khadgar stacks (unlike Brann Bronzebeard and Baron Rivendare) so having two will cause 4
summons. If you do summon 4 tokens, 3 will combine before the 4th is summoned (relevant for
board space issues).
3) Even tavern tiers give +1 shop slot. Therefore you have higher odds of finding units at them (see
next slide for details).
 Shop Probabilities
1) Units are in a pool that all players share. Thus depending on what other players have the
probabilities are affected.
2) Selling units immediately return them to the pool. Golden copies still count as 3 copies so selling a
golden unit will return 3 to the pool.
3) In the late game be sure to sell buffs you want to find before you roll to maximise your odds.
4) When a player dies their minions return to the pool (ghost minions don’t count towards the pool).

Unit star level Number of copies Unique cards Pool size

1 18 12 216

2 15 17 255

3 13 16 208

4 11 14 154

5 9 14 126

6 6 8 48
 Shop Probabilities
Source of data:
By @RidiculousHat
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S0zeXPovSentsHeKe23-grWECJDFZwB0WIJfy2a3h58/edit#gid=211768170

Odds of a specific unit per tavern tier

Unit’s star level Tavern tier 1 Tavern tier 2 Tavern tier 3 Tavern tier 4 Tavern tier 5 Tavern tier 6

1 23.07% 14.48% 10.21% 10.37% 9.06% 10.28%

2 12.18% 8.57% 8.71% 7.60% 8.63%

3 7.46% 7.58% 6.61% 7.52%

4 6.45% 5.62% 6.39%

5 4.61% 5.26%

6 3.53%
 Hero Tier-lists
Power level (from left to right)

Note that this is an overall power level

Rating. Depending on if your priority is
getting 1st place or to win will change
things.

For example you should value Nefarian

and George more highly if you want to
go for first place.

This tier-list is slightly more weighted

towards going for top 4’s, but still takes
winning into account.
 General Early Game
Doesn’t account for hero powers

Turn 1 (3 gold): Buy token if offered. Only freeze if there is another token or a triple.
Turn 2 (4 gold): Level up your tavern tier to 2 stars.
Turn 3 (5 gold): I would strongly advise NOT to level up this round. You should sell your token to buy 2
units. If you don’t have a token available then either:
a. Sell your turn 1 minion to buy the best 2 in the shop
b. Spend your 2 extra gold to roll for one great minion
Turn 4 (6 gold): Buy the best 2 units.
Turn 5 (7 gold): Level up your tavern to 3 stars and with you remaining 3 gold buy the best unit. If you
already have 7 units due to lots of tokens then you can roll once and replace a token.

If you ever find any triples don’t be afraid to freeze them for multiple turns! In fact I would recommend
that you keep freezing it and level up your tavern to tier 4 before buying and creating a golden unit. This
will allow you to find strong 5 star units such as lightfang enforcer.
 Early Game Positioning
Early game positioning varies a lot and often it doesn’t matter too much. However below is some
generic advice, but keep in mind it won’t always be helpful.

Factors to consider:
-Vulgar homunculus -Value trades -Dealing max hero damage
-Divine shield taunts -A. F. Kay -High priority targets (eg. murloc warleader)

Priorities:
1) Highest attack minion on the left. This will take care of taunts and has a chance to snipe priority
targets. Just be weary if it has very low health and they have a weak taunt.
2) High health/deathrattle units in the center. This will hopefully make it so they value trade and then
your tokens can clean up or will still be alive on the far left to deal max hero damage.
3) Hover your opponents the first 3 rounds and calculate who has vulgar homunculus.
4) If against A. F. Kay keep in mind that she has access to these units early:
-Cobalt Guardian, Psych-o-tron and Annoy-o-module (put 1/1’s first to break shields)
-Cave Hydra (put taunts on the edges to avoid cleaves)
-Security rover (Put units that trade well with 2/3’s in the centre)
 Late Game Positioning
Factors to consider:
-Taunts -Divine shields -Cleaves (Hydra + Reaper)
-Poisonous -Zapp Slywick -Board space for summons

Example Board:
 Late Game Positioning
Priorities:
1) Cleave on the far left to remove divine shields and so it attacks before being killed. If you have 1
big cleave you can put a small unit to the left to break the divine shield first. Preferably you have 2
cleaves as in the example and can put the smaller cleave unit first to break shields.

2) Have low priority or very high health units in between taunts to play around cleaves.

3) If you have multiple taunts and must position 3 adjacently, put the least valuable taunt in the
centre as it is the most likely to get cleaved.

4) Have a high attack/poisonous minion immediately behind your cleaves. This will destroy their
large taunt without giving it value trades first.

5) Remember not to always position generically. If you know your opponent has no cleaves but lots
of divine shields put all your small units to the far left instead of around your taunts.

6) If you only have one taunt minion and it has divine shield (eg. your big amalgam) give taunt to
another unit without divine shield. The non-divine shield taunt can then take hits from the
opponents small minions to help protect your other taunt’s divine shield.
 Late Game Positioning
Unit specific positioning:
1) Put Annihilan Battlemaster towards the right. The hope is to kill all their poison units before
Battlemaster attacks.

2) Play around cleaves with you Cobalt Guardian. It is important to make sure he doesn’t lose his
divine shield before he attacks (or he regains it if he does). Either have him not next to a taunt, or
position him next to a taunt, but have a Mechano-Egg or weak Replicating Menace minion on the
other side of the taunt so that he immediately regains his shield.

3) If playing beasts put your Hyena to the left of Mama Bear/Pack Leader. This way if your Rat Pack
hits into a weak minion and doesn’t die, Hyena will buy time for Rat to die before Mama Bear hits.

4) If you have Security Rover or Ghastcoiler etc. make sure you put a weaker unit to their left to
make board space.

5) Even if your opponent doesn’t have a Junkbot or Mama Bear, Zapp Slywick can still be great to
put before your big cleaves. This is because Zapp can kill their small units that they position
around their taunts making your cleaves much more effective.
 Thanks For Reading!

There is more coming soon and I will constantly update this guide with the new patches. Follow me on
twitter for notifications with updates: https://twitter.com/Hs_SirSalty

If you enjoyed this guide and want to support me please consider checking out/lurking in my streams:
https://www.twitch.tv/hs_sirsalty

Here is the link to the reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/dy0r6c/1_eu_sirsalty_hearthstone_battlegrounds_guide/

Link to leaderboards: https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/community/leaderboards/?region=EU&leaderboardId=BG

Link to all the cards and heroes: https://playhearthstone.com/en-gb/battlegrounds