Hearthstone Battlegrounds revealed at BlizzCon

With BlizzCon 2019 ongoing, Blizzard Entertainment had lots of announcements to share with fans. One of them was the release of Hearthstone Battlegrounds, a new auto-battler expansion to the digital card game.

The new game arrives alongside the Descent of Dragons expansion, which will also add new card decks, a Descent of Dragons Golden Legendary card, and more.

Battlegrounds will be an auto-battler in the same vein as Auto Chess, Dota Underlords, and Teamfight Tactics. Battlegrounds matches will pit eight players against each other as they battle for survival round after round by recruiting units and arranging them on a board.

Heartstone Battlegrounds is a new theme of the classic auto-battler genre

Units, or in this case cards presented as minions, will then automatically battle. Just like with the other games of this type, players recruit minions with gold from a randomized store. They will have various alignments that offer statistical boosts when placed alongside similarly classified units, which increase as more of the same type are placed on the board. 

What’s unique to the Hearthstone version is the leader hero feature. Each player has to pick a leader hero at the beginning of a match, which will impact how their minions play. The board is also not a checkerboard, but will have a single row on each side.

Early access for BlizzCon attendees and virtual ticket owners

Early access to Hearthstone Battlegrounds will be given to BlizzCon attendees, virtual ticket holders, and those that preordered the Descent of Dragons expansion. Hearthstone Battlegrounds will go live for these players November 5.

The open beta is expected to launch on November 12 on PC, iOS, and Android.

The news of Battlegrounds comes weeks after Riot Games announced Legend of Runettera, the developer’s new digital card game that will surely attract some of Hearthstone’s audience.