Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 14: Dark Gifts of Dalaran adds Dark Gifts and refreshes the meta with new heroes, minions, and experimental mechanics. Find out how the newest season is making decisions more dynamic.
Dark Gifts of Dalaran Adds More Decisions
Battlegrounds Season 14 Preview
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 14 started on August 4, bringing along a new gameplay mechanic called Dark Gifts and two new heroes, while also refreshing the minion and Trinket pools. According to a blog post from Blizzard, as part of Patch 36.2, "Dark Gifts of Dalaran" also introduces the Activate keyword and tribe mechanics for Pirates and Beasts.
Trinkets, the gameplay system featured in the previous season, remain available alongside Dark Gifts. Blizzard also expanded the pool with 23 new Lesser Trinkets and 24 new Greater Trinkets.
The launch signals the end of Battlegrounds Season 13 and the requisite resetting of all Battlegrounds player ratings. Anomalies from the previous season were also removed, and Blizzard has not yet confirmed whether the lobby-wide modifiers will make another midseason return.
Additionally, players who weren’t able to claim leftover rewards from the Season 13 Rewards Track will have them automatically added to their account. Blizzard has already showcased the Reward Track for the upcoming season, featuring new cosmetics for Battlegrounds heroes Off Duty Maiev Legendary Hero Skin, Vanessa VanCleef Epic Bartender, Inspector Holmes Legendary Hero Skin, and more.
Dark Gifts Let Players Create Their Own Timings
Dark Gift first made its debut in Hearthstone’s Into the Emerald Dream expansion—which later became temporarily available during the Cataclysm update— and granted unique buffs to certain minions chosen from Discover effects. Battlegrounds borrows the idea and elevates its effects in two main ways.
First, players have control over when they can trigger the effect. Starting from turn three, players can spend three Gold and Discover a minion with a Dark Gift. Players can use the button once per turn, up to three times per game.
Second, Battlegrounds quadruples the number of Dark Gift buffs from 10 to 43. Additionally, the minions and gifts improve each turn, letting players decide if they want an early game power spike or attempt a late-game finish.
The per-turn improvement has been confirmed to progress by half a tier every turn; that is to say that every other turn, the available minions will be of a tier higher than the previous, to a maximum of Tier 6. Every turn between will have a mix of the previous lower tier and the upcoming higher tier, and so forth.
For example, using Dark Gift as soon as it's available could net a minion with a simple effect, such as triggering their Deathrattles at the start of combat or buffing them with Divine Shield and Windfury. In comparison, waiting until turn seven can triple their stats or grant them Venomous. At turn twelve onward, using Dark Gift could grant a minion with Invulnerability, granting them immunity while attacking.
In a developer insight posted in the Blizzard forums on July 20, the Battlegrounds team said Dark Gifts were designed to "just work" and consistently provide players with interesting choices, specifically citing their experience with Trinkets as a foundation. This means that behind the scenes, Blizzard limits which minions and Gifts can be paired, preventing incompatible combinations and offering choices more relevant to the player’s warband, like giving minions that match the most common type.
New Heroes Build Around Dark Gifts
Season 14 adds two new heroes that revolve around the Dark Gift mechanic. Nightmare Lord Xavius uses Feel Devastation to Discover a minion with a Dark Gift, adding pressure every four turns through repeated enhanced recruits.
Conversely, Tras’tath, Soul Parasite, threatens to end the game past the halfway point with a more strategic approach. At the start of the game, Void Power lets the player choose a Tier 5 minion with a Dark Gift in advance, but this unit unlocks on Turn seven.
Refreshing the Meta
The Dark Gifts of Dalaran Battlegrounds update will reset the meta by removing 96 minions from the Tavern, while adding in 62 new minions and 31 returning cards. Some of these familiar cards are Warpwing, Utility Drone, and Motley Phalanx. However, many of these cards were changed or readjusted for their comeback.
Among the newcomers is Air Baller, an elemental that permanently improves future Baller after it is sold while also giving other minions a stat boost. Devilish Distractor can also give minions in the Tavern a stat boost after players cast a spell on the unit.
Pirates and Beasts Gain New Synergies
Pirates and Beasts received two of the most distinctive synergies. For Pirates, these cards can now uncover Lockboxes containing Golden Minions. On its own, Lockboxes open in five turns, but certain pirates like Bilgewater Breakout and Locked-up Mutineer have abilities that can break it earlier.
Beasts gain new synergies that also break the established rules of Battlegrounds, allowing them to attack during the Recruit Phase. Beasts like Lurking Lionfish and Snarky Shark can attack a minion called Fishbait, triggering its Deathrattle to gain extra stats. Additionally, Blizzard updated the Venomous keyword so its effect wouldn’t be consumed by the Fishbait interaction during the Recruit Phase.
Activate Keyword Adds Another Action to Recruit Phase
Battlegrounds Season 14 also adds the new Activate keyword, giving certain minions a special ability that can be triggered during the Recruit Phase. While the minion is in the player’s warband, they can invest Gold to manually trigger a certain minion’s effect once per turn.
For instance, the Murloc card Kelp Keeper can trigger a friendly minion’s Battlecry twice with its enhanced version. The Pirate card Private Investigator uses its ability to gain two Gold the next turn, or four Gold for its enhanced version. Demon card Soulkeeping Jailer uses two Gold to make all the player’s Demons consume a random minion in the Tavern, gaining their stats.
The Hearthstone Battleground team has placed a stronger emphasis on tempo, timing, and player choice. Dark Gifts require players to decide whether to "grab an early boost or hold out for something a little more tempting", as stated in the announcement post. While Activate adds another use for Gold beyond buying minions, refreshing the Tavern, and upgrading.
This season also introduces experimental mechanics, expanding the meta than the standard minion pool refresh. For one, there’s the novel mechanic of Fishbait that adds another action during Recruit Phase, but the biggest surprise is allowing the previous seasonal mechanic to remain active alongside Dark Gifts, and even adding more options to it.
With more ways to determine when and how player power develops, Battlegrounds Season 14 gives the tools for explosive swings and unconventional combinations, creating more dynamic lobbies.
Source:
Announcing Battlegrounds Season 14: Dark Gifts of Dalaran!
Battlegrounds Developer Insight: Dark Gifts
