Today in a hotfix patch, Hearthstone solved one of the most toxic strategies in Battlegrounds, Sudderwock. The hero will no longer be offered in lobbies with beasts present. Furthermore, the patch promises to fix the annoying Leeroy bug. Why was Shudderwock such a toxic Hearthstone Battlegrounds hero, and what were the implications of the Leeroy bug in this article.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Shudderwock Hero
Shudderwock’s Hero Power – Hearthstone Battlegrounds
Hearthstone removes Shudderwock from beats Battlegrounds lobbies
Hearthstone Battlegrounds pros and streamers will no longer have Shudderwock nightmares. After the Hearthstone hotfix patch rolled today, Shudderwock will only be available in non-beasts Battlegrounds lobbies. Why was Shudderwock so toxic with beasts?
The problem resided in the ability of Shudderwock to summon multiple tokens from Alleycat. Banking multiple triples in the early-mid game this way. Hearthstone Battlegrounds pros choose Shudderwock in beasts lobbies, stay at Tavern 1 buying and playing Alleycats and other “economy Battlecries” as Deck Swabbies or Shell Collectors.
Then they would power-level to Tavern 5. There, play their Shudderlings that repeated the previous Battlecries, summoning several Tabbycats, making discovering three or for Tavern 6 minions. This would happen pretty early in the game, and once done, the rest of the lobby was doomed.
A problem with a long history
A similar problem happened some time ago in Battlegrounds with Brann-Kadghar interactions that allowed the same strategy. Since triples happened during summoning stage, the extra board space allowed exploiting token generator units. Devs changed the interaction for triples to occur after summoning happened and solved the issue.
While Hearthstone devs have mentioned that this toxic strategy was only executed in high-MMR Battlegrounds lobbies and didn’t affect the majority of players, they were still concerned about its impact. During Battlegrounds Buddies meta, the Hearthstone team saw that the Shudderwock was too weak in lower-MMR lobbies and too powerful in High-MMR lobbies.
“Most players’ strategy with this hero is to buy lots of Battlecry minions and then use their hero power as late as possible to copy a bunch of Battlecry effects. However, top players use a different strategy. They mostly buy Battlecry minions that summon other minions, then they repeat those effects with the hero power for triple rewards. That strategy is harder to execute, but more powerful.”
John McIntyre, Hearthstone Battlegrounds Lead Designer about Shudderwock
Now, with Buddies out of the picture, the Hearthstone team decided to exclude Shudderwock from beasts Battlegrounds lobbies to prevent this. Pro-players now celebrate!
Leeroy bug fixed
In the same Hearthstone Battlegrounds hotfix, a well-known bug was fixed too. Leeroy, the Reckless is a Tavern 5 Battlegrounds minion that, as Deathrattle effect, destroys the minion that killed him. However, when Leeroy got Divine Shield, the Deathrattle killed the minion who popped that shield instead of the minion who Killed Leeroy.
This bug ended up defining the $50,000 Lobby Legends Fire Festival tournament last week.
Fortunately, with this hotfix, Hearthstone Battlegrounds will no longer suffer from Shudderwock’s reign of terror, or the Leeroy bug. The Hearthstone Battlegrounds team acknowledges that these bugs happen, and they constantly work towards solving them. The devs have solved some major issues such as the lag, and while the game will always have problems, it’s comforting to know that the team is behind the problems.
Stay tuned to Esports.gg for more Hearhtsotne Battlegrounds news and updates. See you next time in Bob’s Tavern
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