Hearthstone Battlegrounds unleashes Aberrations and two Old God deities

Hearthstone Battlegrounds receives a substantial shake-up today with Patch 36.6.1 and the arrival of Aberrations, a completely new minion type built around discarding cards and awakening an Old God. Every time a friendly Aberration dies, progress is made toward summoning a Deity. At the start of each game, either C'Thun or Y'Shaarj is selected, and after three qualifying sacrifices that Deity enters combat with a potentially dramatic effect.

Blizzard is putting the new tribe directly in the spotlight: Aberrations will appear in every lobby during their first two weeks. Naga are temporarily leaving the minion pool while that happens, along with associated heroes and cards. Two new heroes also arrive. Drest'agath can discard a card to obtain a random Aberration, while Kith'ix offers two random minions but forces the player to discard whichever one is not played.

Numerous new minions, Tavern Spells and Trinkets have been designed around the tribe's discard mechanics. The result should produce a noticeably different Battlegrounds economy, because cards in hand are no longer merely resources waiting to be played; throwing something away can now be the engine that powers an entire composition. Hearthstone remains fully playable on mobile, making this one of September 22's more significant live-service updates for competitive phone and tablet players.