Before anyone starts the game, I suggest going through every minion in the game. You can’t go into Battlegrounds without first understanding the basics. At the time of writing this article, Battlegrounds is at Patch 21.0. The next update, Patch 22.0, a thirty minion overhaul, arrives to Battlegrounds’ minion pool. Despite that, the most basic advice remains the same. “Buy good minions and do not buy bad minions.”
Of course, that is far too simple. That’s the pure basics of Battlegrounds. But applying that advice is not that easy. What makes a minion good now doesn’t mean you want to pick it up later in the game. Similarly, the opposite; a minion may be good later but not right now. While you are in your current phase of the game, whether it’s early, mid or late, you have to think of two questions to yourself: “What makes this minion good? What do you do if you only find “bad” minions.”
What makes a minion good?
That is a tough question. To decide what makes it “good,” there are two ways to think about the unit you consider.
- If the minion is on my board, how do I feel? If this minion is on my opponent’s board, how do I feel?
That approach is a simple way to understand how you think of a card’s strength. Let’s say you bought Deflect-o-Bot at turn six. It’s winning you fights, and you feel good about having your Deflect-o-Bot do things. However, if you bought Deflect-o-Bot at turn ten, your feelings would change if you don’t have a way to scale its attack. It no longer provides the same potential, and it no longer significantly improves your Warband average.
Let’s flip this around. You’re fighting your opponent at turn seven, and they have an early Lightfang Enforcer. They have a win condition, but you defeat them easily. You fight them again at turn twelve, and their minions are massive due to Lightfang Enforcer’s ability. So even though you won the first time you saw their Lightfang Enforcer, you now remember that Lightfang Enforcer is a card that gets stronger over time.
Remember these feelings. It takes a lot of trial and error, but it will help you learn as you play on what cards are worth buying.
- If I buy this minion right now, will it help me win in the next fight? What about the fight afterward? Will this ever help me at all?
It’s an unwritten rule that your first two turns of combat do not matter. You will take possibly five damage at most if you lose both fights. Turn three is when your opponents will start dealing damage to you. That is why in my suggestion, if I am doing a standard curve, I will always pick a SunBacon Relaxer over a Rockpool Hunter. While SunBacon Relaxer is the worst stated minion in the game, it provides the utility of giving +2/+2 when you sell it. By turn three, I sell the Relaxer and use the Blood Gems to buff my minions and have an advantage in the next fight.
Meanwhile, if I bought the Rockpool Hunter, I sell it anyway to buy two better minions. As a result, I lose my next battle(s) against opponents who chose utility like Sunbacon Relaxer. Afterward, that person who picked the SunBacon Relaxer will have more stats overall than other players, allowing them to have a high chance of winning the upcoming fights.
Rockpool Hunter is far from a bad card, but this explanation is here to properly demonstrate how you choose a good card from a bad card. While I may have lost my health in the first two rounds, I deal more damage overall to my opponents in my upcoming turns. This is how you should figure out which cards you should pick. It takes practice, but you should look at each minion in rapid succession and think about how they will affect your board. If their usefulness makes you stronger, then do it. If their abilities are not strong enough to win you the next fight, choose the alternative option.
What do you do if you only find “bad” minions?
The answer to that is simple. Do not buy the bad minions. Look for the alternative. Reroll, if necessary, or in a more risky fashion, use your gold for upgrading instead.
Let’s write out a situation:
Turn one: You bought Murloc Tidehunter.
Turn two: You upgrade to T2.
Turn Three: Bob is offering you a bunch of tier 1 minions or tier 2 minions that do not help fight. What can you do?
You look at your opponent, and they are someone naturally strong like the Lich King. If you buy these weak minions now, you are just going to lose each oncoming fight. It doesn’t matter if your next shop is going to be better. There are no cards in Tavern-tier two that make up for these bad minions.
If you reroll, instead of selling your 1/1 token, you are still stuck with a 1/1 token. You might as well not even have that extra minion. The best alternate plan is to sell that 1/1 token and upgrade to tier three instead of staying at tier two.
You may take lots of damage, but you can make up for it if the next choices are strong. Unlike T2, you can easily build a foundation at T3. Nothing forces you to always buying bad cards; thegame is a little more flexible than that. If the shop offers four bad minions, you sometimes have to take the health hit each turn to create a build that can win the whole game.
If all of the minion choices are abysmal, you have to think of other ways to fix this situation. You can’t just concede because even if your shop is bad, you can still find ways to at least make it to the top four.
Your Health as a Resource
Your health total does not matter (for the most part). Unless you are trying to get the achievement of winning every round, you need to realize that health is a resource. If you win the game at one health, it’s the same as if you won the game with full health.
Use as much health as you can to create advantages to work towards winning the game. As I previously stated, you may lose the first two rounds if you bought a SunBacon Relaxer over a Rockpool Hunter, but later on, you win more fights by picking the SunBacon Relaxer.
Another example, if you have two triples at T4, and you have around thirty health. You can either triple now and get two T5 minions or upgrade this turn and get two T6 minions at the next. You will lose a lot of health, but you get a better chance at getting powerful win conditions. To put it simply: If a character’s hero power was “At turn 8 get a tier five and a semi-full board, but have 25 health”, this would be a very strong hero.
For more of My Battlegrounds content, follow on Twitch, Twitter, or join our discord! Are you looking for something more? Read all about the up-and-coming hero Kurtrus the Ashfallen, the classic Forest Warden Omu, or the latest version of Galakrond! Looking to learn more about Battlegrounds’ strategy instead? Why not read our latest strategy article covering the basics of Battlegrounds’ Tribes & Minion Keywords.
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Before anyone starts the game, I suggest going through every minion in the game. You can’t go into Battlegrounds without first understanding the basics. At the time of writing this article, Battlegrounds is at Patch 21.0. The next update, Patch 22.0, a thirty minion overhaul, arrives to Battlegrounds’ minion pool. Despite that, the most basic advice remains the same. “Buy good minions and do not buy bad minions.”
Of course, that is far too simple. That’s the pure basics of Battlegrounds. But applying that advice is not that easy. What makes a minion good now doesn’t mean you want to pick it up later in the game. Similarly, the opposite; a minion may be good later but not right now. While you are in your current phase of the game, whether it’s early, mid or late, you have to think of two questions to yourself: “What makes this minion good? What do you do if you only find “bad” minions.”
What makes a minion good?
That is a tough question. To decide what makes it “good,” there are two ways to think about the unit you consider.
That approach is a simple way to understand how you think of a card’s strength. Let’s say you bought Deflect-o-Bot at turn six. It’s winning you fights, and you feel good about having your Deflect-o-Bot do things. However, if you bought Deflect-o-Bot at turn ten, your feelings would change if you don’t have a way to scale its attack. It no longer provides the same potential, and it no longer significantly improves your Warband average.
Let’s flip this around. You’re fighting your opponent at turn seven, and they have an early Lightfang Enforcer. They have a win condition, but you defeat them easily. You fight them again at turn twelve, and their minions are massive due to Lightfang Enforcer’s ability. So even though you won the first time you saw their Lightfang Enforcer, you now remember that Lightfang Enforcer is a card that gets stronger over time.
Remember these feelings. It takes a lot of trial and error, but it will help you learn as you play on what cards are worth buying.
It’s an unwritten rule that your first two turns of combat do not matter. You will take possibly five damage at most if you lose both fights. Turn three is when your opponents will start dealing damage to you. That is why in my suggestion, if I am doing a standard curve, I will always pick a SunBacon Relaxer over a Rockpool Hunter. While SunBacon Relaxer is the worst stated minion in the game, it provides the utility of giving +2/+2 when you sell it. By turn three, I sell the Relaxer and use the Blood Gems to buff my minions and have an advantage in the next fight.
Meanwhile, if I bought the Rockpool Hunter, I sell it anyway to buy two better minions. As a result, I lose my next battle(s) against opponents who chose utility like Sunbacon Relaxer. Afterward, that person who picked the SunBacon Relaxer will have more stats overall than other players, allowing them to have a high chance of winning the upcoming fights.
Rockpool Hunter is far from a bad card, but this explanation is here to properly demonstrate how you choose a good card from a bad card. While I may have lost my health in the first two rounds, I deal more damage overall to my opponents in my upcoming turns. This is how you should figure out which cards you should pick. It takes practice, but you should look at each minion in rapid succession and think about how they will affect your board. If their usefulness makes you stronger, then do it. If their abilities are not strong enough to win you the next fight, choose the alternative option.
What do you do if you only find “bad” minions?
The answer to that is simple. Do not buy the bad minions. Look for the alternative. Reroll, if necessary, or in a more risky fashion, use your gold for upgrading instead.
Let’s write out a situation:
Turn one: You bought Murloc Tidehunter.
Turn two: You upgrade to T2.
Turn Three: Bob is offering you a bunch of tier 1 minions or tier 2 minions that do not help fight. What can you do?
You look at your opponent, and they are someone naturally strong like the Lich King. If you buy these weak minions now, you are just going to lose each oncoming fight. It doesn’t matter if your next shop is going to be better. There are no cards in Tavern-tier two that make up for these bad minions.
If you reroll, instead of selling your 1/1 token, you are still stuck with a 1/1 token. You might as well not even have that extra minion. The best alternate plan is to sell that 1/1 token and upgrade to tier three instead of staying at tier two.
You may take lots of damage, but you can make up for it if the next choices are strong. Unlike T2, you can easily build a foundation at T3. Nothing forces you to always buying bad cards; thegame is a little more flexible than that. If the shop offers four bad minions, you sometimes have to take the health hit each turn to create a build that can win the whole game.
If all of the minion choices are abysmal, you have to think of other ways to fix this situation. You can’t just concede because even if your shop is bad, you can still find ways to at least make it to the top four.
Your Health as a Resource
Your health total does not matter (for the most part). Unless you are trying to get the achievement of winning every round, you need to realize that health is a resource. If you win the game at one health, it’s the same as if you won the game with full health.
Use as much health as you can to create advantages to work towards winning the game. As I previously stated, you may lose the first two rounds if you bought a SunBacon Relaxer over a Rockpool Hunter, but later on, you win more fights by picking the SunBacon Relaxer.
Another example, if you have two triples at T4, and you have around thirty health. You can either triple now and get two T5 minions or upgrade this turn and get two T6 minions at the next. You will lose a lot of health, but you get a better chance at getting powerful win conditions. To put it simply: If a character’s hero power was “At turn 8 get a tier five and a semi-full board, but have 25 health”, this would be a very strong hero.
For more of My Battlegrounds content, follow on Twitch, Twitter, or join our discord! Are you looking for something more? Read all about the up-and-coming hero Kurtrus the Ashfallen, the classic Forest Warden Omu, or the latest version of Galakrond! Looking to learn more about Battlegrounds’ strategy instead? Why not read our latest strategy article covering the basics of Battlegrounds’ Tribes & Minion Keywords.
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