Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 3’s Undead take their first victim: Baron Rivendare changes to Titus Rivendare. Check out the reasoning, synergies, and other minions tweaks.
Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 3 welcomes Professor Putricide and his Undead creations on Jan. 17, but his unstable experiments bring a fair share of victims! Notable Battlegrounds changes include removing the Quest mechanic and Khadgar, while Baron Rivendare is now Titus Rivendare. We will go through the reasoning, synergies, and other changes below.
Reasoning for Baron Rivendare change: Undead
The third season of Hearthstone Battlegrounds commits to one of the themes of the current expansion: Undead. As expected, Undead minions interact in basic ways such as stat buffing and also specific synergies such as gaining Reborn.
Baron Rivendare features a grey and emaciated figure riding a skeletal horse. Indeed, he is textbook Undead, both according to World of Warcraft lore and the updated card. You can check your Wild collection to confirm this as well. To avoid Baron Rivendare gaining stat buffs and Reborn from new additions, the Hearthstone Battlegrounds team decided to “revive” the card. Literally!
Baron Rivendare changes to Titus Rivendare, which is his human form before becoming a Death Knight. Here's a bit of trivia as well: after many years of fan theories, Blizzard finally confirmed Baron Rivendare’s name. Hinted through both his World of Warcraft back-end model and an unused character ID, the Battlegrounds minion is the first official use of Titus Rivendare.
Titus Rivendare Battlegrounds synergies: Baron buffed?
The wording on the new card reads, “Your Deathrattles trigger an extra time,” which is an important buff from the static “twice” from the old one. This means that Barons can finally stack and triple Deathrattles as opposed to hoarding the second copy in hand until it becomes golden.
What does this mean in practice? The Leapfrogger Beasts build might ramp up quicker as you gain a golden Baron in exchange for the second non-Beast slot. The Hearthstone Battlegrounds team came to the rescue by printing a card that removes Taunt and Reborn, hence partly countering leapers. The new card does not counter Omega Buster builds, but a Tavern 6 minion should be strong, right?
For Deathrattles that summon minions, it's like having two Khadgars. For the Scallywag and Eliza Pirate scam build, having a second Titus Rivendare instead of Khadgar will only trigger an additional Deathrattle. In contrast, Khadgar currently doubles each Deathrattle spawn. Speaking of Khadgar — RIP.
Khadgar removal and other changes
Khadgar is leaving Hearthstone Battlegrounds for Season 3, which seems to legitimize the Titus Rivendare pseudo buff. Titus Rivendare will ensure double summons remain the same during combat while preventing multiple summons during the shop turn. No more early triples via Alleycat and Chad — you need Brann now! Additionally, Khadgar’s combat summons proved hard to balance: the way Evil Twin and Khadgar interacted with Deflect-o-Bot was recently nerfed.
Another minion that's getting removed is a crucial Tavern 4 discover — Bonker, which is the Blood Gem machine. Beasts Baby Krush and Palescale Crocolisk are also out. Tony Two-Tusk and Imp Mama leave, too. Peggy gets the Titus Rivendare human makeover, from Brittle to Sturdy (bone). Golden Amber Guardian now gives not one, but two Divine Shields! Nestmatron, Mechano-Egg, and Mythrax are also going away for now.
In conclusion, Battlegrounds changing Baron/Titus Rivendare from "twice" to "an extra time" is only a soft buff. While Barons stacking is a big deal for Frogger builds, a counter to Taunt and Reborn leaps into action against them. Moreover, Khadgar being gone makes the Pirate scam weaker. Other core pieces of these builds are leaving, too.
Where will Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 3 lead the meta? There's not enough information yet to tell, but stay tuned on Esports.gg for more Hearthstone news and updates.