The Tavern is booming with all the Hearthstone news from BlizzCon. From the opening ceremony to the Hearthstone: What’s Next panel, we’ve had an eventful day. But Battlegrounds is especially buzzing with excitement for the announcement of a new way to play coming next year: Battlegrounds Duos!
What is Battlegrounds Duos?
Battlegrounds Duos is a new way to play, being added alongside Battlegrounds next year. In Duos, you and a partner share a life total, pass each other cards, and join up in a tag-team fight to take down your opponents! Queue with a friend or join up as a solo player and make a new one; the Tavern is yours for the taking.
Today, we announced Duos will be coming next year, and shared a bit about what it will look like. If you were too busy playing the demo to watch it live, Lead Battlegrounds Designer Mitchell Loewen and Associate Game Designer Jia Dee talked all about Duos during the Hearthstone: What’s Next panel.
Explore New Synergies with Special Heroes and Minions
We’ll be introducing special Heroes and minions that are only available when playing Battlegrounds Duos. These cards are specifically designed to have synergies with Duos gameplay, like cards that buff your teammate or reward you for working together!
Battlegrounds Duos is still under development, so specifics are subject to change.
Shared Life Total and Combat
In Duos, you and your partner work as a team. There are four teams of two players in each game, and each team shares their life total. Combat is sequential, so one teammate’s warband goes out first and fights until it takes out both opponents or goes down swinging. If the first teammate is defeated, the second teammate’s warband takes over from there to finish the combat. If the first player manages to take out both opponents, then the second player’s warband just comes in to dogpile the damage on the opposing team! Cheering for your partner isn’t required, but it can’t hurt.
Pinging and Sharing Cards
A strong partnership is about good communication and consideration of each other's needs. In Duos, there’s a portal that connects you and your partner. You can click on the portal to swap between viewing their board and your own. For the low cost of 1 Gold, you can even send cards in your hand through the portal, to your teammate!
Duos also has a pinging system that lets you flag stuff for your partner. You can use these emote-like pings to mark something in your shop that you think your partner might want—or something you see in their shop that you want them to get for you.
These pings are a great way to quickly get a teammate’s attention or to communicate with someone you couldn’t before, like someone not on your friends list or who speaks a different language! We’re excited to see how Duos will open up the Tavern to new friendships and play experiences.
Play the Demo at BlizzCon or Check out the Creator Streams
You can play the demo of Battlegrounds Duos right now, here at BlizzCon! Grab a friend and go check it out, or meet someone in line and forge a new friendship in the fires of combat.
If you couldn’t make it to the show this year, you can still experience the Duos action as some of your favorite streamers partner up and take each other on in a series of Duos show-lobbies. Watch each player from their own personal streams during tomorrow’s show, at the following times:
Saturday, 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. PDT (18:00-21:00 GMT)
Saturday, 2:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. PDT (21:30-00:30 GMT)
Battlegrounds Duos, Coming Next Year!
That’s all for now! As we continue to build out and polish Duos for its launch next year, we want to know what you think and what you want to see. We’ll have more to share about Duos closer to the time that it’s ready to launch, so keep an eye out for more!
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