Battlegrounds Patch 36.4.2 Notes: Hero Armor Changes & Buffs

Blizzard rolled out update 36.4.2 for Hearthstone on Wednesday, September 3, 2026. The official patch notes are timestamped at 15:55 UTC, i.e. 17:55 in Paris: that's our own conversion, not a figure from the publisher. It covers Constructed, Arena, and Battlegrounds.

On the Battlegrounds side, the key changes aren't about the minions. They're about the heroes' starting armor. 27 heroes see theirs change: 8 decreased, 19 increased. We recounted line by line: the patch notes list 8 entries under "Armor Decreases" and 19 under "Armor Increases", not one more.

A note on methodology. Patch notes 36.4.2 only exist in English. Tested on Friday, September 4, 2026: the /fr-fr/, /de-de/, /es-es/, /it-it/, and /pt-br/ addresses return a 404, and the site's French news list stops at the 36.4 patch notes. The French names below are therefore not homemade translations: they come from the official Hearthstone card database in the fr_FR locale, already updated after the patch. It also returns the new armor values for the 27 heroes, which we used as cross-verification.

The eight heroes losing armor

Each hero has two distinct values: one for Classic play and one for the two-player team mode, which the English patch notes call "Duos Armor" and which we refer to here as Duos. They almost always shift by the same amount, but not always, and that's where the useful information hides.

Two rows stand out. Inge, the Iron Anthem takes the heaviest cut of the patch, 7 points in both modes: she goes from the top of the rankings to the bottom in one fell swoop. Zerek, Master Cloner follows with 6 points lost. Cariel Roame is the only hero cut more severely in Duos than in Classic: 4 points on one side, 6 on the other. Conversely, Sneed loses 5 points but stays at 15, above the table's average. A decrease isn't a verdict.

The nineteen heroes gaining armor

Two 5-point increases stand out: Tras'tath, Soul Parasite and Infinite Toki, both of whom started at 10. In Duos, Toki also gains 5 points while Tras'tath only gains 3. The most spectacular case, proportionally speaking, remains Snake Eyes: from 2 to 6 in Duos, its cushion triples.

One absence deserves mention. Xavius, Nightmare Lord, the other flagship hero of Season 14, appears on neither list. The official card database still lists him at 6 armor points, the value recorded after patch 36.2.2 that we detailed on August 22. The two headline heroes of the season therefore diverge sharply: 15 for one, 6 for the other.

What Blizzard explains, and what it doesn't

The developer commentary attached to the patch notes is entirely devoted to minion types. Blizzard writes there, "we're focusing on the types at the top and bottom of the meta," that is, the families at the top and bottom of the meta: Beasts, self-damaging Demons, Quilboars, and Dragons are buffed, while Elementals and Nagas are reined in.

On the Beast side, Savory Deviate Delight… wait, Tasty Lobster goes from 1/1 to 2/1 and its Deathrattle from +1/+1 to +2/+1, Compulsive Hyena drops to Tier 4, and Goldrinn, the Great Wolf to Tier 5. On the Naga side, Nature's Blessing drops from 4 to 2 gold pieces but also from +3/+3 to +2/+1. On the Elemental side, Unbridled Mana Surge gains 4 health points and loses its bonus, going from +4/+4 to +2/+3; the publisher describes it as "one of the strongest Tier 6 minions in the game."

What the notes never do, however, is justify the 27 armor changes. Not a single line of commentary, not a single rationale, not a single stated threshold: the list is dropped as-is, sandwiched between two paragraphs about something else entirely. Everything that follows is therefore our own interpretation, not data from the publisher.

Who to level up: our take

Starting armor isn't just decoration: it's the number of turns of error a hero can afford before elimination. A hero whose power kicks in late needs a big cushion; a hero who explodes on turn 4 can do without it. The five increases below seem to us to change a playstyle profile, not just a number.

• Infinite Toki, from 10 to 15. Her hero power Time Tavern costs 1 gold and, according to the text, "refreshes the tavern" by including "two minions from the next tavern tier up." A machine for upgrading quality that pays in tempo what it gains in power level: five extra points grant her the right to fall behind.
• Tress'ath, Soul Leech, from 10 to 15. Her power Void Energy discovers, at the start of the game, a tier 5 minion carrying a Dark Gift, unlocked only on turn seven. Six turns to hold out with nothing in return: 15 points changes the nature of the gamble. In Duos, the increase is only 3 points.
• Snake Eyes, from 5 to 8, and especially from 2 to 6 in Duos. His power Fetish Dice rolls a six-sided die and grants that many gold. With 2 armor, a bad streak was eliminating right out of the gate. This is, in our view, the change that most alters a hero's viability.
• Sindragosa, from 7 to 10. Icing brings minion prices down to 2 gold, but removes a tavern slot and freezes at the end of every turn: a long-economy hero whose armor was too short for her plan.
• Chakki the Cuddlethrottler, from 15 to 18. He spends 2 gold to discover a non-golden copy of a minion from the opposing warband. Already well-equipped, he now joins the top tier.

Who to drop: our take

• Inge, the Iron Anthem, from 17 to 10. Her free power distributes attack equal to your tavern tier twice per turn, with health arriving the following turn. The plan remains good, but it used to unfold behind a wall of 17 points: at 10, the slightest loss on turn 6 costs twice as much proportionally. This is the hero we would drop first.
• Master Clonemaker Zerek, from 18 to 12. His exact copy of a friendly minion is only worth its cost if the game goes long. With 6 fewer points, the survival math that allowed for patience becomes much tighter.
• Cariel Roame in Duos, from 14 to 8. This is the only asymmetric cut in the patch and it clearly targets the four-player format. In standard play, at 10, the hero remains playable.
• Alexstrasza, from 10 to 8. Only two points, but the irony deserves mention: her power discovers a Dragon, and Dragons are being buffed by this same patch via Forgefire Summoner and Mighty Dragonbreath. Blizzard never draws this connection anywhere; we read it as a compensation.

Two nerfs don't worry us. Vanndar Stormpike only loses 2 points and his power only opens up on turn 7, by which point armor already matters less than the board. Cenarius, Lord of the Forest, who buys a maximum of one gold point for 3 gold, keeps 13 points.

What to remember

On the hero side, this patch redistributes roles without touching a single hero power: only the starting points move. The quick takeaway fits in one sentence: slow, fragile heroes have been buffed, slow, well-protected heroes have been trimmed.

Two habits to pick up. Check the value shown in the hero selection screen rather than relying on a list, since the French client is up to date while the French patch notes don't exist. And don't carry over your habits from standard play into Duos, where Cariel Roame and Yeux-de-Serpent have received different treatment than their solo versions.

One last calendar detail, this one spelled out in black and white by the publisher: "We don't expect to make any major balance changes before the mid-season update." No major overhaul before the mid-season update, then: the 27 values above are meant to hold for several weeks.