Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds will finally let groups of friends play together

Blizzard Entertainment is announcing several new developments for its hit digital card game Hearthstone today, including some big news for fans of the auto chess-inspired Battlegrounds mode.

Battlegrounds matches have eight players fighting against each other. Right now, you can join a match with a single friend, but that’s it. Starting September 8, you can arrange matches with up to seven of your friends, finally making it possible to play an entire round of Battlegrounds with your buddies or hold your own tournaments.

This has been a feature fans have been requesting since Battlegrounds launched last year. Hearthstone debuted in 2014 and has been the top digital card game for a long time. Constant updates and new features keep those players engaged and more likely to spend money on the free-to-play game.

But that’s not all for Battlegrounds. On that same day, Lord Barov, Jandice Barov, and Forest Warden Omu will become available as new heroes. So even if you aren’t interested in creating parties of eight players, you’ll find a new Battlegrounds experience on September 8.

Lord Barov’s hero power lets you spend 1 gold to bet on a random match in the next round. Pick the winner, and you get 3 coins. Jandice’s hero power is free, and it lets you swap one of your non-golden minions for a random one from the tavern. Omu gives you 2 extra gold each time you upgrade the tavern, for that turn only. The update also adds Micro Mummy as a new minion. He’s in the Tier 1 pool, has 1/2 stats with the Reborn tag, and he gives a random friendly minion +1 attack at the end of your turn. It’s also a mech minion, and it is replacing the departing Tier 1 card Mecharoo.

Then, on September 15, Hearthstone is getting a new, free solo adventure. Book of Heroes: Jaina will explain how the famous Warcraft mage became one of the most powerful mages in Azeroth. This is the first in the Book of Heroes series of solo content, which will include episodes for all 10 of Hearthstone’s base heroes throughout the next year.

If none of that sounds exciting to you, then you may be interested to know that the Heroic Brawliseum is coming back on September 23. This limited time mode has you create a deck and then battle with it until you lose three games or win 12. You then get rewards based on your performance.

You can find all of the details of the upcoming updates to Hearthstone here.