In this guide, we will go over all the Dragon minions and explain in a bit how they work with each other, focusing on synergies and an overview of each minion. You can find the full builds in our lengthy Hearthstone Battlegrounds strategy guide, we will be focusing only on individual dragons here
This Dragon Tribe list is up-to-date with the newest Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 8
There are usually two main mechanics regarding dragons, “Combat stat-gaining” and Battlecry build. Just note that you will find that almost every Dragon falls into one of these categories of builds. That said, let’s dive into dragon minions and how they make the whole dragon composition work together.
Tier 1 Dragon Minions
Upbeat Frontdrake
Upbeat Frontdrake is generally a risky play if you don’t have a lot of Armor. There are two factors in play here: how much Health will you lose because you went for this 1/1 minion and what Dragon you get from his ability. Generally, if you’re playing with a hero like Ysera, it’s good if you can Golden him, but in a regular match, it’s not that good.
Glim Guardian
Glim Guardian is pretty good for starting the game, he can become a nice tempo unit early on if you manage to buff him a bit. In the first few turns, the RNG factor is that if you attack first, your Glim Guardian will get buffed before the opponent attacks. Just keep in mind that you can lose first-turn battles against something like Scallywag if he attacks first. His recent changes from 1/3 to 1/4 really up the power because he can now survive those 3 attack early attacks and get his own in.
Misfit Dragonling
The main benefit of this dragon is that he is decent in the mid-game. Getting stats from your Tavern tier is good and if you are, for example, Tier 4 and have Persistent Poet next to him, he will gain +4/+4 each turn. Overall, a somewhat weak early pick that turns decent after you level up your Tavern.
Tier 2 Dragon Minions
Blazing Skyfin
Blazing Skyfin is now a decent early-game minion with the patch buff to 2/4 stats, especially if you get a few good early-game Battlecry minions. Furthermore, if you end up playing a Murloc build, the ability will prove to be very useful once you start cycling Murlocs. The same goes for Battlecry Dragons in the mid-late game.
Twilight Emissary
There is not much to be said for this guy. You will find him useful if you already have a Dragon early on, preferably Blazing Skyfin, or if you are in the late game, have Battlecry Dragons and need it just for the Battlecry trigger.
Tier 3 Dragon Minions
Doting Dracthyr
While this is a Duos-Only minion, and we mention him in our advanced Duos guide, it is in the Dragon tribe and it’s worth mentioning it. The overall consensus is that it’s not that good. The attack gain isn’t really relevant, and you are much better off picking something that grants you resources, or a key minion for a specific build.
Electric Synthesizer
Nothing much to be said here. He is good in the mid-game if you have a few Dragons, and is perfect for the late-game Battlecry Dragon build with Brann and Hunter of Gatherers. This Dragon is decent if you have a full board of Dragons in your early-mid game, and of course, as we already mentioned, it’s a good combo with Kalecgos-Hunter of Gatherers-Brann late game combo.
Roaring Rallier
He is a pretty good Dragon just for the tempo alone. There aren’t many good tier 3 tempo minions, and Roaring Rallier has 2-6 base stats, plus a whopping +3/1 gain when a friendly dragon attacks. The ability combined with his base stats makes him a pretty good tempo minion, and he can help you scale a bit with Persistent Poet later on.
Tarecgosa
Tarecgosa is in a weird place right now. A while back, it was the bread and butter of Dragons, but with the Persistent Poet, the special effect of Tarecgosa is a bit diminished. Moreover, since Amber Guardian is a Tier 5 minion now, picking Tarecgosa early on is rarely a good choice. Nevertheless, it is a good minion if you have Amber Guardian, and other “combat stat-gaining” dragons.
Tier 4 Dragon Minions
Wannabe Gargoyle
To be honest, this is kinda of a weird Dragon. Sure it has 9 Attack and a nice special ability, but the 1 Health on a Tier 4 minion, while getting you no resources, just puts this Dragon in an awkward spot. The idea is to buff his Attack as much as possible, and in the end if he, for example, has 100-50 and Divine Shield, he will basically have 3 lives. But Warpwing is a better choice in the endgame board and when you’re Tier 4-5 and have limited resources, you really should be looking for Brann or Persistent Poet, not this.
Amber Guardian
The biggest change to Amber Guardian was in patch 30.4.3, now he is a tier 4 Dragon which changes the whole “powerful early dragons” meta. He works well with Tarecgosa and Persistent Poet, but he is a high-tier minion, so that’s a minus. Of course, even if you are playing the “Battlecry build”, just by having Amber Guardian and Persistent Poet, you can get Divine Shield on all your Dragons, and some decent stats as well.
Persistent Poet
The bread and butter of the “combat stat-gaining” dragon strat. This is the key minion that will actually scale your dragons. As we already mentioned, getting Nightbane, Amber Guardian, and Prized Promo-Drake can be a very powerful mid-game build. One overlooked dragon is Hoarding Hatespawn, which saves its 10/10 stats after combat with Persistent Poet. We will explain how some other Dragons interact with Persistent Poet below.
Prized Promo-Drake
In order to get the full potential out of Prized Promo-Drake, you really do have to have a decent Dragon comp already in place. Obviously, he works the best with multiple Persistent Poets and Tarecgosas because you really want the stat gain to be permanent, otherwise, there is not much of a point in picking him up.
Tier 5 Dragon Minions
Hunter of Gatherers
The recent buff of Hunter of Gatherers is a pretty good one. Going from +1 Health to +2 means that your Battlecries and the whole Brann Dragon build scales faster and your Dragons get beefier quickly. The idea is to have a brand on the board and when you get General Drakkisath, your x2 Smolderwing buffs Hunter of Gatherers and your whole board gets +8 Health, which is very decent. Moreover, in the later stages, if you get a Golden Hunter of Gatherers, you will “feel” just how much better it scales than before the buff. The buff basically made the former Golden Hunter of Gatherers now the regular one.
General Drakkisath
General Drakkisath is essential to the Battlecry build and goes well with Brann, and Draconic Deathscale. Moreover, it’s a money-printing machine and will give a lot of stats once you acquire Kalecgos. It’s usually optimal to get a Triple from this Battlecry in order to find a good Tier 6 minion. Don’t forget that Young Murk-Eye also works extremely well with General Drakkisath.
Yu’lon, Fortune Granter
Yu’lon is kind of weird minion in a lot of ways. He works very well if you need specific Dragons “Goldened”, but you need Persistent Poet in order to keep the Golden status permanent (or Tarecgosa). Moreover, it targets the lowest tier Dragon, so having something low-tier that has little benefit being Goldened will waste your “permanent Goldening” ability for one turn. It works well on Minions like Tarecgosa, and Persistent Poets (you will need 2 Persistent Poets to Golden the other one obviously).
There are other hurdles as well. If you want Golden Kalecgos for example, you will need to have Persistent Poet in order to keep the enchantment permanent, but Persistent Poet is lower tier so he will get the enchantment first, and logically you will need 2 Persistent Poets in order to grant the permanent status Golden Status to each other…simply put, it can get be difficult Goldening high-tier Dragons, it’s mostly beneficial to Golden Tarecgosas and Persistent Poets for the x2 stat gain.
Tier 6 Dragon Minions
Warpwing
Warpwing is just a straight-up good minion. The idea of this Dragon is to buff it as much as possible. It doesn’t provide you with any resources or a good Tempo, but if you already have your stat-gaining minion on the board (Brann, Kalecgos, Hunters of Gatherers, etc) you should be looking to fill your board up with 1-2 Warpwings and scale them. The special “invulnerable while attacking” ability can be extremely annoying to deal with, especially if you Taunt everything except your Warpwings.
Hoarding Hatespawn
This is an interesting Dragon. It serves as an excellent tempo minion, as well as a decent scaling one if you have Persistent Poet, granting him permanent +10/+10 each turn. The special ability is pretty powerful since in a lot of cases, the stat draining is proven very useful for tempo. Moreover, this effect introduces a quirky mechanic – if the minion that Hoarding Hatespawn drains has 10 Health or less, it will instantly die before the battle starts.
This is rare because it targets the highest Health minion, but it’s sometimes good for countering full board scam builds -killing Leeroy the Reckless with this ability doesn’t trigger Leeroy’s, it just removes him from play and keeps Hoarding Hatespawn alive, which is a cool mechanic.
Kalecgos, Arcane Aspect
Finally, we have the old-school Kalecgos, Arcane Aspect. This Dragon is the main stat scaling minion for the Battlecry build and he works very well with Brann + Draconic Deathscale + General Drakkisath + other Dragons board. You will be able to have stats/minions/resources from your Battlecry’s as well as additional stats (from Kalecgos) from triggering them. This is the essence of Dragon Battlecry comp.
Tier 7 Dragon Minions
Obsidian Ravager
While it is rare to see this Dragon (only through Thorim, Stormlord’s ability), we have to mention him as he is a part of the Dragon tribe. The unique ability is one of the strongest mechanics in the game, which basically allows Obsidian Ravager to deal damage to 2 units before he takes any damage himself. This can be extremely powerful if your Ravager is high-stat and can destroy minions before they can deal damage to them (by having more Attack than the enemy’s Defense). Putting a Divine Shield on him will make it even more powerful, it’s just a shame we don’t see him more.
Photo Credits: Blizzard Entertainment
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