Every New Demon From Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 4, Ranked

Aug 20, 2023

More Demons have been added to Hearthstone Battlegrounds in Season 4. Here's how they stack up.

The new minions Demons got in Hearthstone Battlegrounds Season 4 are a tightly-bound group, largely based around dealing damage to yourself in exchange for a beneficial effect. They have ways to mitigate the amount of life you lose, and abilities that trigger any time you lose life.

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The minions are so closely intertwined that they can be difficult to rank, but some consistently outperform the others. These are the minions that make or break your build, the ones that will define the direction a game takes if you find them. This list will help you decide which of the new Demons are the most important.

In a vacuum, Backstage Security is a well-stated minion with a minor downside. In the early game, its high stats might save you more life than its ability costs you. However, in a Demon build, its downside becomes a bonus. Each turn, it will guarantee you a trigger of your self-damage synergy effects, some of which will benefit Backstage security as well.

One trigger might not seem like much, but it can still be better than nothing if you don't have any other options. And even if you do have other Demons to pair with him, the extra trigger Backstage Security gives you can create a surprising amount of value when combined with several of the other new Demons.

Keyboard Igniter’s Battlecry is a decent buff if you are running even a few Demons. And since effect also works if you took damage from the previous combat, you don’t even necessarily need to have any sort of self-damage minions to take advantage of it.

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There are other minions that have more dramatic effects, but Keyboard Igniter’s versatility means it will see consistent use in Demon builds, and occasionally outside of them as well. It may not be a minion you build around, but it will often be worth buying from the Tavern when you see it.

As a general rule, minions that generate other minions are strong in Battlegrounds. In the worst-case scenario you get two gold back in return when selling them and the minion they create. And these minion-generators are even better when you have some amount of control over which minion you get.

Imposing Percussionist is such a minion. It comes with a significant cost, but the ability to find the crucial Demons you need to make your build work is exceptionally valuable, especially with a Soul Rewinder to nullify the damage. However, if you don’t have a Soul Rewinder on board, you might be paying a hefty price for your new minion, so the Percussionist often won’t be worth buying outside of that specific case.

Soul Rewinder is the minion that makes all of the self-damage effects Demons have viable. In previous seasons, Demons had Kathra'natir, which made your Hero immune and had an aura that gave your other Demons two attack.

The Rewinder has a similar extra bonus, gaining health any time you lose life. This effect will be more impactful in the later game than Kathra'natir’s, but less useful early on. Meanwhile, 'rewinding' your health has a functionally identical effect to being immune, except that it allows you to take damage, causing any on-damage effects to trigger. As a result, Soul Rewinder is a crucial piece for most Demon builds; without it, the rest of your self-damage synergies can only go so far before they kill you.

Malchezaar, Prince of Dance give you what are effectively free rerolls, which is helpful in any build (as anyone who has played Elementals with Recycling Wraith will tell you). But Malchezaar’s real benefit is that you get a guaranteed way to triggers your self-damage synergies multiple times each turn without relying on finding the right minions in Bob’s Tavern. And of course, finding those minions is even easier with Malchezaar’s effect.

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That effect stacks too, which means you only get stronger the more copies of Machezaar you have on board (assuming you can afford the cost, of course). As a result, Malchezaar is effectively the fuel for all of your Demon synergies; you can make the builds work without him, but winning lobbies becomes far easier with his help.

Tichondrius turns all that damage you were dealing to yourself with some of the other minions on this list — as well as several that were already in the game before Season 4’s arrival — into stats. And while there are many ways to win a game of Battlegrounds, the simplest is to have bigger numbers on your side of the board than your opponent has on theirs.

When combined with the other Demons introduced in Season 4, particularly Malchezaar, Prince of Dance and Soul Rewinder, Tichondrius can scale your entire board extremely quickly. It is important to remember that Tichondrius doesn’t buff itself, so unless you have multiple copies you’ll need to find other ways to increase its stats.

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Lucas is a freelance writer who has been playing video games since he was introduced to I Spy and Math Blaster as a kid and never looked back. These days, he plays more RPGs than educational games, though.