How to win as Dancin’ Deryl in Hearthstone Battlegrounds

How do you win as Dancin’ Deryl in Hearthstone Battlegrounds? That, my friends, is a question that has plagued humanity since time immemorial. Or, more accurately, since November 12, 2019.

But I digress. The fact is that Deryl is one of the strongest heroes in Battlegrounds — as well as one of the most fun — if you know how to play him. If you don’t, fret not: We’re here to teach you!

The main thing you should do when playing as Deryl is to identify minions that you want to “dance” for — that is, buy and sell other minions in order to leverage the potential of Deryl’s buffing Hero Power. Every time you sell a minion, two +1/+1 buffs will be tossed, randomly, at the minions still available for purchase in Bob’s Tavern. Basically, the dance consists of buying minions other than the one you want to buff, in order to ensure that, once you sell your minions — including the ones you just bought, oftentimes — the randomness of Deryl’s power is reduced, or completely neutralized, and the minion that you picked gets most, if not all, of the buffs.

That’s the main thing you need to learn to play Deryl — but there is far more you may want to know if you want to really succeed.

Good minions to buff

Before we hop into the dance itself, there are some specific minions you should be keeping an eye out for. In general, if a minion benefits somehow from having its attack and/or its health increased, it makes the list. Divine Shield minions are also solid. With that in mind, be on especially high alert for the following minions:

• Tier 2:
  • Glyph Guardian
  • Rat Pack
• Tier 3:
  • Bronze Warden
  • Deflect-o-Bot — one of the most solid choices overall, but you’ll want to invest into it by buying minions that support it, like Replicating Menace
  • Imp Gang Boss
• Tier 4:
  • Annoy-o-Module — mostly if you’re going Mechs. Remember that the buffs are kept even when you use the Magnetic effect!
  • Cave Hydra — in the past, this used to be the best overall option. That’s not the case anymore, but Hydras can still be good.
  • Herald of Flame
  • Security Rover
• Tier 5:
  • Annihilan Battlemaster — if your health is low and/or if you have Brann Bronzebeard to double it
  • Ironhide Direhorn — if you’re going with a Beasts composition, especially
• Tier 6:
  • Foe Reaper 4000
  • Holy Mackerel — if you’re going with a Divine Shield composition
  • Imp Mama
  • Zapp Slywick

Got the list memorized? Whether or not you do, let’s talk over setting up Deryl’s Dance itself.

Setting up the dance

First of all, you need to look at the pool of minions to find out which is the best one to buff. If you didn’t find any of the minions from the list above, you still want to find some alternative. Preferably, a minion that gains some advantage from having its attack and/or health buffed — “scaling,” as they call it. A minion like Rat Pack generates more tokens if its attack is higher, so it scales better than a minion like Kindly Grandmother, where the token is unchanged regardless of how high its attack goes. So the former is a much better buff candidate.

Once you have that, you’ll want to follow the below steps to begin the dance setup:

• Turn 1: If you see a token minion — Alleycat, Murloc Tidehunter — they’re your top priority to buy on turn 1.
• Turn 2: Make sure you upgrade your Tavern to Tier 2. For the vast majority of games (and heroes), this is the correct play. There are exceptions, but they’re beyond the purpose of this guide.
  • Now, you might already identify some good minion to buff from the list above. If you do, you’ll want to Freeze your tavern, and keep freezing it every turn until it’s time to dance for the first time, in a few turns.
• Turn 3: If you got a token on turn 1, sell it. If you didn’t, sell your Turn 1 minion. Whatever the case, you know have six coins: buy two minions.
• Turn 4: Spend your six coins wisely. Guess what? Buy two minions.
• Turn 5: With your seven coins, you should Upgrade your Tavern to Tier 3, then buy a minion.
• Turn 6: On this turn, you get to do a mini-dance! You’ll start with eight coins. First, buy two minions (other than the one you want), then sell a minion. Next, buy a third minion (other than the one you want). Now sell three minions. Finally, buy the minion you wanted, all buffed up.
• Turn 7: On this turn, you have nine coins. You’ll want to Upgrade to Tier 4 and then buy a minion.
• Turn 8: It’s dance time! Starting from Turn 8, you can now do the dance every turn.

So now that we’ve gotten to Turn 8 and are ready to do the dance, you’re probably wondering what Deryl’s Dance actually is. Fear not! I have you covered.

The full dance

It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right! Oh, you mean — no problem, I got you! Once you’ve successfully completed the setup above, you’ll want to start doing Deryl’s Dance on every turn. Here’s what you’ll be doing to complete that dance:

• Decide which minion you want to buff — we’ll call him Fred.
• Buy three other minions, but leave Fred alone!
• Sell two minions.
• Buy one other minion, still leaving Fred alone!
• Sell three minions.
• Buy Fred, the buffed minion!

Memorize this pattern! Buy three, sell two, buy one, sell three, buy The One™. You can use mnemonics for this. B-S-B-S-B. 3-2-1-3-1. Whatever works for you. Starting from turn 8, you want to do the full dance whenever you can, especially if you’re offered a good minion to buff.

Just one final tip: As Deryl, re-rolling is usually bad news, and you want to avoid it. In general, it’s better to buy “bad” minions than it it to spend too much gold searching for “good” ones, and preventing yourself from dancing.

That’s all, folks!