How to play as Professor Putricide in Hearthstone Battlegrounds

The latest hero introduced to Hearthstone Battlegrounds, Professor Putricide, is an Undead crafting juggernaut, provided you know how to navigate his quirks. His hero power allows him to craft an Undead creation by stitching two other minions together, and you can use it a limited amount of times — so a lot of the understanding of how to play him hinges on that.

Putricide can use his 4-cost hero power exactly three times during a match, which means that there’s already some strategy involved into knowing exactly when’s the ideal time to use it. Furthermore, the minion options offered to you are randomly picked from two separate lists, and you get more options depending on how high your tavern tier is — so knowing which minions you should be looking for is very important.

So read on to understand how to properly play — and hopefully, win! — as Professor Putricide.

When should you use your hero power as Professor Putricide?

Based on the current meta, the understanding is that it’s ideal to use his Hero Power for the first time as soon as you hit tavern tier 3. Players usually upgrade their taverns to tier 3 on turn 5 — when it costs four gold, and they have seven gold to spend, meaning that there’s still three gold left to buy a minion on that same turn.

That is a possibility for Putricide as well, but you’ll be short one gold if you want to hit your hero power just then. In that case, you’ll want an extra gold, from selling a token minion, or you’ll want to have reduced the cost of your tavern tier upgrade after hitting tier 2 with Deck Swabbie.

Other players prefer the much more aggressive “3 on 3” strategy, where you upgrade to tier 2 on turn 2, then you sell a minion and immediately upgrade to tier 3 on turn 3. If you do that, you’re very likely to lose a few battles, so you’ll want to make sure that this early leveling pays dividends later on. In the case of Putricide, it means that you can hit your hero power for the first time as early as turn 4, hopefully allowing you to stabilize.

In most cases, you should save the other two uses of your hero power for when you hit tavern tier 6. That’s right, you’ll only benefit from the rest of Putricide’s creations much later in the game, since the power level offered on tavern tier 6 is often game-winning!

There are a few games, however, where you might find yourself losing, and unable to afford waiting until tavern tier 6 before doing something to win. If you find yourself in that situation, it’s okay to use one of your hero power charges on tavern tier 5 — though that’s not ideal, as you’ll see on the next section.

Which creations should you make as Professor Putricide?

When it comes to making your creation on turn 3, good minions to look for include:

• The one that gives you a coin on Deathrattle, Gilded Gargoyle — especially if you can give it Reborn from the other minion you pick with it. That influx of extra coins will definitely help your midgame.
• Jelly Belly, if you have other Reborn minions on your board to bolster it. Thankfully, there are many of them early in the game, with Micro Mummy and Risen Rider on tier 1, and Scarlet Skull on tier 2 — so look for those.

As for good tier 6 creations, you’re looking for:

• Eternal Summoner, especially if you can get her with Reborn from the other minion you pick — even better if you have a Baron Titus Rivendare on your board. The scaling power of those Eternal Knights from her Deathrattle effect gets absolutely crazy when you can trigger it multiple times per battle — and it’s permament scaling too, for every Knight you summon! This is possibly the most game-winning creation you can pick right now.
• Bone Baron, combined with a minion that has Reborn: You’ll be getting two Skeletons each time this minion dies, which means that you can potentially walk away with four copies of the Skeleton in your hand. Since three copies of a card make a golden, this combo can potentially generate a free golden minion each turn!

If you decided to make one of your creations on tier 5, you’re looking to find a Hungering Abomination — and preferably combine it with a minion that has Stealth. This can add some serious scaling power to your board — though it’s not as powerful as the Eternal Summoner strategy from tier 6. So keep in mind that if you do go for the tier 5 creation, you’ll only have one shot at finding Eternal Summoner on tier 6, instead of two. Sometimes that price is worth it, though!

What should your board look like as Professor Putricide?

You definitely want to go Undead, since the synergies they have with your creations are to good to pass up. Try to bolster your creations with Soulsplitter on tier 4 — this one is a pretty crucial piece of the puzzle, especially if you have Eternal Summoner without Reborn. Other good minions to have include Anub’arak, Nerubian King on tier 5 and Sister Deathwhisper on tier 6 — the latter can be a game-winning minion for Undead in general, even if you’re not playing as Putricide.

If you’re a particularly advanced player, you may also try mixing up some Tunnel Blasters and Selfless Heroes on your board — especially if you also have Rivendare — in order to trigger your Deathrattle goodness right at the beginning of the match, in addition to covering the Undead you summon with Divine Shields. But such a strategy is not trivial to pull off, since it requires finding a lot of very specific cards. Still, it’s a fun avenue to explore if you’re ever blessed with those!

Balance patches will like change things up in the future — Undead minions are a tad strong right now — but the jist of the strategy should still apply. Have fun creating monstrosities and terrorizing the Battlegrounds!