Hearthstone Buried A Battlegrounds Easter Egg So Deep You’ll Probably Never See It

Hearthstone is usually pretty accessible, but Blizzard has been known to squirrel away a secret every once in a while for only the most devoted players to discover. That’s the case again with a secret mechanic hidden in its popular Battlegrounds mode, which gives you an extremely slim chance to resurrect your Buddies.

Battleground Buddies were specialized minions paired to specific heroes that debuted in Season 1, made to synergize with their hero’s power and general play style. They cycled out as Blizzard geared up for Season 2, which replaced them altogether with a new mechanic called Quests. Quests let you choose a small task to accomplish in the course of play, and grant you a reward from that point on. But rumors began to circulate shortly after Season 2 launched that one of the Quest rewards can actually bring back your Buddies.

Blizzard recently confirmed the rumor, and explained exactly how it works for anyone still trying to make it happen. First, all eight players in a given match have to choose a hero who has a valid Buddy option, which means no one can pick a hero that was added after the Buddies left–like Queen Azshara or Sire Denathrius. In addition, no one can choose Sir Finley or Elise Starseeker, presumably because their mechanics or buddies could create strange interactions with the Buddies system.

If you fulfill this criteria, there’s a 1% chance you’ll get the “Partner in Crime” option offered as a Quest reward. If this triggers, everyone in the match will be offered the option. That reward gives you a Golden (more powerful) copy of your Buddy.

So Buddies aren’t erased from the game completely! You just need seven strangers to all get on the same page and avoid the off-limits heroes, at which point you have a minuscule chance of pulling the quest reward, and then you need to actually finish the quest to redeem and get your Buddy back. So chances are you’ll never actually see this, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

The Battlegrounds mode recently got a big expansion, including its own Battle Pass that grants cosmetic rewards for completing quests that are only achievable in Battlegrounds itself. That update came alongside a big change with the introduction of a real-money currency, which is now the only way you can buy many of the cosmetics offered through the in-game shop. As part of the new monetization strategy, Blizzard made the selection of four Battlegrounds heroes a paid feature, which fans say gives paid players an unfair advantage.