A new hero, a new battleground, 5 major hero reworks: Who said mondays aren't great?

The HOTS community now has a brand new PTR to play in. These are things you should be excited to try out:

Dehaka, the newest addition to the nexus is now available to play in the PTR and so is the newest battleground, Lost Cavern, which has no objectives and is all about team fighting.

Get ready for big changes to Illidan, Kaelthas, Tychus, Gazlowe, and Slyvanas, who each received major reworks to their talents and abilities. Most notably, ALL generic talents have been removed from their talent trees. Jaina’s Bolt of the Storm talent was also removed but Zagara’s wasn’t.

Ranked play will receive a “Mid Ban” system similar to the one seen in official tournaments but has been adapted so that the person with the highest MMR picks who is banned. A “coin-toss” will determine which team bans first. Each team has 45 seconds to make their first ban and 30 seconds to make their second ban.

Ranked requirements have been adjusted so that players are required to now own 14 heroes because of the 4 additional heroes that can be eliminated through bans. However, players who have free-to-play heroes past level 5 can now pick them. The Draft Lobby has also received QoL changes that make it easier for players to find heroes to pick and to identify which map is being played. The time to pick heroes has been reduced from 45 seconds to 30 seconds so as to keep the draft period from taking too much time.

And for those who like more options when customizing their hotkeys and quickcast functions, these features will be available to try out as well.

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