5 Exceptionally Fun Tavern Brawls
Since time immemorial, or at least since June 2015 when they were first released, Tavern Brawls have been gracing us with a weekly dose of light-hearted Hearthstone fun. Blizzard has done an awesome job of creating a wide variety of Tavern Brawls over the past two plus years. They’re often wacky, sometimes crazy, but always worth a try. Some aren’t for everybody, which is to be expected…even Blizzard can’t please everyone, but some are truly special and keep you coming back to play again and again until the week is over.
It’s those Tavern Brawls that we’re paying tribute to today. Below are five of our favorites, these brawls stood out from the rest for their exceptional fun, their interesting mechanics, or their unique opportunity to play with new or different cards. It wasn’t easy choosing only five, (there are a lot of great ones out there) so be sure to let us know which ones would make your list!
1. A Frozen Recipe
This Tavern Brawl was released after the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion and gave players a taste of what it was like to play with those decks. Each class played with a pre-made deck that featured a recipe of new cards from the expansion.
Similar Brawls have been featured after other expansions were released including A Dark Recipe (after Whisper of the Old Gods) and An Ancient Recipe (after Journey to Un’Goro). They captured the same spirit of what put this one on the list as well.
What made this brawl special is that it gave you a in-game preview of what you otherwise wouldn’t have had, especially with the release of the Death Knight cards which added a big twist to gameplay. This brawl presented players with an excellent opportunity to test drive the expansion, and it was just a downright blast to play.
Want to see if Frost Lich Jaina is worth it before you spend your precious dust on her? Or maybe you got a few good Death Knights, but you want to check out the ones you missed just for fun? This brawl gave you that opportunity, no cost required. It was basically a taste test of the new expansion, and allowed Blizzard to show off what was possible with the new cards and mechanics.
2. Decks Assemble!
Decks Assemble! was definitely one of the more complex Tavern Brawls, but it was also one of the most fun. This wacky brawl had players discovering cards instead of drawing them and every time a card was played, a copy of it would be added to the players deck.
Some brawls require the player to craft and use a careful strategy to win, and others require them to hold on by the seat of their pants, pray to the RNG gods, and hope for the best. This brawl was definitely the latter, but that’s what made it so fun. It is also what made it replayable, every match was different than the last.
It was a wild departure from standard Hearthstone gameplay, as many on this list are, but that’s what Tavern Brawls are all about. They give us the chance to experience the goofier side of Hearthstone.
3. Who’s the Boss Now?
In this brawl, the player built their own deck but instead of their normal hero power they got a random one from a pool of past bosses. Each time they used their hero power they got another random one from the same pool.
The best part of this brawl was the accidental synergy that could happen between hero powers. For example, one hero power changed the health of all enemy minions to 1 and another dealt 1 damage to all enemy minions and if any die, summoned a slime. So with a little luck you could play back to back hero powers and wipe out your enemy’s entire board and fill yours with slimes at the same time.
This is another brawl that required a little luck, but it didn’t rely solely on it like some others since you still had your deck to fall back on. That being said, the random hero powers were certainly able to throw a wrench into things and kept players on their toes.
4. Miniature Warfare
Miniature Warfare has been featured a few times, and was one of the more recent brawls we’ve had. In this constructed brawl, the twist was that every minion you played is a 1/1 that costs 1 mana! This leads to some interesting decks and brawls like this really shine because of the creativity of its players.
There’s a lot of trial and error involved, figuring out which cards work well and which cards fail miserably, but figuring it out is part of the fun. Once you find the right combination of cards it's extremely satisfying. The wild format allowed players to bring back some of their faves (see below) and gave them the chance to try out cool combos that likely wouldn’t be possible otherwise due to mana costs.
Plus, what’s more adorable than a little 1/1 Ragnaros the Firelord that does 8 damage to the enemy’s face on turn 1?
5. Top 3
This brawl is…exactly what it sounds like! Instead of building a deck, the player chose three cards and their deck was filled with copies of them (10 of each card). This was a sequel to an earlier brawl called Top 2 that (you guessed it!) let you choose only two cards to fill your deck with.
Seeing the choices that other players would make, and seeing what insane combinations you could come up with yourself, makes this brawl great. Sometimes you’d lose spectacularly, but you weren’t even mad, you were just impressed by your opponent’s wickedly awesome deck. And then you’d steal that deck and continue the vicious cycle.
As with all of the brawls on this list, this one would be great to see make a return. It would be fun to see how much things change with the new pool of cards available.
You’ve seen our favorites, now it’s your turn! What tavern brawls have you had an absolute blast playing? Do you have a Top 5 of your own? Let us know in the comments below!
I love the Co-op and boss brawls the most.
Of all the brawls I've played, I've loved the Frozen Recipe the most, glad to see it here.
Play-Dead DK Hunter, Cannibal Egg Warlock, Eternal Servitude Taldaram OTK Priest, then Bolvar Paladin and Rotface Warrior. They're all mostly bad decks, but knowing that you were likely to go against another bad deck, then figure out emergent strategies (i.e mulliganing for Taldaram to copy their Devilsaur Egg) as you got familiar with them all was a total blast that appealed to my aversion to RNG fiestas.
To think how much more fun it would've been if there weren't any Primordial Glyphs or Ultimate Infestations. :/
Miniature Warfare for me, probably the only brawl i kept playing after my first win
I don't like brawls, I think since they were introduced I played 1-2 times beyond 1 win
No one forces you to play brawl beyond 1 win - if you don't like it - get your free pack, be grateful, and move on :)
Thanks Blizzard for those 124* free-packs
*Number provided above is a rough estimate and is subject to revision
1- randomonium
2- shiftcon
3- legendball.
4-valeera's bag of stolen spells.
5-cart clash
One of my favorite is Gift Exchange. Firstly because it was as fun to smash crates back then as it is now to break Master Chest. And also thanks to the spirit of Christmas with amazing card back.
Smashing open the treasure with Marin and our latest brawl has been a blast too. I'm a new player but man, what a good feeling. :)
Shiftcon, so fun and interactive, highly dependent on your skill. Not to mention that warlock is only choose you want to make when picking the class.
The latest Brawl, Treasures in the Katacombs, has been one of my favorites. Pulled off a lot of crazy combinations with those treasure cards
My favorite will always be the Cow Level one lmao. Love the homage Diablo series, and that Tavern Brawl was hella fun
the one where 7 patches popped up and earned me 500g.
The best one was where u only got to chose 1 card. It was fast, and u didn't have to pay attention at all, and u still got wins.
Easiest 500gold of my life.
the brawl where you choose 10 cards, and each turn you discover one of them instead of drawing. Had a crazy match as jade rogue against n'zoth warrior with deathlords
Loved top 3. My deck wouldn't work now due to nerfs, but:
* Rockbiter Weapon
* Ancestor's Call
*Al-Akir
It'd beat mech aggro. It'd beat Coldlight/Innervate/Naturalize mill.
Only good brawls were the co-op ones. Rest is either unbalanced garbage or rng crap and the mode itself deserve no praise left alone a whole article saying how 5 of them were not as terrible as the rest of them over 2 years
i loved the one with the little ragnaros firing and growing at end of turn - was a lot of fun to play around with patrons, board presence, silence, healing, tokens, stealing, old dreadsteeds, etc. Very dynamic, hope it comes back one day!
Nefarian vs Ragnaros and 2 players against the evil mech (the first one, the hardest one) were really cool. And, of course, 21 patches in da deck to grind the gold as quickly as possible. These are the best brawls, not the ones in the list.
The Miniature Warfare and the Top 3/2 brawls have by far been my favorites. I don't think I ever do more than two or three brawls unless I have the quest, but I had 20+ for each of those ones.