Ugh, I dislike this Brawl. Puts someone with no legendaries and in general not so good cards, like me, in a big disadvantage. One win and I'll be done with the Brawl for this week...
Ugh, I dislike this Brawl. Puts someone with no legendaries and in general not so good cards, like me, in a big disadvantage. One win and I'll be done with the Brawl for this week...
Good luck. It took me about 3 hours to win my one game in each region with accounts that are about halfway completed. There was a ton of last-second losses - like the 20-minute game where I finally had my opponent down to 5 health with lethal next turn, but my opponent used a pyroblast/mortal strike burst to finish me, - and bad luck, like in the game I got four weapon-related spells in a non-weapon class - but whatever the reasons, it was brutal and infuriating. Didn't matter what I made - mech decks, fast decks, slow decks - I kept losing. And I'm someone who normally does fairly well in tempo-based or controllish brawls.
So yeah...this is a terrible brawl for incomplete card collections. You just have to play through it until you finally get matched against a fellow noob. Or, wait a day or two until the only people with 0 wins are people who are just casual players.
Here's the list I mentioned above and some general tips:
You should make a deck with minions only and generally go for a mix that would work in arena, not constructed. Don't prioritize combos (don't avoid them, just don't base your deck on them if the minions don't work by themselves) and make sure you get the stickiest, gooeyiest minions you can. Cards that might hurt your opponent a bit or heal them a bit should be treated as having no text, since they wont matter for the most part.
1 to 3-drops are good for secrets. You should have a few in this range not only for that but also because a lot of early removal is in this mana slot as well.
4-drops are great because you can get Fireball and Swipe out of them. Mass Dispel is also quite useful and you will find Consecration very helpful early-game when your opponent is playing low-health minions.
6-drops will give you a lot of dangerous spells as well as life-savers.
7-drops are guaranteed to help since they give you one of these: Flamestrike, Crush, Sprint. At 0 mana these are all excellent.
8-drops also have a limited pool to draw from as you can only get Lay on Hands and Twisting Nether. Considering that 8-drops tend to have a lot of health, it's probably not preferrable to get Twisting Nether but it has got me out of a lot of sticky situations during this brawl when I lost board control.
9-drops will _always_ give you Tree of Life. You can bet most players will be carrying at least 1 9-drop and it's one of the reasons games during this brawl can take so long and are control-oriented (the other being Reno Jackson).
10-drops are few an far between. There's only 4 of them, with only 2 of them, Varian Wrynn and Deathwing having a stable cost since the other 2 are giants. I wouldn't recommend playing any of these since Deathwing burns whatever spell he gives you, Varian Wrynn will rob you of 3 spells (although you might gain board control of course, so it's debatable) and the giants are hard to keep at their 10-mana cost (but you can always play them as a different cost so they're quite flexible). You can only get Mind Control or Pyroblast from 10-drops, both of which are extremely powerful and at 0 mana you have the freedom of playing them whenever, but it may be hard to actually get to play any of these minions and the giants, especially Frost Giant require putting limitations on yourself to get them on the board for 10-mana. Pretty unstable slot and I don't recommend it.
List of 3-mana spells - all Mage secrets are here, including Ice Block, Forgotten Torch, Thoughtsteal, Vaporize and a whole lot of removal. Importantly, the 2 mage secrets that block spells are here and Mirror Entity can punish careless play, which is more common in a brawl where you can't use your understanding of the meta to guess a secret. About 4 useless spells out of 45ish, so again, pretty good odds.
List of 4-mana spells - the infamous Fireball is here, along with other awesome spells like Echo of Medivh. However, the ratio of possibly useless spells is higher, with around 6ish I can count amongst 23 being possible failures. On the other hand, the spells in this slot are some of the most powerful.
List of 5-mana spells - about 2 of a total of 16 spells are kind of iffy here, but again, some nice board clears and removal. This is the kind of spell you'll get from playing Loatheb or Summoning Stone which works quite well since both can give you significant board control this way.
List of 6-mana spells - only Ball of Spiders is possibly disappointing, although the Webspinners are great at giving you minions to play for more spells. The amount of removal in this slot is amazing, and works brilliantly with Sylvanas Windrunner since you can play her and remove her for one of your opponent's massive buffed minions.
Gadgetzan Jouster: If you've built a proper slow deck, she should often get her buff.
Zombie Chow: Staple of arena, has good stats, his deathrattle really doesn't matter in this brawl.
Hunter: Webspinner: Excellent card, will give you another minion for an extra spell.
Mage: Mana Wyrm: Obvious inclusion if you play mage
Warlock: Flame Imp: The battlecry isn't that bad and the 3/2 body is quite strong. Voidwalker is nice as well, although it's better to have 2/3 or 3/2 stats on your 1-drops.
Faerie Dragon: Could mess up your opponent in this brawl and isn't often played.
Jeweled Scarab: Very strong, since it counters opposing Millhouse Manastorms which are also popular since players don't carry spell in their decks in this brawl. At worst, it'll give you something to play on turn 3.
Nerub'ar Warlord: Mediocre but not bad due to the mechanics. Will give you a 2-mana spell, plus it can delay your opponent's play, forcing them to play weaker minions or let you play cheaper minions for more, giving you more expensive spells. However, it can backfire so it can be tricky.
Stonesplinter Trogg: Obvious synergy but won't survive very long - could bait removal though.
Youthful Brewmaster: Lets you re-use minions which is extra-powerful in this brawl, even for those without battlecry.
Hunter: King's Elekk: With a slow deck, this should net you an extra card most of the time, which is excellent.
Paladin: Argent Protector: Lets you stick your minions to the board a bit longer which is compatible with the meta. Shielded Minibot is also very good for the same reason as it can receive buffs you get only 1 or 2 turns later.
Warlock: Succubus: Discarding cards isn't often helpful, but in a ruleset where you might often have cards that aren't useful to you immediately and might have an excess of them in your hand, this card's text isn't bad and it has a great body for 2-mana *wink wink*. Dark Peddler can also be good.
A lot of good 3-drops, very strong slot in arena as well - here's a few choice picks:
Shattered Sun Cleric: Will buff another minion and keep it on the board and can also draw one of many 3-mana buffs.
Druid: Mounted Raptor: Nice because of stickyness, although you probably want some neutral 3-drops more than this.
Mage: Spellslinger: Works great, just like in arena. The upside is obvious and the combos can be excellent. It can backfire, but seems to work quite well if you know what you're doing.
Priest: Dark Cultist: Nice stats for 3 mana and can get your opponent in a bind as they try to get rid of him.
Shaman: Tuskarr Totemic: Nice for the same reason it's good in arena.
Mukla's Champion: Definitely one of the nastiest cards to play against, autoinclude if you're having trouble or playing Shaman/Paladin or have a free spot on 5. I don't use him because my 5-mana slot is saturated :P
Spectral Knight: Has enough health to deal with most board removal and enough attack to bring some pain. Might even give you a board clear himself!
Stranglethorn Tiger: The stealth on this one is very powerful along with a 5-mana spell.
Venture Co. Mercenary: Tricky, could let you play your 3 drops for 6-mana spells, but could backfire drastically.
Shaman: Fire Elemental: Auto-include for Shaman, very strong.
Paladin: Guardian of Kings: Strong card for the same reason the other 7-drops are.
Warrior: Obsidian Destroyer: Very strong since it will likely block a lot of damage and whatever he gives you is going to be good.
Force-Tank MAX: A good 8-drop for the powerful cards they give.
North Sea Kraken: For those lacking class 9-drops or legendary dragons, this one is a great substitute. Will always give Tree of Life.
That's a survey of some of the good common cards in this brawl. I'll make a deck of only commons which I'll post and try to win with it to see exactly how critical it is to have expensive cards in this brawl. Also, if you want to see what minions are good out of the whole collection, check some place like arenavalue.com or liquidhearth for arena card rankings and base your picks on that, no way to go wrong.
Oh my god So much cards Lol I just played the brawl so much for the ranked mode
Just build a singleton Warrior deck with reno, summoning stone, bran bronzebeard, and some sweet battlecry minions... the games take forever, but its soooooooo cool!!!! I love it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffer!
I find that North Sea Kraken is often better than the legendary dragons. most of the time, you won't have room in your hand for Nefarian's spells, and Ysera can fill your hand very quickly as well.Both don't live more than one turn anyway. Better to just kill a minion with the kraken. Onyxia usually won't do much either.
Alexstrasza is good but awkward, as the spell it gives you directly counters its effect. But it is still amazing as you'll often have 15 damage on your board + hand.
Mecha_Lynx your breakdown post here is fantastic; thank you for taking the time to compile it.
I'm not sure if the love/hate reactions to this brawl (and to a lesser extent the previous one) are more regional than not suiting people who possibly prefer a more "structured" style of play. Luck is always an element in Hearthstone, but the mode where it's influence is least is with Casual/Ranked Play, since (outside of using cards like Webspinner or Unstable Portal), since you and your opponent are working within a fixed deck and within class-restrictions. Arena requires a little more luck, largely in the drafting process but even then it's fairly static. But with brawls like this and last week's where those restrictions are largely thrown out the window -- well, it's not hard to see where RNG complaints are coming from.
Personally speaking, I don't like constructing decks and I found it to be one of my least favorite aspects of the game (particularly since I didn't have any of the solo adventures for the longest time), so I appreciate modes like this where I have a chance to work with cards that I haven't had the chance to get yet. I enjoy getting an unexpected card and trying to figure out how to work it on the fly; I find it much more satisfying than trying to work out synergy beforehand. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way, and I think Blizzard has picked up on that as well. The Discover mechanic introduced in LOE is basically taking it from the brawls and adding a bit of it to the meta.
30 legendaries, that's my approach. I would put up a deck list but there's little point. The only important things are to put in all cheap legends (2-3 mana) that you have and a few 9-drops for the full heal. Mostly though, just play the ones you find fun, and in this brawl your chances of success aren't too bad (i'm at about 50% over 20 or so games) since for once in this archetype (um, I guess it's an archetype) you have spells.
For those players who aren't very adventurous with trying out different cards, I show you my MVP: Mekgineer Thermaplugg (see attachment). As you can see, he's preeettty good with a free Flamestrike (the opponent had a full board of small-mid sized minions 20 seconds earlier).
It's a complete magefest. You might aswell delete all other classes from this brawl.
I played as priest. First 5 games were against mages, lost all. Then I finally played against a different class and won my match, took the pack and never looking back.
Funny how it isnt fun because of flamewanker and all the cheapskate netdeckers
Funny how you can't even see why its funny because you are bitter about a brawl that will replace itself within a week.
I have played every class but shaman this brawl, because I actually like to have fun. I'm not going to stop playing mage when I have a mage quest just because it's the OP class this brawl.
One of the worst brawls so far, I did good with rogue deck I made for it, but lack of diversity just kills this brawl for me. Last week's brawl is the best brawl yet, and puts this stupid magefest even more to shame.
I really hope Blizzard puts this one in the trash, it's just another one in the group of mage/druid>aĺl brawls.
Ugh, I dislike this Brawl. Puts someone with no legendaries and in general not so good cards, like me, in a big disadvantage. One win and I'll be done with the Brawl for this week...
I just hit the board with dr7 and a 0 mana Flamestrike, FeelsGoodMan
A reminder that we ought to be thankful for the fact that Hunters do not have a card similar to Savage Roar or Bloodlust.
I'm loving this brawl.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/379304-fast-tb-pack-75
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/380199-summoning-stone-mech
I feel like such an evil bastard for using Summoning Stone in a Mech deck. Free creatures with mana costs equal to the spells being played!
Druid win by Shadowform LMAO!
Do you Want to have a bad Time?
This brawl is so freaking cool!!!! I love it!
Just build a singleton Warrior deck with reno, summoning stone, bran bronzebeard, and some sweet battlecry minions... the games take forever, but its soooooooo cool!!!! I love it.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffer!
I find that North Sea Kraken is often better than the legendary dragons. most of the time, you won't have room in your hand for Nefarian's spells, and Ysera can fill your hand very quickly as well.Both don't live more than one turn anyway. Better to just kill a minion with the kraken. Onyxia usually won't do much either.
Alexstrasza is good but awkward, as the spell it gives you directly counters its effect. But it is still amazing as you'll often have 15 damage on your board + hand.
Mecha_Lynx your breakdown post here is fantastic; thank you for taking the time to compile it.
I'm not sure if the love/hate reactions to this brawl (and to a lesser extent the previous one) are more regional than not suiting people who possibly prefer a more "structured" style of play. Luck is always an element in Hearthstone, but the mode where it's influence is least is with Casual/Ranked Play, since (outside of using cards like Webspinner or Unstable Portal), since you and your opponent are working within a fixed deck and within class-restrictions. Arena requires a little more luck, largely in the drafting process but even then it's fairly static. But with brawls like this and last week's where those restrictions are largely thrown out the window -- well, it's not hard to see where RNG complaints are coming from.
Personally speaking, I don't like constructing decks and I found it to be one of my least favorite aspects of the game (particularly since I didn't have any of the solo adventures for the longest time), so I appreciate modes like this where I have a chance to work with cards that I haven't had the chance to get yet. I enjoy getting an unexpected card and trying to figure out how to work it on the fly; I find it much more satisfying than trying to work out synergy beforehand. I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way, and I think Blizzard has picked up on that as well. The Discover mechanic introduced in LOE is basically taking it from the brawls and adding a bit of it to the meta.
Blizzard needs to start blacklisting cards so we don't have to deal with cancer mage every brawl with deck creation. It's just not fun.
Warning: pay to 'win' deck suggestion!!
30 legendaries, that's my approach. I would put up a deck list but there's little point. The only important things are to put in all cheap legends (2-3 mana) that you have and a few 9-drops for the full heal. Mostly though, just play the ones you find fun, and in this brawl your chances of success aren't too bad (i'm at about 50% over 20 or so games) since for once in this archetype (um, I guess it's an archetype) you have spells.
For those players who aren't very adventurous with trying out different cards, I show you my MVP: Mekgineer Thermaplugg (see attachment). As you can see, he's preeettty good with a free Flamestrike (the opponent had a full board of small-mid sized minions 20 seconds earlier).
It's a complete magefest. You might aswell delete all other classes from this brawl.
I played as priest. First 5 games were against mages, lost all. Then I finally played against a different class and won my match, took the pack and never looking back.
I have been using this deck
15 win streak and really fun to play it's cw Warrior deck
Funny how Sense Demons is one of the best cards you can get from playing Flamewaker.
I have played every class but shaman this brawl, because I actually like to have fun. I'm not going to stop playing mage when I have a mage quest just because it's the OP class this brawl.
Edit: (Double post error)
One of the worst brawls so far, I did good with rogue deck I made for it, but lack of diversity just kills this brawl for me. Last week's brawl is the best brawl yet, and puts this stupid magefest even more to shame.
I really hope Blizzard puts this one in the trash, it's just another one in the group of mage/druid>aĺl brawls.