Hearthpwn

Battletag:  Angamacutiro#1355
Region:  NA
Trade Only?:  Yes, you go first.

DONE.

Rank 47 is "Game Journalist Legend".

Easy, powerful and cheap. It is important for those without the wild set to get their pack win fast and this does it beautifully.

It is also fun to play around it until the powercreep sets up.

You could play Control Priest or Even Shaman if you're so concerned about coin-flips. They're both decks notorious for having a good matchup spread and not being either very overpowering or undermining against basically the whole field. That's only two at the top of my head, there's also several hunter decks able to say a similar story; and the all-around jack of all trades even paladin.

If you play combo, of course you're going to have polarizing matchups. Aggro will beat you and control will not. If you play combo against combo, of course it's going to be a race of who makes the combo first and that can be determined by the RNG of how are the pieces on the combo on the deck.

If that makes you think combo is boring, well; that makes two of us.

Hype.

This is going to bring bigger changes than the whole new expansion. Hello, new meta!

I'm playing noting but Odd Paladin out of spite and hatred for Kingsbane Rogue. I don't care what else demolishes me, as long as I can demolish them at every turn.

I love this brawl, I'm going to play the hell out of it. It's a shame that it didn't come out with the expansion, as always, that was a miss.

Still, the powerlevel of most of the decks is very balanced and it makes up for very interesting matches. The meta on ladder was growing stale, if just a little bit. This is a breath of fresh air and I love it. The only place in this reality where Control Buff Paladin actually works. The discard synergy warlock is also fun to play when nothing else is too overpowered to contest it.

A shame about poor druids, but that is hard-mode for the pros who want it. 

I am really sorry, but I am one of those Hunters. Not capitalizing on the OP meta! I've been a Hunter main ever since Deathstalker Rexxar; it's just such a cool card and it's gotten to the point I got my golden hero. I just love that card and will continue playing it until it rotates out.

Now, to what you want to hear:

1) Odd Paladin. Their explosive stats usually destroy Hunter. Don't get cocky, a coined out Greater Emerald Spellstone on turn 4 can blow out ANY deck, Paladin included, without an answer. Odd Paladin is still your best bet to win against Hunter.

2) Discardlock. It's not a meme deck, just low tier 2. If they get their quest online, it's usually over.

3) Even Shaman. Matchup is slightly favored towards Shaman. It all depends who can spend their mana more efficiently. Control Druids have been run out of Standard by Hunters. It's a good time to be a Shaman.

3 Options of decks that will beat hunter (while also not auto-conceding to everything else) may not seem like much; but I think we have not seen everything out of the expansion. A counter will rise.

Warrior:
Core:  Armor for massive health gains, weapons for early removal and powerful tools lategame.
Rastakhan's identity: Dragons; big bodies attached to powerful effects.

Shaman:
Core: Powerful, undercosted spells for future payment (overload). Synergy with wide boards, both enemy and allied ones.
Rastakhan's identity: Draw and generate spells.

Rogue:
Core: Single target removal. Lack of heals/clear, but powerful, tempo efficient hero power and spells with easy ways to cycle/draw.
Rastakhan's identity: Tempo pirates with rush and synergy with one another.

Paladin:
Core: Lack of removal. Board-centric using stat manipulation and other tools (divine shield, weapons) for advantageous trades. Offensive buffs.
Rastakhan's identity: Heal and cycle and be rewarded by both with tempo.

Hunter:
Core: Powerful beast synergy, cheap removal spells to protect beasts on board, finish fights quickly by being aggressive.
Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap spells and minions ASAP, be rewarded by a hand-reload mechanic.

Druid:
Core: Skip turns to earn mana, drop big minions with defensive impact to comeback. Countered by constant medium threats.
Rastakhan's identity: Use cheap removal tools which cycle thanks to the synergy with hero power attack. Go wide and try to finish fast.

Warlock:
Core: Powerful effects paid in unconventional ways (health, discard). Weaker spells overall but strongest hero power. Demon synergy.
Rastakhan's identity: Discard early to gain an advantage on board, use discard-recovery cards later to recover from the loss.

Mage:
Core: All sort of removal spells, both powerful and relatively cheap. Ability to deal with both tall and wide threats easily.
Rastakhan's identity: Elemental synergy, use of hero power for removal as a free spell.

Priest:
Core: Healing-centric, synergy with high-health minions. Powerful and cheap, if situational, answers. Centered around surviving to lategame.
Rastakhan's identity: Buff minions beforehand in hand and deck and take board with their over-stats.

Whatever a certain wonderful gnome wants me to play at the time.

I'm wrong almost every time; but what the hell. Let's make a prediction.

Tier 1: Odd Paladin, Zoolock, Dragon Warrior, Even Paladin, Cube Hunter, Secret Hunter.

Zoolock with some Discard synergy for longevity is looking like a strong midrange deck. Dragon Warrior has been very impressive in their demonstration of tools and I'm sufficiently convinced it will do stuff, Paladin will keep exploiting hero power plus 1 or 2 card changes and keep going face. Hunter hero will be basically clear+make a board, which will be crazy strong.

Tier 2: Odd Warrior, Even Shaman, Evenlock, Burn Shaman, Combo druid, Tempo Priest, Odd Rogue.

Odd warrior has a few more tempo-efficient tools and will continue its polarized matchups, but the right polarized matchups. Tempo Priest will need some tweaking but I believe an optimized list can have a decent winrate. I see a future for Burn Shaman as many of the strongest decks will not run heals. Druid will get carried by the usual 26 core combo cards. Rogue will not be too strong against the explosive starts of Paladins, and armor gains of Warriors/Druids but will prey on Hunters and Warlocks.

Tier 3: Taunt Druid, Exodia Paladin, Control Mage, Tempo Warrior, Combo Shaman.

The last of the decks I suspect will reach the 50% mark... almost. Taunt druid will be more consistent with their "draw win condition" card; not to mention the midrange nature of the meta will not allow for many silences to be run. Paladin will have just enough tools to sometimes survive to play the combo, Mage will break aggro and fold against midrange, while Shaman will not bite or catch many things.

The pack is not worth is not worth it this week. 

Overclock every 2 turns? Who play-tested this thing? How do you even win?

4 tries, mechazod has 12 attack before we reach 10 crystals. How do you win?

Edit: Phew, 5th try. The plan is: Does Mechazod overclock too early? You will lose. Will he take it easy? You win.

RNG for Mechazod, RNG for who you play with, RNG you get a combo to win with. Brawl might as well be a roulette you get to spin every 5 minutes with 20% chance to win.

While I can't possibly go to the gatherings without spending thousands of dollars, that's still good news. Streamers will be there and we will be able to enjoy it.

There is ONE thing I hope. The tavern brawl previous to the release MUST feature new cards somehow. Please! It makes all the sense in the world! It is unforgivable that after years they have only done that once with Marin the Fox.

To arms, men...! Er... trees!