Hearthpwn

I like this brawl more than last week's, but it does get boring fast because most beasts are boring.  The banana brawl was basically Play mode with a focus on aggro/zoo decks.  The first brawl was the best, figuring out the strategy for both heroes so you can consistently win.

I assume this also happens with stampeding kodo and ironforge rifleman and anything else that can kill the mad scientist with a battlecry?

The new card expansion will be card packs exactly how they are now.

I've been tracking my arena history on arena mastery for 6 months, you can see all my stats here:  http://arenas.ws/v5oc

My average is 5.69 wins per run after 112 arena runs, but that includes all the classes (I tend to mix it up a lot, just for fun).  My best class is warrior which has a 6.69 average after 16 runs.  I only average 4 wins per arena with warlock, after 7 runs.

If you go to that link and check out my arena history, you'll see that even though 6 is my average, that doesn't mean I get 6 every run.  In fact, a couple days ago I only got 1 win with a warlock deck (I've thankfully never gotten 0 wins).  Those runs where you go 12 really helps to push up your average.  That site is really cool by the way, you can see the entire breakdown of my stats.  You can see exactly how many times I've gotten each number of wins.  Also, if you click an individual arena run, you can even see exactly which cards I used and which cards I had to pick from in the draft.    Check it out.

I couldn't beat him on heroic with the free to play deck that's on the homepage, but I made some changes to it and one-shot him.  Here is the deck I used:  

Ancient Watcher is a 4/5 for 2 mana that also requires 2 cards to activate.

I see Haunted Creeper as about the same value as Argent Squire. Argent Squire is basically two 1/1s for 1 mana.  Haunted Creeper gives you one extra 1/2 for 1 more mana.  So, it basically evens out.  They both serve basically the same function too.

In fact, you can compare a lot of the cards to some of the cards we already know.  Nerub'ar Weblord is very similiar to Mana Wraith and I would say it has about the same value.  Nerubian Egg is similar to Ancient Watcher, except its easier to activate and protects against AoE, so it does have more value (although it can be silenced).  Poison Seeds is like a more risky/situational Polymorph.  It may have more or less value depending on the situation.  You can probably compare Maexxna to Boulderfist Ogre in value.  They both can kill most cards in the game.  Maexxna lives a little longer with 1 more health and can kill larger things.  But the ogre can go for face and Maexxna can't (and Maexxna is weak to Stampeding Kodo).  So they might be of similar value but useful in different situations.  I'd probably say Boulderfist Ogre is a little better.

If you end up drafting patient assassin in arena, you basically want to use him as soon as possible to kill something before he gets wiped.  Anything 2 mana or above is value, so go ahead and kill whatever it is in front of him.

My AI opponent had 2 life left but a full board of 7 minions, none with taunt.  I only had one 3/2 minion on the board and no cards.  He went for my face with all 7 of his minions, leaving me with 3 life, and him dead...

Another time today, I had a Sunwalker up, but my opponent had a 6 attack weapon (faerlina with 2 of the +attack guys).  He had 3 total minion on the board, each with only one or two attack.  He attacked my sunwalker with his 6 damage hero to clear the bubble and then wiped all of his minions into it to kill it...

When are we going to start seeing some community challenges come up to truly test our skills against heroic Naxxramas?  Because face it, even heroic isn't really that hard.  Here are a couple I've come up with, can you think of any more?

1.  Contest to defeat each boss in the fewest turns possible.
2.  Defeat all 3 bosses in the Arachnid wing with the same deck.

This reminds me a lot of Infernal Gargoyle in Shadow Era which was also a difficult to kill 3 drop in that game. http://shadowera.wikia.com/wiki/Infernal_Gargoyle

Lol, doing that abom bane of doom test is actually really difficult to do by yourself.  They both cost 5 mana and you have to get the abom down to 2 health so you have to play the abom the turn before the bane of doom and somehow get him down to 2 health (maybe with drain life).  its pretty hard to do in practice mode.  You basically have to test it with a willing opponent.

The average from 0 wins is still about 36 gold in either gold or dust (I figure 1 dust is valued at about 2 gold), which is only a loss of 14 gold for doing the arena run instead of buying the pack even at 0 wins.  Of course, it gets better with actual wins.  1 win averages an equivalent of 43 gold, a loss of only 7 gold.  2 wins averages an equivalent of 53 gold in gold and/or dust, which means that there's a good chance  you'll make a small profit even at only 2 wins.  3 wins actually averages about the same as 2 since you usually get less dust and more gold for 3 wins and dust is worth more than gold and you have a higher chance of just getting a common card instead of gold/dust (which is pretty low value), so 3 wins is about an equivalent of 54 gold.  4 wins moves up to an equivalent of 78 gold.  So yeah, its definitely worth it to do arena instead of buying the pack unless you're really bad, you'll usually get a profit even at 2 wins.  On the other end, 12 wins averages 339 gold plus a good chance at an extra 2nd pack and an extra golden card.

If you have unlimited time to play, arena seems to be the most gold-efficient way to go, but play mode might be more time-efficient unless you can consistently get 4+ wins in arena.  In whichever mode you're doing you should be completing the quests which means you need to be able to win with whichever classes you have quests for in either arena or play mode in order to be most efficient.  In play mode you always get 10 gold for 3 wins which is 3.33 gold per win.  In arena, your profit will always be less than in play mode until you get to 4 wins, at which point it is 7 gold per win and it goes up from there.  So, if you can consistently get 4+ wins it might be more time-efficient to earn gold in arena, although you do have to take into account the time it takes to make your draft (as opposed to building your deck in play mode).  Also, you're probably playing more aggro decks in play mode so your games are going faster and you may have a higher win rate than in arena so you might earn gold faster in play mode and just buying the packs.

So, yeah, there's a lot of variables to take into account when deciding which one is more efficient.  If you can consistently get 4+ wins in arena, it seems like arena is better for both time-efficiency and gold-efficiency.  My average is 5-6 wins in arena, so I always do arena (I've never actually bought a straight pack).   Basically just do whatever you think is the most fun and what you feel like doing that day.

How did you miss DeerNadia?  She's one of the best streamers out there, both educational and entertainment:  http://www.twitch.tv/deernadia

And Noxious??  One of the most well-known and entertaining streamers.  He always plays Randuin Wrynn though so its mostly a just-for-fun stream:  http://www.twitch.tv/noxious_hs

Hotform is a very good streamer who always hits legendary and explains every move in detail the entire time and interacts with his audience frequently.  He also streams almost all day every day.  I wish he could get more viewers because he deserves them.  He mostly plays Giants Mage:  http://www.twitch.tv/hotform

I disagree about your evaluation of Amaz.  Amaz is one of my favorite streamers of all time and he's very good and very entertaining.  He plays priest because he's so good at it, its frankly the best deck he could play.

My favorite streamers are Trump, Kripparian, Noxious, Amaz, Hafu and the others I listed above.

I would definitely pick Illidan, no question.  Leeroy is only good for finishing the game, until then he's a dead card.  He does nothing for you if you're behind on board.  Illidan will always trade at least one-for-one and is a big threat that needs to be dealt with the same turn he is played.  If you wait until turn 7+ to play him with another card, he gets even more value.  None of your legendary choices are amazing but Illidan is the only one that isn't strictly bad.  In fact, I'd say he's above average.