Battle of the Bans is this week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl

Blizzard has no problem swinging the ban hammer. This week in Hearthstone, the power of the hammer is in your hands.

This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl is Battle of the Bans. If you’ve ever been to an actual Battle of the Bands, then you know oftentimes the groups on stage are mediocre at best. Depending on the types of Tavern Brawls you enjoy, Battle of the Bans may or may not be your cup of tea.

Battle of the Bans is a constructed Brawl, meaning you’ll have to make a deck. The twist here is that your deck will be made up of four cards. When a match begins, you and your opponent will both see each other’s deck and get the chance to ban one of the four cards. Once you and your opponent have both banned a card, your decks will be made up of copies of your remaining three cards.

The key here will be identifying your opponent’s strategy and trying to clip the card that impacts it the most. The downside is your opponent will be doing the exact same thing to you. When banning, you’ll also want to consider which card your opponent is using that most heavily impacts your win condition.

If you’re running a hand full of face damage spells and you encounter a mage running Counterspell, for example, you’d probably want to get rid of that Counterspell. Another example would be an Aggro build banning an opponent’s Taunt-centric creature.

You’ll be able to check out the Battle of the Bans for the next seven days. Earning your first win will net you a free Year of the Phoenix card pack.