Tavern Brawl Week 3

Tavern Brawl January 12, 2016

Welcome to the new Tavern Brawl this week. It is labelled as the “Return of Mechazod”. This is a repeat of what has been done before which is fine with me. The description is “Mechazod wants a rematch! This time new allies stand against him. Good luck with this return co-op brawl”. I for one like the co-op play very much and I am glad they brought it back. The idea adds a different twist to the game by forcing both players to work together to beat the boss. I hope at some point the developers can do this all the time and maybe create a 4 on 4 type of format in Tavern Brawl and may be outside of it also. Imagine a 4 on 4 type of format, the possibilities are endless. I am normally looking for something new but in this case I am glad they brought the co-op theme. The hard part here is trying to create a deck that meshes with many other heroes to attain the same goal of defeating the boss. This can be daunting but I will do my best to give you guys an idea of how to create a universal deck. The last time this came out I played the format a lot and I several different insights to go along with it. A universal deck is not complicated but your game play will have to adapt to who you are paired up with. I know it sounds complicated but its not. You can make a generic deck but you have to keep an eye on your partner, his hero, his gameplay and the cards he’s running. You will also have to adapt turn by turn depending on what your partner plays. None of this is extremely hard but you must pay attention more than when playing as a single player. I know I had to play a few games first to see the field and tweak my deck more of often more than I do normally.

Game Play Strategy

First off you do not build a deck in this format, I know above I made it sound like you do. Here you don’t, you just click brawl and go. Last time they had 2 basic hero types I believe and you play a few times as long as possible to see your card choices and hero types you got to play. The minion you are trying to kill starts out as a 2/95 minion that has 1 action every turn and switches sides the playing field he is on. The first game I was a Mage and my partner was a Druid. We got him down to eleven but my partner was at 12 and I was at 20. The boss did his damage to both opponents which at the time were a 12/11. Unfortunately we lost. Try to keep health in mind and heal each other as much as you can. The boss can only do one action each of the players turns. I will be honest, due to our limited comments we are able to make in game makes this format extremely difficult. I am not saying you cannot win; I was able to win the second attempt with my partner as a Mage and me as a Druid. Let me tell this is not an easy task based on the emotes you are allowed. I did win the second match with me as a Druid and my partner as a Mage. So it seems the two choices are a Druid and Mage randomly selected for each player. I will try to replicate the second match based on what the boss did on each players turn. Remember the boss gets an action on each players turn. The boss is a taunt minion that moves to each player each turn. The boss has quite a few actions he can do but I have not been able to narrow it down to what he does based on what each player does.

Game Play Cards

My record for opening day, which I do post the results until the first win, was one and one. I lost the first game and won the second time. The first game I was dealt the mage. The keys for the mage are damage spells and minions. The mage needs to wait until spell damage is on the board if possible before casting damage spells. Both players have minions in their deck that give bonuses to spell damage. The key cards for the Mage I saw that were not damage are: mirror entity, [card]arcane intellect, soot spewer, animated armor and sorcerer’s apprentice[/card]. The damage spells I saw were: [forgotten torch[/card], [fireball[/card], and pyroblast. Basically as the Mage I played to do direct damage to Mechazod and heal with gaining copies of healing spells from the Druid. The Druid seems to focus on mana crystal for both players, healing, and spell casting for buffs. The key Druid cards I saw were: wild growth, wrath, healing touch, [savage roar[/card], [grove tender[/card], force of nature, ancient of lore, and cenarius. The Druid I focused on healing and trying to match certain cards to the Mage’s secrets. I also wanted to get spell damage bonus cards into play. Once you figure out what’s available to each hero it does become easier but by no means is this an easy format. A minion starting out as 2/95 and has an action every turn makes for a complicated game that does eat up some time.

Game Play action

I stated earlier that the boss you are trying to kill changes sides every turn and has an action he can do every turn. The actions I saw him do were: attack both players with his attack damage which Mechazod can buff up and the buffs stay so the highest I saw him get his damage was 12 attack, gain 2 attack damage buff, deal attack damage to a minion with the highest damage on the board, deal attack damage up to 3 targets, and destroy lorewalker cho. The first game I played I was the mage and we were able to get Mechazod down to 1 health which took about 25 minutes due to all the thought you have to put into each turn. The second game the Mage was at 1 health and myself, the Druid, was at 3 life. We had him at 12/1 with turn passing to me. We both had minions on the board and Mechazod used the action to destroy a minion with his attack which was lucky for us because the all I had to do was kill him with my minion. Game, set, and match for that free pack.

Parting Thoughts

I stated earlier I enjoy this format. I really do but it takes a lot out of you for all the considerations or options each and every turn. Due to my limited playing time every day I will only play once a day more than likely. All I can say is do not give up as this is a winnable matchup as you can see it only took me 2 games as an average player. I hope the developers can come up with a way to make this format a permanent option in play and maybe even expand it into other formats such as two on two co-op play possibly. Please consider becoming premium members on the Hearthstone player’s dot com website. Look out for more articles from myself such as This Week in Hearthstone and for the next Tavern Brawl. For now, peace out from Texas.