Brawlers – Deal your fate

Previously on Brawlers

Hi Brawlers!

Did you miss the article last week? I did!

It was a really fun rule but unfortunately for me it was impossible to release an article on time. It’s senseless to write an article and release it on Sunday with less than a day to enjoy the explanations so in the end there was no article at all.

When I had time for Hearthstone, I found such a wild rule that I didn’t know where to start. I mean, the rule wasn’t complicated, but I wanted to talk about lots of decks: Bolster Warrior, Divine Shield Paladin, Giant Warlock, Giant-Echo Mage, Windfury Shaman… There were so many good options that I ended up overwhelmed and without time to choose any of them.

To avoid that in the future we’ve decided to split the article into two parts. As soon as I can you’ll have the explanation of the rule and any combos / cards of the week I detect. In the second part I will build/search for the best deck / decks (it’ll depend on the time I have) and share my thoughts here with you.

If you have any idea to improve this series, please leave a comment!

And now… let’s move to the rule!

Rule of the week

Deal Your Fate

“The Tavern Keeper foretells a fateful brawl! You and your opponent discover random fates that affect you both!”

No clues with the opening sentence so we’ll have to start a game and see what’s going on into the Tavern.

Ok, after mulligan you have to choose a “Fate” effect among the ones that are presented to you. The “Fate” cards are the following ones:

• Armor: Each player gains 2 Armor on the start of each of their turn
• Bananas: When a minion dies, its owner gets a (1) mana Banana
• Coin: When a minion dies, its owner gets a Coin
• Confusion: At the end of each turn swap all minions Attack and Health
• Portals: Shuffle 10 Unstable Portals into each player’s deck
• Spells: Spells cost (1) less

There are 6 options but you will have to choose among 4 of them. Your opponent will do the same in his first turn so there will be two Fates that will influence both players.

Besides that, when a player reaches 20 life, he will get another Fate “Discover”. This time the Fates are called Dire Fates and are different. Let’s review them all:

• Card: When a minion dies, its owner draws a card
• Manaburst: Minions gain Deathrattle: Random card in owner’s hand costs (0)
• Murlocs: Turn each minion in play into a 1/1 Murloc
• Taunt and Charge: All minions have Taunt and Charge
• Unstable Portals: Place 3 Unstable Portals in each player’s hand
• Windfury: All minions have Windfury

There are two kind of Fates. Portals, Murlocs and Unstable Portals are one-time effects. The rest will last for the whole match. If they affect minions, there’s no way of removing this overall effect. With a Silence effect you will remove other abilities the minion has, but the Fate will stay there. Even when you change minions on board with the “Murlocs” Fate, they will still be affected by any previous Fate that affects minions.

General thoughts

The first impression when you find all the possibilities is that this Tavern Brawl is too much RNG dependant. There are so many factors you won’t control that it’ll be impossible to build a proper deck! After the initial rage you start finding combos here and there and realize it’s not as crazy as it seems to be.

When you start building a deck think on at least two of the Fates. There’s still a small chance that you don’t get any of them, but if you build the whole deck around a single Fate, it’ll be bigger. Your opponent will help you when he chooses his Fate, so it’ll be rare the game when you don’t get any of your helpful Fates. Think on the first list of Fates. The second will affect the last stage of the game and lots of times you’ll find that you choose “Murlocs” to soft reset the board.

Let’s talk about Fates one by one:

• Armor: Control decks will enjoy it in the beginning but it’s a mirror effect so it’s not so clear that it’s a good Fate to choose. If a control player finds himself in the spot that the opponent has 30 life and 30 Armor now it’s not as good as it seemed. We of course have alexstrasza to reduce the life down to 15 but we will still have to remove the Armor. The best deck plan I’ve found right now is a Rogue Mill deck. Now you don’t care so much of opposing Armor as you plan to win by fatigue.
• Bananas: If you played the Bananas Brawl then you’ll know what kind of Bananas you will receive. There are four: Bananas will give a minion +1/+1, Big banana will give +2/+2, Rotten banana will do 1 damage, and Deviate Banana will swap a minion’s attack and health. You’ll get a banana when a minion you own dies so it’s oriented to zoo decks. Zoolock is a deck I’m testing right now and if it goes well I’ll show you in the second part. Other good option could be Eggs Druid.
• Coin: An option for spell synergy decks (Mage), Combo decks (Rogue) or even Big Fatty decks (Druid). At this moment I’ve only seen Mages choosing it but let’s see how the metagame evolves.
• Confusion: I’m also choosing this Fate with the Zoolock I’m playing. There are two important synergies with it. The first one is nerubian-egg. Play it on turn one with the-coin and you will have a 4/4 since the beggining. That’s a strong start! The second one is trickier. When you play an “until end of turn” buff, the swap will come first and it won’t end at the end of turn. Example: abusive-sergeant gives +2 Attack to a minion, let’s say it’s a 2/3, so it’ll become a 4/3 and then at the end of the turn it’ll swap into a 3/4. This mini combo will be exploited in the Zoolock I’m testing.
• Portals: I don’t really see the point of this Fate. I wouldn’t choose it in a flamewaker Mage deck as my first option. I think there are better ones. It’s going to fill the deck with unstable-portal and will reduce the chances of getting the cards we really want. Side note: reno-jackson don’t like it!
• Spells: Another perfect fit for the Mage deck I’m pointing out.

Among Dire Fates I will highlight a couple of them

• Card: I’ve seen this Fate being chosen by Mill Rogue players and it’s a toothache. You don’t want to draw anymore but you need your minions to kill your opponent! Bad solution…
• Murlocs: The most used option for sure. As I said, soft reset to help you to survive and keep playing. Anyway, sometimes we will reach the 20-life threshold without an opposing scary board and we will be able to choose another option. By the way, Murlocs won’t attack that turn so your opponent will have the initiative next turn.

Always remember that Fates will also benefit your opponent. Probably the Murlocs one is the only one that won’t benefit him as well.

Cards of the week

mana-wyrm, flamewaker: It seems Mage is always well positioned in Tavern Brawls. This time the synergy of Spell rules will push up the conventional Flamewaker decks into the next stage. I’ve played a lot of games against Mages so it seems a quick option and we will find these two minions everywhere.

questing-adventurer, edwin-vanCleef: Coins and Bananas could change these two minions into huge beasts.

Conclusion

I hope you’ll find this way of explaining the Tavern Brawl rule useful. At this point you will probably know the decks I’m going to explain in the second part but let’s see if I find another fancy option to present here.

And now it’s your turn, what are you going to play? Did you find this Tavern Brawl so fuzzy that you’ll get the pack and move on or will you try to beat it? Leave any feedback, you know it’ll be welcome!

Have fun.

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