Heroic Tavern Brawl – Is It Worth It?

Edit: According to official HS Twitter, HTB will NOT happen this week. I think that the huge outrage from community regarding the rewards made them postpone it. Yesterday we’ve learned that instead of the usual, fun/gimmicky Tavern Brawl we’re going to have a very competitive, tournament-like Heroic Tavern Brawl this week. Things will go back to […]

Edit: According to official HS Twitter, HTB will NOT happen this week. I think that the huge outrage from community regarding the rewards made them postpone it.

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Introduction

Yesterday we’ve learned that instead of the usual, fun/gimmicky Tavern Brawl we’re going to have a very competitive, tournament-like Heroic Tavern Brawl this week. Things will go back to normal after this one and while it might be reintroduced in the future, there are no plans for that right now. You will be able to play it 5 times total on one server.

Heroic Tavern Brawl tempts every player with huge rewards if you go all the way through, way bigger than the Arena. Rewards for 12 wins are insane – 50 packs, 1.100 gold, 1.100 dust AND 3 Golden Legendaries. But it also introduces a huge entry fee, something that’s not easily affordable for the average player – 1.000 gold or $10. So the most important question for all the folks playing the game more or less casually is: is it worth it?

Is It Worth It?

I’ll answer first and then explain why I think so. No, it’s not worth it. If you want to maximize your gold gain or you want to get that Golden Legendary – don’t play this Brawl, because statistically you won’t get it. And here is why:

Reward list for the Heroic Tavern Brawl

Reward list for the Heroic Tavern Brawl

For my calculations I’ll assume that 100 dust is equal to 100 gold. Pack costs 100 gold and it’s worth about 100 dust on average, so that’s where my calculations come from. I’ll also value $10 entry fee at 700 gold, since you can buy 7 packs for it – it can be worth more if you use some promos (e.g. Amazon Coins) or buy higher pack count, but let’s make it simple for the sake of those calculations.

Statistically, average person who plays in the Heroic Tavern Brawl will end up at 50% win rate, so 3-3, just like in the Arena. Rewards for 3 wins are: 4 packs, 120 dust and 120 gold. So if we add that up, going 3-3 is worth about 640 gold, while entry fee is 1.000 gold (or $10 = ~700g). Meaning that average participant will end up losing the value – ~360g if he bought entry with gold and ~60g if he bought it with money.

And how many wins you need to get to make it worth for you? People who paid with money will need to get at least 4 wins – that’s 5 packs + 190 gold/dust = ~880 gold worth of rewards, compared to ~700 gold worth of entry fee. And people who bought the entry with gold will need to get at least 5 wins – 6 packs + 220 gold/dust. That’s ~1.040 gold worth of rewards, which barely breaks even. And it’s not the average result – only about 23% of the participants will get at least 5 wins. So only about 23% of people paying with gold for their entry fee will break even.

But here’s the catch – I’m talking about average player entering HTB. Not average Hearthstone player (let’s say rank 15-18). Remember that the skill level of people who will play this will be much higher than that of your average ladder opponent (unless you’re a Legend player). There are no brackets or ranks here. It means that if you’re an average Hearthstone player, your expected result will be much lower. Actually, you’ll probably be near the bottom of the pool (because I don’t think that you will see a lot of rank 20 or below players), meaning that most of average HS players will end up between 0-2 wins.

Of course, luck will be a big factor here – after all even the best players in the game might lose a few games in a row, due to bad RNG or bad matchup. Getting 12-2 (or better) score in a competitive environment, in B01 format with only a single deck is incredibly hard. Actually, only about 0.65% of the participants will get to 12 wins. And that’s the only Tier that offers godlike rewards – the jump between 11 and 12 wins is insane (+34 packs, +620 gold/dust, +1 Golden Legendary). So if you’re lured by the huge rewards, don’t think about getting to 12, because that’s VERY unlikely.

So I’d say that if you struggle to get past rank 5, because that’s when the really competitive ladder starts, you will struggle here too. If you’re stuck even lower each season, on rank 10 or 15, don’t play it. You’ll most likely just feed the sharks and end up between 0-2 wins. And I don’t want to be mean – I’m just trying to save your gold and efforts. Unless, of course, you want to feel the thrill of the competitive play and tournaments and you don’t care about gold – then you can try it.

Closing

House always wins, and in this case the win is really huge. On average, players will lose a lot of gold by playing this mode. The players who need the big rewards most (small collection) will never get there and the players that will end up on the top mostly don’t even need the extra gold/dust/packs that much, because they already have big collections. That’s a pretty shitty move from Blizzard just before new expansion is announced (less gold on players = more players buy packs with money), because casual players might be lured by big rewards, while in reality there is almost no way that they will break even, not to mention any gain.

I’ll try my chances and get back to you in a few days with my results. And even though I play in high Legend every season, I don’t expect to get to the top.

If you want to be up to date with my articles, you can follow me on the Twitter.

Good luck on the ladder and until next time!


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