Tavern Brawl Week 1 2016
Welcome to this week’s Tavern Brawl week 1 of 2016. The first one of the New year. I was hoping they came up with something new and from what I remember this is new.
This Week’s Theme
The theme is battle of the builds. This is referring to how you create you deck and abilities or how you want to build it. You can go spell, you can build up armor, or give your minions plus one plus one or create a Murloc every turn.
This Weeks Aspect
Tavern Brawl this week brings us ‘What’s better? Battle cry, Death rattle, spells or Murloc’s. Make a deck, pick a side and let’s find out.” So here we have another week where we build the hero and deck of our own choice. With all the success I have been having with my secret Paladin in ranked play I decided to go with a Paladin at first. I find it important to get that quick first win to earn the free classic pack. The decision you make is on your turn 1 and only affects your deck. The opponent gets his choice on his first turn also. The choices are as follow: deathrattle bonus – gives your deathrattle minions plus attack and plus one defense/health, murloc bonus – get a 1/1 murloc for o casting cost at the end of every turn, spell bonus – everytime you cast a spell gain 3 armor to your hero, battlecry bonus – all your battlecry minions get plus 1attack plus one defense when summoned. These choices can make some interesting combinations and help us build a deck that is not necessarily a standard rank deck or net deck.
Getting Started
Since I experienced so much success recently with my Paladin deck I decided to go with a secret Paladin deck. Starting out I went with my standard rank play Paladin deck. I did not change anything the first few games because I wanted to see how it would fair in this environment. The choice I picked to begin with the first games based on Paladin deck having quite a few secrets which count as spells made me choose the spell bonus to gain 3 armor everytime I casted a spell. I think it worked pretty well and I got my first win really quick and earned that free pack. The free pack turned out 1 purple and 2 blues giving my 150 dust; that has been the highest for me in quite a while.
Deck List
I stated early my hero choice was the Paladin. I had two different versions one was murloc based and the other was secret based. They both provided me lots of rank wins but the secret version has a much better recently for me on the ladder. I utilized ten secrets and 20 minions. This worked out well when selecting the spell bonus gaining three armors every time I cast a spell. The key secrets were: avenge, competitive spirit, noble sacrifice, redemption, and repentance.
Game Play
I started out running percent win rate with my standard secret Paladin. I faced a majority of Paladins but also saw Hunter, and Druid. I think the strength of the Paladin in the current Meta has made that a first choice hero in this format but I think as it plays out we will see some other heroes who can take advantage of , spells, and deathrattle. Does everyone remember the deathrattle Priest and Hunter? I remember in the past a Meta where these two heroes took a grand advantage of deathrattle. I can also see a Priest or Mage taking advantage of the spell bonus. I think the battlecry bonus fits the Warrior nicely and I expect to see some of those as the Tavern Brawl starts to evolve throughout the week. My expectations and actual games saw a wide variety of card choices. Keep in mind baron rivendare when building the deathrattle deck to take advantage of deathrattle triggering twice on everything with deathrattle. I did not come across much murloc decks but decided to give my murloc Paladin a run and it did fine in the current Tavern Brawl Meta. You have to remember that at the beginning of the Tavern Brawl ends up being quite different in the end. It is time to get back to the game play. The first Paladin opponents I faced chose the free murloc bonus for a 1/1 murloc at the end of every turn for 0 casting cost. The Hunter’s I saw were choosing the deathrattle bonus. The Druid’s were selecting the spell bonus. I did have a few deathrattle minions in my secret Paladin and it worked quite well early game. In the end best choice was the spell bonus due to the ten secrets I was playing in my deck. The mage’s I saw were selecting spell bonus as I thought would happen there. The mage buffed up to quite a bit of armor and I was not able to compensate the different. I guess an afterthought was to give the Mage a go. I tried it and it is extremely difficult to beat as that armor is building every turn and starting as early as turn one. The Paladin deck can be slow on the spell front as you are casting certain spells in different situations and not necessarily at the beginning and every turn thereafter. Hindsight speaking I think the Mage is going to be the winning rate machine after you build your control slash spell Mage. I saw a few Druid’s selecting the free Murloc at the end of each turn but I am not sure why. I think a spell based Druid might be a better choice. For now I am focusing on the murloc Paladin and the spell Mage. Do not take my choices as the best for all but they are the best for my type of playstyle and I think I can win the most games. Everyone is different and every deck can be made here and lead to wins but try to pick your bonus before you build you deck so you tailor it to take advantage of the bonus of your choice.
Parting Thoughts
Well we are off to another exciting week of Tavern Brawl. I hope you guys enjoy the new format as much as I did. Be adventurous and maybe try a deck or hero for the first time. The bonus cards to add a twist and open up a whole range of thinking that can be exploited if the deck matches the bonus. Nothing is set in stone and you can try different things to keep your opponents off their guard. This format will steer the decks away from their standard builds and maybe bring back some old deck ideas that can take you to lots of wins along the way. As always I hope you players can subscribe to Hearthstone players dot com as I think it is a beneficial choice for a few dollars a month. Consider all the content you will get to see right when it comes out. The writers here do an excellent job and from my experience right on when it comes to recommended decks. Peace out from Texas and look for my next Tavern Brawl and This Week in Hearthstone articles going forward.
