Hearthstone Players!

Ah, just got worked over by a rogue. Lot of nice spells in there. Sprint at 7 and sap is nice in this format

This is, by far, the best Brawl to date and the only ine for which I've played more games after getting a win. I figured everyone would go Mage or Priest, so I figured I'd try to roll with Paladin, since it has some good early spells that would be great in this format like Avenge and Seal of Truth (gain a 2-drop, kill your opponent's.)

First game, I ran into a Druid who had the curve in hand. Soul of the Forest is awesome in this Brawl, because you get a 3 and get 2/2s out of all your other early drops. Likewise, Savage Roar is even better than usual. So, I lost that one, but then went on to win 3 more. Funniest moment was when I ran into a Priest deck who got a Deathlord off a Thoughtsteal (how appropriate.) He Velen's it and I followed with an Equality, killed it with a dude, and it proceeded to summon the only non-spell in my deck: Tirion, of course. That's a win...

Let me tell you who is not good in this format: Warrior

That's pretty obvious, but in the spirit of "hard mode" I decided to give it a try anyway. It was brutal, I lost at least six games straight. For bonus masochist points, because I never play Warrior I don't even have a Brawl, so I had almost nothing on the top end to finish with.

I almost eked out a card damage win against a Priest, but I drew Whirlwinds at the end when I needed the Shield Blocks that I knew were still in there. I had at least two games go to 30 cards, but then I'd get ground down at the end.

However, let me tell you about the one win I did get, against a Mage. This one had help from a surprising source. Middle of the game, up around ten mana, I'm at ~25 with some armor, opponent is at ~20. I put a Rampage (+3/+3) on a Questing adventurer I have out to push him up to like 6/5 or so, and that rampage gives me a Lorewalker Cho. That's going to mix things up.

Mage plays a Duplicate secret (obviously, as I get one), and then realizes Cho is going to be handing me everything, so he sort of stalls. I play the duplicate secret myself on the next turn, since he already has one out. I think I played a Trogg and armored up, then killed some trash minion to duplicate for him.

Next turn he gets annoyed at Cho and kills him with a minion, so the Duplicate gives me two Lorewalker Chos. On my turn I cast some garbage spells, clear his board, then drop down both Chos (my QA is up around 9/5, after wiping out some threat on the board)

This puts him on tilt and he drop Flamewaker->Flamestrike to end the panda infestation. Cool. My big QA lives through it, he's out of mana, and I have two Flamestrikes in my hand. Facing the Flamewaker and a Malorne now. BGH on the Malorne, and a Flamestrike to kill the Flamewaker and summon a Flame Leviathan (perhaps the *most* useless card outside this format). 10-point QA to the face.

There's no answer to that, the buffed-up QA and the Leviathan ate him next turn.

Saved by not one, but two Lorewalker Chos.

I think I'll try a Shaman today, see how that works out...

Ya, I had a batshit crazy game that involved lore walker cho. I got one turn one playing a rogue. Turn two the only card in my hand that was playable was gang up, so I figured I might as well throw a few more copies of him in my deck. The other player of course got a copy of gang up and also copied CHO. So most of the game there was one, but more often two Cho's on the battlefield. It got crazy because if you cast anything your opponent got two copies. Both our hand were full to overflowing half the game, and we both nearly decked out before anyone could finish it, we both had so many options every turn and kill shot begat kill shot.

Was definitely the most memorable game of Hearthstone to date.

I got dealt a Hunter/Mage quest today, so I tried hunter out. Also pretty crappy, but better than warrior. The lack of high-cost spells really hurts those characters.

Got into another Cho fight with a Druid (just the one this time), but I wrangled it into a win. Eventually I unloaded on him with a Savage Roar, which is justice for all the times that damn card has killed me.

I think deliberately packing a Lorewalker Cho might not be a bad thing in this format.

The worm has turned, instead of facing all Mages and Priests, I think I've seen 3/4ths Druids in the last day or so. "Druid again? Oof."

Winner for the worst luck of all? Being "gifted" a Fel Reaver against a Mage. He froze it two turns in a row, and basically threw my whole deck away. The stupid thing never even attacked, it got killed by the time it would be unfrozen. By then I had a nearly empty board and an empty deck. Derp.

I finally beat Heroic Kel'Thuzad for my Naxxramas card back today. I used Trump's Paladin Deck after failing miserably with Druid, Mage, and Priest. My son opened a second Equality for me today so I was able to include that, I put in an Enhanc-o Mechano since I only had one Defender of Argus (to give Kel'Thuzad a taste of his own RNG medicine, I figured), Kel'Thuzad for the Hogger I don't have, and Muster for Battle x2 for the Wild Pyromancers. It only took me two real attempts - not counting immediate concessions after bad opening hands - and it was shockingly easy. My Paladin healing cards kept my health up during his first phase, and my hero power and Muster for Battle neutralized his minion-stealing power during his second. I was able to pull off a couple divine shields with Enhanc-o about halfway through his 2nd phase and once he was consistently down to one card in his hand turn after turn it was all over.

I'm still doing the F2P grind and I wouldn't mind it at all if I would get more Paladin-centric quests (pretty sure I've bitched about this before...). I pulled an Ancient of War, Force of Nature, and two each of Druid of the Claw and Fang, so my Druid deck is at least respectable for daily quests now (and few things are as satisfying as dealing lethal to a Mage with Force of Nature + Savage Roar). I also got a Hobgoblin that I like in theory, but the damn card is usually in the bottom 1/6th of my deck. I put him in my Paladin deck to synergize with Muster, and I threw a couple Echoing Oozes in there, too, to work with my Blessing of Kings and Avenge as well. I have him in my Warlock deck, too, to go with my Imp-plosion, Echoing Oozes, and Voidwalkers but he hasn't done much yet. I also like running a single Summoning Portal and I've had good luck playing it behind taunts where it helped me win a game recently. I'm stubbornly sticking to a crappy Hunter beast deck that has neither Savannah Highmane nor King of Beasts, so it craps out quite often.

Tonight I played a Ranked match against a control Priest that had every answer. He had me under his thumb for the whole game and I was in dire straits when I played Sylvanas on my nearly-empty board and he had 3-4 minions out, including a 3/10 Thoughtstolen Tirion Fordring (I had Aldor Peacekeepered him and then my opponent Velen's Chosened him to put him at 3/10). He hit me with three minions to get me down to 4 health, so his next turn he'd deal lethal unless I could come up with a miracle. All I had was Blessing of Kings and a minion that wouldn't do anything, so I gambled. I played BOK on Tirion and suicided Sylvanas into him... and she stole Tirion! And then on his turn my opponent played Holy Fire and killed me. Then in my very next game against, again, a control Priest, I had a better draw and was able to stave off all of the Wild Pyromancer-driven nonsense he kept pulling until I was able to drop a Sludge Belcher on an empty board on turn five. And then he abruptly conceded. Hearthstone!

Before you get surprised in a bad way, the Hobgoblin won't buff on Muster for Battle, or Imp-losion, or any of those sorts of things. It has to be a 1-attack minion played from your hand. The text alludes to this by saying "Whenever you play" rather than "summon".

It doesn't even work on the Paladin's Hero power.

It will work with Echoing Ooze, and I like using the Hobgoblin with Flying Machine or Micro-Machine. VWs and Mistress of Pain are also good picks for the Warlock, but overall it's a card you don't see much.

Well, shit. I usually catch that but I (obviously) blew right past that implication this time.

SB, if you want to do Paladin Hobgoblin, this is the deck I'm using: www.hearthpwn.com/decks/255722-hobnail
I've had pretty good success with it once I added the Leeroy, but he's FAR from essential. It's just a luxury from having Leeroy (Jenkins!)

On the slightly less expensive side, if you're OK with Warlock, there's a Hobgoblin version of Zoo I ran for a while that did well: www.hearthpwn.com/decks/273398-hobzoo

Unfortunately, when I am playing these days, I'm one of those Control Priest bastards... I'm just so good with that class. I can't help it.

This a new one. Unless I'm missing something, it appears to be randomized decks.

Here's some things I've observed in my first few games:

* The deck isn't random on each draw, it's pre-created.

I noticed this when I was dealt a Captain's Parrot, and played it to draw a Captain Greenskin. I also saw someone else play one, and draw nothing at all. So the deck must know how many Pirates are already in it.

* The deck doesn't obey pre-constructed rules.

I had a mage who drew three Flamecannons over a game (two in my initial hand). I also got an early Sorceror's Apprentice, and that opponent had a bad day. In a different game, I got two Bolvar Fordragons.

The Bolvar Fordragon one was interesting, because I was dealt both a Bolvar and Tirion on the opening hand. I decided not mulligan either of them, and then I was given a Mogushan Warden in time for T4. I suicided a bunch of dudes and small things to keep the board under control, and ended up playing Bolvar as an 11/7 on T7. I think I had already drawn the second one by the time the first one hit the board.

This is some serious RNG madness again, but at least you have a way to inject some skill into it. It's sort of like Arena play with pre-created decks (although the Legendary count is way beyond normal Arena play, I've had multiple decks with at least 3 Legendaries).

My problem with it is that, as you say, it's basically like Arena but, even worse, it doesn't give you any control over the cards in your deck (drafting is part of the fun/point of Arena) and you have no idea what's even in your deck each time you play. If I wanted to play 52 pickup, I'd get a deck of cards and throw them in the air. Even then, I'd at least know what it was that I had in my hand.

For me, Tavern Brawl has been an epic fail so far. Only one of them has allowed for any interaction on the part of the player (last week, when you could actually build your own deck) but still had a serious RNG element to provide a different angle on the game. I appreciate that they're trying to allow new players to play with more interesting cards that they might not have access to, so it's probably just not the game mode for me. I think I'm out of HS until the Argent Tournament drops.

Bananas week let you build you own deck too.

I really like this one, and will probably play it a lot.

Here's why:

I like playing more than I like drafting or deck creating. I do those things (or let the Internet do it for me) because if I just select a bunch of random cards then I get rolled like an idiot.

But in a format where we both agree to suboptimal decks, and can just play, I'll play a whole bunch of games just to see what happens. I've had some fantastic decks, and some garbage decks (or morel realistically curves) so far.

It's had me even playing some classes I rarely play, just to see if I can still win them. The answer is "mostly". So this one is pretty good to me, and overall I've been pleasantly surprised with their deck construction algorithm. It's better than "random cards in a box", if not quite finely-tuned. There's a lot of variables about class cards, minions vs spells, weapons, etc. Most of the decks I've seen and played against have been viable Arena builds, but often lacking in something that a long-slog deck would pack in (usually enough removals).

Not saying you're wrong, especially if you and I enjoy different things about the game. Just putting my view out there. I think most of the TBs have been dumb but fun. Some took time to grow on me. I'd play this one a lot even if it were permanent, because it cuts right to what I really like about the game.

I like the tavern brawls in general and this one in particular because I see all kinds of variety that I will never see in the other formats. I have played this one maybe ten times and have seen at least as many legendaries I had never encountered. I have gotten burned out on same old beast builds, demon decks, grim patrons etc.... Give me a breath of fresh air.

Shadow Era called, Al. It misses you.

Dude, what's your problem? Seriously. You were too lazy to look into Shadow Era. Get over it. I have.