May 16, 2016 - hearthstone, tavern brawl

Top Two Tavern Brawl

Tavern Brawl Rules

The Innkeeper is wondering which two cards work best together. Show him – choose 2 cards and we’ll fill your deck with them!

The idea of the Top Two Tavern Brawl is to choose two of the best cards available to a given class and the game builds a deck with only those two cards (presumably 15 of each card). It reminded me a lot of the old school Magic: The Gathering strategy of 20 Black Lotus, 20 Ancestral Recall, 20 Lightning Bolt (if you know of anyone that still has this deck from the 90's, please let them know they are rich).

Best Decks

This format is extremely fast, most decks should win by turn four or five (and if the game isn't over by then, there's often a clear winner - see freeze mage).

The following decks are some of the best I saw while playing this Tavern Brawl. I didn't see any priest, shaman, paladin, or rogue decks that were strong enough to make the cut.

Hunter - Mechs

This hunter mech strategy is totally unfair. The idea is to get 3 Mechwarpers by turn 3, then dump your hand of Metaltooh Leapers. You end up with a board full of creatures that will deal lethal damage consistently by turn 4.

Mage - Freeze

Pretty basic idea, Ice Block on turn 3, then cast Fireballs to kill your opponent. This is the best option for the mage. Please do not try Forgotten Torch, it will cost you some games. You need 5 Fireballs to win the game, maybe 4 after hero power vs 10 Frost Bolt or Forgotten Torch.

Warrior - Taunt

Another anti-aggro deck that turns beatdown extremely quickly. Drop as many Target Dummies as you can and bolster up. You should end up winning on turn 3 or 4. This deck beats the mech strategy because they can't get past your taunt creatures and your minions eventually trade favorably.

Another viable option for warrior is Armorsmith + Whirlwind if are running up against a lot of aggro decks.

Druid - Prison

Druid is arguably the most flexible class for this brawl and Loatheb is probably the strong option. Starting on turn 2, casting Loatheb every turn should lock your opponent out of the game (hence the term prison, which comes from Magic the Gathering).

Feel free to run Coldlight Oracle instead of Loatheb and look to mill your opponent or just to have 5-7 3/3s on your board on turn two. You can also try Coldlight Oracle + Naturalize, but the Innervate strategy seems stronger.

Warlock - Burn

Similar to the mage, just sling Soulfire at your opponent and hope you discard Fist of Jaraxxus. This deck is much faster than the mage, but definately has an all-in strategy. If you don't win right away, you probably ran out of gas because Soulfire started discarding other Soulfire.

Any Class - Mech

This strategy is extremely similar to the hunter's mech strategy, but it's slightly slower with a higher ceiling mainly due to Enhance-o Mechano (which isn't good enough on his own).