Well met! This marks the first Tavern Brawl of the year, which hopefully gave the Innkeeper enough time to clean up all the leftover Winterveil decorations. Very much like how people should treat their new year's resolutions, this Brawl starts out small. Every minion gets turned into a 1 Mana 1/1 statline, and not even summoned tokens were able to avoid shrinkage.
Because this takes place in the Wild format, there's a vast amount of possible decks to play and combos to explore. It makes for a refreshing experience, especially since this Brawl has been absent for more than 5 years now. We didn't settle for a definitive "best" selection of decks, but we did come up with some fancy ideas that make the most of the mini-minions. One downside is the heavy bias for Legendary minions' powerful effects, making lists unusually expensive.
Copy Druid
An absolute pile of stuff. The core idea is to abuse Oracle of Elune, Ixlid, Fungal Lord, and Gloop Sprayer as much as possible. The best targets we found are Troll Centurion, Ragnaros the Firelord, and Humongous Owl. There's also Muck Plumber, which can also be duplicated to not outright win the game, but be as annoying as possible. The quick Mana growth of Biology Project and Grove Tender allows for faster combo turns in combination with the refreshes of Forest Warden Omu and Kun the Forgotten King.
Mech Mage
What's better than a mechanized army of 1-costs? Well, playing them all for free is a good start. That's what Mechwarper, Galvanizer, and Seafloor Gateway excel at. However, poking for 1 damage isn't as threatening, which is why the primary goal is to assemble enough mechs for Mecha-Shark to shoot lots of rockets. At least 30 would be ideal, which is the equivalent of 2 Sharks and 5 more Mechs. Token-generating cards like Explodinator and Gaia, the Techtonic help bridge that gap at least.
One minion that works great in any Mage list is Balinda Stonehearth. It pretty much guarantees draw, discounts, and big stats all in one card!
Centurion Priest
Taking the idea for the Druid list to the next level, this Priest deck is bound to pull off the least honorable Honorable Kill known to mankind. Clashing into an opponent's 1/1 4 times with Troll Centurion results in 32 damage dealt. Nothing is more in Priest's element than copying and resurrecting a rushing troll with spells like Embalming Ritual over and over again. And even if your opponent is too greedy to commit to any board presence, Mad Summoner can set the stage.
Miracle Rogue
I take it back. If the Druid list looked like a pile, then this is a heap. There's a non-0 chance of games ending on turn one, with Mojomaster Zihi, Mailbox Dancer, and Barista Lynchen being a living Mana factory. Combining that with Shadowstep, Spirit of the Shark, and Brann Bronzebeard, some ridicilous plays become available. The only problem might be missing draw power, but the trio of Edwin, Defias Kingpin, Grand Empress Shek'zara, and Malygos the Spellweaver can singlehandedly fix that. You're free to choose between a stacked-up Necrolord Draka or Spectral Pillager as your traditional finishers, whereas Mutanus the Devourer and Alexstrasza the Life-Binder can also lead to victory by repeating their battlecries.
Elemental Shaman
Similar to Mech Mage, Elementals were lucky enough to receive some all-encompassing Mana-reduction effects in the form of Fire Plume Harbinger and Granite Forgeborn. What makes this deck shine is the added Battlecry synergy of Bolner Hammerbeak, Murmuring Elemental, Brilliant Macaw, and Shudderwock. A chain of Bolner into Sandbinder, followed up by a Forgeborn lets you promptly fill up your board and hand with free Elementals!
Linkblade's Death Knight
In case you want to give the newcomer Class Death Knight a try despite the lack of Wild Class cards, this list relies on the already strong Blood Rune Minions, such as Soulstealer, Boneguard Commander, and Patchwerk. To close things out, Sire Denathrius will gladly feed on the many tiny corpses. There are also more cheap Neutral options, namely Famished Fool, Mo'arg Forgefiend, and Pit Crocolisk.
What do you think of the tiny-mode Brawl? Which decks did you have success with? Do you find the games are too fast, or the decks too expensive? Share your opinion in the comments below!
Comments
Here's a lifesteal Demon Hunter deck, mentioned because there isn't one above. I haven't refined it because I won a pack and have stopped trying to play the Brawl right now (no time and/or bored by it) so note that it can definitely be improved.
### Brawl Deck
# Class: Demon Hunter
# Format: Wild
#
# 2x (1) Double Jump
# 2x (1) Felscream Blast
# 1x (1) Final Showdown
# 2x (1) Sigil of Alacrity
# 2x (1) Unleash Fel
# 2x (2) Mo'arg Artificer
# 1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard
# 1x (3) Coldlight Oracle
# 2x (3) Stiltstepper
# 2x (4) Glide
# 2x (4) Guild Trader
# 1x (4) Il'gynoth
# 1x (4) Prosecutor Mel'tranix
# 2x (4) Sightless Magistrate
# 2x (5) Azure Drake
# 1x (9) Alexstrasza the Life-Binder
# 1x (9) Malygos
# 1x (9) Malygos the Spellweaver
# 1x (9) Sathrovarr
# 1x (10) Sire Denathrius
#
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#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Notes:
Any Battlecry that draws a card is amazing in this Brawl, such that your real gold standard is play-one-draw-two cards.
This deck probably needs a Wayward Sage.
A Gorloc Ravager is justified as it can draw both Coldlight Oracles.
Unleash Fel looks like a win condition but you will likely lose if you wait until turn 6. It works better as a board clear until you do the more traditional Felscream Blast finish on 5 or before.
Mutanus is probably better than Sathrovarr. Dirty Rat is probably huge here, too.
Loatheb is probably utterly busted in this busted format. You could probably build a package around Sathrovarr, Zola the Gorgon, and Brewmasters just replaying Mutanus and Sathrovarr and Rats and maybe Prosecutor Mel'tranix. I'd replace Alexstrasza the Life-Binder and Sire Denathrius when trying this sort of thing because you don't need stall/stabilization tools if your denial game is on-point.
Switcheroo is banned in this Brawl. Of all the classes to be concerned with, the reliable turn-5 winning-with-everything Rogue wasn't touched to the best of my knowledge, but Priest was.
My understanding is that Bwonsamdi, the Dead doesn't work. Your cards are full price in the deck, not 1 drops, so he pulls nothing.
I can't get into Hearthstone to check these for a few minutes so I don't know if Switcheroo's status was change, but it's likely too slow in this Brawl anyway. As mentioned, you generally want to win by turn 5 and eating up turn 3 (unless you're regenerating that mana) with one spell seems like a bad plan.
This is important to remember for cards that pull the highest
(or lowest mana cards from your deck in case you need a quick brann or shadowfiend for priest.)
Don't forget there is a 2 AND 4 mana brewmaster for multiple abuse
Thanks for pointing that out. I replaced the two cards with some alternatives
It is Troll Centurion (only?!) time to shine!!