The Pre-Release Tavern Brawl is out today. You might be wondering what deck you should take to the Tavern Brawl, when there is no guarantee you will find that fabled legendary in the Pre-Purchase Bundle, or that epic card that is required for a specific strategy. Perhaps, you have not bought the bundle at all, needing to build a deck only from Core and The Lost City of Un’Goro cards.
Well, if you still want to get those first 6-win runs, you have come to the right place. This article contains 11 Tavern Brawl deck concepts to help you figure out how to navigate the limitation of card acquisition during the Brawl week. Some of these decks have common and rares from the new expansion, so you should be able to build them with a pre-order bundle. Some can function without any expansion cards at all. We will give you the details below.
Frost Death Knight is well-positioned for this brawl and can go in different directions. In this build, we have opted to take advantage of the class having the best combination of 0 mana and 9 mana cards to fit Elise. It is complicated to fit Elise in this format because for most classes, mana slots are difficult to fill with cards that are not outright terrible.
This deck looks to control the board in the early game and swing the game with Pterrordax and Manipulator, which discount Stitched Giants. Corpse generation is prioritized with sticky minions. Timestop and Whelp of the Infinite are the only cards from the new expansion, and they can be replaced by Frost Strike, Blob of Tar and Crypt Map.
Quest Demon Hunter might be able to control the board against a field that we expect will have a lot of aggressive, board-flooding decks. Its damage potential is limited, but if the format is fast, life gain will not be too prevalent. Time-Lost Glaive is the only new expansion card (you should have Portal Vanguard). It can be replaced by Tuskpiercer.
The most realistic direction for Druid is to flood the board and take advantage of Hatchery Helper. The consistency in which we can develop and activate eggs in this deck is high. The archetype even has a decent amount of card draw available to it. Devious Coyote and Living Paradox are the new expansion cards. They can be replaced by Eternal Bloodpetal and/or any early game minion, such as Fire Fly.
Quest Hunter received a rare and a few common Beasts from the new expansion that boost its quest completion substantially. Paltry Flutterwing, Arrow Retriever, Sandmaw and Cyborg Patriarch (probably the most questionable one) might all be included in the archetype when the expansion launches. The deck does not have the discover package available to it, so we threw in Storm the Gates for some extra value that can be easily completed with the deck’s cheap curve and beast density. We do not recommend trying this without a bundle, as the new cards are too important.
Building Quest Mage is a simple process in which we shove every possible discover effect into the deck and then fill the rest of the slots with playable cards. A small dragon package helps us activate Netherspite Historian and Mirror Dimension. The deck has a strong post-quest late game with Relic of Kings and Beast Speaker Taka, as well as multiple minion discoveries. Alter Time might be a crucial addition to the deck going forward and is mandatory for this Brawl, so we do not recommend trying this deck without a bundle.
We can’t go wrong with a cheap, aggressive curve and Crusader Aura, right? Aggro Paladin looks comfortable in this format and should not be drastically weaker compared to its Standard iteration. Living Paradox and Devious Coyote are the new expansion cards included and represent interesting additions that could fit the archetype well. They can be replaced by cheap early game minions such as Sizzling Cinder and Annoy-o-Tron.
If you have not noticed yet, this Brawl format is giving a lot of quest decks a chance to shine. Copying Sol’etos with Cloud Serpent might be considered a strong enough late game in this format. A Resuscitate package with Whelp of the Bronze as the 3-drop is extremely tempting against aggressive decks. Bundle-less players could replace Whelp with Twilight Mender for more value, or even Ritual of Life if they like to gamble.
Quest Shaman will miss Shudderblock in this format but might be able to get away with Youthful Brewmasters to enhance its late game. Its minion shell retains plenty of support for a relatively quick quest completion phase and good card draw to find more minions later. Besides the pre-released Portal Vanguard, there are no new expansion cards in this deck.
In a twist of irony, Quest Warlock might be the only quest deck that we expect to look substantially worse in this Brawl format. It does not have access to Mass Production or Tidepool Pupil, which are responsible for its late game strength in Standard. It also loses a lot of damage from Corpsicle and Horizon’s Edge. It will have to run Tunnel Terror and count on a few value cards to keep the juice flowing for the Underfel Rift.
Warlock may have a superior option in an aggressive Shreds of Time deck. The package consists of commons and rares, so a bundle should be able to net you all the new expansion cards in this decklist. We like the idea of Razidir with Demonic Studies in this format. A turn 3 Razidir might be backbreaking, and we have a 33% chance of finding Razidir off Studies too. We can swap Fire Fly for Vulgar Homunculus if we want Razidir to be extra consistent.
The potential power and prevalence of aggressive decks makes Control Warrior look extra tasty. The Warrior quest might also offer one of the better late game win conditions in the format, so we expect this deck to be an effective option that is superior to its standard iteration. This archetype can technically run no new expansion cards but Unleash the Crocolisks and ‘For Glory!’ should be amazing against the aggressive field we may encounter.
We wish you the best of luck in hunting those packs!
We will see you again for the Across the Timeways’ theorycrafting article, on November 3rd!
The Vicious Syndicate Team
The druid meme discover card appears to be broken in the brawl. It changed no cards and discounted my aggro deck 😅
Thanks a lot, I went 6-0 first run with DK, second one 4-3 (misplayed badly).
I farmed aggro paly, I feel like warlock is pretty strong and has plenty of stuff to feed the rift.
I played against some control paly which seemed to have a lot of potential!
Thanks a lot, went 6-0 with DK first run, second run (misplayed badly) 4-3.
The priest deck is dogshit, don’t even bother.
i found Rafaam + Shreds of Time to be really good together, had multiple 6 win runs with this deck. The fact that you have 10 more cards in your deck makes the shards harder to be drawn by accident, and the early tempo of the Shreds package helps stablish enough pressure where you can play your rafaams for clears and value.
Don’t even try to play Aggro Paladin, it’s just bad.
Thank you for your article. however, in this pre-release article and also the one before it. you started using less of the new cards.. I wish you had also some decks that could be as close as possible to the best case, scenario for each of them. thank you anyway, you’re halfway been always been a great help.
I very much agree with this, and commented about it under last expansion’s brawl.
Though, as always, thanks for the reliable and helpful content