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 important colossal 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.
Well, if you still want to get those first 6-win runs, you have come to the right place. This article contains 12 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 of them require you to find a colossal to build a solid Herald deck. We will give you the details.
The availability of Deathwing means that many Herald decks only need to find their colossal from Bundles to construct a viable deck for the Brawl. In the case of Death Knight, once we find Onyxia, we can build a triple Blood dragon shell. The dragon shell is the most coherent neutral package that should be strong in multiple classes for this format. Vampiric Blood helps us offset the life cost of the free minions we get from the herald mechanic, while Memoriam Manifest allows us to resurrect Onyxia.
Technically, this deck can be played without Onyxia (or Manifest), but the life and board swing of the colossal when fully upgraded is massive. If you are extremely lucky and find Ultraxion too, it can replace Hematurge or Chillfallen Baron.
An aggressive Unholy Death Knight deck looks more than feasible. Talanji’s Last Stand is a big checkmate on the opponent if they fail to clear the board on one turn, helping us set up Grave Strength or overwhelm them through our board presence. Chow Down is a nice top end swing card to give the deck one last big turn to re-establish dominance. The corpse requirement should be trivial considering it likely follows Shadows of Yesterday. This deck’s access to multiple cards that create full boards by themselves is enticing and keeps it a relevant threat in the late game.
Death Knight is likely best positioned to perform in this Brawl, considering it has multiple viable builds on paper. This list leverages the dragon shell for aggressive purposes, pressuring through the board early before Marrow Manipulator and Frostwyrm’s Fury finish things off.
Note that whenever we run Darkscale Broodmother, we like to run a healthy number of 2-drops that can be played alongside it.
Though Demon Hunter may have the most hyped Herald package in the set, one of its Herald cards is an epic, which means it will be difficult to build a Herald Demon Hunter with adequate consistency. An aggressive dragon shell looks more feasible. This deck tries to cheat out both Prescient Slitherdrake and Perennial Serpent on turn 4. Dormancy is not abundant in this format, so we are counting on Flutterwing and Patriarch to enable Serpent.
The major build-around cards for Hunter in this expansion are epics or legendaries, so the class’ best chance of competing in the Brawl is through a Face Hunter deck with a dragon package. Much like the Frost Death Knight deck, this deck tries to pressure early with dragons and then finish games off with burn.
The goal of this deck is to cheat out Spellweaver’s Brilliance through Arcane Barrage, or a combination of cheaper spells boosted by spell damage. These spells also function as burn when we need to close the game out.
This Mage deck can theoretically function without Kalec, as it possesses multiple spell damage enablers. Kalec helps the deck become more consistent with its synergies. The main issue for Mage in the Brawl format is the absence of card draw, which is why we run Prize Vendor. We do not mind giving the opponent cards considering the limited life gain available in the format, as well as our cheap curve.
Priest is relatively limited in this format. A dragon deck with a handbuff package makes the most sense here. The primary win condition for the deck is a massive Soldier of the Bronze, which can checkmate opponents that do not possess single target removal. In faster matchups, our healing minions can help us swing the game.
Even though Rogue is extremely limited in its card choices for the format, it can build a feasible aggressive list that relies on over the top damage to kill opponents. This list does not even require an expansion bundle, as the only card from the new expansion here is Shadowed Informant, which is replaceable (just run a second copy of Shade + Shaku, for example).
Try to abuse Foxy Fraud with Defias Ringleader or Flashback in the early game to rush down opponents. Once the deck runs out of board pressure, try to set up a burst turn with spell damage and Chrono Daggers. Fast Forward can help us bank some mana for the finishing play.
Finding Al’Akir in a pre-purchase bundle means that a Herald Shaman deck looks feasible, supported by an overload package. This deck tries to overwhelm the opponent with board pressure rather than outvalue them in the late game. We run a full package of big overload cards that can quickly discount Haywire Hornswog.
Note that our overload turns occur on 4 and 6 (Instant Multiverse), which means they do not interfere with each other, nor do they impede a turn 8 Al’Akir. Keep in mind that Winged Aberration, Ritual of Power, Voltaic Burst and Static Shock all synergize with Muradin’s Last Stand. We want to discount our card draw engine as quickly as possible.
The Overload package can also fit into an aggressive dragon deck. Shaman has relatively strong board building capabilities that can overwhelm opponents, as they are not likely to have a plethora of removal that can answer them.
Egg of Khelos should have great synergy in a Herald Warlock deck, but unfortunately the legendary egg is not available in this format, so we replace it with Twilight and Nerubian Egg. Cho’gall is likely the least important colossal for a Herald deck too, as we mostly build around the soldier’s baseline functionality of egg popping.
In fact, Cursed Chains might be more important to find in a bundle. If you find this epic spell, drop Mortal Coil for it. Cursed Chains turns our Herald soldiers into hard removal that steals deathrattles.
Note that Battlefield Blaster is meant to buff Eldritch Tentacles, which become completely cracked with a spell damage boost.
Ragnaros might be the highest value pull for this format, as Warrior can build an intimidating late game win condition that is supported by a strong defensive shell. Even a nerfed Unleash the Crocolisks looks good with both Brawl and Decimation available (if you do not find Decimation, replace it with Slam or Bash). This deck has the potential to counter the likely abundance of aggressive decks at the early stage of the Brawl.
Cataclysmic War Axe, Scorching Ravager and Envoy of the End might be the cleanest Herald curve you can find, so the deck can even develop proactively without an issue while building up to a game ending Ragnaros. We do not think many classes are equipped to deal with a fully upgraded one in this format.
We wish you the best of luck in hunting those packs!
We will see you again for Cataclysm’s theorycrafting article, on March 16th!
The Vicious Syndicate Team
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Thanks for the great work, stay safe!