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 quest 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 Into the Emerald Dream cards.
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 can function without any expansion cards at all. We will give you the details below.
Vampiric Blood-Ctrl Death Knight
A Blood-Ctrl Death Knight looks feasible with no expansion cards. The shell lacks some late game, so we tried to greed it up with more value options and Shaladrassil. It should remain effective against aggressive decks thanks to its removal toolkit.
Dread Raptor should be a powerful card in Menagerie Death Knight. A Frost deck is easier to build under the deckbuilding restriction compared to Rainbow. Blob of Tar is great in any Menagerie deck. Marrow Manipulator provides damage in the absence of Corpsicle.
Demon Hunter’s best option is going the Menagerie route too. Blob of Tar looks like the best 4-drop to pair with Ravenous Felhunter. A few new cards can give the deck some extra gas, in Hive Map and Rockskipper.
Hamuul might be banned, but Druid remains a great option for the Brawl, as Token Druid can be built into a near-complete, constructed-worthy state, without new epics or legendaries. If you are lucky enough to find Torga and Life Cycle, you can drop Mother Duck and Horn of Plenty for them.
Hunter seems reliant on the new set to be competitive for the Brawl, as Dinomancy is an epic. An Imbue Hunter deck centered on Magma Hound as its win condition looks like the best direction that minimizes expansion cards. We have only added Rockskippers to fit in a Curator package with Veranus, but it is not necessary. We can run Grace of the Greatwolf, Xavius and Malorne instead of those four cards.
Imbue is often the best direction for a class if we need to mostly rely on its Emerald Dream set. Mage can spice up an Imbue archetype with a supportive discover package from Un’Goro. This Mage deck does have Inevitability, which should be scarce and valuable in this Brawl format.
This is probably the safest and most reliable deck you can play in the format. Imbue Paladin is a deck you will have to account for as a highly popular opponent, as it is an established strategy in Standard that does not need to give up a single card from its optimal version. Considering it is already strong in Standard, it might be extremely powerful in the more watered down, Brawl format. Watch out for this one.
Control Priest has a decent looking shell here, with the Aviana/Champions of Azeroth win condition available, one that could help it win late game matchups. The featured build runs a few, cheap expansion cards that should not be mandatory for the deck to function. You can run alternatives like Hopeful Dryad, Madam Lazul, Critter Caretaker and Greater Healing Potion instead.
Imbue is, once again, the best direction that you can build around, this time in Shaman. The featured build functions with just the Emerald Dream set. Platysaur is a new common that appears to suit the archetype very well due to its synergy with the evolve hero power.
Despite the fact Creature of Madness is banned for this Brawl, Wallow Warlock should still have more than enough Dark Gift generation effects to turn Wallow into a legitimate late game win condition. Fyrakk offers an alternative ramping payoff that helps us accommodate Rotheart Dryad.
Warrior can build a relatively clean looking Enrage Warrior deck that is centered around Dragons. If you are lucky enough to find Nablya and City Defenses, then they can slot into the deck easily, potentially replacing Frothing Berserker and Xavius.
This is the only quest deck in the article, as Enter the Lost City is the easiest quest to build around under the constraints of the Brawl if you are fortunate enough to find it. In a watered-down format, its win condition should be more than adequate. The featured build focuses on survival alone, with a dragon package added to help the Warrior bridge into its late game.
We wish you the best of luck in hunting those packs!
We will see you again for The Lost City of Un’Goro’s theorycrafting article, on July 7th!
The Vicious Syndicate Team
i have been getting stomped by standard Imbue Pally.
I understand that this list needs to speak to all people, especially people who didn’t preorder and/or didn’t get the legendaries they wanted to try. But it would have been nice to include more new archetypes for people who did preorder and are excited for new cards to try out.
Other than that, good work as always 🙂
There are a few decks that include cards from perils in paradise, like horizon’s edge in the frost list, that are not included in this brawl’s card pool.
That was the only card as far as I’m aware and it is fixed.