Hi Brawlers,
another week and another new rule. A bit RNG dependant I would say, but let’s see what we are able to do with it.
Last week we had one of the funniest Tavern Brawls we’ve seen. If you missed the article, go here.
I ended playing a counter deck and smashed slowly my opponents. Metagame was full of Combo decks (Priest, Rogue, Druid and even Mage) so I decided to build a reno-jackson anti Combo deck. And it worked!
A Reno Jackson deck would be too long to explain (it had 29 different cards) and it’s not this week’s purpose so I’ll briefly go over it and leave a further explanation just in case we have a reprise of this rule. I don’t even have the specific list I run (although I know it by heart) but you’ll get the main idea.
There was only a duplicated card in the list, ice-block. Actually if I didn’t play it I was dead so it didn’t matter if I had Reno Jackson in hand. mad-scientist was another way to look for the secret, even killing it with Hero Power (all creatures were 1/1, as you know).
Combo decks killed you in a single turn so having Ice Block on board prevented the sure death. Playing Reno Jackson after it triggered the concede button of the opponent most games. If not I had plenty of time to kill my opponent and I even had another secret for another combo turn and two ways of getting secrets (randomly, I know). chromaggus also copied sometimes Ice Block what lead to my opponents’ despair.
Now let’s move to current rule.
Rule of the Week
“Blingtron is ready to rumble! He changes your hero power to “Get a random weapon.” AND he gives you random weapons!”
Hmmm, too many “randoms” in the same line…
When you start a game you’ll see that you have 30 Life and 10 Armour. It’s an easy way to prevent face decks dominate entirely the battlefield. Both players start with Foam Sword, a 2/2 Weapon. This Weapon has an ability that changes automatically the weapon for another one randomly chosen when it has no charges or it is destroyed. Besides that, Hero powers change for the following one, “Cash in”, that changes our current weapon for another one randomly chosen. Weapons generated this way also have the prior ability. So it seems we will always have a weapon.
(Note: In fact, there’s a way of not having a weapon. If we include a weapon in our deck and we play it, that weapon won’t have the ability so when it has no charges or if it’s destroyed, we will stop having weapons. I know, it’s senseless to include weapons this week, but I had to say what I’ve seen.)
There are 23 collectible weapons in Hearthstone. Battlecry and Overload won’t be activated when Blingtron gives us a weapon so let’s consider them as vanilla weapons. We will have then 10 Vanilla weapons and 13 with maybe relevant cardbox text. If there’s no rarity for Blingtron’s presents (I presume there isn’t) chances of getting a specific weapon are 4,37%. And we will get a fair number of them during a game, so it’ll be feasible to get a great one.
Power statistics are the following:
- Four weapons have 1 Attack (two of them could be higher)
- Eight weapons have 2 Attack (one gives us Windfury)
- Five weapons have 3 Attack
- Six weapons have 4 or more Attack
Considering this, I wouldn’t use Hero Power to change a 3 Attack Weapon looking for a better one unless I really need it. I would change a 2 Attack one near always (if I don’t need crystals for better things, of course). Chances of getting a worse one are around 14% (less than 10% if we have a Mech on board) so it’s worth the risk.
Some specific situations:
poisoned-blade: If you have it equipped and you use the Hero Power, it’ll be replaced. If you use the Hero Power and you get it, it’ll be a 2/3 Weapon.
charged-hammer: If Deathrattle is activated, your Hero Power will change and you won’t be able to change your weapon anymore. Anyway, Blingtron’s ability is present in the Weapon, so you’ll still receive a new one. You will simply lose the possibility of re-rolling the weapon you receive and you will have to spend all charges to keep receiving different weapons.
doomhammer: If you’ve attacked with a weapon and you receive this weapon, you will gain Windfury and will be able to attack once more.
I haven’t received the same weapon I had when I’ve used the Hero Power ever but I’m not sure if this is mandatory.
The cards
There are lots of cards that interact with own or opposing Weapons. Let’s revise some of them:
- blade-flurry. This is a big deal and an auto-include in Rogue decks. Mass removal and finisher in the same card. We only need to receive a high Attack weapon or increase the Attack of our current weapon, and Rogue has some ways to do it.
- Pirates. dread-corsair could be a free Taunt for every class, southsea-deckhand will always Charge and bloodsail-raider will be at least a 2-cost 3/3.
- Weapon buffers. deadly-poison and tinkers-sharpsword-oil are well known thanks to Oil Rogue, who also has buccaneer and goblin-autobarber. But there are others like pirate legendary captain-greenskin, spiteful-smith or Warrior’s upgrade and orgrimmar-aspirant.
- Hero attack buffers. doomhammer is a real thing. Here we can find claw, savage-roar, bite or even savage-combatant for Druid, seal-of-light for Paladin and rockbiter-weapon for Shaman. Getting two big strikes with Doomhammer could seal some games so take this into account.
- Destroy your opponent’s weapon. Thanks to doomhammer power and the possibility of other big weapons, it’s worth to include at least one of the following cards in your deck: harrison-jones, acidic-swamp-ooze or sabotage if you play Rogue. Another fringe possibility would be crossing fingers, destroying your opponent’s weapon and giving him cursed-blade to win a lost game. Who knows?
The deck
I won’t comment this week the rule class by class. I have had a very busy week so I haven’t experimented what I would like to with the rule. I also prefer to release the article on time so I will center in a Rogue deck but before going to the deck, quick tips about some of the other classes:
Warrior: Check underdawg2014’s Pirate deck. Another option could be adjusting Fade2Karma’s Mech Taunt deck. Weapons don’t like Taunts.
Mage: Freeze the opponent with Spells and Minions and prevent him to take advantage of his weapons.
Druid: Maybe an egg deck dressed with some of the cards above, maybe choose the Taunt path. By the way, savagery is finally useful!
And now let’s move to the deck of this week. I’ll put it here again to avoid you scrolling up a lot:
southsea-deckhand: Always with Charge thanks to the rule. I wouldn’t use it on the first turn in this deck as it’s not a very aggressive version. It will be better as a cheap removal or to combo with other cards.
buccaneer: With this card on board, every weapon we receive will have an extra point of Attack. It doesn’t matter if it comes from Hero Power or if we uses completely current weapon. Our weapons will be bigger than our opponent’s ones thanks to this.
bloodsail-raider: The biggest 2-drop for this week. If we play it later with some Taunt protection and a big weapon equipped, it’ll be scary.
one-eyed-cheat: The last pirate in the deck. I know he dies to any weapon but it’s 4 damage to opponent’s face and we will protect somehow other minions so it’s kind of Taunt. If we manage to Stealth him then those 4 damage could hit hard opponent’s face or kill bigger minions for a good tempo swing.
goblin-auto-barber: The opposite of buccaneer, now we will have to wait for good weapons before playing it to give them an extra point of Attack.
shady-dealer: Always combo him to have a 5/4 for 3 crystals. That’s huge. Very few weapons will deal with him and you’ll start smashing opponent’s face.
deadly-poison, tinkers-sharpsword-oil: Now any weapon we receive will be useful. But the main use will be with doomhammer or blade-flurry.
acidic-swamp-ooze, harrison-jones, sabotage: There will be certain situations were we DO need to destroy opponent’s weapon. For those situations we run these cards. Don’t expect to draw a lot from Indiana Harrison Jones, but it’ll be welcome.
piloted-shredder: A couple of weapons interact with bots… ok, it’s the best 4-drop.
defender-of-argus, sludge-belcher: Taunts are more annoying than ever this week. If format goes more aggro I would probably try cheaper Taunts.
antique-healbot: We will get so many hits that 8 life points could be useful. Oh, and it’s a bot too.
sap: A single one to remove Taunts. I’ve seen so many Charges and Battlecries that I decided to remove the second one.
shiv: Our card drawing tool. It’ll be useful to kill off minions if we don’t have a big weapon.
blade-flurry: The ultimate mass removal. Oil Rogue players know their power. And we have probably suffered its effects. Now we will have always a weapon to destroy and we won’t care because we will receive a new one. If you draw both in a game it’ll be an easy game, but it could be enough with one. Its effect can be devastating on the other side.
Conclusion
Now you know one of the most relevant decks for this week. I’ve seen tons of Rogues (and played tons of mirror games) in just two days so if you find a counter deck, please share it here in the comments. Anyway, try it and enjoy breaking your weapons. They’re free!
