Cook up something hot in An Outlandish Recipe Hearthstone Tavern Brawl

Nothing like a little Roasted Ravager meat over the Felfire as you gaze over Hellfire Peninsula… at least until a pack of Bonestripper Vultures comes to take your lunch. Luckily, you’ve got the Hearthstone heroes on your side to fend off the attack. But what deck and strategy will they use?

This week’s Tavern Brawl is an introduction to the Ashes of Outland expansion. While the recipes have received updates, having this Brawl debut two months into the expansion, rather than in the opening week, is an odd choice.

Tavern Brawl basics

• Name: An Outlandish Recipe
• Description: The fires of Outland burn within the tavern! Choose a class and enjoy the latest deck recipes!
• Fun level: 3/10 (if you like the current Hearthstone meta add 5)
• Difficulty: 9/10 to 4/10 depending on your class, deck, and opponent
• Replayability: 5/10
• Format: Standard
• Type: PvP
• Deck: Provided
• Rewards: 1 Classic pack

For this Brawl, you choose your class, including Demon Hunters, and you’re assigned one of their deck recipes. These are premade decks you can find on the deck creation screen, so they can be a bit basic.

Which decks will you see? Each class has a “Classic” recipe which includes Basic and Classic set cards meant to give players a good introduction to the strengths and weaknesses of each class. I haven’t seen these selected in games so far, and I hope that’s intentional.

How to win An Outlandish Recipe Tavern Brawl

As with the ladder, the best approach is to do you major power play and hope your opponent can’t swing the game back. If he can, you’ll lose. If he can’t, you’ll win and can enjoy your free Classic pack.

Unfortunately, many of the decks are poorly curved, and lack a well defined win condition. A general lack of AOE is a big weakness that makes it tough to come back if you lose the board. You want to mulligan for a good curve and to play minions on curve. This means having a card you can play on turn one, two, three, etc, and minimizing any left over mana each turn.

Let’s look at each deck and a quick tip for playing it. You can only choose the class: the deck will be randomly assigned. For example, if you choose Warrior, you’ll get either Drop the Ancharrrr! or It’s Prime Time.

Demon Hunter

• Glaives of Fury: An aggressive deck. Pressure your opponent’s life total from turn one and never let up. Metamorphosis can help you finish off an enemy even behind the protection of a Taunt minion.
• Demon Crushers: A more control style deck. A good mulligan is key: if you’re stuck with a bunch of high cost demons on turn three or four, it might be best to concede and try again. Once you start dropping your big demons, you’ll be on your way to victory.

Druid

• Trees are Friends: Standard Token / Savage Roar Druid. Build a board your opponent can’t clear, then double cast Savage Roar and burst them down.
• Flora and Fauna: Ramp Druid. Ramp your mana (play cards like Breath of Dreams to give you more mana than your opponent) to get your big Taunts down as fast as you can. If you can survive long enough, you’ll get the W.

Hunter

• Pride of Outland: A Secret and Deathrattle Hunter with some questionable card choices.
• Unseal the Vault: Quest Hunter with all the support cards. Finish the Quest and maintain the board to make use of your new Hero power.

Mage

• Spell-tacular! All spell Mage. You’re reliant on your spells to generate minions for you. Despite having all spells, you only have one AOE, Flame Ward, and you don’t even control it.
• Reno’s Riches: Singleton or Highlander deck which has only one copy of each card. This deck has the best AOE of any in the Brawl. Mulligan hard for a Learn Draconic and Doomsayer. You’re going to need them.

Paladin

• Lightforged Retribution: Showcases a “no neutral Paladin cards” style deck. Build your board and buff your minions to carry you to victory.
• Liadrin’s Librams: This also includes no neutrals and the Paladin synergy cards. While Librams have struggled on the Ladder, in this less optimized environment they show their potential.

Priest

• Day of the Dead: Resurrect Priest. Mulligan for Breath of the Infinite and Holy Nova. If you can stabilize and get your resurrects off, you should be in good shape.
• Scaled Souls: Dragon Priest. Tempo oriented deck. Get ahead on the board and stay ahead. Your Holy Nova is your only AOE.

Rogue

• Galakrond’s Guile: Standard Galakrond Rogue. Tempo oriented deck with lots of randomness.
• Shadows of Shattrath: Aggressive Stealth oriented deck. You will have initiative on most turns.

Shaman

• Galakrond’s Fury: Standard Galakrond Shaman. Play your Invoke minions and see if your opponent can answer two 8/8s with Rush when you turn into a fully armed and operational Galakrond.
• Elemental Might: Fist of Ra’den is showcased here, but they didn’t include any one mana spells which is one of the best plays with Fist of Ra’den since it will always proc a Reliquary of Souls.

Warrior

• Drop the Ancharrrr! This is an aggro deck loaded with Pirates and the Legendary weapon, Ancharr, for card draw. Play aggressively from turn one and hope you kill them before you run out of steam.
• It’s Prime Time: This is more of a control or midrange deck with plenty of Taunt minions. If you can survive the onslaught of the more aggressive decks in the Brawl and stabilize, you’ll have 21* ways to win.

*for my non sportsball fans, there’s a famous football player named Deion “Prime Time” Sanders who wore #21.

Warlock

• Galakrond’s Malice: Zoo Warlock with Galakrond support.
• Small but Mighty: Standard Zoo Warlock.

Both decks want to swarm the board, buff the minions, and smash face. The Galakrond version has a bit more lasting power than the non-Galakrond version.

Whatcha got cookin?

Pick the class you’re most comfortable with and hope you get the better of the two decks. There’s no rank, so don’t be afraid to conceded if the game isn’t going your way. Like most Brawls, if you keep at, you’ll eventually get your win and enjoy your 40 Arcane Dust from your Classic pack.