How to win Hearthstone’s Shake, Deathrattle and Roll Tavern Brawl — if the RNG is in your favor

This week’s Hearthstone Tavern Brawl has a great name: Shake, Deathrattle and Roll. But unfortunately that’s where the greatness ends. There’s a lot of frustrating RNG in this Brawl, and it took me a half dozen attempts to score a win and pick up a pack. Matches can be slow because of the multitude of Deathrattle effects triggering, so you may be at this for a while.

But sooner the start, the sooner you can earn  your weekly pack, so let’s get to it: here’s how to win the Shake, Deathrattle,and Roll Tavern Brawl.

Tavern Brawl basics

• Name: Shake, Deathrattle and Roll!
• Description: There’s a whole lotta rattlin’ going on! Choose a class and get a random deck. Every minion you play will gain a copy of a random minion’s deathrattle effect!
• Fun level: 2/10
• Difficulty: 5/10
• Replayability: 9/10
• Format: Wild
• Type: PVP
• Deck: Provided
• Rewards: 1 pack

The premise is mostly in the name: you get a random deck and when you play a minion it gets a random Deathrattle effect. Because you can’t control what’s in your deck or what Deathrattles you wind up with, it’s a very RNG-heavy Brawl, where winning or losing is mostly based on chance.

While this Brawl could have had a bit of strategy, it’s stymied by a technical issue. When you play a minion, the game also draws a random Deathrattle card for you, and attaches that Deathrattle to your shiny new minion. But once the Deathrattle is there, you can’t see what it is: when you mouse over the card, it just lists the minion the Deathrattle came from. Sure, it’s possible to remember every card’s Deathrattle, but as you play more minions it’s easy to lose track — particularly since it’s a wild Brawl with practically limitless card possibilities. That means you can’t do much strategizing on when to sacrifice your own minions to trigger their Deathrattle effects or when to avoid killing enemy minions so you don’t trigger their Deathrattle effects.

The result is randomness on top of randomness. You play random cards and then random things happen, and if luck is in your favor something will randomly win you the game.

How to win the Shake, Deathrattle and Roll Tavern Brawl

You start by picking a class, and in my experience none of them seem particularly better than the others. You’ll get a random deck with a mix of minions and spells, so you’re picking a class based on class cards and Hero Power. If you don’t have a preference, go for whichever class you have a quest for today.

From there, you want to play the most powerful minions you can as quickly as you can and hope for the best. You may get great Deathrattles that win you the game or you may get terrible Deathrattles that do more damage to you than your opponent. It’s pure luck of the draw.

Mulligan for cards you can play early and be mindful of tempo — you’ll want to have a card you can put down every round so you don’t fall behind on the board. From there, go all out aggro. If you can take out your opponent quickly enough, you have a very good chance at a win.

Now… good luck. You’ll need it.

Originally published December 2, 2020; updated January 24, 2024