
Tavern Brawl #1: Ragnaros vs Nefarian
by JR Cook - 10 years ago show comments
The first ever Tavern Brawl is going live on Hearthstone servers around the world, and this week we have a battle for Blackrock Mountain. This brawl features two of the Mountain’s big baddies as you will play as either Nefarian or Ragnaros. But you don’t get to choose who you play as, instead you simple queue for a tavern brawl and will be randomly assigned a hero with its respective pre-made deck.
Nefarian
Starting HP: 30 Health + 30 Armor.
Hero Power: Wild Magic (2) – “Add a random spell from any class into your hand. It costs (0).”
Just like in the BRM Encounter, Nefarian starts the game with extra mana. This head start is incredibly important and you need to heavy leverage it if you want to win, Ragnaros has a pretty slow starts, but once he settles into the late game, he becomes a force to be reckoned with. Ragnaros has Molten Giants on his decks, and also a Legendary Molten Giant that stands at a hefty 50 mana cost and boasts a 20/20 statline. It might be wise to play around those.
Decklist as compiled by Hearthpwn:
- 1 x Magmatron
- 1 x Toxitron
- 1 x Atramedes
- 2 x Blackwing Technician
- 2 x Bite
- 3 x Chromatic Drake
- 1 x Twisting Nether
- 1 x Dragon Consort
- 1 x Onyxia
- 1 x Arcanotron
- 1 x Drakonid Slayer
- 2 x Dragonkin Hatcher
- 1 x Razorgore
- 2 x Shadowflame
- 1 x Electron
- 1 x Rend Blackhand
- 2 x Open the Gates
- 1 x Chromaggus
- 2 x Blackwing Corruptor
- 1 x Vaelastrasz
Ragnaros
Starting HP: 60 Health.
Hero Power: Molten Rage (2) – “Summon a 5/1 Magma Rager”
You might be surprised at Ragnaros’ Hero Power, but he also comes wielding a 2/6 Sulfuras. Once the weapon breaks, your Hero Power turns into the random 8 damage that everyone loves. As we mentioned early, Ragnaros has a pretty slow start. He compounds this by having strong early minions such as the Son of the Flame, so it’s very important that you mulligan for those. But even the strength of those early minions isn’t enough to handle the 5+ mana threats that Nefarian will be pumping out from the start, so as Ragnaros the game is really about catching up and stabilizing the board on time. Once you reach the late game and turn this into a value game, you should be ok to win it. Of course Wild Magic RNG always has a chance to screw you over.
Decklist as compiled by Hearthpwn:
- 1x Baron Geddon
- 1x Coren Direbrew
- 1x Garr
- 1x Golemagg
- 1x High Justice Grimstone
- 1x Lucifron
- 1x Moira Bronzebeard
- 2x Molten Giant
- 2x Flame Imp
- 2x Fire Elemental
- 2x Living Lava
- 3x Son of the Flame
- 2x Whirling Ash
- 2x Lava Burst
- 2x Flamestrike
- 2x Core Hound Puppies
- 2x Flameheart
- 2x Living Bomb
Props to FluxFlashor of Hearthpwn for coming up with the Decklists, check out his original post in the Hearthpwn forums here.
I found this game mode to be an utter disappointment. As fun as the decks are, with all the wild rng and the OP cards, it feels like it only caters to the casual player, disregarding what’s most fun in TCG/CCG, deckbuilding creativity… I’d rather have a game mode that breaks from the constructed meta, creating a ranking system with a different set of rules every week… But well, that’s just my thoughts. I’m still looking forward to the next Taverns.
EDIT: Plus, Nefarian looks so much better than Rag, not balanced at all.
Might be a mode where you just play it to get the reward and go back to ladder :/
It’s a nice change from the ladder grind to relax for a while.
Well they did say that some tavern brawls may see you using premade decks, but others might see specific deck building restrictions, or buffs to certain minion types, etc. They can do a *lot* of stuff to mess with the rules and encourage creative deck building.
I think for the very first brawl, they just wanted to come out of the gate with something really splashy that would get people’s attention. I have to say, I did enjoy the ridiculous custom (and very OP) cards created just for this matchup. It was definitely a fun “holy shit!” moment the first time I played, and it’s definitely geared at the more casual audience that, let’s be honest, is the majority of the Hearthstone population.
My main issue with the mode as it stands is the lack of rewards beyond the card pack for your first win. There’s basically no incentive to keep playing throughout the week and rack up as many wins as you can. If they can add something to encourage playing more, even just gold rewards based on number of wins or something, that would be awesome. Overall, I think it’s a really nice addition to HS. They just need to adjust the incentives.
After playing 20 games or so I can conclude that nefarian is indeed quite better than Ragnaros. Also, the first game I player was Nefarian, then I played Ragnaros, then I player Nefarian again and so on.. I didn’t play 2 consecutive games with the same hero yet, but that might be RNG. I do really love this gamemode and wonder what it will bring in the future.
I played consecutive 3 games, all won them as Nef. After realizing starting with 5 mana and free hero power spells, I had a lot of fun. After clicking the brawl button, I thought it would be like Smash Bros’ 3DS mode where everyone picks characters to fight as and their points count towards a pool and the character with the most points at the end of the day or whatever, ends up getting bonus loot.
This makes me wonder what the incentive will be to continue playing brawl (after winning a game and getting a pack for this week) and if there will be any daily quests that either are made specifically for brawl or synergize with its gameplay.
Well, tavern brawl does count your wins.. Maybe that will decide if you get any rewards?