http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blo ... 10-17-2016

Pay 1000 gold or $10 to enter an arena format where everyone brings a standard legal deck. <- Probably going to be a lot of midrange shaman. You can't change your deck until you hit 3 losses, and it's not really clear how many times you can sign up for this.

#packs = #wins + 1 up through 8 wins; 16 packs for 9-11 wins; 50 packs for 12 wins; packs are WOTOG

No Other rewards for 0-2 wins

120 gold/dust for 3 wins, 190 for 4, 220 for 5, 250 for 6, 280 for 7, 310 for 8, 400 for 9, 400 for 10, 480 for 11, 1100 wins

1, 2, and 3 random golden legendaries (from entire set of cards you could get from standard legal packs) for 10, 11, and 12 wins respectively


You don't do that bad at 3 wins. It's like the equivalent of 6 packs. Anything below 3 feels awful (1-3 packs). You technically break even at 6 wins.

At 11 wins, you get 16 packs, 480 gold, 480 dust, and 2 golden legendaries.

AT 12 wins you get 50 packs, 1100 gold, 1100 dust, and 3 golden legendaries.

It's obviously top loaded, and you have to get 6 wins to break even. This is a massive scam.

It's not even like arena where everyone has a "fair" deck. If it was, only about 1 in 5 players would break even but at least I would consider taking those odds to do something "fun". This is constructed ladder with the best decks everyone can bring, in a meta where one deck has a 56% win rate, where it costs $10 or an equivalent amount of gold to even get in. You have to go 6-2, or have a 75% win rate front-loaded, to break even here. In a ladder format where 60+% is considered insane and one deck is completely oppressive.

Edit: Plus it replaces the free pack from brawl this week.

I saw this and rerolled my brawl quest.

This sucks

It worse than sucks.

Assuming this functioned like arena, about 14% of players would go 7+ wins and make a profit. But this is way harder so that number is likely to be lower.

Thinking about it, what do you really get for 7 and 8 wins though? Let's say you get 310 gold for 8 wins. You spent 690 gold for 9 WOTOG packs and 310 dust. I don't know about what other people think, but I don't consider an extra 2 packs from WOTOG and 310 dust to be worth risking doing much much worse. You have to be aiming for 9+ wins, where you essentially double your money, to make the reward worth the risk. Or if you are like me you really need to go 10+ wins for the free legendaries (because I'm at a point where WOTOG packs are mostly crap).

And the odds of that happening for even the best players in the world is very very low. .... Must be an expansion coming out soon.

Edit:

It sucks because:

1) It's extremely top-heavy, so for the vast majority of people it's going to just be a good way to lose gold.

2) It's rewarding WOTOG packs at the end of it's life cycle (not standard cycle, but the end of the cycle where people buy it the most). The people with the collections and skills to do well in this brawl are the ones most likely to be in a state where 10 packs from the next expansion is far far more valuable than 20 from this one. This is an obvious gold sink.

Is this that different from, say, a 8-4 draft or a competitive league on MTGO? I don't have a problem with the mode in itself, I just:

1. Wish it had come during a better meta;
2. Really hope it has neon signs pointing out it is for hardcore competitive players only so people don't just burn 1000 gold in it;
3. Utterly dislike that it replaced the weekly Brawl.

I know I am not going to be playing; I'd rather just hoard the gold until the expansion hits.

This seems miserable. The enormous gold cost and top-heavy rewards really disincentivizes bringing anything that isn't cookie-cutter.

This only means one thing: I won't play Hearthstone this that week.

EDIT: It appears it's not this week, though.

Tavern Brawl has repeatedly been used to test new mechanics. This time, the mechanic in question happens to be "in-game tournament mode".

And...it's finally here.