The weekly Tavern Brawls in Blizzard's massively popular digital card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft introduces crazy new rules every week, which could lead to some very interesting game states.
Earlier in the month, the "Unite Against Mechazod" Tavern Brawl allowed two players to team up instead of fight against each other, with the goal of beating Gearmaster Mechazod, which switches between the two sides of the playing field depending on whose turn it is and has a variety of powerful attacks.
This week's edition of the Tavern Brawl uses the familiar one-on-one battle system for Hearthstone. Named "The Battle of Tol Barad," players participating in the Tavern Brawl will first have to build their own decks using the hero of their choice. While in battle, players who play a minion will get a spell of the corresponding cost into their hand, with the mana cost of the spell card reduced to 0.
The spells that players receive after playing minions are randomly chosen, and they could be coming from the classes of other heroes. This is why most players pack their custom decks for this week's Tavern Brawl mostly with minions, and then hope that the random spells they get would turn the game's tide to their favor.
The wackiness of the weekly Tavern Brawl rules leads to fun times, and this week is no exception. There is a combo that can be pulled off that will kill both players instantly, and it is only possible through the rules of "The Battle of Tol Barad."
To prepare for the instant-kill combo, players must choose the Priest hero when creating their deck, and they should add the Auchenai Soulpriest into their deck, which is a 4-cost, 3/5 minion that causes the healing cards and hero power of the player to deal damage instead. The player should then add 9-cost minions into their deck.
While in battle, casting a 9-mana cost minion will grab the Druid spell Tree of Life, the only 9-cost spell in the game. The spell restores all characters to their full health, but with the Auchenai Soulpriest in play, the spell would instead knock out both players at once.
The combo is only possible with the Tavern Brawl's rules because the Tree of Life can only be used in a Druid deck and the Auchenai Soulpriest can only be used in the Priest deck. It is an example of what makes Tavern Brawl so interesting, as such possibilities are opened up to players.
