This week's Tavern Brawl sees the return of the Heroic Brawliseum, in which players must pay an entry fee to go into Standard combat with other players, attempting to hit 12 wins for maximum rewards.
Is Heroic Brawliseum right for you, especially with the mini-set just around the corner? Let's talk about that.
Whats Different This Time Around?
Please note that the Hero Skin portion of this section may not be relevant in future iterations of Heroic Brawliseum. The legendary quest has been confirmed to still happen during the TITANS expansion.
Blizzard has made two changes to the format this time, which aims to help
- A legendary quest is available to replace the usual free pack from Tavern Brawl for the week.
- Win a game in any play mode to earn your Standard Pack.
- A Death Knight Hero Skin, Ghoul Queen Scarlet, is available if you can win 3 games across Brawliseum (not just in one run).
Is Heroic Brawliseum Worth Playing?
FIrst off, Heroic Brawliseum can be a challenging format which gives Hearthstone a place where you, in theory, should have guaranteed competitiveness. For players on that side of the meta, this is a great opportunity to pilot decks to take advantage of a competitive format. That can be quite fun but there are a couple of problems:
- Adding a chance at getting a Hero Skin is bait for more casual players.
- It removes what could have been a fun and accessible Tavern Brawl for the week.
Take The Bait?
Why is that we're consistently seeing Heroic Brawliseum pop up before a mini-set is due?
- Murder at Castle Nathria's Mini-Set released on September 27, with the Brawliseum starting September 14.
- Voyage to the Sunken City's Mini-Set released on June 1, with the Brawliseum starting May 25.
Remember, mini-sets come out around 2 months after the main set. March of the Lich King launched on December 6. We're due for an announcement and a load of card reveals!
The reason is simple. Blizzard's monetization team wants to entice players to spend their hard-earned gold with the dream that one could win 50 card packs and 1100 gold by going 12 wins in a run of Brawliseum. You have the option of using your in-game gold or real money (Runestones) in Brawliseum, so what feels like better value? This can lead to a total waste of your gold and lowered chances of having 2000 gold to buy the next mini-set.
Things would be different if we'd get to see the mini-set cards in advance of Brawliseum, but that would likely lower the number of people participating in the mode because mini-sets usually have some pretty great looking cards! We certainly can't have that happen. But wait, what about that Hero Skin, Ghoul Queen Scarlet?
To earn this skin, you simply need to win 3 games in Heroic Brawliseum across all your runs.
Quote From Blizzard Correction: the Ghoul Queen Scarlet skin legendary quest will require 3 wins in this Heroic Tavern Brawl across all runs, not necessarily in the same Tavern Brawl run.
That's right, you need wins, not just games played. This could have been a simple exchange of 1000 Gold, a few losses after trying to make some of your gold back, and you'd get your shiny new skin. I'm not trying to be an ass about this, because rewarding players for losing games early on can artificially boost the wins other people are getting if people enter with the intention to concede, which is against the competitiveness of the mode, but this skin might end up being quite expensive.
Hero Skins generally cost an equivalent of 1000 Gold. We see with Brawliseum that Blizzard values 1000 Runestones and 1000 Gold as equals, so if we look at the most recent example of shop skins we can see that Dreamgrove Lunara can be purchased for 1000 Gold... wait a moment, she also comes with card packs. If you value the class-specific packs at 100 Gold a piece, the skin is effectively 500 Gold. We're paying twice as much Gold for a chance at receiving it by playing games. If you don't get 3 wins into your run, and you really wanted that skin, congratulations, you're now going to be forced into additional runs, drying up your gold reserves and making the mini-set a mandatory real money purchase.
There's another reason why you shouldn't take the Hero Skin bait though. Unless there is an overwhelming number of players on the more casual side aiming to get the skin, the odds that people are going to be playing very competitive decks is extremely high, meaning you must be on a level playing field. As much as I wish everyone reading this article was a high-legend card slinger, we know that simply can't be the case.
The reward structure for Heroic Tavern Brawls.
And if we take the skin out of the equation, and just want to do some basic math, not every person that enters is going to be winning enough games to make their investment worthwhile, which to breakeven on value requires 5 wins. Gold and Dust in Hearthstone are roughly equivalent, so the approximately 220 Dust and 220 Gold you will receive from a Brawliseum run at 5 wins, plus the 6 packs (600 Gold) gives you your 1000 Gold back in value - assuming those things all matter to you, which if they do, just save for the mini-set.
Don't take the bait. Let the metrics suffer and show that they should use skins as rewards elsewhere.
No Tavern Brawl For The Week
I've long been a champion of the Tavern Brawl format and have continually been disappointed by Blizzard's moves to add additional brawls to the mode, opting instead to reuse old brawls what feels like 99% of the time. Understood, development resources are stretched thin and Tavern Brawl isn't the hottest thing out there. But, having a capital required to play event taking place in something that is usually very low barrier of entry doesn't feel great.
Players without a large collection can usually swing into brawl and be given a deck or a randomized set of cards to have some fun with the game. Sure the rules are usually crazy and completely change the balance of things, but at least it's fun. Putting a simple Standard game into the format that is supposed to change the rules of the game is a waste of space and time (remember, this is up all week!).
I've never quite understood why we don't just have a dedicated spot for Brawliseum-style events. Perhaps Blizzard is worried about not enough people playing should they leave Tavern Brawl up for the week; that's certainly a valid reason to not run multiple events at the same time. There can't possibly be a ton of overlap with players who are ultra competitive and those that sink their time into Tavern Brawl each week though, which means we're using the mode to change the target audience, potentially alienating players in the process. Huge props to Blizzard for adding the legendary quest so people can get their free Standard Pack for the week by playing other games of Hearthstone, but it misses a large point of Tavern Brawl.
Blizzard needs a new way to do special competitive events in the client so Tavern Brawl can continue to be its own thing.
Are you planning on participating? If so, we've posted some of the ladder's top Standard decks that you may want to take for a spin in the mode. Let us know how well you do!
TL;DR: Don't play Heroic Brawliseum
Comments
Until now I purchased all skins. I have the income and I liked it. But after seeing how greedy Blizz is, I stopped. I do not need a 6th Lunara and 8th Brukan skin. If there is a new character, I will most likely buy it, but that's it. I have more skins than ever really needed.
And I decided not to participate in the Brawliseum even though I have above 10K gold in the game.
Along with the legendary quests that I immediately got rid of, I conveniently got the “Play 2 Tavern Brawls” daily yesterday. I don’t think so, Blizzard!
This was my first ever "dismiss" of a legendary quest in regards to the portrait quest in the journal. I hope Blizzard has analytics on this to see how many ppl removed the quest, or how many players didn't get the reward.
Yeah, I did the very same thing. Even though my gold stash allows me to participate in this event many times over, I simply refuse to participate in this "fan favorite" scam brawliseum. I have no hope they will learn anything from the hopefully poor stats of this event.
Currently sitting at 3-0. almost had a heart attack while playing.
I had a really bad experience with the first few heroic brawls so I totally appreciate people being shy of it. I think it is nice that there is some kind of high stakes event every once in a while for the big spenders. And it is a little funny that we all got so used to free pack normal brawls that any disruption feels like a slight. I think offering up a bonus on this brawl is a positive step, even if the slot machine is a better gamble
Blizzard is in business to make money. Smart players understand this and dont spend when it isnt worth it. The Brawliseum isnt worth it.
I hate brawlisiums. I've been here since the very beginning and fell for it a couple of times, If I ever did good I don't remember, but probably when they still gave a free run. Still it's not fun unless you have a very competitive mindset.
Hope everyone does good enough to not lose that much gold! Good luck everyone!
I did it for the portrait as well. Got 1 win in my first run and 4 in my second, both using Evolve Shaman. Safe to say I encountered no casuals, even if there was quite some variety: Big Spell Mages, all three DK archetypes, an aggro Hunter, Pure Paladins. I'm sitting at 2.700 gold now so all in all I'm content as I've spent close to the same amount of gold as for the Valeera skin in the shop, arguably even less.
Glad to see someone dislikes Heroic Brawliseum as much as I do
I love the competitive aspect of it. The idea behind what Brawliseum is makes it the only format in-game where people actually have something on the line. I just hate the paywall.
What I think is really cool is what Riot just announced for their new competitive year for Legends of Runeterra. They are going to have events during the month that you can only enter once, Runeterra Opens, which will reward points to players to help get them into the end of year event. Having only one opportunity really forces people into some tough decisions!
MTG Arena does something similar with their Arena Open events they run, however, you can enter as many times as you want during Day 1, and if you have a good run, you get an invite to Day 2. The Arena Open also changes which formats it runs in each event, usually focusing on the new set that launched, which is a great way to promote the new goodies. Bonus points when they are a draft event because you just need to pay to enter and you'll get all the tools you need for success, evening the playing field.
It beyond frustrates me that Hearthstone hasn't been able to create anything competitive for the average player in the 10 years the game has been around. All of it has just been pumping Twitch stars, a lot of which moved on from the game soon after having success.
And why were those Twitch streamers leaving? The sameness of gameplay created by high-powered openers and consistency generated from high-powered cards. You know, the cards that the playerbase has been complaining about but also put players on a "buy-or-die" escalator.
You know what would help shake things up (besides better design) and increase streamer retention? A tournament mode oh wait. Holistic problem is holistic.
What would you even want / create for a competitive environment for more average / Casual player ?
Tournament mode? whatever that would even be like.
And for the Twitch stars, alot of those dont like the Heroic Brawl Either or way game is directed , so like for who is it even then anyway ?
Different people have different expectations for what tournament mode should be. I think they should just publish an API to invite two players into a match and a way to get the match results, then people outside Blizzard can build their own tournament sites.
I really like your idea, it's very little effort on Blizzard's part and it incentivizes the community to make their own tournament sites and opt into the API. But knowing Blizzard... they'll come up with some lame excuse saying the community will maliciously abuse the API
Of course it shouldn't be possible to just invite any two accounts into a match, players would have to indicate their approval in advance, for example by subscribing to a particular event first and confirming that via OAuth. With such precautions, the potential damage from abuse is limited.
It is possible that people will make other things than tournaments with such a generic API, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Entire game genres like MOBA and auto-battlers were started by modders, which can benefit the original game's publisher as well. While Blizzard was too slow in launching Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone Battlegrounds is doing quite well in terms of player count (not sure about monetization, but they're trying).
But I don't think it's going to happen: thinking in terms of APIs is not in Blizzard's DNA. For example, deck trackers and sites like this one have to data mine all their card info, instead of Blizzard doing a full JSON dump of all card info at the end of the reveal season.
I mean, I absolutely would abuse the API, so they are not exactly wrong.
Normally i NEVER play hc brawl
but wanted the skin (which id prefer just been able to pay 1k gold for)
Did unholy DK, went 3/3
Wasnt a fun experience at all, even more so with gold on line.
It also really shows what i dislike/hate about more modern hs/current game direction.
The 3 games i won i had necromancer on 2 that oponent dint have imeadte asnwer to, the 3 games i dint have that basicly nothing else mattered in outcome of the games in comparison atleast.
Wouldnt Recomend it at all, but i just dint want to loose chance at onyl female Dk skin (and belf dk is what i used to main in wow back when i played it still)
Its a scam, and not a fun/casual experience for evryone. Infatc its the exact oppisite of that, which isnt what tavern brawl is for.
For those ppl who actually want to read English :)
Not trying to be mean dude but your typos are getting on my nerves. This site has spell check.
Sorry English isnt my first/native language, and the spell check flags almost evry single word.
Even with correct spelling. In Quote you corrected and your own post, when im writing this here. It still flags almost evry single word