Everything We Know About 2v2 Battles in Hearthstone

Blizzard has teased an upcoming Tavern Brawl at this year's BlizzCon Hearthstone Panel and it's going to introduce 2v2 in Hearthstone... and it might be permanent. Tavern Brawl is a great mechanism for Blizzard to play around with new ideas for the game, including an upcoming 99-card format called Warchief, and one of those has been a long-time player request called 2v2.

2v2 Hearthstone is coming in patch 37.2 shortly after the release of Reign of the Black Empire. This will be a two-week long Tavern Brawl feature. Let's learn more about it and where this might go.

What Is 2v2 in Hearthstone?

2v2 is an experimental mode which is arriving in a limited-time Tavern Brawl event for two weeks.

• You can play with yourself and queue with a random person, or queue with a friend.

• You fight another group of 2 players.

• Each play plays a game against another play of the enemy team.

• There is a special portal available on the left-side of the game board. You can use this to give cards to your friend.

• Clicking on the portal lets you see what is happening in the other game being played as a part of the 2v2.

• There is an emote wheel you can use to communicate with your teammate. This is handy to talk what cards you might want.

• Read your cards carefully. "Each Player" on Prize Vendor does indeed hit all 4 players.

Tavern Brawl Week 1

The first week of the 2v2 Tavern Brawl will feature pre-constructed decks from Blizzard. They don't want us completely breaking the game right away, so instead we will get an opportunity to master a bunch of decks they give to us to play in the format. That also means that everyone will be able to participate, no matter how large your collection is.

Tavern Brawl Week 2

The second week of the 2v2 Tavern Brawl is where things get crazy. Now we're allowed to build our own decks. Being able to build your own deck with a friend means you can find new ways to break the format.

The ability to trade cards together and use cards that allow you to effect all players is going to cause some wild combinations. It could also create more consistency in play for one of the players if you build a secondary deck around one player.

Tavern Brawl makes a great format for testing out new ideas in Hearthstone. In fact, Battlegrounds itself was an example of a mode that evolved from an in-house Tavern Brawl into something much larger. Blizzard is looking for all of our feedback once 2v2 arrives and it's possible we can see it become something we see again in the future. That's why having the two different test weeks is important; players are going to find huge ways to break it with that second week.

That's all we know about the 2v2 format right now. Are you going to be diving in during the test?