Freedon's Comments
Catrina Muerte
Hard not to be impressed/worried by the potential with wall priest. More generally it will open up good late-game pressure with across most priest decks. Summon a 1/1 and you’ve still broken even in stats with a large soft-taunt minion to be removed. Shouldn’t be too hard to better that. 5/5
Marked Shot
Its nice enough, fits in a mid-range deck well, and so long as Zul’Jin is a thing that deck will be around for Hunter. It will probably take the deck a little bit of time to re-establish its strength against control, but I’m sure it will. 3/5
Duel!
If Big Paladin is a thing this is an interesting but very hit or miss card… it’s asking to be experimented with, but can’t rate it highly given that even if you build your entire deck around it there’s still a strong chance you’ll draw your opponent a decent minion. That its strong against aggro decks and techs against combos is its saving grace for a big minion control set up, so it has a chance at play if big minion pally is a thing at all, and if aggro/combos are dominating the meta. Combo looks pretty suppressed though with all the neutral techs, so this doesn’t seem so impactful at all. Probably 2/5 in general standard meta.
Vereesa Windrunner
This could easily be a top card for a spell-centric face hunter and maybe some mid-range builds. 4/5
Keeper Stalladris
This should provide a huge boost to the inclusion of choose one spells, promoting even greater flexibility and providing great value, even if only triggered once. Token and Combo are the decks that first spring to mind as benefitting the most right now, but this could easily be an auto-include in all druid decks. Where Fandral was a 5/5 card, with Keeper Stalladris you will need to be able to physically play the cards generated to realize its value, and those cards are inherently underpowered to make up for their flexibility, so 4/5
Wrenchcalibur
1 extra mana for 10 damage? Yes please. Two of these on their own could fit into almost any warrior deck. Only issue is the possible clash with Supercollider. 4/5
Unidentified Contract
On average probably not as good as vilespline, but better than assassinate. Maybe just has an edge over walk the plank. 3.5/5
Power of Creation
Could fit control Mage’s style if you want to include big spells but also be able to generate a big board quickly. Some high roll potential but most of the time it’ll just be a decent pile of stats. Combo with Khadgar has some game-winning potential. 3/5
Messenger Raven
Good value, and could find a place in control decks if the consistency of pulling mage’s big legendaries is high enough. Nice card for F2P players, decent for arena. 3/5
Blastmaster Boom
Maybe not the most imaginative new card, but brings back the Boom in what feels like a more balanced way than GvG. Not an auto include, but greater potential if you build around it, and building around it will only require 4-8 support cards in total, so leaves a lot of flexibility for decks that incorporate it as a package. Nice Artwork as well. 4/5
Clockwork Goblin
Midrange Bomb Warrior is looking nasty. This feels well balanced for it. 4/5
Madame Lazul
Very Thiefy, Much Flavour. Will have to see if priest’s control value gameplan can come to anything competitive. 4.5/5
Rafaam's Scheme
Damn Rafaam is one crazy guy. A scheme could have had great potential with Handlock, but this? Can’t see it being useful in any decks. 1/5
Hagatha's Scheme
Decenttt, but super weak in a lot of circumstances. It would shine in a slow control deck with multiple board clear and removal options so you can reliably let it sit in hand for 3+ turns to start to tap into its value. Very different potential to volcano, will be harder to build into a deck, but will feel good dropping a 20+ damage board clear now and then 🙂
Kalecgos
Could support a Dragon Control Mage well. Odd Dragon Mage was quite effective, and with the loss of Baku and Jaina, this offers some support for reimagining that deck going forward.
Arch-Villain Rafaam
Some cool potential for a control build that can tech hard according to the current meta, i.e. anti-aggro hard, and then roll the dice with this to try and close out the game transforming cards you haven’t needed, with added hakkar combo possible for late control match-ups. Similar potential for closing out with a zoo deck. At worst its a fun card that you can probably afford to throw into a few decks. I’m saying 4/5, as it will see a lot of experimentation with the fun & meme factor making up for potential lack of viability in any meta decks.
Tavern Brawl Your Standard Brawliseum (Rastakhan Edition) - Best Decks for the Rastakhan Brawliseum
Fair enough, those results are very good going, I’d get in as many rounds as you can! I’ve gone 4-3, 12-2, 5-3, now, almost going 0-3 on the last run before winning 5 in a row. Its a small sample, but is better then my arena average which is like 4.5 I think. It looks like a solid dragon deck, guess the trouble is always going to be against some combo decks and infinite decks like kingsbane given there’s not really a big late game finisher aside from fatigue.
Like I said I do think there is a place for the format, given its only once (or maybe twice?) per expansion. The biggest thing is probably just why this week, like you say with people experimenting and unsure of the new cards, old decks, and aggro, are still really effective, which kind of defeats the point of it being the first brawl of the new expansion. It’s also a time when more casual players are probably playing who would prefer a Whizbang style brawl.
I think saying 2 wins is similar value to a card pack is a bit optimistic though, given your just as likely to get a common card, but its a nice point about the added 10g per 3 win rewards.
A seriously underwhelming board clear option, but could support some Druid, Hunter or Rogue decks. Powerful potential synergies in Rush Warrior with Akali and the spirit, but I still don’t know how that deck finishes off games. Better in Arena 2.5/5