the most important thing about the scrolls is:
if you do not click on it, beatboxer will assign some of its random damage to it,
but if you do click on it, you waste a lot of time

unfortunately the super cheap battle-ready decks mostly give me duplicate legends and epics, because i am a long time collector

I agree that Hunter is one of the better decks among the 11, but mage is also easily in the top half.

the worst by far is priest (the only deck that cannot beat e.t.c.), but also demon hunter and rogue are much worse than mage.
to win with mage, just shoot everything down with spells and draw/discover to keep your hand always full of answers.

I finally managed to beat e.t.c. with rogue too, leaving me with 87/88.

priest has such a weak deck, which surprises me because the deck was one of the strongest in the “festival of legends recipe” brawl
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/tavern-brawl-a-festival-of-legends-recipe/

The decks mana curve ends at 4 mana, but it has no card drawing at all.
I guess they cut Crimson Clergy and threw in Plagiarizarr in an attempt to limit the available card drawing, thereby destroying the whole deck. Ambient Lightspawn is also missing.
I wonder if they ever beat e.t.c. with the priest deck in playtesting.

All in all the good decks were:
1. Warlock
2. Paladin
3. Mage
4. Hunter
5. Warrior

The weaker decks that can still beat e.t.c. with some grinding were:
6. death knight
7. shaman
8. druid
9. rogue
10. demon hunter

And the award for the only deck that cannot beat e.t.c. ever goes to:
11. priest

Warlock and Paladin were super easy.
Warlock generates a lot of value and overwehelms opponents in the endgame with symphony or phantom, and paladin is very fast and can make very good trade with its divine shield minions.

Death Knight has actually some combos that you have to know to make the deck work (it is still a bad deck):
Cool Ghoul + Mosh Pit allows to expand the usual 4 fights that a Cool Ghoul has until he dies (divine shield – reborn – divine shield – dead) to 7 fights or even 10 fights if you give it reborn when it has neither divine shield nor reborn (“last fight”). Dead Air allows you to duplicate a Cool Ghoul. These 2 mini-combos helped me to beat Millhouse, i needes several attempts to do so.

Screaming Banshee and the various buffs available in the deck help you to survive and produce bigger minions with its lifegain-trigger. Just make sure you are below 30 health. Protecting Screaming Banshee with Mosh Pit even prolongs the lifegain and minon production

However, the real game winner in the deck is Invincible+Death Growl. It ensures you that as soon as one taunt minion dies, another one gets taunt and +5/+5. I guess i cleared every boss with this combo, including e.t.c.

I was also lucky enough to beat Kangor at my first attempt.
For me, protecting screaming banshee with mosh pit was detrimential.
harmonic metal and blightfang also helped

about half time on my quest to beat e.t.c. with all classes.
I tried the classes that were reported as strong first. Honestly, the only problematic card he has ist one-band amalgam.
When e.t.c. copied amalgam with war master voone, i do not think i have ever won against him.

power ranking so far:
1. mage (2 tries): the greatest issue seems to be hand space. holotechnician shines against big minions

2. hunter (2 tries): hide behind banana-infused monkeys and beat him with the bigger minions late game

3. warrior (2 tries): red crest rocker is insane, but the menagerie cards lack support from the rest of the deck

4. shaman (3 tries): pack the house and horn of the windlord are your best cards

5. druid (5 tries): a lot hast to come together to win this. ideally you have groovy cat and free spirit soon. turn 4 rhythm and roots for the three 5/5 treants is essential to beat e.t.c. (do not mulligan this cards away) you want to prepare a fogsnout miracle turn midgame by playing popular pixie the turn before to set the cost of your hero power to 0, then wait fo the next turn to actually use it and improve fogsnout. in the endgame you have to hide behind an augmented elekk (ideally discounted by flowerchild) and hope that he does not have a second amalgam.

6. demon hunter (ca. 7 tries): your deck is weak, you have to discover your outs by illidary studies. star student selina on amalgam is the best you can do and was the move that won me one game after seemingly endless unsuccessful attempts.

e.t.c. was really tough to beat with the anemic demon hunter deck.
i had to try again and again until I had a good start and he had a bad one.
managed to snipe his out (amalgam band) with a discovered star student stelina.

lorebooks are back, but they do not count for the restless reader achievement, so we will forever stay below 100% adventures achievements. (has anybody on earth found more than 34 lorebooks?)

i will definitely try to finish the dungeon with all heroes

Classic bots do have their advantages. The “easy grind” is just one thing.
(you still have to win 50+ games if you start without bonus points)

The bots in classic at least insured that you always found an opponent.
It also made accomplishing achievements much easier.

I like the format and would have liked if it were continued.
I guess there were too few players actually using it, and it cannot be denied that there are three decks that perform far better than the rest, making 6 of the classes virtually unplayable (although i always liked to otk opponents with charging enraged worgens, but the deck had a low win rate)

this article made me curious, and I played some games of classic.
at least at bronze level i did not encounter those strange names.

the easiest solution would be a limit how much gold can be earned in one day.
maybe blizzard would even give you the option to raise that limit by paying real money?

Steamcleaner definitely is the best card in this tavern brawl.

Hovewer, i could not use your deck because it was deemed illegal, but removing ETC and adding Steamcleaner worked

Thanks!

the deck codes do not show what E.T.C. Band Manager can discover.

are there any standard configurations?

The legendary card for 7 € is a pretty bad deal, compared to the (20 pack + 2 legendary bundles) that appear every month.

I can only guess that blizzard is testing how much players are willing to pay for a single legend.
Since I bought almost every (small) bundle they offered I have already completed all standard legendaries except for 5 from Festival.
Those will also come sooner or later. No way I will buy the 7 € legend.

another tavern brawl ruined by pogo hopper :-/

I think I have finally figured out the more or less optimal deck for this brawl.

The core is an undead engine powerded mostly by Flesh Behemoth and Catrina Muerte.
The deck has cheap hard removal and many 187 minions against the big minions everybody else brings to this brawl.
whirlpool is a reset button if your opponent gets a better start or has jailer active.

additional notes:
the best first turn play is usually Lorthemar.
the best thing you can do on an empty board is Thaddius+lots of bombs
therefore lorthemar and thaddius are the cards to mulligan for, the third card to keep is Flesh Behemoth to get the engine going. It will fetch additional behemoths or Catrina, which will bring back a Flesh Behemoth to restart the loop.
Other good undead minions for Carina to hit are Thaddius and Invincible (actually many games are decided early when a T1 Flesh Behemoth yields an early Thaddius in play and an extra one in hand). Sylvanas and Black Knight have weaker stats, but Behemoth also gives you copies of them into your hand and allow you to kill or steal more minions.

The best thing you can do on a full board on both sides is an infused Insatiable Devourer. Using Insatiable Devourer should only be done if it can hit 2 or three large creatures or if no other options are available.
If only your opponent’s side of the board is full, then Whirlpool shines, but don’t forget that it is your only answer to Jailer so do not waste it.
Drown plays a special role because it prevents Deathrattle triggers and Reborn from happening which can be detrimental, thinking of opposing Ozumats, Invincibles and Flesh Behemoths.
Cannibalize is much much weaker than Drown (despite similar cost and effect) and is therefore not used.

Blackwater Behemoth has only one purpose: To grow Banjosaurs that were stolen with Identity Theft or Sylvanas.
It is still a decent 1st turn play if you mulligan into nothing better, and it provides some lifegain.

Some things to watch out for:
– Opposing Flesh behemoths have actually very low attack considering the size of the minions in this format.
You should only kill them if you can handle the 22/22 Thaddius that may spawn from it.
– Speaking of Thaddius, it has a weird interaction with the coin, which counts as an even cost card and becomes more expensive.
– Thaddius should not be played T1 if you only have odd-costed cards in your opening hand
– as illogical as it might sound, taunt minions with immune (by jailer) no longer stop your opponent’s minions from attacking your hero. not all opponents know this though, so you might trick them into not attacking
– One opponent actually played T1 Jailer against me. I had the Whirlpool and was thinking that I had already won, but I rushed it and played the Whirlpool immediately, not considering that his other minions were still immune even after Jailer was removed. He finally did me in with a large immune Overlord Drakuru, a game that would have been easily won by playing the whirlpool two turns later.
– don’t forget to play your draw spells BEFORE you trade minions, just in case you hit infuse minions
– bear in mind that if silvanas steals neptulon, the 4/2 hands will not follow

possible opponents:
I found the priest mirrors to be the hardest opponents, but there are god draws from shaman (T1 „From the Other Side“) and warrior (T1 Blackrock n‘ Roll followed by Trenchstalker) that can do you in, also Druid (T1 Topior, early Nourish for mana crystals) may overwhelm you with 3/3 whelps.
Hunter seldom was a problem. T1 Banjosaur looks impressive, but there are so many ways to kill their big minions. However, Lorthemar-buffed King Krush was an issue, and also Mister Mukla’s battlecry kills the extra copy you would get into your hand from Flesh Behemoth’s deathrattle.
Warlock has Infantry Recruiter and Arson Accusation, but overall Priest has the stronger card pool in this format.

Popular choices for the „customizable slot“ that is currently occupied by Ysera the Dreamer in my deck are: Jailer, Sister Svelna (good backup if you destroy your deck with jailer), Sunwell, Astalor, Zola, Mish-Mash Mosher, Blademaster Okani, and – oddly enough – Soul Seeker.

cards that were not good enough imho were: core set onyxia and ozumat (occupy too much board space), cannibalize, shadow word: ruin, ragnaros, denathrius, deathwing, amplified elekk, sleepy dragon, malygos, party crasher, dr. boom, concert promo drake (you rarely hit his finale trigger), stormwind champion, thrive in the shadows,

here is the deck:

cheap removal:
2x (1) The Light! It Burns!
2x (2) Shadow Word: Death
2x (4) Drown

card draw:
2x (3) Identity Theft
2x (3) Switcheroo

187 minoins:
2x (4) Big Game Hunter
1x (4) The Black Knight
1x (6) Sylvanas, the Accused
1x (7) Blackwater Behemoth
1x (9) Alexstrasza the Life-Binder
2x (9) Insatiable Devourer
1x (10) Neptulon the Tidehunter
2x (10) Stoneborn General

undead engine:
1x (7) Catrina Muerte
1x (8) Invincible
2x (9) Flesh Behemoth

reset button:
2x (8) Whirlpool

broken in this format:
1x (7) Lor’themar Theron
1x (10) Thaddius, Monstrosity

customizable slot:
1x (9) Ysera the Dreamer

deck code:
AAECAZ/HAgqwigS0igSotgS/zgSk7wTfogXvogXCpQW3ngbJngYKwZ8ElKAEobYE+dsEuNwErO0E4O0E9vEE+PEE1JUFAAA=
#

Blackrock ‘n’ Roll allowed me to grab my weekly pack easily (T3 win or so involving Trenchstalker)

Thaddius also definitely looks broken in this format.

I think the key is to have your cheap cards handle your opponent’s big cards, like with execute, (naturalize), poison minions, freezing, big game hunter, …

basically you can search for “destroy” and look for chaep cards that might be useful in this format

it sure created a moment of suspense for both players when it was played.

not always, but as long as 3-health-minions were on the table on the receiving player’s side, both players held their breath until the outcome was determined

Yes, of the new cards Lightshow works best.
Groovy Cat also seems to be popular, but has only mediocre power level.
I even encountered Wicked Stab, which is clearly inferior to Mind Blast
(I had to complete the 5 tavern brawl wins weekly quest)

why didn’t they ban pogo?

i did not even have to play a card to get my pack this week.
my opp conceded before the game even started.

that’s how ridiculous pogo is in this format, and everyone knows it.

if blizzard ever wants to bring back this tavern brawl, they’d better ban pogo or don’t bring it back at all