Decks Assemble!

The subject of this article is only available in Tavern Brawls.

"All of Azeroth wants to brawl for you! Start with a small deck, recruit as you go, then send them to fight over and over!"

Decks Assemble! is a Tavern Brawl. It debuted on December 2, 2015. For exact times, see the schedule.

History

Tavern Brawl	Start	End
25	December 2, 2015	December 7, 2015
35	February 10, 2016	February 15, 2016
128	November 22, 2017	November 27, 2017

Overview

This complex Brawl sees players doing battle doing special decks generated during the match itself. This Brawl has no mulligan; instead, the player starts with a small hand and deck of certain preset cards. At the start of each turn, when they would draw a card, the player instead Discovers a random card; options may be neutral or matching the player's class, and may be of any type. Each time a player plays a card, a copy is shuffled into their deck. At the end of each turn, the player's hand is shuffled back into their deck, and a new selection of four cards is drawn.

Starting cards

Each player starts with a selection of the following cards in their deck and hand. As usual, the player going second also gains The Coin.

Notes

• Each player starts the Brawl with 4 cards in their hand, plus The Coin for the player going second; and with 3, 4 or 5 cards in their deck. The varying numbers suggests the selection of cards is random.
• Playing a card will add a copy of that card to the player's deck. This takes place before Battlecries activate, which is significant for Joust minions, which have a chance to select their own copy for the Joust.
  • There is one exception to the copying rule: The Coin does not produce a copy, and so can only be used once. However, if the player does not play The Coin it will be shuffled into the player's deck as usual.
• The player's hand is shuffled back into their deck before the new hand is selected. This means the player has a chance to draw any or all of the same cards again. This also means playing or not playing a card has no effect on the likelihood of drawing that card next turn. A possible exception may be if the player's deck becomes full.
• The player's hand is redrawn before the activation of "end of turn" triggered effects.
• If you try to redraw your hand with fewer than 4 cards in your deck, you will 'draw' duplicates to complete your hand.
• The end of turn hand redrawing process uses a non-standard drawing mechanism. This means that on-draw effects like Burrowing Mine from Iron Juggernaut will not activate when 'drawn' by it, The Mistcaller and Chromaggus will not work, and so on. However, regular card draw will still activate these effects.
• There is no limit in this Brawl to how large decks can get.

Known bugs

• Jeeves will cause an animation hang if he tries to draw cards.

Strategy

The result of the above rules means there is no reason for a player not to play all cards they wish to each turn, even if there is little value in doing so; playing a card does not alter the likelihood of drawing it (or a copy) next turn, and it is not possible (or necessary) to 'save' cards for later. The lack of any penalty for playing the entire hand each turn, combined with the low cost of the initial cards, makes the Questing Adventurer an extremely powerful early minion.

The cards Discovered first are often the most important for the game. A strong Discovered card can be played several times in the early game, allowing a strong card to provide repeated value. However, choosing cheap cards increases the likelihood of drawing low value hands for the remainder of the Brawl, such as a hand of 1 cost cards on turn 10. The value of good early game cards must therefore be weighed against the inevitable recurrence of those cards later in the game.

While choice of card through the Discover effect at the start of each turn is important, choosing which cards to play is arguably even more impactful on future options. Each time a card is played, a copy is shuffled into the player's deck, essentially creating a never-ending supply of that card. Since minions persist, choosing to play a minion can allow the player to rapidly produce a series of copies of that card.

Cards chosen at the start of the turn are immediately available for play. However, remember that at the end of the turn they are shuffled back into the deck, with a relatively small chance of drawing them again next turn. This makes choosing cards which can be played that turn a more reliable tactic.

Discard effects can allow the player to tactically remove cards from their hand, preventing them from being drawn again next turn. This can shrink the pool of available cards, allowing the player to focus on desirable cards. Fel Reaver can perform a similar function for the player's deck, although at random.

While card draw effects work normally in this Brawl, with a fixed hand of 4 cards drawn at the start of each turn, the advantage is useful only for that turn; after that the extra card will be returned to the deck as usual. This also makes it very hard to overdraw due to a full hand. Other mechanics such as generate and shuffle into deck effects also work as normal. Return effects can allow you to create additional copies of cards.

As a result, Life Tap is of no benefit unless you play the card you draw that turn, which makes warlock a weaker choice for this Brawl. The value of cards involving card draw effects is also affected. For example, Dancing Swords' Deathrattle is of less consequence, especially if activated by the opponent during their own turn. The same is true for generate effects to a lesser extent, since the cards generated will be shuffled back into the deck at the end of the turn unless played.

Trivia

• The debut of this Brawl resulted in disconnections and extended downtime in the Europe region. With the developers working to restore service in the Europe region, the release of the Brawl in other regions was delayed while the issues were remedied. With disruption of this kind following the release of Tavern Brawls becoming a regular occurrence, the incident spurred Blizzard to announce that they would be adding additional testing measures to help prevent this in the future. One consequence of this was a change to the Tavern Brawl release schedule, with Brawls now opening in the Americas region ahead of other regions.

Gallery

Entering the Brawl	Discovering the first new card	Playing a card
Redrawing the hand