Hearthstone Tavern Brawl Creates Lose-Lose Situation

Ah, Tavern Brawl. In a highly-competitive and at times extremely frustrating card game, Tavern Brawl adds a beautiful element of random weirdness into the mix that more often than not turns out extremely fun. If you’re not familiar with Hearthstone, Tavern Brawl is a game mode with a specific set of rules or gimmicks that change weekly, rewarding a card pack for your first win. And this week’s Tavern Brawl comes with a rule that can force both players to lose, a feat not normally attainable.

In this week’s Tavern Brawl, whenever you summon a minion, you automatically gain a random spell card in your hand of the same mana cost as that minion (a 2-cost minion provides a 2-cost spell), only that spell will cost 0 mana, allowing it to be played immediately. This allows you to obtain spell cards your class would not normally be able to add to their deck. Now, there’s a priest build that uses a card called Auchenai Soul Priest to convert all healing done by the priest into damage. And there’s a druid spell, Tree of Life, that fully heals all characters and minions. It’s a 9-cost spell normally, and the only one available. So if you play a 9-cost minion, you’re guaranteed Tree of Life. And when combined with the Soul Priest…

It blows up spectacularly. Too bad both players lose as a result. Such ties are rare, though possible through certain effects that damage both player and opponent. They’re just not viable in Ranked play, where the stakes for winning are higher. So seeing such a combo in Tavern Brawl is fun and (mostly) harmless.

h/t: Polygon