Space. The final frontier. These are the culinary voyages of the starship Vindicaar. Its mission is to see the final end of the Burning Crusade. My mission is to bring you best food the Vindicaar has to offer and help you win Hearthstone’s The Great Dark Beyond Recipe Tavern Brawl.

It’s Gus Ferrari, once again, and I need you riding shotgun. We’ve got a VIP tour of the Vindicaar. You’d think food on a warship wouldn’t be worth exploring, but you’d be wrong. Ishanah was all set to show us a new Westfall Chicken Yakitori recipe, but unfortunately T’paartos yelled, “T’PAARTOS!” and took the last of the skewers.

While we’re waiting on Ishanah to find some more, you’ve got a Brawl to win. So let’s discuss how to win The Great Dark Beyond Tavern Brawl.

This week’s Tavern Brawl continues our introduction to The Great Dark Beyond, after last week’s Pre-Release Brawl where we get to try out more of the expansion’s most interesting cards and deck recipes — and win a card pack in the process. Though oddly absent from Fractured in Alterac Valley, this type of Brawl has become a regular addition when we get a new expansion. Most recently, we had a a Whizbang Recipe for Whizbang’s Workshop, and the Paradise Recipe Brawl for Perils in Paradise.

If you were on the fence about what cards are worth crafting or how much of your hard-earned gold to plunk down on packs, this Brawl is designed to let you give the new expansion a trial run.

Tavern Brawl basics

Name: Great Dark Beyond Recipe Tavern Brawl
Description: Journey through The Great Dark Beyond! Choose a class and enjoy the latest deck recipes!
Fun level: 5/10
Difficulty: 9/10 to 4/10 depending on your class, deck, and opponent
Replayability: 5/10
Format: Standard
Type: PVP
Deck: Provided
Rewards: 1 Standard card pack (this can include any card from any set in the current Standard rotation)

For this Brawl, you choose your class and you’re assigned its deck recipe. These are premade decks, and the same decks you’ll find on the deck creation screen, but there is one big differences for the Brawl. You get the deck with all the cards regardless of whether you own them or not. You’ll have every Legendary and Epic card you need for the deck.

Each class has a recipe meant to give players a good introduction to how the class will play in The Great Dark Beyond. These recipe-type Brawls appear close to release of the expansion, though some appear closer than others. This one released the same day as the expansion!

All of the decks for this Brawl were made by Hearthstone content creators, and/or high legend players. That should make for some fun and powerful decks to play.

How to win The Great Dark Beyony Tavern Brawl

Let’s look at each deck and a quick tip for playing it. You can only choose the class: the deck will be assigned. Each class received a new recipe with the expansion. While you might still see a Whizbang’s Workshop or Perils in Paradise recipe on the collection screen when you make a new deck, only The Great Dark Beyond-themed decks are available in this Brawl. To get started, pick the class you’re most comfortable with, and don’t be afraid to concede the match if the game isn’t going your way.

If you’re just looking to nab your card pack for your first win, my playtesting seemed to indicate that Death Knight and Hunter are strong choices. Hunter also has a fairly easy to understand game plan. But any of the classes can get the win.

Death Knight

• Cantelope’s Rainbow Starship
• This deck was built by high-legend player Cantelope! Piece together a haunting Starship to trigger Deathrattles and summon massive minions.
• Most of the recipes highlight the new Starship mechanic in The Great Dark Beyond. The Death Knight Starship supports what is becoming the go-to strategy for Death Knight: make a huge undead minion and slam it into your opponent.

Demon Hunter

• Kibler’s Starship Crew
• This deck was built by legendary card game competitor Kibler! Rally Crewmates to helm a fierce aggressive Starship.
• The Demon Hunter Starship fits well with this energetic class. The deck has several ways to generate the 4/4 Crewmate minion which presents a constant problem for your opponent. The strategy is straightforward. Use your Starship. Attack and never let up.

Druid

• Kibler’s Starcaneship
• This deck was built by legendary card game competitor Kibler! Command a magical Starship to unleash a flurry of Arcane spells.
• Druid is a flexible class and each expansion it can lean into one of several different game plans. For The Great Dark Beyond, Druid is going Balance. Exarch Othaar provides additional resources for you. The Final Frontier can be a game winner, but with its random element, it can also be a game loser. This deck feels like it might be a little slow, but YMMV.

Hunter

• Day9’s Ceaseless Discover
• This deck was built by the popular strategy game streamer Day9! Explore space away from face as you Discover powerful synergies and in a strange new world.
• This is one of the few classes that won’t be building a Starship in this Brawl. Instead, this deck relies on near constant resource generation including the possibility of exchanging Hunter’s iconic Face is the Place Hero Power for one that Discovers a new card each turn thanks to Exarch Naielle.

Mage

• Sway Bae’s Fiery Elementals
• This deck was built by Sway Bae, one of the winners of the Hearthstone Tavern Training event! Wield the burning power of suns with a firestorm of spells and Elementals.
• Elemental Mage has been a popular archetype for Mage and that looks to be continuing with this recipe. The deck uses the fewest new cards of any recipe so this one might be a good one to target as you build up your The Great Dark Beyond collection. The Elemental synergies are further enhanced with cards like Saruun and Spontaneous Combustion.

Paladin

• Roffle’s Libram Paladin
• This deck was built by deckbuilding wizard Roffle! With new Draenei to reduce their Costs, Librams make their triumphant return.
• Librams have had an interesting history in Hearthstone, and it appears the development team is going to try to make them meta once again. The strategy is to make your Librams cost zero mana through cards like Intersteller Starslicer and Intersteller Wayfarer. Once free, new Librams like Libram of Clarity, Libram of Divinity, and Libram of Faith get a bonus effect.

Priest

• MarkMcKz’s Mystified Draenei
• This deck was built by deckbuilding mad scientist MarkMcKz! Mystify your opponent with Mystifed To’cha by setting your hero’s Health total just right.
• Is it better to be a deckbuilding wizard (Roffle) or a deckbuilding mad scientist (MarkMcKz)?
• Mystified To’cha is an interesting gimmick, but it seems like it might be difficult to pull off consistently. This deck highlights the power and synergy of the new Draenei tribe with Velen, Leader of the Exiled being your big play. It’ll be interesting to see how successful this list will be.

Rogue

• Clark’s Schematic Heist
• This deck was built by popular Hearthstone streamer Clark! Use other classes’ Starships against them, and double them up with the Gravitational Displacer.
• I think of decks like this one as Tess Greymane decks, even if she’s not in it. The idea is to play cards you’ve stolen from other classes. Very Roguish, indeed. The key to the gimmick of this deck is Scrounging Shipwright which let’s you steal another classes Starship piece and build their Starship. Then really rub it in by summoning their Starship twice with The Gravitational Displacer. It’s like a space version of Jack stealing the HMS Interceptor.

Shaman

• Roffle’s Spacerock Shaman
• This deck was built by deckbuilding wizard Roffle! Channel the cosmic elements and bombard your opponent with asteroids.
• This deck is all about generating asteroids, upgrading them, and them using them to blow up your opponent. It reminds me a little of the old Bomb Warrior decks from back in the day. Ah, nostalgia. I don’t have to tell you the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field, do I?

Warlock

• MarkMcKz’s Demon Starship
• This deck was built by deckbuilding mad scientist MarkMckz!
• This is another Starship deck that specializes in summoning and generating Demon minions. It has some powerful top end cards if you can live long enough to play them.

Warrior

• Sloot’s Akamattack
• This deck was built by Sloot, one of the winners of the Hearthstone Tavern Training event! Command aggressive Draenei and keep the pressure going with Exarch Akama.
• Warrior is my favorite class in Hearthstone, but the times when it leans more aggressive like Pirate Warrior, aren’t my favorite. It seems like that will be the way Warrior is going in The Great Dark Beyond.
• The deck is built around the new Draenei tribe, and the 5-mana Legendary card, Exarch Akama. He doesn’t have Rush, so you’ll need to protect him long enough for him to swing the game.

I love this Brawl

As a casual, free to play player, this Brawl is great. It gives me a taste of what these decks play like and lets me target those cards I need to craft. These decks will continue to get refined as players get more experience with them, but  I love that Blizzard has turned to the community for help in building these.

Even so, these decks will continue to get refined as players get more experience with them, and other decks may arise that aren’t part of these recipes. I’ve been burned too many times to go spending big on dust to craft cards. So for now, enjoy the Brawl and let the meta work itself out.