I actually love this brawl. There's some swingy cards that can make it unfair, but overall it's one of the most interesting brawls I've ever played.
I completely disagree with some of these points too.
Interesting idea but it feels like a worse version of the discover brawl.
- The putting-things-back-in-the-deck mechanic can be frustrating because if one player finds a card that's strong in the format (such as MC Tech, Loatheb, etc.), then they don't just get to play it once but a ton of times. It's like the struggle that happens occasionally in arena when your opponent drops some ridiculous legendary, you manage to kill it at great cost, and then they just drop another one--except here this annoyance is built into the format.
This is probably the most frustrating thing about this Brawl. That said if someone gets a great card you can draft specific counters to that card sometimes and counter it throughout the game. If the card counters it once it will continue to counter it. (For instance I draft a Mogushan to counter Chickens, my opponent drafts a Kodo to counter Mogushan, I draft Weblord to counter Kodo, he drafts Owl to counter both Mogushan and Weblord, so on and so forth).
- A lot of the skill that normally exists in Hearthstone is eliminated because of card advantage not existing.
Yes, but it replaces it with the need to have the skill to recognize what's good in this game mode. It turns out that cards like any 1 drop, Wisp, Gargoyle and many other cards that I'd normally consider quite terrible are really strong in this mode. I never thought I would look at a first turn draft with Senjin, Wisp and Ironbark Protector and say to myself this is definitely the time to pick Wisp because it turns out your mana is super valuable in this mode because there's always something to do with it and the early turns matter way more than the late ones.
- Unlike the discover brawl, you're less willing to take something that only works this turn, because if it's generally not a good card, it's going to hurt your draws later. That eliminates part of what made the discover brawl fun.
Totally disagree with this. I mean you probably don't want something that generates spare parts, but I've been taking things that only work 1 turn because you'd rather do something effective now than later. The games are too fast to take expensive cards that you can't play until later.
- The discover brawl was a lot simpler, so it didn't need annoying instruction pop-ups at the start of every game.
Saddest thing is I tried playing Warlock a couple times to use discard mechanics to thin my deck, but I never discovered any discard cards in time for it to matter. It takes so long to play out a game too...
Edit: I keep trying this and anything interesting fails to happen. It's just, either me or the other guy discovers a broken card, then it takes 5+ more turns to slowly snowball into a win unless someone concedes.
Discarding doesn't actually thin your deck to my knowledge. It just thins your hand. (that said you don't care if you discard an important card because you can always redraw it making discard cards reasonable). Edit: Not actually sure about this. Haven't played Warlock.
Hate this brawl. Like the creative idea but the actual effect si terrible. I played one game that went something like 60-70 turns before I finally resigned out of boredom. Plus, all the things blueblimp said.
The majority of the games I've played are over before turn 10, but I did play one game like you described, but I found it to be incredibly fun. I managed to come back from an opponent who had double Kel Thuzad and retake the board only to stall out again, but then eventually win when I dropped Jaraxxus from Sneed's Old Shredder, bounced it with a Youthful Brewmaster and Coined into playing Jeraxxus immediately for the win. In the late game people are less likely to draw their annoying cards so you actually see them less.