Heroic Brawliseum returns to Hearthstone with new cosmetic rewards, is it worth playing?

Next Wednesday, on May 24, Hearthstone players will see the return of the Heroic Brawliseum. The 26.2 patch revealed a new edition of the special event that mashes up the constructed and Arena Hearthstone formats into one and offers incredible rewards for the winners.

This time, the Heroic Tavern Brawl includes an exclusive cosmetic as a prize on top of the regular pack structure. But is it worth playing the Heroic Brawliseum for the average Hearthstone player? Let's find out!

May 15 update: "The Heroic Tavern Brawl has been delayed for one week. It will now start on May 24, instead. This change is due to a conflict with balance changes coming in Patch 26.2.2, scheduled for later this week. More details on that soon!"

The Heroic Brawliseum, or Heroic Tavern Brawl, debuted in Hearthstone back in 2016, and this is its eighth appearance. It consists of a special event that takes the regular Tavern Brawl to a different level. This High stakes event allows players to rip off incredible rewards if they are good enough to defeat the competition.

Heroic Brawliseum’s format is similar to the Arena mode. Players lock in a deck and compete until they either get to 12 wins or are defeated 3 times. The substantial difference with Arena is that, in the Heroic Brawliseum, there is no draft phase and players can bring any decks they want.

As mentioned before, players can cash in incredible rewards that can go up to 50 packs and 3 Golden Legendary cards. However, before you get too hyped about the payoffs, I must warn you, Heroic Brawliseum ain’t cheap. Despite not being clarified in the patch notes, based on previous iterations of the event, we can assume that the entrance will be 1000 Gold coins!

This entrance fee might be a good investment if you are a savvy player since the rewards spike incredibly after 8 wins. The full Hearthstone Heroic Brawliseum rewards go by the following chart:

To make it cost-effective, players need to hit 7-8 wins. But if you can make it to 9 wins there is when Hearthstone doubles your investment. Needless to say that getting to 12 wins is just as good as hitting the Jackpot. Players that successfully navigate thru a Heroic Brawliseum will get the equivalent of a Hearthstone pre-order Bundle in rewards.

On top of these rewards, this Hearthstone Heroic Brawliseum edition also grants two unique Death Knight Hero Skins. Frostmonger Sai Death Knight Hero Skin will be awarded to those who play 3 Heroic Brawliseum decks. So you can take this as a skin for 1000 with an upside. The few that get to 12 wins will be able to brag about it with the exclusive Crimson Knight Sai Hero Skin.

These skins will be awarded via a special Legendary Quest chain.

Finally, to compensate for the pack players will miss because of this Heroic Tavern Brawl replacing the weekly Tavern Brawl, Blizzard will launch an extra Legendary Quest that rewards players with a Standard Pack.

On top of the regular critiques to the Heroic Brawliseum prize structure and cost, this time the event also got heat for the exclusive cosmetic rewards. Few things have changed since the last event to the point that the concerns raised four months ago are still valid.

Most critiques can be grouped under the "stealing lunch money" category. The Heroic Brawliseum event is not for every player, but many don't have the information available to realize that.

Bunnyhoppor, the current Hearthstone World Champion, raised his concern about this event months ago. He mentioned that the 3-win requirement to get the new skin might be a bit greedy on Blizzard's side. It seems like Bunny's claim echoed in Blizzard since the last Forum Update changed this 3-wins requirement to "Play 3 Games".

Furthermore, these Tavern Brawls usually precede Hearthstone Mini-Sets. Hearthstone historically incentivized players to spend their gold reserves before the mid-expansion content releases worth 2000 Gold.

Remember that all the packs you get from this Hearthstone Heroic Brawliseum will be from the Festival of Legends expansion. So, if you have a full collection and don’t have much gold to spare, think twice before entering.

Furthermore, the timing of Heroic Brawliseums usually comes before Hearthstone Mini-Sets. Make sure you don't go bankrupt and save the 2000 Gold Coins for the Mini-Sets. This isn't just a wild guess, there are many precedents to speculate this. May 25 is the most likely date for Blizzard to announce the next Mini-Set. However, with the event being delayed by a week, this could push the announcement.

This is all for now, stay tuned to esports.gg for more Hearthstone news and updates. See you next time, in the Heroic Brawliseum.