Deal Your Fate


 * "The Tavern Keeper foretells a fateful brawl! You and your opponent discover random fates that affect you both!"

Deal Your Fate is a Tavern Brawl. It debuted on March 2, 2016. For exact times, see the schedule.

Overview
This Brawl sees players doing battle using custom decks using any class. At the start of the game, players are allowed to choose one from 4 of 6 possible Fate cards. Each Fate card puts into effect a special aura, affecting the game for both players. Fate card auras last for the rest of the match, and cannot be removed.

Subsequently, when a player is reduced to 20 Health or below, at the start of their next turn they are allowed to choose one from 4 of 6 possible Dire Fate cards. Dire Fate cards mostly also put special auras into play, but have stronger effects than the Fate cards.

Strategy

 * Fates

While Fates and Dire Fates function similarly, their roles in the Brawl are quite different. Fates are chosen at the start of each match, and put into play major changes to the game's rules. The exception is Fate: Portals, which nonetheless will significantly affect the rest of the match, due to the volume of Unstable Portals shuffled throughout each player's deck. Fates should be chosen to match the player's overall strategy for the match (see below).

In contrast, Dire Fates are only chosen once the player's Health has begun to dip, and present opportunities for sudden swings in power through strong changes to the current state of the game. Most set up ongoing effects (Dire Fate: Taunt and Charge, Dire Fate: Windfury, Dire Fate: Manaburst, Dire Fate: Card) while some have a one-time effect (Dire Fate: Murlocs, Dire Fate: Unstable Portals). Dire Fate: Murlocs provides an excellent opportunity to neutralise the board, while Dire Fate: Unstable Portals can restock a player's hand. Dire Fate: Taunt and Charge and Dire Fate: Windfury empower minions, helping the player to capitalise on a board advantage or quickly surge to victory - however, take care with these options (especially the former) since the opponent can easily use the additional effects to retake the board. Dire Fate: Manaburst and Dire Fate: Card help with tempo/combos and card draw, respectively. While there is some opportunity to choose Dire Fates to fit the player's synergies (most notably Dire Fate: Taunt and Charge), note that Dire Fates are not chosen until relatively late in the game.


 * Synergies

This Brawl presents a range of possible strategies and deck synergies. However, because players only get to choose from 4 of the 6 possible Fates (and likewise 4 of the 6 possible Dire Fates) it is not possible to guarantee that the desired Fate will be available in any given match. In theory any given Fate (or Dire Fate) will be offered in 2 out of every 3 matches, although since the opponent gets their own selection, there is a higher likelihood of gaining a given Fate through one player or the other. There is room for some counter-strategic Fate selection, for example mages can often be assumed to be aiming for spell synergy, making it a good idea to deny them such through your Fate selection. The opponent's Fate selection can also provide synergy opportunities that may change your own selection.

While there are a range of Fates, there is a strong bias toward spells: Fate: Bananas, Fate: Coin and Fate: Portals all grant additional spell cards (most notably the first two, given a decent amount of minions in play) while Fate: Spells makes spells far more accessible. This makes spell synergy a strong strategy, not only because the player is guaranteed to be able to choose from a Fate that is useful for their deck type, but also because there is a very good chance of the opponent also choosing an appropriate Fate, granted double the opportunities.

Fate: Bananas and Fate: Coin can also reward minion-heavy decks, although the volume of cards can easily overwhelm the player, resulting in overdraw. When these Fates are in play, always take care to empty the hand in advance to make room for card generation during the opponent's turn, taking into account any potential minion destruction. Otherwise the player has a good chance of burning a card at the start of their turn, which usually will be worth more than the coin or banana card taking its place.

Mage is undoubtedly the strongest option for spell synergy, with Mana Wyrm, Flamewaker and Archmage Antonidas, the latter two in particular being game winners. Rogues can also make good use of bananas and coins (and to a lesser extent Unstable Portals) for combos, especially Edwin VanCleef. Lock and Load is a superb card generation option for hunters. Various other spell-related cards can be used by any class for good synergy with coins or bananas. Fate: Portal is also a common pick for spell synergy decks. Fate: Spells can be useful, but without another Fate to provide an abundance of spells will usually prove less useful than one of the other options.

The other two Fates provide very different synergies. Fate: Armor rewards control and Fatigue-oriented decks, usually making games last much longer. It works particularly well with Control Warrior, which is already oriented around accumulating Armor, and have a good chance of controlling the board long enough to win through high value minions or combos, or simply outlast the Fatigue.

Fate: Confusion is the oddest of the Fates, providing good synergy for stat buff auras such as Raid Leader, Dire Wolf Alpha or Stormwind Champion due to the opportunity to accrue the bonuses each time the stats are switched. Note that the Fate takes effect at the end of each player's turn, meaning that minions without stat buff auras will revert to their previous orientation by the time the controlling player's turn comes again. For example a 2/8 Deathlord will become an 8/2 at the end of the summoning player's turn, but will return to a 2/8 by the time they are able to use it again (enemy actions aside), preventing the player from making much use of the 8 Attack.

Trivia

 * This is the second Brawl to feature "auras" which are not attached to minions, following Battle of the Builds.