As I can remember...KT has many NAXX bosses as his fellows, and can revive a random one.Rafaam uses a portal which can be upgraded twice, adding legendaries (-4!) at last.
I hate this 22:00 EU release...
Well, I've tried 3 times now and always been Rafaam...and gotten absolutely crushed each time...not even close. Will keep trying, but doesn't seem balanced initially.Update: As pointed out by some below, getting the staff finished for Rafaam seems to be the key, combined with your opponent playing weak minions that are later played repeatedly through the Necromancy skill. I've managed to start winning with Rafaam now, but never lost against him yet.
This more lopsided than Rag / Nef.
Unless you get your Staff finished by Turn 4, with your opponent not already having a decent board, you're screwed as Rafaam. Seems they didn't learn anything from the poorly balanced Ragnaros vs Nefarian Brawl.
I got my staff finished by about turn 5 or 6 and destroyed my opponent. I had >50 health left when he died. It also helped that necromancy kept giving him haunted creepers or spectral spiders. The only thing that went right for him was he was able to get Thaddius on the board by about Turn 8 or 9, but I had removal spells to take care of it.
Everytime im Rafaam i concede cus his deck sucks!
Got a minion turned into a at turn 3. After that each turn I use Kel'Thuzad hero power.I got 9 in a row. Not even funny.P.S.: I won that game. ;)
FYI, KT's hero power can revive minions more than once, I've seen a lot of people playing it wrong. If you only have 1 minion that died, you will get it and nothing else. I've won by only playing Heigan and removal.
I'm not quite sure, i like this brawl. The victory condition seems to solely be, how fast Rafaam can upgrade his Hero Power.Also, the Haunted Creeper seems to be awfully out of place in Kaels Deck. A minion that creates three bad options at once to be returned by his Hero Power..? is interesting though. There is no 'Undead'-Tribe yet(?). So what cards are eligible for his summon? I got and before it was removed.
Rafaam imo has the advantage here if you know how to counter KT. KT's best cards, or the most disruptive ones, are Heigen and Counterspell. If you use one of your 2 'polymorph' cards, or entomb Heigen, KT loses his best monster forever, as he will resurrect what it was transformed into. KT has 1 counterspell, 2 duplicates, and 1 vaporize, making reading his secrets really easy. and once that counterspell is gone, you can play spells with umpunity. Add in that you have a 5 damage hellfire, 3 damage consecrate which both cost 0, and a flamestrike, you can clear his board pretty easy. Rafaams biggest strength, and also his weakness, is how random he is. KT only has so many plays, and if KT drops a haunted creeper, you can make him pay dearly for it by screwing up his hero power to the point of uselessness by constantly killing it and its 1/1s. Likewise, if your KT, its in your best interest to ignore dropping little guys minus a dark cultists, although a case could be made for Mad Scientist. Instead you wanna drop Heigen, Gothik, and the like and just keep bringing them back with your hero power. Since most of Rafaam's removal is 3 damage or can't target minions with 4 health, they will be very hard for him to remove without a polymorph effect, and he wont want to remove them without one so you can't bring it back, often letting you control the board with those cards. including his cheaper minions. It should be said, as KT, you sorta want to run your first Heigen into minions to kill it if Rafaam doesn't remove it, so he can't polymorph it. Once you can get him out with your hero power, its GG. So in short. KT has a much better early game and isn't as random, while Rafaam has a much better late game and lots and lots of board clears.And of course if Rafaam gets an early level 3 scepter, KT has a hard time dealing with constant big minions having only 2-3 hard removal options himself while Rafaam has like 7.
It's just not fun. I was excited at first but in practice it's just not a fun brawl. Both rely too heavily on decent draw and RNG. If you're KT you have to win before the staff is completed - otherwise you're hoping that Rafaam gets bad cards. Conversely if you're Rafaam you're hoping for a good starting hand to build a staff quickly otherwise you have no traction at all. Both hero powers have crazy RNG swings where you can keep getting unlucky with it and get terrible minions or insanely lucky and keep getting great ones. In the end I've played about 6 games now and not enjoyed any of them.
And by the way as Rafaam, avoid using against a secret. Eating and it's all over.
Strategies:As K'T:Never play Haunted Creeper, Mad Scientist, Dark Cultist, Anub'Rekhan, Gluth, Grobbulus, Sludge Belcher or Noth.You want your hero power to always resummon a powerful legendary. Heigan and Gothik are the most powerful ones in your deck. If you can resummon one of them every turn you've won. Faerlina, Lady Blaumeux, Loatheb, Feugen, Stalagg, Maexxna, Sapphiron or Patchwerk can be played if you can't draw into Heigan or Gothik, or if you want to bait out Rafaam's Blood Goblet before playing them. Play Counterspell on T2/T3 if you can to hopefully counter Rafaam's staff upgrade.As Rafaam:If your opponent follows the above advice you have to pollute K'T's dead minion pool. Mulligan hard for Hakkari Blood Goblet, Entomb and Lady Naz'Jar. Save Blood Goblet or Entomb for Heigan/Gothik. If your opponent is dumb and plays Haunted Creeper, make sure to kill it and the spiderlings first to flood his graveyard with useless 1/1s. If K'T plays a secret, NEVER play the staff upgrade without checking for Counterspell first. If Uncover Staff Piece gets counterspelled you've lost.
I have played about 16 games now. I have won 3 and lost 3 as Rafaam but the only wins were once when my opponent auto-conceded at the start and twice when my opponent missed lethal!The other 10 times I played Kel Thuzad. I have yet to lose as Kel Thuzad!On the other hand, I now understand why that first opponent auto-conceded against Rafaam. I'm doing the same now. I want to play as Rafaam because that's the only place where the challenge is!