The Headless Horseman Tavern Brawl is part of the Hearthstone Hallow’s End celebration! This guide will help you defeat the Headless Horseman and any other challenge that may arise during this Halloween based Tavern Brawl!
This information is from the previous release of this brawl, we’ll be updating it if there’s any changes!
Official Description
It’s time to battle the Headless Horseman! We’ll arm you with the finest Hallow’s End costumes Azeroth has to offer.
Reward
You get one classic pack for beating the Headless Horseman! Looks like you don’t get the pack just for participating this year.
Headless Horseman Strategy
You start the Tavern Brawl classless as the Stormwind Investigator and a deck full of Stormwind Champions. On your first turn you are given Discover options of a Cat, Pirate, and Witch Costume. The choice you make will determine your Hero Power and the composition of your deck.
- Cat Costume – Your are given a Cat based deck (Hunter, Druid) with the Passive Hero Power: Sense Weakness – Whenever a non-Boss enemy survives damage, summon a 1/1 Cat.
- Pirate Costume – You are given a Pirate based deck (Rogue, Warrior) with the Passive Hero Power: Conscription – Your minions count as Pirates. You also get the unique card Captain Cookie.
- Witch Costume – You are given a tribal/spell based deck (Druid, Shaman, Mage) with the Passive Hero Power: Witchcraft – If you have enough mana, your spells cost double and cast a second copy.
Headless Horseman’s Deck & Hero Power
The Headless Horseman starts off with 30 Health and the Hero Power (3 Mana): Slash – Deal 2 damage randomly split among all enemies.
Once you reduce his health to zero, his second phase will start immediately and he will go immune and play Headless Horseman's Head which is a card that has 2 attack and 35 health and reads: “Destroy his head to win the game, but watch out for fireballs!”. The Head cannot be targeted by spells and when your turn ends it will fire off two random 1-damage fireballs at your side of the board (think Flamewaker).
There are no special tricks or anything once you defeat the Head, so take it out as soon as possible and get your win!
General Interactions & Tips
- Stampeding Kodo will actually kill the Horseman’s Head! I got it from the card Infest when I had no other option and to my surprise it worked and got me a win! King Mosh will also work.
- You can Silence the Horseman’s Head which allows it to be targeted by spells and also removes the double fireball at the end of your turn.
- Poison minions, however, will not kill Horseman’s Head. [Source]
- Try to avoid moving to the second phase until you have enough damage to kill the head in one or two turns.
- If you are in your Witch Costume the spells will actually cast two separate times. So a card with Overload will apply the locked mana twice!
- Use your spells in the first phase because you can’t target the Horseman’s Head with them.
Cat Costume Tips
- The main idea is to spread out your board and hope to land a big Savage Roar.
Pirate Costume Tips
- Shady Dealer will buff himself on an empty board so you can play him without having a Pirate.
- You’ll want to be pretty patient with Captain Cookie and try to control the board and play him the turn BEFORE you move into phase two. This way you can get an attack on him the turn he comes out.
Witch Costume Tips
- The biggest contributor to a victory for me was landing a double Molten Reflection on a big minion like Malorne or Ironbark Protector.
Deck List
- Drain Soul
- Cleave
- Pulsing Pumpkin
- Shade of Naxxramas
- Sinister Squashling
- Spectral Steed
- Manic Soulcaster
- Fireball
- Grim Necromancer
- Bone Baron
- Flame Lance
- Spectral Pillager
- Spectral Knight
Headless Horseman Brawl Cards
Here are some of the special cards you’ll see in this Halloween Tavern Brawl!
Chalkboard
Screenshots
So I just got Acidmaw playing as Cat, with a 1/1 attacked the horseman’s head —-> ez win xD
Lol, this was a brutal one. I tried the Pirate once and then the Cat about 20 times and then switched to the Witch and got him first try.
This tavern brawl is one of those feelsbadman brawls. I keep getting really close to winning, and it always feels like the horseman has exactly what he needs to counter my plays.
Definitely not the best brawl they have done, but it could be worse.
I just hope they have the same brawl they had last Thanksgiving, “Decks Assemble!” My favorite brawl by far. It is like Star Realms (great card game) which I play regularly.
I so hoped for another chance to get the ‘Halloween’ card back … after 13 gruesome games that felt like playing against the Lich King with basic cards (almost) a pack it was.
Well, you can’t have it all. 😉
Worst tavern brawl ever. At least got golden Prep out of the pack 🙂 so not looking forward to the win 3 brawls quest which I always seem to get 🙁
No hallows end card back? Generous
Woops, my bad. Thought it was from the event but it was a ladder reward as always
Worst brawl all time, most of the time is impossible to win
Every week when the weekly brawl is posted here, someone complains that “this is the worst brawl ever”. It’s a Brawl, you play it a few times to have fun and get a pack, then move on. If its a particularly fun/easy brawl, you farm it for gold, if not, you forget about it and that’s it.
I won it with Pirates on the third try. cat seems doable, witch seems hard.
I lost only a match with the cat one. But witch and pirate are easy wins.
Is not that bad, i actually liked, did not try it more since i am pretty lazy to check if you get gold by that and i assume you don’t.
Play as pirates for an EASY win, just build up a big board and use weapons for board control, then drop the Cookiepirate wait a turn to proc the next phase and just hit him with all creatures. Just hope he doesn’t topdeck SW death. Not a very fun brawl but it’s an easy pack and in the end that’s all i want (compared to those stupid RNG brawls that can take dozens of attempts because of bad luck)
This is one of the most frustrating Brawls in a long time. Constant board clears and perfect answers. 2/10, points for its original creativity from last year.
The guide still reminds you to attack with Patches, but you know, rip Charge.
Thanks, fixed.
Comments below this are from the previous release of the brawl.
Have now played it 12 times, 3x each costume/deck, and I cannot get him below 19hp at best, and usually not below 24-21hp before he destroys me. Pretty sure those of you rubbing it in that you won “so easily” are winning based purely on luck of the draw. Try playing it 20 times in a row (video play would be nice) to prove it’s “so easy” to win every time, and then we’ll gladly believe you. Otherwise, be kind and give helpful suggestions, not snarks or sneers. Your gleeful rubbing it in just makes you come across as a nasty stain on these comment boards.
I’ve played 3 times with each class and won all of them except my first try (with pirates). I’m not sure if this can help you somehow, anyway with witch (the easiest one) you just have to play control, healing yourself if possible, just use shadow visions to search for molten reflection (or any other way to draw it is fine), wait until he has no cards in his hand (should be easy to trade most of his stuff), play a big guy and the turn after that just double molten reflect him. After that you can reduce him to 1 health and take care of the head. Try not to overload too much (avoid using double overloading spells if possible) and you should be fine. Won 3 times with 30 health left.
Cat is a bit trickier, the best would be getting a random owl, but it won’t always come. Just keep armoring up and put as many big taunts as possible. Again, you want to trade everything he plays, spamming as many cats as you can. The key card is either the owl or the hyena (if it can get big enough). Don’t forget to wait for a full board (or at least 4+ minions) to give them the “add a random beast to your hand” deathrattle. Won 3 times with 8 to 20 health left.
I found the pirate one to be the trickiest one. Pirates are usually aggro, but you still have to trade most of his minions. Here it’s mostly about luck of draw (you’ll need a good mix of minions, weapons and removal spells), just don’t play your Captain Cookie until he’s around 16 attack. At that point he shouldn’t be able to kill it anymore. Play the draw 4 cards only when you would have a dead turn not playing it, or you would have to play Captain with low stats. (You don’t have to push for early damage, just survive until Cap has around that much attack). Won twice with 1 hp left both times. (Got lucky I guess)
Hope I’ve been somehow useful to you.
Right, so it wasn’t too bad:
As Witch, the easiest, you can do the big minion into molten reflection thing, or you can do a doubled up Feral Spirits, two of those won me the game easily the first time. Just control his minions and run him out of cards, beware of fear on 7, and don’t be too greedy with face damage.
As Pirates (second easiest in my opinion, but a bit tougher): Trade and synergize, this one took me two tries. Build your cookie a huge amount and try to use your scary amount of card draw and efficient trades to run him out of cards. Again, remember Fear- don’t overextend. Don’t get greedy /w face damage.
Cat: This one was the hardest- you have to realize you run out of cards fast, so land bug infests to restock. The easiest way to deal with him is fill the board, play a tundra rhino, then have infinite cats. After clearing off his entire board, use savage roar on your chargers that are continually reborn and burst him to zero. It is best if you do this with either a couple big dudes on the board or if he’s out of cards. Tundra Rhino and savasge roar are the real MVPs here, make sure your infest is pretty sizable.
The only time I came close to m\winning was with the Witch,with a Molten Reflection on a Ironback Protector which was doubled,only for him to have the exact cards he needed to clear my entire board next turn out of about 20 tries. For me this “brawl” was more frustrating that anything,as he seemed to have the exact cards he needed to deal with my board each and every turn
This is really heavily reliant on the luck of the draw … I had a few games which I just could not win; though I thought I’d won first time, didn’t realise the head would spawn and I’d just blown the Savage Roar which would have been helpful 😐 Other games he just seemed to always have the perfect counters in hand – drop Feral Spirit and he’d have Fear and so on…
Last game was an absolute cakewalk as he didn’t draw Fear or an early Shade of Naxxramas so I was able to just stomp him into the dirt (with the Cat costume).
As it turns out, silencing the head during the second phase removes both spell immunity and the fireballs. If you can get a lucky ironbeak owl out of infest you’re good to go
Also if you silence it he also becomes weak to poison. I actually killed it with a lucky combination of owl + cobra
King Mosh off of infest will work if the Head is damaged, similar to Stampeding Kodo.
That’s exactly how I won the second time I played.
This Tavern brawl is crap, not beatable wtf were they thinking why make this too hard to win not like an amazing prize is at stake….
I think it very funny. It is beatable, I win all 3 type.
I love these shitty comments, the prize comes even with a loss so it’s not like a big deal. I don’t wanna Imagine what you did with the stormwind brawl were you simply couldn’t win, lol. Still managed to win easily on First attempt with the Witch costume (easily means i was on 24 when he died the second time and i dealt even 5 over dmg) so i dealt 70 dmg while receiving 6, definitely not an impossible brawl then, looking forward to win It with every costume while you are gonna be short of a Classic pack to whole community. I’d blame my own skills if i were you, not blizzard (not to mention on a private site not directly related to them). Enjoy.
I think you could beat the Stormwind brawl if you managed to do 1000 damage; I got fairly close with 884.
You can actually deal as much damage as you want with the storm wind brawl, there is no “win condition”.
OK “beat” was maybe the wrong word – the brawl ends when you run out of health or (I read somewhere) if you hit 1000 damage, whichever comes first. I’m not 100% certain on the 1000 damage part though as I never managed to do it – as I said, closest I got was 884.
You must be doing something wrong if you’re having that much trouble….
You can win but it really depends on the draw – but hey, it’s Hearthstone, the strongest opponent is luck.
Dude it’s so easy, I’m a rank 20 right now and I beat it
Sorry, I accidentally hit reply on the wrong thread XD
There’s lots of tips around the thread to help you, it’s not too bad- just don’t get too greedy with face damage, he eventually runs out of cards in all matchups. Here’s my tips:
Right, so it wasn’t too bad:
As Witch, the easiest, you can do the big minion into molten reflection thing, or you can do a doubled up Feral Spirits, two of those won me the game easily the first time. Just control his minions and run him out of cards, beware of fear on 7, and don’t be too greedy with face damage.
As Pirates (second easiest in my opinion, but a bit tougher): Trade and synergize, this one took me two tries. Build your cookie a huge amount and try to use your scary amount of card draw and efficient trades to run him out of cards. Again, remember Fear- don’t overextend. Don’t get greedy /w face damage.
Cat: This one was the hardest- you have to realize you run out of cards fast, so land bug infests to restock. The easiest way to deal with him is fill the board, play a tundra rhino, then have infinite cats. After clearing off his entire board, use savage roar on your chargers that are continually reborn and burst him to zero. It is best if you do this with either a couple big dudes on the board or if he’s out of cards. Tundra Rhino and savasge roar are the real MVPs here, make sure your infest is pretty sizable.
Note that you usually have low health by the end.
Why does the brawl only last 3 days? Or is that not typed correct?
It’s correct according to Blizzard’s post about it, but it could be wrong.
That’s what I’m talking about. Finally they put some effort for serious event.