Hearthstone Headless Horseman Tavern Brawl: How to Beat Headless Horseman

How to Beat Hearthstone’s Headless Horseman

Just in time for Halloween, this week’s Tavern Brawl in Hearthstone is against the boss Headless Horseman. This game mode offers a lot of different changes to the standard Hearthstone formula, so it can be a challenge to get past this fearsome foe. Luckily, we’ve got your back with this handy guide to help you take down the Headless Horseman and his deck of mighty monstrosities.

Choosing Your Costume

When you start the Brawl in Hearthstone, you’ll get a hand of Stormwind Champions. Don’t worry about these guys, as on your first turn, you’ll get to pick one of three ‘costumes’ that each change your hand, deck, and hero power.

The Witch costume gives you a passive ability that will let you cast certain spells for double their cost, getting double their normal effect. It has a mix of powerful creatures and spells that grow more potent if you wait to cast them.

The Pirate costume gives you a deck focusing on Pirates and has a passive that makes all your minions Pirates. The deck is Combo focused and plays a lot of cheap minions with Battlecry effects.

The Cat costume grants a passive ability that gives you a 1/1 Cat minion whenever an enemy non-Boss creature survives damage. It focuses on playing a horde of Beasts as well as cards that give your Hero Attack and Armor.

We recommend using the Witch or the Cat, as we found the most success with these decks. The Cat deck gives you a lot of Hero Attack and Armor effects, and if you get Tundra Rhino out, you can start throwing your Cats into the Headless Horseman’s creatures while still spawning more over and over to wipe out most of what he plays.

The Pirate deck relies on Combos and filling the board, but the creatures are very weak and have a tough time staying around long enough to do enough damage to the Horseman. The deck also lacks card draw to refill your hand with enough threats to keep up with the Headless Horseman’s removal suite.

Strategies for the Early Turns

The Headless Horseman’s Hero Power Slash costs 3 mana, and deals 2 damage randomly split among all enemies, but his spells are much more potent than this, so he only really uses it as a last resort for removal.

Early on, the real threats are the Sinister Squashlings the Headless Horseman plays – these pesky 2-cost creatures deal 3 damage to ALL enemies after they attack. You’ll need to be proactive and kill these minions before they can attack whenever possible to avoid a boardwipe and save yourself from taking unnecessary damage. Likewise, his 3-cost Pulsing Pumpkin minions also spawn two Squashlings if they survive a turn. Again, make these your top priority, as the boardwipe potential is huge, especially with the smaller decks like Pirate and Cat, which employ a ‘go wide’ strategy.

Strategies for the Midgame

Around the midgame of the Tavern Brawl in Hearthstone, The Headless Horseman will deploy the 4-cost Grim Necromancer, which summons two 1/1 Skeleton minions when it enters, and Bone Barons, which add two Skeletons to his hand instead when it dies. A few other creatures will show up, but these threats are much easier to deal with, especially if you are using the Witch or Cat decks which have more removal options in them.

You should be able to start turning things around as your midrange creatures have more effects and power than his. However, The Headless Horseman will employ plenty of annoying spells to heal himself and kill your minions. Try to keep your aggression up, because things are about to get a lot tougher in the last leg of the match. Taunt minions like Sen’jin Shieldmasta (found in the Witch deck) work pretty well to give yourself some breathing room.

The End…?

Once you kill the Headless Horseman, the match isn’t over just yet, as the Headless Horseman’s Head will get summoned to the field, setting the Headless Horseman to 1 health and making him Immune.

The Head is a 2/35 Boss creature that can’t be targeted by spells and the match can’t be won until it is destroyed. At the beginning of each of the Headless Horseman’s turns, the Head will deal 2 damage randomly split among all enemies. At this point, you’ll need to throw everything you have at the Head while trying to protect your life total as much as possible.

Heavy hitters like Captain Cookie from the Pirate deck and the Cat deck’s King of Beasts are good here to try and put a short clock on the Head. The Tundra Rhino from the Cat deck is a great asset that can help you quickly finish the match by giving your minions Charge.

Once the Head is dead, you’ll get your weekly Tavern Brawl pack and the bragging rights of beating one of the toughest terrors in Hearthstone!

Those are our tips on how to beat the Headless Horseman in Hearthstone’s Tavern Brawl. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to chime in with the comments down below. For even more tips, tricks, and guides on Hearthstone, make sure to search Twinfinite.