Get free Hearthstone packs from the new Tavern Brawl and Choose Your Champion events

Things are happening in Hearthstone—things that could get you some free cards and card packs, if you play your, uh, cards right. First up is a new Tavern Brawl called Ignoblegarden, courtesy of the explosive Dr. Boom, with decks containing random class and neutral cards, plus a few special minions from the good doctor that look appropriately OP:

Bloom Bot: Deathrattle: Summon a Legendary minion. Give it Rush.
Room Bot: Magnetic, Taunt, Deathrattle: Summon 3 1/1 Boom Bots.
Doom Bot: Battlecry and Deathrattle: Death 5 damage to ALL minions.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to take part in the brawl, logging in between now and April 21 will get you two free Boomsday Project card packs, and a pair of golden Mechano-Egg cards that summon an 8/8 Robosaur when they die—just the thing for Easter.

And if you're looking for something to try your shiny new eggs out in, then this 'Big Paladin' build by pro player George 'Boar Control' Webb is well worth a look. You can paste the deck code at the end of the tweet into your collection manager to re-create it for yourself. As Boar explains, the strategy is fairly simple.

After hours of playtesting and days of refinement I can present to you BIG Mech Paladin. Peaking at #27 legend this deck aims to make 1 BIG Mech and then revive it with an almost guaranteed Kangor's!AAECAZ8FAvH+AqCAAw7PBooHn/UCpfUCtPYCkfsCqPsC/PwC1v4C1/4C4f4CkYADzIED3oIDAA== pic.twitter.com/6TtIo3ew0AApril 13, 2019

More free card packs are up for grabs in the Choose Your Champion bracket for the 2019 HCT World Championship. Log in to the Hearthstone website, pick a player, and you'll get a free Rastakhan Rumble card pack; every time your chosen champ advances, you'll get another.

At a bare minimum, you'll get one free pack just for showing up, and if you manage to pick the winner you'll end up with four. Check out playhearthstone.com for more information on this year's championship showdown, including brackets and match schedules; you've got until April 24 to figure it all out and make your selection. The tournament takes place from Apr 24 to Apr 28 in Taipei, and will be streamed via the Hearthstone Twitch channel. We'll have a guide to the best decks of the Rise of Shadows expansion for you tomorrow.

Thanks, Hearthpwn.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.