This week’s Tavern Brawl is “Pick a Hand, Any Hand”!
Discuss this Tavern Brawl on our Discord!
Official Description for Pick a Hand, Any Hand
Pick the first seven cards of your deck, and we’ll fill the rest with Unstable Portals. You get your portals AFTER your mulligan.
Pick a Hand, Any Hand Chalkboard
General Information
- You get one Standard Card Pack for winning your first game this week.
- This is the fifth time we see this Brawl. Last time we’ve seen it on November 29, 2023.
- It’s a PvP Brawl.
- The Brawl’s format is Wild.
- It’s a Constructed Brawl. You pick a class and build a deck of exactly seven cards.
- You start the game with only seven cards in your deck. After the mulligan, your deck is filled with 23 extra Unstable Portals.
- The idea is to pick some cards that you REALLY want to get at the start because you’re basically guaranteed to get them. If you count mulligan, you see 6 out of 7 cards you selected when going first and all 7 when going second. Since you can nearly guarantee a certain card in your opening hand, you can try to build some combos around it. Including early game combos that might be very rare otherwise.
Pick a Hand, Any Hand Deck Lists
Share your deck list in the comments and we’ll add it here!
# 2x (2) Distressed Kvaldir
# 2x (2) Down with the Ship
# 1x (3) Floppy Hydra
# 1x (4) Helya
# 1x (5) Steamcleaner
#
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Steamcleaner has even more potential:
Helya gives your opponent an unending stream of Plagues.
Destroy their deck before with Steamcleaner, then watch them get hit by multiple plagues every turn. Kvaldir and Down with the Ship buy you time before you reach Steamcleaner mana (unfortunately no ramp here), and after Steamcleaner hits Helya plagues their deck pile, and any leftover Kvaldirs and DwtS bury your oppenent even deeper.
The Hydra can be replaced with anything, depending on what you want to protect against.
The Plague deck is also a great counter against opposing Steamcleaner decks.
# 2x (1) Biology Project
# 2x (1) Naturalize
# 1x (3) Floppy Hydra
# 1x (5) Steamcleaner
# 1x (9) Yogg-Saron, Unleashed
#
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Automaton Priest was a bad fit for this brawl, so i tried something else.
With 2 Biology Projects, Steamcleaner can be played on turn 2 even without the coin. Naturalize and the 5/5 body of Steamcleaner buys you time until Yogg-Saron takes over. To protect you against fatigue, you can choose between Jade Idol and Floppy Hydra. Most games are won by fatigue, of course.
I admit that I do not own Mecha’thun, which would maybe allow much easier wins (there is a deck posted by JennIsCool below)
Since the brawl is wild, I simply used Automaton Priest:
# 2x (0) Raise Dead
# 1x (1) Animate Dead
# 2x (1) Astral Automaton
# 2x (2) Creation Protocol
#
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Not sure if this is what you’re running this time, but it’s still a good option for an early-game win.
I cut one Creation Protocol for a second Animate Dead.
CP becomes a dead card if both Astral Automatons make it to your hand before it gets played.
You have to make sure CP is in your opening hand and at least one AA isn’t, with a live draw before you can play it at face value, 2 if you forge it for the extra copy.
It feels great when it works, but not so much when it doesn’t.
I was cutting the Creation protocols for Power Word: Synchronize for exactly this reason.
You want to mulligan both Automatons into your starting hand. Then creation protocol becomes useless. (went 2-1, won against plague death knight and rogue, lost against evolve shaman)
However, there are better strategies in this brawl anway.
i liked the evolve shaman deck that beat me, it makes perfect use of unstable portal.
compare that to the automaton strartegy, which has actually negative synergy with unstable portal.
Mecha’thun Druid
Ramp to steamcleaner, stabilise with reno, combo at 10 mana with mecha’thun – innervate -naturalize combo.
Innervate
Biology Project
Naturalize
Overgrowth
Steamcleaner
Reno, Lone Ranger
Mecha’thun
finally a person with a real game taste
<3
I aimed at Frequency Oscillator – Mistake – Parachute Brigand – Parachute Brigand – Patches.
That did not work, because i drew Patches turn 1.
Still won because i got Ysera from a portal, which is a good card at 6 mana
Had a bit of success with 1x Spectral Cutlass, 2x Cavern Shinyfinder, 2x Deadly Poison, 2x Counterfeit Coin. Maybe sub in a Sap for the big Van Cleefs and the Mana Wyrms or Apprentices. It’s a bit slow, but it’s extremely difficult to stop once it gets going.
Kinda trolly hunter list, probably just got lucky with the beasts but won 4/5 games:
2x Jeweled Macaw
2x Play Dead
2x Webspinner
x1 Terrorscale Stalker
Zoo Warlock
Flame Imp x2
Kobold Librarian x2
Voodoo Doctor x1
Happy Ghoul x 2
First 9 games,win 7 lose 2.Keep voodoo and happy ghoul everytime.
Awwwww Troggzor, he finally has a use!
Anyone else sick of tavern brawls that are either “whenever you play a card X random thing happens” or “we filled your deck with a million copies of Y RNG-based card”?
Like I get why they do this rather than forcing you to build a whole deck just to get your pack. But after the hallucination one and the raven idol one and the 30th unstable portal one, they all start to feel same-y.
I like the “pick a hand” mechanic a lot, but still, looking forward to the KFT brawl.
To be fair: they did originally plan to do a neat little PvE adventure with custom voices and a few custom bosses for the brawl this week. This Randy McRandomness thing is their last-minute contingency plan for when the latter melted down post-launch.
You’re replying to an old comment 🙂
flame imp*2
kobold librarian*1
voodoo doctor*2
happy ghoul*2
90% flood 4 minions when go second
counterfeit coin*2
backstab*2
preparation*2
Edwin VanCleef*1
huge vancleef incoming
If you want something fun, instead of OP mage, go Paladin with 2x Prismatic Lens and bounch of Big Boys (+ maybe 1 or 2 Consecration to stop early aggresion).
1x Genn
2x Eel
2x 4 mana evolve guy
2x Hex
Lol
very clever deck.. works
successful with Anti-aggro even warrior concept:
Warpath x2
Execute x2
Blood Razor x1
Genn Greymane x1
Scourgelord Garrosh x1
Good luck with mage so far, the taxing dude has been great:
2x Mana Wurm
2x the 3/2 for 3 that makes spells cost 1 more for your opponent
1x Sorcerers Apprentice
2x Leyline Manipulator
Mage Deck
2x Mana Wyrm
2x Sorcerer’s Apprentice
2x Demented Frostcaller (wild)
Stargazer Luna
If you get Stargazer Luna and Frostcaller on the board every portal freezes an enemy and draws a card totally locking down your opponent and filling your board with portal minions. No chance for your opponent to damage you after turn 4.
Comments below this are from the last release of this Tavern Brawl. They may still be useful, but some of the cards might have been nerfed.
Thank you! I mean – THANK YOU. A little comment is all it takes. Please do that in every updated article in the future.
I’ve gone 5 – 0 with Auctioneer Tempo Mage (had daily mission for 5 brawls)
– 2 x Mana Wyrm
– 2 x Sorcerers Apprentice
– 2 x Flamewakers
– 1 x Auctioneer
(Did not manage the dream though: 2 Apprentices and Auctioneer on the board: infinite Portals)
2 x Sorcerer App
2 x mana wyrm
2 x arcane missiles
1 x flamewalker
20 wins
Updating this list for Sept 2016
Swap Auctioneer for Luna
Happy hunting.
2x Consecrate, 2x Equality, 2x Humility, 1x Guardian of Kings
Super!
I just went mill mode (ended up killing my oponent with onyxia/ bloodlust though)
1x coldlight oracle
2x gang up
2x shadowstep
2x vanish
Paladin?
Druid:
1x Alarm-o-bot
2x Innervate
4x Big Dudes
I took:
1x Ragnaros
1x Deathwing
1x Y’Shaarj
1x Soggoth
Mulligan for Alarm-o-bot, Innervate and any big boy.
Druid, 3 games – 3 wins
Innervate x 2
Living Roots x 1
Power of the Wild x 1
Violet Teacher x 2
Yogg – Saron: Hope’s End x 1
This one has been doing quite nicely:
Deathlord x2
Inner Fire x2
Divine Spirit x2
Silence
Deals with annoying tempo mages.
just faced 6 tempo mages in a roll , this is the way to go
2x Evolve
1x Shieldbearer
2x Bilefin
2x Murloc Tidehunter
The perfect hand gets you two three drops, a two drop, and two one drops on turn 3.
1x Demonwrath
1x Shadowflame
1x Antique Healbot
1x Siphon Soul
1x Justicar Trueheart
1x Twisting Nether
1x Yogg-Saron, Hope’s End
Druid,
2 Innervate
2 Astral Communion
2 Nourish
1 Troggzor The Earthinator
Heavy muligan for astral communion on turn 1 and GG
I did pretty well with Mage.
2x Mana Wyrm
2x Frostbolt
2x Sorcerer’s Apprentice
1x Polymorph
2x Preperation
2x Conceal
2x Sap
1x Edwin VanCleef
Usually Portal early, then Prep into a portal then hopefully get 0 drops to make Edwin huge. Sap to get their big ones out of the way.
Working with a warrior deck to start:
Upgrade x2
fiery waraxe x2
dread corsair x2
bloodsail cultist x1
Really only works well with the coin so you can double upgrade a turn one waraxe.