Pick a Hand, Any Hand

The subject of this article is only available in Tavern Brawls.

"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 is a Tavern Brawl. It debuted on June 22, 2016.

History

Tavern Brawl	Start	End
54	June 22, 2016	June 27, 2016
170	September 12, 2018	September 17, 2018
240	January 15, 2020	January 22, 2020
442	November 29, 2023	December 6, 2023

The third appearance of this brawl was a stand-in for Road to Northrend, which debuted on the 15th but was retracted because of technical difficulties. After a short period during which players were unable to access Tavern Brawls, the latter Brawl was replaced with Pick a Hand, Any Hand.

Overview

This Tavern Brawl sees players doing battle with partly-constructed and partly-randomized decks. The player first chooses 7 cards for their deck from their collection as usual; this comprises the actual Tavern Brawl deck, and is persistent between Brawls until changed. At the start of each match, after the mulligan is complete, 23 Unstable Portals are automatically added to the player's deck, for a total of 30 cards.

Featured cards

Notes

• Baku the Mooneater's effect will activate in this Tavern Brawl, as long as all the other cards you added are odd-costing.
• Whizbang the Wonderful cannot be used.

Strategy

The two best main strategies for this Tavern Brawl is either utilizing spell synergy effects or creating the (near) perfect starting hand.

Due to the amount of Unstable Portals being cast, players can take advantage of spell-related effects. Offensive options include Sorcerer's Apprentice, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Violet Teacher, Summoning Stone, Flamewaker, Archmage Antonidas, and even Yogg-Saron. Defensive options include troggs (Burly Rockjaw Trogg, Stonesplinter Trogg, Troggzor the Earthinator) and Loatheb, to inhibit the opponent's spell-casting.

Since the 23 Unstable Portals will only create minions (with the exceptions of a few spell-generating minions like Spellslinger and Undercity Huckster) it can be wise to make sure some of the 7 chosen cards are spells, in particular removal to counter the hordes of minions that tend to swarm the board during this Brawl.

A popular deck is Mage, using Mana Wyrm and Flamewaker to exploit the Portals, and potentially Sorcerer's Apprentice to play them more quickly.

A Warlock deck, focused on removal spells, such as Corruption, Shadow Bolt, and Soulfire can be strong as well. Corruption, while it takes a turn to act, can deal with early large minions, and Soulfire will probably make the player discard an Unstable Portal.

Barnes with a big minion in your deck is also a viable option, for obvious reasons. With any mana ramping cards like Innervate and Counterfeit Coin, you can summon him as early as turn 1 going second.