Hearthstone is a game that isn't afraid to go a little crazy sometimes. The online CCG is one of the most successful out there, with a large player base and active community. One of the reasons for Hearthstone's persistent success is the regular release of new content, whether it's the latest expansion or other, minor additions.
One of these smaller aspects of the game is the Tavern Brawl mode, a weekly event that shakes up the rules of the game dramatically, often with ridiculous and hilarious consequences. There have been a staggering number of Brawls over Hearthstone's existence, but some of them truly stand out from the rest. Here are 10 of the best Tavern Brawls of all time.
10 Randomonium
Our first Brawl is Randomonium, one that absolutely encompasses the wild chaos that makes Hearthstone so fun to play. As you might guess from the name, random chance is the key element of the mode, as players started with a deck full of completely randomly generated cards.
But it gets wilder - the mana costs of the cards were also randomized, making cheap spells pricier and dominating minions early plays at a whim. You never knew exactly what you were getting into with Randomonium - and that's exactly what made it such a fun Tavern Brawl!
9 Too Many Portals!
This next Tavern Brawl wasn't as random as Randomonium was, but it came pretty close. Too Many Portals was a Brawl where players' decks had seven random spells from their chosen hero, and then 23 Unstable Portal cards.
The Unstable Portal is a spell costing two mana that adds a random minion to a player's hand, and reduces its cost by three. This meant that while your deck had no minions in it to begin, the Portals would soon populate your hand with a wide range of random creatures, making for a fast-paced and incredibly fun Tavern Brawl.
8 Valeera's Bag Of Burgled Spells
Another Brawl that featured randomly generated decks, Valeera's Bag of Burgled Spells had players taking on the role of the rogue hero, Valeera, and playing a deck full of random spells from across the classes of Hearthstone.
This on its own would be an invitation to chaos, but the Brawl also generated minions of the same cost for every spell you played. For a Tavern Brawl based on the idea of a thief stealing spells from the other heroes, this one was certainly a blast to play.
7 Henchmania!
This next Tavern Brawl is the first one on our list that doesn't feature random generation as a core part of its gameplay. Henchmania was a Brawl based around boss characters from previous expansions recruiting players as henchmen, giving them premade decks and passive abilities at the start of the game.
The unique powers were impressive and ranged from taking control of enemies to putting explosives in your opponent's deck. On top of that, the passive effects could see you gaining Coin cards, evolving your minions, or copying your opponent's cards.
6 Just A Hallucination
This Tavern Brawl is another one based around the Rogue class, although it doesn't limit you to just playing as a Rogue. Instead, your deck is filled with random spells from your chosen class and, appropriately enough, the Rogue spell Hallucination.
Hallucination is a one cost spell that lets you discover a card from your opponent's class. This led the Brawl to become a sort of mirror as your game plan was often shaped by what class your opponent was playing as, along with the spells in your own deck.
5 Cloneball!
In typical deck building, Hearthstone limits players to one copy of a legendary minion per deck. Cloneball changes that up, though, as your deck is made entirely of random legendary minions - and their clones. The decks feature four copies of each minion, making for some exhilarating play.
While the random element did make it difficult to properly anticipate the next move, the ability to play multiple legendary cards was hard to beat. It was a blast to throw down numerous powerful cards at once, and the Brawl was quite memorable for it.
4 Pick A Hand, Any Hand
The Tavern Brawl named Pick a Hand, Any Hand is somewhat similar to another Brawl on this list - Too Many Portals. Like Too Many Portals, players' decks were filled with 23 Unstable Portal cards. Unlike that Brawl, however, players were able to choose the remaining seven cards that would comprise their opening hand.
This allowed for a greater degree of strategy in the Brawl as you could easily pick which cards you'd start with. Of course, the randomness of the Unstable Portals could easily disrupt that strategy, which made the whole Brawl that much more unpredictable and enjoyable.
3 Spellbook Duel
The Spellbook Duel Tavern Brawl was an interesting one as it combined both random chance and strategy, making for a fascinating game. Players got to choose ten cards to put into their starting decks, but instead of drawing a card each turn, they instead discovered a random card from those original ten.
This let players build decks around having multiple copies of powerful cards. Other strategies included shuffling more copies of a card into your deck - or removing cards from your opponent's deck. It made for a nice combination of chance and skill as players navigated the hidden possibilities of the format.
2 Battle Of The Bans
Our penultimate Tavern Brawl took an interesting form, to say the least. In Battle of the Bans, players constructed their deck out of only four cards. Their opponents then saw three of them and chose one to ban. The starting decks were then made of ten copies of the three remaining cards.
This opened up some interesting strategic possibilities, as players wouldn't want to center their strategy around a single card in case it got banned. At the same time, the ability to play multiple copies of powerful minions or spells was definitely an appealing prospect.
1 A Cavalcade Of Brawls!
Our final entry on this list is not really a single Tavern Brawl, but rather nine of them! A Cavalcade of Brawls was the 100th Tavern Brawl in Hearthstone and it had players pick a class, then play a deck based on the rules of a previous Brawl associated with that class.
The Brawls included in the Cavalcade were Idols of Azeroth, Randomonium, Too Many Portals, 'Servant of Yogg-Saron' Tryouts, Cloneball, Valeera's Bag of Burgled Spells, Party Portals, ShiftCon, and Banana Brawl - some of which you'll recognize from earlier on this list. As a Brawl that was all about celebrating the other Brawls, it's hard to pick a better one for our pick as the best Hearthstone Tavern Brawl of all time!