Tavern Brawl - All-Star Squad
By Stonekeep -
This week's Tavern Brawl is "All-Star Squad"!
Discuss this Tavern Brawl on our Discord!
Official Description for All-Star Squad
Spiders and Portals have had their chance, now you choose! Pick one card for your deck, and you will get 22 copies of it plus 8 random class cards!
All-Star Squad Chalkboard
General Information
- You get one card pack from the latest expansion for winning your first game this week.
- This is the tenth time we see this Brawl. Last time we've seen it on October 2, 2024.
- It's a PvP Brawl.
- The Brawl's format is Wild.
- It's a "Constructed" Brawl. You pick a class and make a deck with a single card only.
- Your deck is filled with 22 copies of the card you've chosen AND 8 random class cards.
- The goal is to pick a card that's most consistently going to win you the game. Given that you get so many copies of it, you're nearly guaranteed to get multiple copies of it during your first few turns.
- Find some example strategies below!
Tavern Brawl All-Star Squad Card Choices
Here are some ideas from previous Brawls. Some of them are more fun/meme and others are actual viable competitors. Let us know what worked for you in the comments and we'll add it to the post!
- Any Class - Patches the Pirate - Self-explanatory, every time you drop Patches you summon a full board of them. Sadly 1/1's don't really keep up with most of the other minion strats.
- Any Class - Elwynn Boar - You can usually trigger their effect by Turn 4-5 (assuming your opponent plays minions you can trade into) and then kill your opponent over the next 2 turns.
- Any Class - Murloc Tidecaller - Aggressive snowball strategy.
- Any Class - Annoying Fan - Solid Neutral minion strategy counter, you just target anything they play with it and they have to either destroy it with Hero Power or spells - otherwise their minions can't attack and you grind them with 1 damage attacks.
- Death Knight - Monstrous Mosquito - Play a few of them for a wide board that keeps buffing itself every turn.
- Hunter - Doomsayer - Counters some minion strategies + you slowly grind your opponent down with Hero Power.
- Mage - Varden Dawngrasp - Basically a better version of Frost Nova strategy, it counters most of the minion strategies. Sadly it's a Legendary so not everyone has it.
- Mage - Lightshow - It starts slowly, but really ramps up after a few uses.
- Mage/Paladin/Rogue - Ice Block/Time Out!/Cloak of Shadows - If you want to annoy your opponent and force them to concede.
- Paladin - Feast and Famine - Burn strategy, it's also worth saving them until Turn 4 so you can benefit from Lifesteal.
- Priest - Mind Blast - Classic burn strategy, although keep in mind that you might lose to some fast minion tactics.
- Priest - Astral Automaton - Very good minion strategy, while it snowballs slower than Pogo, all of the copies already on the board also get buffed.
- Rogue - Flik Skyshiv - If your opponent went for a minion and you survived until Turn 6, you can just delete all the copies from his board, hand and deck.
- Rogue - Pogo-Hopper - One of the best strategies, snowballs very well.
- Shaman - Earth Shock - Pogo counter, but you rely on other cards to carry you. Useless if you don't face Pogos.
- Warrior - Upgrade! - Starts slowly, but after a few turns you swing with a huge weapon.
124 Comments
Drunk
Tidecaller is pretty solid
alexzon
Yeah. 100% winrate with it.
Squirrel
I just beat tidecaller with iceblock+hero power+1 random fire ball. Lolz
Camulus
There is a loot if it, that's why i made a hunter - hungry crab. A lot of fun :)
Mind blast deck only lost to murlocs, timber wolf or each type lose to itself by the flip of the coin.
Mind blast < murlocs - timber wolf
murlocs < hungry crab
hungry crab patience
Anonymous
MInd blast turn 5 win
Kalo
Could you do the maths on that one for me?
DJBowzer
Turn 1 nothing
Turn 2 5 damage
Turn 3 5 damage
Turn 4 10 Damage
Turn 5 10 damage
Going second doesn't change the amount of turns to kill
Note u have to draw 6 of your mind blasts for it to work
Nandiman
That mind blast deck is just dirty. I won a whole bunch with it, only lost to other mind blast decks. I dont know what can counter it effectively. Ice Block mage maybe if it gets some extra burn in those 8 random cards? Otherwise just dies to fatigue eventually because priest hero power beats mage hero power.
Slushguy
Healing touch druid
Cerass
Murloc Tidecaller
Embre
Hunter: Timber Wolf works really well if you can get a bunch of wolves early on
Teemo is God
except when the warrior draws shield block and armors every turn
Kalo
For some reason I thought it was 3 mana :S
stewbacca
Turn 1: patches x7, 7 damage
Turn 2: patches x7, 7 damage
Turn 3: patches x7, 7 damage
Turn 4: patches x7, 7 damage
Turn 5: patches x7, 7 damage
I guess it's up to whoever goes first?
snek
Upgrade!
Nerose
Grimscale Oracle is good for any class.
Warrior- upgrade
Abqk
hunter - Timber wolf can be fun
Squirrel
I won with this.
Chiskle
RENOUNCE DARKNESS
Nerose
Bucaneer for rouge
Phil
Y'sharaaj......
sloh
Forbidden Shaping for Priest.
Kanan
Farming 100 gold with Mind Blast!
XHAD
any class murloc tidecaller
Squirrel
Mana wyrm and flame imp are sick too.
Asepth
Curse of Rafaam is fun
Anonymous
Dark peddlers
Lesh
Mage Ice Lance is the best of all.
PhelanPain
Have not lost with Shaman/Evolve
meheehem
But what do you evolve?
ranmuke
Totems, i guess?
SugarDaddy
rafaams curse goodluck
Alramon17
Mechwarper is easy win.
PhulesAce
Shadowbombers all the way
Awep
Any counter to mindblast?
Evident
Pretty sure Shaman: Dust Devil counters it.
j
priest/warrior Healbot
Feuerfuchs
Light of Naaru
Embre
Hunter: Timber Wolf seems to work well if you can get a bunch of wolves early on.
MindControl:3
Light of the Naaru. The SKILLED priest's worst nightmare.
Funny meow
Tidecaller beats mind blast?
Beorn
Patches hunter dude. Mind blast kills turn 6 patches kills turn 4
WingedScribe
Priest with Twilight Whelp is surprisingly solid. Pretty solid counter to other rush decks with its higher health and decent attack.
Nandiman
Tried it. Seems to work ok. Though some players just concede immediately thinking I am another dirty mind blast priest.
David Mcleod
When it works, which is more often than not the Hunter brave archer is loads of fun.
Nom
Ice block, mage.
...and you play with your hero power and your 8 cards...
Darkness
Mhmm mindblast 2op...
But not fun :(
Nanu
4-0 so far with Living roots. Beat mind blast priest and tidecaller. If you get savage roar also its gg.
Raemahn
Shaman + Maelstrom Portal
- For Upgrade decks, use hero power until you get a consistent Taunt, then Maelstrom to get beatdown to win.
- Kills weenies, including Hunter + Timber Wolf, Tide Callers, Paladin + Selfless Hero, etc. Should fare well against Rogue + Buccaneer.
- Fared well against Mage + Babbling Book, and should do similarly vs. Rogue + Swashburglar.
- Direct damage would be a real weakness for this deck. Just Maelstrom to get weenies and rush, but don't think it could hope to keep up.
Falkenar
forbidden ritual had bad result, forbidden shape gave me a won on warrior upgrade.
Pepperfreez
100% winrate with mindblast
Slushguy
I play Healing Touch Druid just to face priest and make them concede. Rage quit indeed.
Trolled
Your Healing Touch druid prolly only wins VS priest and lose to everything else haha
Da Fluffanator
A bit better one (Depending on RNG, if they happen to have a silence and you went 1st) is Mage Animated Armor.
suchy84
I always win with shaman and whirling zap-o-matic versus mindblast priest, i have 40 wins in this brawl and cca 1/4 is vs. this deck, sorry for english, i use translator
Nate
Lies, try facing a mage and iceblock.
Funny meow
Tidecaller beats mind blast? You can't clear them.
Beorn
Try playing against patches. You'll never win
Inzen
Priest with Lightwarden is quite solid.
Arth14
Came here to say this.
Nerose
Shielded minibot works very well against the minion based rush decks.
nexalacer
Animated Armor destroys Upgrade decks. In turn, it gets destroyed by early minion swarms like Murloc Tidecallers and Mechwarpers.
GMac
Priest with Imp Master is fun
Anonymous
Rogue - Deadly Poison (only stopped by taunt)
Warrior - Blood To Ichor
I've had lots of luck with those
Nobody
I have some fun with Shaman and Thing from Below. Just spam your hero power and by turn 4-5 you can start bringing him out.
Bad against Mind Blast but seeing a full board of Things from Below is very satisfying.
Meheehem
Lasting till turn 4 or 5 is a different story with patches decks.
Justme
Selfless hero works great
Noob
Mind blast is unbelievably cancerous
Schism
Elven Archer in Warlock is pretty good
patu
Power of the wild won a mind blast priest.
CocoAsticot
Selfless hero
blacksd
I just registered to say: Warlock's Curse of Rafam. You only need to start dropping 2 of them, it will prevent any play from your opponent *and* damage them. Moreover, the curses will stack over turns - almost as fast as a fatigue.
It's not 100% win rate, it's 90% opponent ragequit on 2nd turn and 10% opponent "I'll just roll with it". It's too damn easy.
Densby
Rouge Buccaneer is absolutely hilarious and crushes:
Always turn 2 hero power. With coin you go: Coin 2 buccaneers --> Hero Power.
Tidecaller Decks- Just trade. Do the count and use your hero power to come out on top. Card advantage is everything.
Mindblast priest- They die faster than you. Key is to play all your Buccaneers before hero power for le max buffs
Congratz on your winrate, bros!
Manta
Mindblast is cancerous
Georg
Firetrap hunter vs all minion decks.
Star Lord
Just Parches and enjoy
Mike
Coldlight Oracle with Druid to roll a Jade Idol was pretty fun
Metamagus
It's like Christmas again, and by Christmas I mean December 2016, and by December 2016 I mean non-stop blaring of I'M IN CHAAAAAARGE!!!
Grengo
Ice block is my personal favorite, even if it doesnt always win its always cancer to play against
Panda
<3 True
Jack_Swallow
Crackling Razormaw is one of the most funny ones
Gunvir
Grimscale Chum Palidan
Klappa
What about doomsayer Hunter?
Oliver Howard
Armorsmith is such an awesome troll of Patches. Wins every time (as long as they don't kill your early armorsmith). It's useless against anything else, but seeing as 90% of ppl are running patches it's hilarious!
Immolate
Played some matches against a friend, and he tried out Nerubian Prophet with Warlock. It doesn't really work against things like Patches, but it was still fun to try.
Chris
No one's mentioned it here... I have had a lot of fun with I Know A Guy warrior card. Beat patches with it. He simply ran out of them. Just get some cheap 0/4s or 0/7s out first and you're golden. And it's pretty solid vs all the other meta ones. Cept mindblast ofc.
bazald
If all you're seeing is Patches, Power Word Glory is a pretty fun counter. Won't save you from Mind Blasts though.
Vincent
First try... I chose Grimscale Oracle, on turn 2 I had 3x 3/1, opponent conceded.
LegendaryBot
sorry, but I'm pretty sure that will lose against a turn 2 1/1, 3/3, and a 5/5...
Ching05
Mind Blast Priest? Did anyone forget about Forbidden Healing?
fiat500
Played around with Shaman and Finders Keepers isn't all that bad if you can get through the early game! Lost mainly to Jade Idol Druid, otherwise Mind Blast Priest isn't all that scary since you can chain Jinyu Waterspeakers through discovers.
SilverHawk
Explosive Trap is pretty funny against Aggro, but looses to Mindblast.
Chris
Just won 15 in a row with a Jade Idol deck. Encountered mind blast 4 times. Easy win. I can see what could win against this....
Merd
patches.
zxz
easiest priest mastery and priest dominance dailies in my life... 100% win rate with cancerous mind blast
indra
easy win by RNG with babling book
h0lysatan
Pogo tempo is too fast. any counter deck?
even Doomsayer hunter couldn't beat it.
one rush or destroying spell, auto concede.
h0lysatan
and, no, even shaman earth shock is losing to rogue only 1/2 weapon from hero power
renojenkins
I played Chameleos in priest to basically take everybody else’s strategy
stellar320
Wow! Mogu Cultist! That was fun.
joeydungee
Tried the Flik strategy and went up against a Warlock. He was only playing the random class cards until I burgled a Mind Vision, which gave me a Mogu Cultist. Turn 6 I played the Cultist and killed it with Flik, then I watched as the rest of his hand and most of his deck faded away.
It was awesome
JKoala
Easy wins with Pogo.
I read above that's a slow start? As soon as turn 4, if you are "lucky" enough, you have a 1/1, 3/3, 5/5, 7/7 and 9/9 on board.
Maybe your weakest Pogos are dead, but no card can counter the 7/7 and 9/9 Pogos at turn 3 and 4. Lame. No one plays Silence Shaman and still, that's a winnable matchup that depends on RNG Hero Power and class cards.
Stonekeep
I wrote slow start when I thought that the Brawl is Wild like it was last time. In Wild there are faster strategies like Patches (full board of 1/1's on Turn 1) or let's say Mechwarper (full board of 2/3's on Turn 2 when going second).
Changed it since the Brawl is in Standard and Pogo is basically the best strategy.
Zombie69
The Brawl is Wild and both Patches and Jade Idol (slower than Pogos but can't be silenced) are very strong. I played a Priest with Imprisoned Humunculus and won something like 80% of my games with it. Counters Patches perfectly and wins a lot of other matchups on the back of those nice stats alone.
Zombie69
Eventually I lost to a Priest with Renew and switched to that. Very flexible and great against aggro. Completely destroys Demon Hunter with Twin Slice, which I faced a lot.
Drfury
I feast on Pogos with Frost Nova. I see one Pogo and I just send the Good Game and coast to the win!
Ninjask2314
Oh I got one. For rogue do the 1 cost discover a legendary. I have had some crazy fun games, including summoning a bunch of stuff from my hand at once with the priest legendary
MilesTegF
i just love it when Brawls allow you to play the Mogu cultist combo. its such a satisfying combo to execute.
I recomend doing it with warrior, so you can have some help surviving thanks to the HP (Priest's HP can also help you in the same way, but the warrior has the advantadge that it helps even when you are still full). This is more for the fun, not a very succesful strategy. Cos you are going to lose to any stratedy that plans on killing you before turn 6-7, but you can win against other ppl that are not playing super effective agro strategies. (btw if you see a pogo, just concede, there's no way you will last long enough to execute the combo).
nope
Consume Magic is added to the list of pogo counters this time.
Flameblaze6
Might be an accident but the description in the "official description" section is incorrect. Hope I can help!
WingedCastaway
Priest's Madame Lazul is fair enough as you can basically copy whatever your opponent uses.
2asandab
Pogos Activate. If your a new player I strongly suggest crafting at least 1 pogo. It will make this and many other brawls very easy.
Dasher
Happened to have Flik on me, so tried that. Instantly forfeited against a mage, but then got matched with a warrior attempting to go for Cargo Guard armor strategy. Getting to turn 6 felt like instant win with him having only 5 cards left and deleting what's left with other Fliks.
Ginush
Twin Slice Demon Hunter. +2 attack AND another card
Ginnel
Has there been any mention of a fix for the text not showing on tavern brawl on Android I've had no descriptions for the past month or so which I suppose makes it a fun guessing game about the mechanics.
Tyrii
On PC in only shows the first you enter a new brawl intro screen. Nothing for the rest of the week
tailsfromvienna
1.) Pogo is by far the superior strategy. It usually wins turn 4 and is very hard to counter.
If the Tavern brawl ever returns, I would advocate to ban Pogo Hunter from it
2.) The Pogo counters are mainly silence effects (Earth Shock, Smothering Starfish, Magehunter, Showstopper, Consume Magic). They still only work sometimes against pogo and lose to almost everything else.
3.) The bunker strategies (Ice Block, Time Out, Shadow Cloak, Doomsayer, Frost Nova) suffer from the fact, that you a) only have 22 of these cards and b) only have your hero power and random class cards to close out the game. You usually lose when you run out of defensive cards, especially against Warrior, Priest and maybe Druid which can defend against your hero power, or if you do not have a damaging hero power yourself. Shadow Cloak also falls prey to the Hunter Hero Power, Forst Nova loses to certain silence strategies targeted against Pogo.
Varden Dawngrasp is probably the best strategy in this group because it also has a win condition but it loses to Flik Skyshiv (as does Doomsayer)
4.) snowball strategies other than Pogo work very well, but lose against Pogo. Jade Idols, Wailing Vapor and Glow-Tron both can kill turn 5 and have quite resilent health stats. Murloc Tidecaller, Grimescale Oracle and Timber Wolf can theoretically also win fast, but the minions are too fragile in practice. Except for Jade Idol these strategies can also struggle against the silence strategies targeted at Pogo.
Mechwarper tends to start quickly but run out of steam before it can close the game with its 2/3s.
I personally like Firemancer Flurgl, because it can win on turn 5 (as Demon Hunter), controls the board well, has reach, and has some resilence to silence strategies too if you collect 3 or 4 Flurgls in hand to unload them on turn 6 or 8.
5.) Flik Skyshiv has a lot of "ifs" attached: you have to survive until turn 5 (on the draw) or 6 (on the play), only good against minion strategies, and if you are too low after flik hits, you might die to spells or hero power activations of your opponent. Still a lot of fun.
6.) weapon and spell based strategies (Mind Blast, Curse of Agonies, Upgrade, Elwynn Boar) circumvent the anti-minion strategies (Doomsayer, Frost Nova, Varden Dawngrasp, Flik Skyshiv), but usually fail against Pogo and maybe some other snowball strategies too. Priest, Warrior and Druid can steal a turn from Mind Blast by a single hero power activation
7.) Patches seems to be a case of its own: it can rebuild the board for 1 mana and can kill turn 5 (Hunter, Mage, Druid, Demon Hunter), but also loses to Pogo and struggles against taunt minions.
8.) Last but not least there are a lot of discover-type strategies that are too slow to compete against snowball strategies but win in rock/paper/scissors-fashion against some strategies that try to beat snowball (like silence). Examples are Nature's Studies, Babbling Book, Reconnaissance, Sky Raider, Palm Reading, Wand Thief, Runed Orb, Dragon's Hoard, Blazing Invocation, Asharan Scroll.
9.) Priest "card steal" decks (Psychic Conjurer) are usually ineffective at doing what the opponent tries to do, because they only get a few of the key cards for which they have to waste mana on 1/1 creatures.
earftg
Mind blast.
tailsfromvienna
why didn't they ban pogo?
i did not even have to play a card to get my pack this week.
my opp conceded before the game even started.
that's how ridiculous pogo is in this format, and everyone knows it.
if blizzard ever wants to bring back this tavern brawl, they'd better ban pogo or don't bring it back at all
yellow
Lightshow works really well.
tailsfromvienna
Yes, of the new cards Lightshow works best.
Groovy Cat also seems to be popular, but has only mediocre power level.
I even encountered Wicked Stab, which is clearly inferior to Mind Blast
(I had to complete the 5 tavern brawl wins weekly quest)
tailsfromvienna
I would like to see a twist season designed as follows:
it starts as all star squad tavern brawl, but after 24 hours, the card with the most wins is banned.
in addition, the matchmaking forbids mirror matches.
This way you can crown the "king of all star squad tavern brawl" on the first day, and then you get a 30-steps-stairway down with each card a little bit less effective/powerful than the last.
The meta would automatically change every day
tailsfromvienna
some nice opposing strategies that i ran across recently:
Chaotic Tendril (surprisingly effective, because you can level up to high cost spells very quickly)
Flight of thr Bronze (can be a lot of fun, provided you hit Nozdormu the Timeless quickly so you ramp everyone to 10 mana, activating manathirst and giving you the mana to cast the discovered dragons)
still pogo conquers all, and should therefore be banned in this brawl
Markdon22
Drone Deconstructor is a good choice for all classes also
Comments are closed.