How to win the Hearthstone Too Many Portals Tavern Brawl

The Hearthstone Too Many Portals Tavern Brawl would like for you to stop for a moment and remember those dedicated Mages who make your life on Azeroth a little easier. Hi, I’m Rike Mowe, and this is my job. Whether in a capital city, or far away on the Dragon Isles or even in the depths of the Shadowlands, the tireless Portal Mages keep the portals open so you can get to your next adventure in moments. Most denizens of Azeroth have no idea how much work goes into maintaining portals. Some analysts estimate Dalaran spends up to 30% of its GDP on portal maintenance.

As normally happens on my show, Azeroth Jobs, I try my hand at the job. But training to be a Portal Mage isn’t easy. It requires a most serious mindset, discipline, and dedication. Sometimes there are accidents, and today was one of those days. I opened up Too Many Portals and they’ve found their way into your deck.

In this Tavern Brawl, your deck is packed with Unstable Portals that add random minions to your hand, and you have to figure out how to make the most of them. But when life gives you unwanted epics, make Resonant Crystals. So let’s figure out how to win the Too Many Portals Tavern Brawl.

Tavern Brawl basics

• Name: Too Many Portals
• Description: The master mages of Dalaran have gone too far this time, opening up hundreds of portals! Choose a class and use a few spells and a WHOLE lot of portals to defeat your rivals!
• Fun level: 5/10
• Difficulty: 5/10
• Replayability: 9/10
• Format: Wild
• Type: PVP
• Deck: Provided
• Rewards: 1 Standard pack. This pack can contain any card from any set in the current Standard rotation.

You first step is to choose your class. You get a premade deck with nothing but spells: 23 Unstable Portal cards and seven random class spells. The Unstable Portals will constantly provide you with minions, but there’s no telling what minions you’ll get or whether any of them will synergize with anything else on the board.

Outside of the odd deck construction, the game then plays out as a normal Hearthstone match. It’s kill or be killed. Your early turns are likely used playing Unstable Portal spells and trying to develop a synergistic set of minions… and whether that works out is up to chance.

How to win the Too Many Portals Tavern Brawl

When the Brawl starts, I like to mulligan away any Unstable Portals in my opening hand to dig for those seven class spells. Those are the only spells that will be in play since Unstable Portal will give you minions. I want to see what I have.

I also like to get a minion on the board early, which almost forces your opponent to get a minion down to contest it. Look for minions that get buffed from casting spells, or minions that make your opponent’s spells cost more. Spellburst minions are fairly easy to activate in this Brawl. Sticky minions (Deathrattle, Reborn), and minions that summon other minions are helpful as well. You can get a starved for resources, so Discover is great keyword to show up on minions whether it gives you spells or minions.

The mana cheat on the minions created by Unstable Portal is nice, but you’ll also have turns that you end with unused mana. Think about how many AOE spells your opponent’s class can bring — if they don’t have many, you can roll the dice and build a wide board.

Which class should I play?

Mage is the obvious class choice as your class spells are quite strong and you have natural synergy with the Unstable Portal spell since it is a Mage spell. Card advantage — having more cards than your opponent — can be important as having more Unstable Portals eventually gives you more options, which means Warlock’s hero power is helpful, and Demon Hunter also has card draw as a strength. Hunter can be a good choice as any unused mana can go into your hero power to put pressure on your opponent.

Keep on queuing

If you want the card pack, just keep queuing up. Eventually, the RNG will smile upon you. Your opponents will get nothing but 1 and 2-drop cards, while giving you amazing combos, Discover cards and generators. Of course, if you’re getting all the 1 and 2-cost minions, don’t be afraid to concede and try your luck next time.

Originally published September 21, 2023; updated July 10, 2024.