The next Duels season starts in less than two weeks, but that doesn't mean we should stop playing in the current one!
Here's a collection of 12 wins starting decks for almost every class: while some archetypes are as old as the game mode itself, some are new takes or even homebrews with interesting inclusions.
On a side note, remember that Hearthstone's new expansion, United in Stormwind, will release on August 3rd! The reveal season started early with a surprise reveal from the Coin Concede Podcast, which announced Touch of the Nathrezim: check our reveal page here and the card discussion thread here.
The next days are going to be stacked with reveals, which will continue next Monday - as always, we of Out of Cards are going to cover the whole thing in real time. If you don't want to miss anything, stay tuned!
Ail's 12 Wins Deathrattle Demon Hunter
I've played a decent share of Deathrattle Demon Hunter throughout Standard and Duels, and let me tell you: the deck is fun in both formats. Highly recommended, especially if you hit some great Passive Treasures like Rocket Backpacks or Totem of the Dead.
Coud's 12 Wins Taunt Druid
Plaguemaw the Rotting is a minion many people had high hopes about, especially after the N'Zoth, God of the Deep buff, but all those expectations are yet to come to fruition. However, there's hope in Duels, where we received recent buffs for Taunt builds in Hold the Line (Attack buff increase from +2 to +3) and Endurance Training (discount increased from 2 to 3 mana).
Greybough into N'Zoth, the Corruptor is a cute combo you shouldn't definitely sleep on.
Enheas86's 12 Wins Deathrattle Hunter
Honestly, there isn't very much to say about Deathrattle Hunter: despite a couple of new inclusions, a nerf to Death Games and the introduction of Deathstrider during the Darkmoon Races event of a while ago, the archetype hasn't seen any major shakeups, not even with the release of Forged in the Barrens and Wailing Caverns.
The highroll potential is still there, so if you manage to get a solid opener and highroll from that point... well, you should be able to bring home some solid results.
EfeAhmet's 12 Wins Big Paladin
You know the drill: play Royal Greatsword as soon as possible and start hitting your opponents in the head harder than they can endure. While the early game consists in basically just Secrets and Sword of the Fallen, Modest Aspirations can give you enough time to start the Legendary minions chain and win from that point. As always, Disks of Legend is the number one Passive Treasure to look for.
Andres39000's 12 Wins Aggro Rogue
While this Rogue starting deck has some similarities with the one we showcased in our last Duels meta report, it is much heavier, running both Mutanus the Devourer and Alexstrasza the Life-Binder. But we're not done yet: Andres39000 was able to go all the way to 12 wins while including Ravasaur Runt in their initial 15 cards, which is impressive considering we're talking about a niche Un'Goro unit and we're in 2021. Props to the player.
Pick Rally the Troops for big cycle and easy wins.
LessThanThree's 12 Wins Murloc Shaman
Duels Shaman is in a pretty good spot right now: Elementals mean very often an excellent run, but Murlocs are no less. While tools like Firemancer Flurgl and the occasional Underbelly Angler (you cannot include it in your starting deck, but you can find it in buckets during your run) can help you in the late game, you want your first few turns to be as consistent as possible, playing one minion after the other and choking your opponent out of the game before they even have a chance to answer you. All Together Now and Battle Totem are, as you might know, the absolute nuts.
xsamanyux's 12 Wins Discard Warlock
I have to been honest: it's been a while since the last time I saw a Warlock deck with no Soulcial Studies as Hero Power - the nerf to Dark Arts (cards to look up decreased from 4 to 3) seemed to have pushed it out of the meta, and the whole Discard synergy together with it. xsamanyux tries to bring the whole archetype back, thanks to some Wailing Caverns additions like Mutanus the Devourer and Archdruid Naralex. Blood Shard Bristleback and Barrens Scavenger are very useful for a deck the goes 'deep' (hello, Runeterra players out there!) with ease.
The player chose All Together Now and Battle Totem as Passive Treasures during their 12-wins run.
PagoLeBuste's 12 Wins Legendary Warrior
Legendary Warrior is not something we aren't familiar about: in fact, the archetype emerged quite a few weeks ago (with the release of Kresh, Lord of Turtling and Archdruid Naralex in the Wailing Caverns mini set) and it's been a popular (and winning) one since then. As usual, you want your minions to come down as fast as possible and with a bang: All Together Now is a solid tier 1 Passive Treasure for a deck with lots of cheap Battlecries like Brightwing and Mankrik, while in the second pool you should go for either Disks of Legend or Battle Totem.
Do you like Duels? What are you playing right now? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Tried the Paladin deck twice, went 1-3 both times. Thanks, I guess.
I tried it once a few hours ago and went 7/3.
Not saying someone's a better player than someone else, but rather that sometimes the right passives/matchups have a lot to do with how the run will go.
That's the thing though, I even got Disks of Legend in the second run. I think I just drew poorly and got a bit unlucky. My original comment definitely comes off more sarcastic than I intended, now that I look at it.
No worries! Sometimes bad draw/poor matchups/lucky opponents happen, and there's little to nothing you can do about it.
Isn't this the sad truth about duels.
Its fun when you get the passives and treasures that synergizes with your hp, or is just flat out broken. The reality of duels is that the higher you go the more disgusting combos you see and that really tears at the fun more than you think. Best part of the game is probably earlier on, when you get to experience what seems like a restricted wild constructed format. By the time you get your second passive it'll be fairly clear whether youre getting to 12 or not.
Thanks for newest decks.
So we can assume, that new Duels season comes along with the start of next Stormwind expansion :P
I wonder if that means that we get new "Theme" with it? We have "Wizards" since the start, maybe it's time to change it, Blizzard?
Season one came with "Wizzard Duels" because it launched during the Scholomance expansion, so it's save to assume that Season two will be called something like "Mercenary Duels".
There is also a chance that it will be launching with the patch instead of the expansion, because they don't like too release content that distract each other. That's also the reason why they released the classic mode one week before, instead of with the barrens expansion.
We had a season reset around the release of Barrens, but we still stuck with the Scholomance theme. I don’t expect to see it change anytime soon. We’ve heard explanations that they don’t have time to make new Brawls because of the focus on Mercenaries, and I’m sure that retheming a mode is more work than making one new Brawl.
To put it another way, I think a game mode has to be a runaway success like Battlegrounds or Constructed in order to justify ongoing attention. Duels is only worth it to Blizzard if they can leave it there without doing more work. I’m pretty sure I saw a quote along those lines for Meecenaries: They want to be sure Mercenaries can be played into the future without needing maintenance.
There was no "season reset" with the barrens release, only a nameless content update. You are probably confusing it with the rating reset in January, which also came with the mid-season update. The mode has been in Season 1 since it released !
They also confirmed that they are working on new duels heroes. I also see no reason why they shouldn't support the mode anymore since it still has a respectable playerbase, even if it isn't as popular as standard or BG. Duels updates are also still on the updated roadmap. The "Live Content" team, which is responsible for Duels, Arena, Singleplayer content and Brawls, is also not responsible for the mercenaries mode anymore since that has its own team now.
Speaking of Mercenaries, that will definetely see ongoing support post launch. Unlike Duels, which was always meant as a secondary mode like Arena and Tavern Brawls, Mercenaries, which has been in the works for over one and a half years, is supposed to be the third main one with constructed and BG. The Survey also mentioned monthly new mercenaries and I'm sure that we can expect bigger "Expansion" updates for the mode, again, just like constructed and BG.
I know that it's arrogant to do that, but I havn't linked so many sources before so...
-Well played
Thank you. I appreciated the detail and the links :) I did assume that the last Duels ratings reset was considered a new season, so I’m glad to know that something bigger is coming.
I barely play Duels now, but I think it’s 90% of the way to being a great system, so I really hope they keep working on it.
Thanks to Regis' "Return to Duels series" , I've gotten into Duels recently and have enjoyed the change from standard and Arena. Sometimes you win is such crazy ways, and sometimes lose in crazy ways. Consider the nature of the mode, it's to be expected.
I really think more investment in the mode is need, and a massive change to how the economy works. I.E the two tiers of "paywalling" first via entry, then via cards required. Let's hope they learn from this experience and don't screw up Mercenaries for greed.