The Duels meta is still in the very first stages of development, and there's plenty to explore. For this reason, many players are testing and finding success with various strategies: while some are trying to include new tools in already established archetypes, some are testing brand new builds and some others are just memeing it up.
As always, here's a fresh collection of 12-win Duels starting decks across different classes. Enjoy!
In case you missed them, we published other collections of 12-win Duels starting decks to take inspiration from!
- Fresh 12-Win Starting Decks for the New United in Stormwind Duels Meta
- Hearthstone Dueling in Stormwind - 12-Win Duel Decks to Take to Battle
- Who Needs Nerfs When We Can Play Hearthstone Duels? New 12-Win Decks Including Elwynn Boar Mastery
If you've had 12 win luck in Duels since the expansion launched, be sure to add them to our site via the deckbuilder and share them in the comments below!
Moreover, if you manage to find even more 12-wins decks (maybe even your own!) and you'd like us to showcase them, please contact us on Twitter at @OutOfCardsHS or @Avalon_OOC or through an in-site ping in Private Message.
Madara's 12 Wins Quest Druid
We already featured 12-Wins Quest Druid lists in the past, but this time around there is one major novelty: Marvelous Mycelium. That's right: someone finally build a Duels starting deck without picking Warden's Insight as Signature Treasure!
What does this card do to be relevant for our game plan?
- Card generation - unlike Chaos Storm, Marvelous Mycelium gives you a card to play with, so it does not represent a dead draw when you're short on resources.
- Synergy - you already carry a few Choose one tools (Nature's Gifts, Wrath, Feral Rage) so getting both choices out of them is not bad at all, even more considering the rather one-sided nature of Quest Druid.
It has been advised to swap out Cenarion Ward (too expensive) for Nourish (less expensive and definitely more flexible, based on the game's situation), but act as you please.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Fireshaper
Second pool - Oops, All Spells!
Landsellers' 12 Wins Deathrattle Hunter
Deathrattle Hunter hasn't changed much during the last months, mostly because the only real support printed was Imported Tarantula, which doesn't represent a game-breaking unit for the archetype. However, the one you see below is quite the interesting take: very few Deathrattle (just Nerubian Egg, Devilsaur Egg and Burning Blade Acolyte) and a remarkable number or Battlecries, including multiple way to fetch and duplicate your Deathstrider, which is one of the best cards in your deck and, obviously, gets better and better as the run goes on.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - All Together Now
Second pool - Rally the Troops
Dsorrow's 12 Wins Caverns Quest Rogue
The Caverns Below in Duels is something we were missing, until this moment at least. If you were already a Hearthstone player back in the day, you'll recognize that Quest Rogue's game plan hasn't changed: play a 1-drop and keep bouncing it (or generating more copies out of it) until you complete the Quest; then, once Crystal Core is online, go ham and throw everything you've got at your opponent's face. LOCUUUUSTS!!! is particularly juicy after the Quest completion, becoming basically a 35 burst damage from hand that you can cast twice!
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Crystal Gem
Second pool - Rally the Troops
Neo's 12 Wins Elemental Shaman
This starting deck was sent to me by one of our users via Private Message: they explained me the great success they were having with it and so I decided to give it a try. In little to no time, I was able to with a 12er myself, and with 0 losses!
This deck honestly felt so smooth: with the right opening hand, my opponents stood little to no chance - very few were able to clear my boards at least once, and none of them survived beyond turn 6!
Just like I did with Quest Pirate Warrior a week ago, I wrote an in-depth guide about Murloc Shaman: if you go to the deck's dedicated site page (or you just click here) you'll be able to find a remarkable amount of information about this starting deck, including general overview, playstyle and mulligan tips, Active and Passive Treasures picks and more!
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - All Together Now
Second pool - Rally the Troops
Ultrarotom's 12 Wins Elemental Shaman
As time progresses, people keep experimenting and trying new variants of the already established archetypes. In this case, ultrarotom was able to hit 12 wins with the well known Elemental Shaman; however, the starting deck used to get there has a couple of surprises.
First of all, United in Stormwind's Canal Slogger, universally acknowledged as a rather strong addition for the archetype, has been left out: the main reason seems to be the fact that Slogger may induce the game to offer you Overload buckets rather than Elemental ones, which does not help towards your deck's growth.
Secondly, Wailing Vapor has taken the place of Servant of Kalimos, a value generation unit with little to say in the very first matches of your run. This way, the deck will feel more aggressive and will have more tools to keep the board under control (consider that, right now, Kindling Elemental is the only 1-Cost minion universally run).
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - All Together Now
Second pool - Rally the Troops
Kohaku_hsow's Control Warlock
More like Battlecry Warlock, but since there are so many fast decks in the game mode and you need proactive healing, this is as far as Control can go.
While this deck's already been popular for a while, there are a few additions that are worth mentioning:
- Golakka Crawler is a smart tech choice because of the increasing numbers of Raid the Docks Pirate Warriors;
- Robes of Protection covers the same role, but against archetypes like Sorcerer's Gambit Mage and Miracle Mind Tether Priest.
- Battleground Battlemaster represents surprise burst damage that can take your opponents off guard, and therefore can give you a couple of unexpected wins.
Quote From kohaku_hsow If you prefer Demonizer [as Signature Treasure], I think it may match this deck better than Demonology 101!
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - All Together Now
Second pool - Rally the Troops
Do you like Duels? What are you playing right now? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Wonderful! I was just looking for some duel decks today. Perfect timing.
Im amazed that these builds actually reached 12 wins without either captured flag or meek mastery. The entire top end of duels is filled with nothing but these builds.
I tend to agree with you. And let's forget about Captured Flag, an Ultra Rare Tier 2 Passive that got powercrept by Meek Mastery, a regular Tier 1 Passive.
These days, you need some serious proactive tools to beat those a high wins: Rally the Troops does it, as well as Party Replacement, but other than that there's just [Hearthstone Card (Ooops, all spells!) Not Found] degeneracy and nothing more...
Avalon, do you feel like some of the new treasures are overtuned? Specifically Meek Mastery, Party Replacement, and Oops All Spells?
I consistently see those treasures from opponents and that means 1 of 2 scenarios: They are the strongest and therefore are more often picked. Or they are the strongest and therefore are killing off people who chose other (worse) treasures.
Party Replacement is super strong, but out of the 3 I mentioned seems to be the most beatable if you have enough tools/degenerate combos in your own deck. (at the end of the day it just ends up being a free 2/2 which in early games is impactful, but later on is less dangerous.
Generally I primarily play casual duels when I play duels mode (because it's free!) so I'm unsure if the opponents I'm facing are just lucky, or just conceding and farming runs until they get "perfect passives" because of the free nature of casual duels.
Even though I am not a dev and I don't have much data at disposal outside of my personal sample and the starting decks I see online, the feeling is definitely that.
I genuinely feel like the Stormwind patch powercrept some treasures pretty hard (Meek Mastery is a combination of All Together Now and Captured Flag; [Hearthstone Card (Ooops, all spells!) Not Found] is an insanely better Khadgar's Scrying Orb) and brought massive tempo swings (Party Replacement, especially in combination with Meek Mastery), for little to no reason.
On the other hand, I really like Inspiring Presence and Legendary Loot, but they don't make up for the previously mentioned broken treasures.
Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy Duels and I still think that the game mode should allow you to exploit broken stuff. It's just that it kind of happens too frequently now, and it doesn't always feel good.
It seems they were aware of this and there is hard to notice text at the bottom of the patch notes for Duels. They moved Meek Mastery to second pool rightfully in my opinion.
Hard to notice you say?
Lol I'm joking.
Ahah I posted this comment and clicked on the main page you already posted It as an article :D
They should include some images for different game modes in the patch notes or some visual separators between sections in my opinion.
Your last statement hit home for me as well. Duels is about exploiting broken combos, but it shouldn't be super consistent like it is currently with some treasures.
Well, I suppose Team 5 listened to us and threw a bone at us lol.