Greetings,
and welcome to the first Fractured in Alterac Valley Duels meta report. It is quite clear that the new set really turned Standard upside down: Freeze Shaman (or better, Frost Shaman) has come back from the meme status and Warlock has found yet another way to annoy the community. Did the same thing happen for Duels? What decks are still good? Do we have any worthy novelties?
Well, worry not, as we've got your back. Here below you'll find a handful of 12-win decks achieved with multiple classes, which may give you the inspiration you need to get one yourself. Have fun!
Disclaimer: some decks in this article were collected from Firestone. You can find out more about Firestone and install the app here!
In case you missed them, we published other collections of 12-win Duels starting decks to take inspiration from!
If you've had 12 win luck in Duels since the recent balance changes, be sure to add your starting decks 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.
Yugu's 12 Wins Outlander Demon Hunter
New expansion, same old Outlander Demon Hunter. With Alterac Valley's class set built around tokens and big Demons, there's nothing this archetype would want to try out. No worries though, as the deck is as strong as it was a couple weeks ago.
The only notable novelty is in the Passive Treasure department, with Imp-credible Trousers, which represents a far more useful upside for playing Fel spells than the one provided by Corrupted Felstone.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Fireshaper
Second pool - Imp-credible Trousers
Fliboce's 12 Wins Beast Druid
It was obvious that someone was going to try out Beast Druid in Duels, but we definitely didn't expect the results to come this fast. To be more precise, Fliboce was able to bring the starting deck you see below to 12 wins not once, but twice - definitely impressive for a new entry in the Duels meta!
The archetype wants to win games in the same way as any other aggressive deck: stack unit on unit, buff them and go face. What's really interesting is that Oracle of Elune can lead up to some rather amusing scenarios, duplicating the likes of Wickerclaw and especially Frostsaber Matriarch, which is the number one reason why you want to play this deck.
On a final note, Fliboce was able to have a taste of the new Mantle of Ignition Passive Treasure, and was able to generate lots of pressure (and wins) with Royal Gift shenanigans.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Crystal Gem/Starving
Second pool - Mantle of Ignition/Battle Stance
Persia's 12 Wins Questline Druid
Questline Druid has always been a pretty straightforward deck: gain armor and hit the opponent in the face before they overwhelm you with on-board stats. Fractured in Alterac Valley didn't bring any notable toys to play with, except for Capture Coldtooth Mine.
In fact, Persia modified their starting deck so that CCM will always draw Sphere of Sapience. Sure, Pounce and Claw are important for you to get your hands on Guff the Tough as soon as possible, but being able to destroy Twig of the World Tree on demand for 10 additional mana is an even more relevant effect for you.
In order to attest this starting deck's potential, Mapdreis achieved 12 wins using the same 15 cards, with Fireshaper and [Hearthstone Card (ooops, all spells!) Not Found] as Passive Treasures.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Fireshaper
Second pool - Legendary Loot
Hsdqrmukou's 12 Wins Deathrattle Hunter
Following Expedited Burial's introduction in the pre-Alterac patch, Deathrattle Hunter's 12 wins runs have become more and more popular. Who would've known that reducing your big Deathrattles to 1 mana and abusing them with the likes of Deathstrider as soon as turn 2 would've been broken?
Korrak the Bloodrager is the only new inclusion, and we totally recommend running it: we're talking about a really sticky minion that can be duplicated with Death Games over and over again, for a quite troublesome board to deal with.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Ever-Changing Elixir
Second pool - Expedited Burial
Persia's 12 Wins Deathrattle Hunter
However, you can achieve great results with Deathrattle Hunter even if you don't get offered Expedited Burial: here's a 12 wins run by Persia with an "average" Passive like Emerald Goggles, which isn't bad but not the greatest either.
So yes, the archetype is clearly a frontrunner in this early Fractured in Alterac Valley meta.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Starving
Second pool - Emerald Goggles
Firestone - 12 Wins Frost Hero Power Mage
Thanks to the general focus on Frost spells in the recent expansion, Frost Hero Power Mage got some new and interesting cards to experiment with, both in the class and neutral sections.
- Amplified Snowflurry is a Tour Guide with more stats and a Freeze effect on top of it.
- Snowblind Harpy is a conditional Shieldmaiden for 2 less mana, and the restriction of having a Frost spell in hand can be easily neutralized when you have plenty in your deck.
- Herald of Lokholar, however, is a straight up worse Frostweave Dungeoneer, and therefore we don't see it making the cut any time soon.
All in all, Frost Shards Mage's power level is still up there, and now it has more tools at disposal (there's also Glacial Downpour to be picked, but let's leave this for another time).
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Arctic Armor
Second pool - Battle Totem
HotokeTaro's 12 Wins Big Paladin
Here's another deck that has received no new cards, but it's still a banger.
A solid Hero Power in From Golden Light, an incredible Signature Treasure in Royal Greatsword and a large pool of viable Passive Treasures to choose from make Divine Shield/Big Paladin a force to be reckoned with, and it's been like this for a while now.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Grommash's Armguards
Second pool - Legendary Loot
Dsorrow's 12 Wins Deathrattle Priest
Alterac Valley's Deathrattle package is quite amusing, especially the new Xyrella, the Devout granting a very powerful value swing. Dsorrow took this chance to try out the archetype in Duels, and was able to bring home some results.
In fact, Journey to Un'Goro's Awaken the Makers and Kobolds & Catacombs' Twilight's Call represents powerful inclusion for Deathrattle Priest, granting you lots of heal and more Xyrella, the Devout fodder.
The starting deck you see below includes some quite aggressive Deathrattles in Leper Gnome and Shadowed Spirit, but doesn't have any problems in going the distance thanks to N'Zoth, the Corruptor and the aforementioned Xyrella Hero Card.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Rocket Backpacks
Second pool - Totem of the Dead
Yumeha_gbf's 12 Wins Kingsbane Rogue
Duels Rogue is tier F, they say. Well, they may be right, but at least there are some players that are yet to lose hope in the class and keep experimenting with it. Yumeha_gbf, in particular, decided to have a closer look to Weapon Rogue, and with the help of Kingsbane they were able to bring the archetype to 12 wins.
Although it has no direct synergy with the archetype, Shadowcrafter Scabbs is a jacked up Vanish, which is incredibly useful for a deck that wants to directly hit the opponent in the head with a big weapon.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Fireshaper
Second pool - Legendary Loot
Firestone - 12 Wins Elemental Shaman
Although Fractured in Alterac Valley expansion did print a handful of Elementals, we dare to say that we expect this archetype to remain pretty much the same it was before the set release.
To be completely fair, Duels' low health total in the first few matches makes it so that Lokholar the Ice Lord's discount effect will almost always activate in a matter of a few turns, and this unit's impact on the board will be even more relevant once you manage to discount it with the likes of Fire Plume Harbinger and Granite Forgeborn. For this reason we expect Lokholar to be the only new Elemental to see play in Elemental Shaman.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Crystal Gem
Second pool - Rally the Troops
AgentCroque's 12 Wins Pirate Warrior
See, in the last few days there has been quite an amusing exchange of Tweets between Croque and Persia regarding Rokara, the Valorous' role in Pirate Warrior: while the former claims that this Hero Card is a win-more tool in that deck, the latter has a completely opposite opinion.
Both these players tried to back up their opinion with fact, and both of them achieved 12 wins with what they believe is the best version of the archetype.
Croque goes for a Rokara-less list, focusing on Pirates and cheap Battlecries, with Gruntled Patron for a board-flooding effect thanks to Spiked Arms shenanigans.
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Ever-Changing Elixir
Second pool - Rally the Troops
Persia's 12 Wins Pirate Warrior
On the other hand, Persia puts Rokara, the Valorous as the top-end of their personal list.
So, now you can tell us: which one do you personally prefer?
Passive Treasures Chosen
First pool - Crystal Gem
Second pool - Bronze Signet
Do you like Duels? What are you playing right now? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
How is caster priest not ALL of these decks... it's the only one obliterating the ladder and literally requires ZERO effort or participation by either party....?
I'm quite sad how few of Alterac cards are in these decks. I'd love to see Duels as a place where you can play more niche cards and not more like a Wild variant, where almost nothing changes with new set release.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but rather that there's a reason for this, or better two reasons.
The first is that Duels' Hero Power and Signature Treasures (the ones you pick before building your starting deck) were initially conceived to synergize with what each class was about around a year ago. However, we moved on from that point, and received many more archetypes that those tools do not support.
Want an example? If you want to have a run with Hunter that isn't about Deathrattles, you don't really have a good Signature Treasure that supports you: most of the times you opt for Carrot on a Stick, but it's a worse Coghammer.
Having Hero Powers and Signature Treasures become (at least partially) obsolete (with some of them, sadly, completely unplayable from the very start), you can understand why you don't see more Freeze Shaman, Deathrattle Demon Hunter or *insert new archetype* in Duels.
The second reason is that Team 5's ambition is to continuously enlarge Duels' deckbuilding pool, adding expansion after expansion until we'll get to the point where all the cards will be able to be included in your starting deck. I respectfully disagree with this philosophy, and I would rather see some sort of rotating sets system (which has its own downsides, but we'll leave this for another time), but this is not the point.
The implication of adding set after set without removing stuff (unless you hard-ban some cards) is that the power level of the game mode is bound to go up with every addition, and new strategies are less likely to make an impact.
I agree with your explanation. You are completely right. Yet still, it's the case. And from your explanation we can draft the solution for the problem - change available sets or change starting treasure. I don't know Team5's plans for this, but maybe we should ask Iksar on his next Q&A what's gonna happen to treasures and hero powers, when the sets they are based on, gonna rotate out. Here's to hoping :)
From my experience and what I noticed from Regiskillbin videos Imp-credible Trousers are brokenly good at this time. It says shuffle in the text but opponents *always* draw those first. It's really frustrating when I encounter them.
Yep, it's just a bug. Fel Rifts should act like Soul Fragments, so Imp-credible Trousers is clearly not working as intended.
Its a bug. Of course that interaction was unintended. It'll always put those imps on top of your deck, so if you can draw the same turn its just free 3/3s.
But dhunters being so shit in duels its hardly noteworthy. Fact is that even with this bug its still not going to carry you high up the ladder. Still, funny though.
You can say that Duels Demon Hunter is pretty unidirectional, uninteractive and (maybe) boring, but it's in no way shit.
With the right Passive Treasures, Outlander Demon Hunter slaps hard.
I doubt it. I got my arse handed to me by an innocent Wildpaw Cavern, and I had fireshaper passive. Any freezes honestly, just destroys dhunter in duels its not even funny.
Not to mention that Immolation Aura is not available in deckbuilding, so you lose the one good AoE spell the class has. That alone seals the deal, its just so much weaker than the other burn decks available.
Also, I dont know whats the deal, but getting that passive that deals 2 damage per fel spell is so ludicrously difficult I swear its in the ultra rare pool. My entire deck was fel spells and it just never pops out.
Edit: I should add that I've rarely ever see dhunters in duels, and usually I just never lose to them. They have a massive advantage in the first two games and then its all down hill from there. It was only by exploiting the imps that I got to 8 wins at all.
Avalon (or anyone really) if you see this maybe you can explain something...
Why is Infinite Arcane popping up in more and more mage decks in duels as the chosen signature treasure? With hero power mage it used to be Embercaster....I understand that Infinite Arcane makes you "immune" to fatigue in the traditional sense, but is there something more that I'm missing?
Given that there isn't a precise answer to this question, I tried Infinite Arcane myself to see why peoples started running it, and here are my two cents.
Let's start with the downsides. Given that you pick it for the Frost Hero Power archetype, it gets tutored by Frostweave Dungeoneer, but you do not get the full effect off of the latter, and sometimes it's quite relevant if you have Freeze Solid or Arctic Armor as Passives. Not the end of the world, but still...
On the other hand, there are quite some upsides. First of all, you build your deck so that it contains a few very impactful Battlecries and different ways (Youthful Brewmaster, Zola the Gorgon), to bounce/copy them. Infinite Arcane allows you to get additional copies of either the Battlecries or the bouncers, based on the state of the board and on how far you are from killing your opponent of being killed by them. Getting an extra Mordresh Fire Eye or two is nutty, as well as Spice Bread Baker if you're low on health.
Then there's the fatigue issue. Sure, once you've added a remarkable number of cards in your deck, fatigue won't be as problematic as it could be at the beginning of your runs, but it's always nice to have this option in case you need it.
On a final note, it completely negates Magnetic Mines Bomb Warrior. Sure, that deck is not that strong, but people seem to love it and it's always there to mess up your runs, so if your opponent does not have Coldlight Oracle you're pretty much safe.
Embercaster is more of a combo/value tool, and it's not like it has become bad/unplayable: I dare to say that both Embercaster and Infinite Arcane are valid Signature Treasures, and you should pick the one you prefer.
I hope you'll find my answer useful!
Infinite arcane discovers from your deck. So in the first few games youre almost always getting something you've placed into your deck deliberately. At the late game, its gets more muddled, but its usually still better than topdecking answers.
Also because of the 2 mana discount, your brewmaster costs 0. That's very nearly a shadowstep in a deck that plays plenty of battlecries.
I don't think I ever realized it discovered from your own deck. The way it was worded made it sound like you just discovered from the entire pool of possible cards (for your class+neutrals) which to me made it sound way worse.
The fact it discovers from your own deck definitely makes it better.
But do you think it's still better strictly speaking to run Infinite Arcane over Embercaster for example? (Embercaster specifically to duplicate wildfire(s) )
Also, this sounds odd but is there a competitive deck with Yogg Tasties as the signature treasure? I remember when duels first came out and everyone was using it and it made duels so much fun.
Yeah, team5 could do better explaining how infinite arcane works. I remember looking up several reddit posts to find out that it actually discovers from your deck, and at the start of the game, which means you cant thin down your deck for a more consistent discover chance.
Mage as a duels class is really tough, because most of the time they'd just get mowed down by burns decks. That's mostly why embercaster just doesn't cut it anymore, unless you're running quest portal, where embercaster has a definite niche. Infinite Arcane however gives you a chance, because you can theoretically (I did this plenty of times) just lockdown your opponent with never ending freezes or loathebs. Forget the embercaster + wildfire. Its more fun to destroy opponents with five turns of mordreshes, which was definitely a highlight for me that one time.
Yogg cakes just for fun to be honest. Its definitely not competitive because of consistency, and because you're not choosing either embercaster or infinite arcane. Still, duels is that one mode where its fully casual so if you're in for fun, then why not?
You can discover multiple Mordresh for example.
I'm trying to get Diablo Demon Deathrattle Discard working at the moment but can't get it further than 4 wins :)