Forged in the Barrens should be released in less than a month, and with that we may even receive more Duels goodies. There aren't any certain dates as of right now, but at least the post-patch meta has been roughly figured out and there are some neat additions to the tier list!
Fortunately for us, 虎牙丶夜帆 (one of China's best Duels players) recently posted some new decks he thinks are between the best in the current meta. For some of them, he also gave suggestions regarding the Passive Treasures to choose during your run - something very useful that some of you have been asking for a long time. Now just grab a starting deck and have a fun run or two!
Token Demon Hunter
Illidari Strike is a great tool for the control of the board, even more when you're able to build a deck around it with a lot of synergies like Parade Leader, Wrathscale Naga, Blood Herald and Nethrandamus. Unless your opponents are too far ahead or don't care about the board and keep pushing face damage, you'll always have something to run your tokens into and gain advantage of it.
As for Passive Treasures, you should try to pick Recycling from the first pool (excellent for survivability with all these tokens laying around) and Cannibalism from the second one (excellent for delivering damage when you're consistently able to swarm your board with two or more minions per turn).
Treant Druid
This is currently the best archetype in the whole format - Harvest Time! is incredibly broken when you can reliably use it on cheap stuff like Desk Imp or on minions with a Deathrattle like Haunted Creeper and Nerubian Egg.
The tempo you gain from sacrificing a small unit in exchange of two 2/2 Treants is massive, even more, if you're able to also target your opponent's minions in case of an annoying Taunt or a dangerous minion you should get rid of as fast as possible.
Keep your curve low and choose fairly aggressive buckets and Treasures and you should be good to go to the long distance.
Big Paladin
The buff to Royal Greatsword was as big as expected: it was singlehandedly able to push very niche archetypes such as Big Paladin all the way to playability. There are still better decks, but with the right Treasures, you should be able to fill the gap and compete with them as well.
In fact, 虎牙丶夜帆 considers Big Paladin as a tier 3 deck, but with the potential of becoming a tier 1 if you manage to get Rocket Backpacks and Scepter of Summoning/Disks of Legend during your run, which is also the recommended Passives to choose during your run.
Dude Paladin
4 mana Men at Arms is crazy good and gave the whole Silver Hand Recruit archetype a very big push. Being able to consistently summon 2 3/3s each turn for 3 mana (maybe with Divine Shield: courtesy of Lothraxion the Redeemed) is big and should put you in a good position against pretty much any control deck in the format. On the other hand, Treant Druid (see the list above) and Discard Warlock (see the list below) are though match-ups you should hope to avoid or play carefully.
Try to pick Recycling or Rocket Backpacks from the first Passive pools and Cannibalism, Double Time or Emerald Goggles from the second one!
Overload Shaman
We're going to write the same thing we said in the last Duels report: Stormcatcher is good, very good. Playing cards balanced around Overload without having to deal with that downside is quite broken if you ask us.
The one showcased is a fairly low-curve aggro deck, with decent card draw and value generator but lots of burst. Cagematch Custodian is obviously a keeper since it will allow you to get Doomhammer online on curve, and Lightning Bloom here is basically a pre-nerf Innervate. Hit fast, hit hard.
Discard Demon Warlock
The list showcased is packed with as much greed as possible, and we dig it big time. Dark Arts' synergy with minions like Silverware Golem and Boneweb Egg should be able to help you dig through your deck while keeping you alive against aggro; own the other hand, all your value generators (Envoy Rustwix, Felosophy), combo disruptors (Tickatus) and finishers (C'Thun, the Shattered) will put you in a very favorable position against any other slow/control deck of the format.
Do you like Duels? What are you playing over there right now? Let us know in the comments!
Comments
Holy hell that is one insanely greedy Big Paladin deck. High roll or end with less than 3 wins.
Classic small indie company giving the exact same name to two cards. Plaguebringer.
I prefer Soulcial Studies for warlock, but that's probably just me being contrary. Discolock is probably the stronger choice.
Overload Shaman is hilarious. If you luck into Plaguebringer the shenanigans are real. I like Chaos Storm as my starting treasure because of the massive power turns it enables, especially with cost reduction. Maximum spice is Diligent Notetaker into Chaos Storm! It is a bit of a greed choice, I'll admit, since a lack of cost reduction in either of your passive treasure choices makes it less valuable. I should try Payload Specialist.
I do notice the distinct lack of priest and warrior. They're getting squeezed from both directions: Treant Druid is too fast for them, but Warlock outvalues them. Double Time priest is stupidly effective if you get that far. I've experimented with Void tentacle priest, but it just gets slaughtered by token Demon Hunter and Treant Druid, which sweep the tentacles off the table.
I've definitely faced Overload Shaman with Plaguebringer AND Khadgar's Scrying Orb twice during the same run. Chaos Storm was definitely a card in those matches.
What do spells and Plaguebringer have in common? Did you by any chance linked a wrong card?
I didn't remember that a collectible card with the same name exists :D I meant the REAL Plaguebringer.
I've never had those two stacked. What's the order of operations? Do your one-mana spells get reduced to zero by KSO, or does Plaguebringer override? What about more expensive spells like Lava Burst?
I had to take a look at my HSReplay recordings (match 1 and 2), they would suggest that 3-mana spells cost 1...probably. It was hard to follow the cost reductions. And it may have been Rhonin's Scrying Orb instead since sometimes 3-mana stuff costs 0 and sometimes it doesn't.
Well, it couldn't be Rhonin's-plus-Plaguebringer because those are both first-pick passives. Hrm... your reply shows it working both ways, sometimes 3-cost spells are 1, sometimes zero, and it's not consistent with if they're the first spell that turn or not. Sheesh. I think we can conclude that Plaguebringer doesn't override Khadgar's since 1-cost spells are going off for free, so that's something.
I don't duel often, but when I do, I get slaughtered by Overload Shaman.
Oh yea that shaman deck is busted, didn't get under 6 wins with it so far. (But I was running the 1 mana generate overload spells, when you use overload cards.)
I tried it once with average results only. Couldn’t find any synergy, on the contrary! I got constantly the overload giants in my overload bucket that cost 11 and don’t get discounted because ofthe HP.