The Practical Duels Guide - How To Go Infinite In Heroic Duels!

The Practical Duels Guide - How To Go Infinite In Heroic Duels!

The most in depth and extensive Duels guide ever, with practical tips, guidelines, example decklists and jokes. Aimed at Heroic Duels, but useful for anyone looking to get more out of their Duels game play.

Introduction - Who am I and why should you listen to me? (You can skip this, if you just want the guide)

The purpose of this guide is to teach you the principles that will allow you to build a collection of hearthstone cards, without having to pay the premium that normally follows with trying to achieve that goal. I myself have taken a break from Hearthstone from the release of Scholomance Academy to the release of Fractured in Alterac Valley. I bought a welcome back bundle when I returned seeing as I had no cards from the past year and a half and with that I managed to build a semi competitive Priest deck and started playing Duels from there.

I have over the past two months gone from having 31 Standard legendaries to having just received my 101th legendary that is available for use in the standard set, and I have crafted many old legendaries from Kobolds, Naxxramas and other set available for use in the Duels game mode.
I can see from my Firestone statistics that I average about 7 wins per run, which I admit could be higher if I didn’t goof around to stay in a mindset of enjoying the game. I can also see from those statistics that I have gotten about 300 packs of FoAV cards since December 7th, my gold has increased from 180 to 3030 at the moment of writing this introduction and my dust in holding is about 6k, but I have just spent about 16k crafting things I wanted to test, with the new Duels gameplay patch upon us. I am extremely liberal with my dust, unlike the reddit F2P guides suggest you should be, as it feels like I have a never ending supply of dust and gold, as long as I spend the time playing the game. So that’s me and my argument for why I am someone you can listen to when it comes to principles that will allow you to increase your Duels winrate to a point where you will be able to build a full collection without spending a dime.

I haven’t done the math on this, but in my experience you can go infinite with as low an average win count as 5 wins, as long as you do your daily and weekly quests. I will also tell you before we embark on the guide, that this guide will not immediately make you an infinite duels player, but it has the potential to work as a framework for you to build the skills that it takes to do this. In the immortal words of Owen Gaines, who’s book on poker math was an invaluable resource to me when I learned poker in my teenage years, “You decide how much your poker education is gonna cost”. This is even more true for Duels in the sense that Duels is accessible completely free of charge with the casual mode, where you can go and hone your skills without spending any resources. So without further ado let’s get to the first principle of going infinite in Duels.

Navigation Links

Intro - Vanndar - Shaman/Drek'thar - Mage - Warlock - Paladin - Warrior
Click to skip to each section!

 Principles to go infinite

1. Play the stuff that wins.
I know, mind boggling knowledge bomb. So since its extremely obvious, I am gonna qualify why I have put this at number one. For starters you have to know what is the most winning classes and decks to be able to apply this principle. Also going far in Duels consistently is not really about your starting list. Your starting list only really has two goals, which I will get into later. Going far in Duels is about knowing the strenghts and the weaknesses of your list, what passives it is aiming to abuse, what buckets will synergize well with the passives you're angling for, when to pick a semi optimal tempo treasure/passive to edge out a couple more wins on a deck that didn't strike gold on buckets or passives. These are the things I am going to include in the class analysis further down into the pits of this guide.
2. Know the Heroic meta.
This guide will try to stay meta competetive with updates when I notice shifts in the meta. This means you can come back here and I will include a "Last updated" line in the top, so you can identify if the guide is up to date.
A lot of keeping your win average above 5 or 6 is about knowing what you're most likely to encounter in the later stages of a run, what kind of gameplan your opponents deck will try to apply. What kind of burst they are likely to be able to dish out. Do you have to mulligan for a taunt because you don't wanna get frozen from 2/1 frosty bois from mage? Do you have to mulligan for a Stoneskin Bassilisk to kill the swarm of huge dudes Vanndar drops from turn 3? You have to know what your win condition and gameplan is, and what the opponents is. You also wanna have a look at the hero power your opponent is running, because it will give you valuable intel on what kind of gameplan they are going to be running.
In this guide there will be long write ups and analysis on the strongest heroes, what they run and how they intend to win the game with some emphasis on how to pilot them through a run. I don't currently intend to do write ups for the lower winrate classes, except for short write ups so you will know just about what to expect.
3. Know the mechanics of Duels runs.
Duels runs have some preset mechanics that will always stay the same. Examples of this that are important to know is what signature treasures a list is likely to run and what they could be running. This for instance will allow you to rule out ways your opponent could swing the game in their favor, if you happen to see a certain signature treasure. Our lord and saviour RegisKillbin was for instance worrying about a Shadow Word: Void after seeing his opponent drop a Herald of the Scaled Ones in a game on his stream two days ago. In Regis defence, everyone who played Duels before the update have sufficient Shadow Word: Void PTSD to play around that card at all times. This goes for Treasure pool 2 also. If you're in game 1-4 or they allready used a Bag of Coins, you no longer have to worry about a Wand of Disintegration because they are both from Treasure pool 2 and you only get one Treasure pool 2 card, which happens after the 4th game.
Quick list of important to know, hard to remember stuff:
After game 1: Passive 1 from passive pool 1
After game 2: Treasure card from treasure pool 1 - game 2 health: 25 ... or 20? They changed it on accident this patch and now this shit happens sometimes? This picture is from today btw, AFTER the "Fixed the offset health issue". Actually don't trust me on this cause there has been some funky stuff going on. Should be 25.
After game 3: Passive from passive pool 2 
After game 4: Treasure card from treasure pool 2
After game 5: Treasure from treasure pool 1
After game 7: Treasure from treasure pool 1. Same goes for game 9, 11, 13 but at this point its to much to keep track of. Just enroy the ride when you make it this far cause things get crazy.
4. Play a lot of Duels.
Yeah I know. Another knowledge bomb. But as it happens there is an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing towards the fact that the things you do a lot, you will get better at. Its mostly here as a reminder of two things. One: You can play the casual mode for experience, even if it doesn't have exactly the same meta because people are experimenting, it will still give you something useful. Two: You will have bad days, where you're getting your butt handed to you. Thats called variance and happens to all of us. You should still keep at it though.
5. A couple of general tips.
Mysterious Tome is probably not a very fun passive to most people, but it is overall the highest winrate passive pool 1 passive. It always adds value and I can't come up with examples of it not being good. It can solo win games with a Frost Elemental on turn 2 from the mage secret that spawns one or it can just counterspell your opponents questline. Now those are rare, but Mysterious Tome is like pizza - When its good it's great and when it's bad ... Its still pretty good.
Your deck is so small in the beginning that draw isn't a concern, and some passives will solve that concern for you as your deck grows. But at some point you will need to look for draw options so you can improve your hand quality when mana doesn't add up perfectly or you need outs - a Looming Presence might be a bit boring, but it's a good way to have solutions for that problem. For the same reason, treasure you dont have to expend a draw on goes way up in value - like Loyal Henchman and treasures you have to draw multiple times go way down in value if you dont have ways to draw a ton of cards or specificly draw them again when you need them - for example Surly Mob, Creepy Curio, Old Militia Horn and the worst offender Coin Pouch.
Rare doesn't mean good. Dreamgrove Ring, Chaos Theory and Wish are all ultra rare treasure 2's but they perform awfully on average. Same goes for Band of Bees and Manastorm
Second passives that add tempo are always good - they might even be your best option. Make it a rule to always pick Party Replacement and Legendary Loot when you see it. Like this image below. The Runespear into Cenarion Ward into Geosculptor Yip into having a huge board turn 2. Not to brag or anything but that was the 8-0 game, and I got 12-0 before that battery ran dead.
And last but not least, with Vanndar being as dominant as he is, Hyperblaster in general goes way up in value since its the only way to control him until you can contest him for ... Everyone ... Well that's actually not true, its only for the ones who has a chance at contesting him at some point. But I digress.
6. Be able to play the game (This is not even a joke, there is a bug right now)
What in the world do I mean by this? Well currently there is a bug that LOCKS YOU OUT OF PLAYING DUELS. If you're one of the affected players, fear not there is a FIX. And it's as stupid as you might think it is with community found solutions to client problems.
You have to open the game on a mobile device (Insert you guys have phones right? joke here). After you open the game on mobile you need to go into modes and then duels and restart your run. The game will now sort of freeze. What you have to do now is spam the screen all over for 10 seconds. The reward vault will then open up, you will hear the sound and the animation will pop through your currently frozen duels screen. This is the only method I have found for now that fixes it.
The bug happens when you "Quit" hearthstone whilst finishing your last game of Duels. And since Hearthstone crashes more than a drunk NASCAR driver, you are gonna end up with the game locking up on you fairly often. I have had the bug twice in two days because of ill timed crashes.
7. Use this guide like a 5-head
Now how do i do that? You can read the analysis of a class you're gonna play and that will give you some good pointers of what to do with it, making you learn more throughout your current run. Thats the smart approach. The even smarter approach is if you're decently far into a run (4+ wins) you could open the guide and look at the list for opposing classes to see what to expect from their starting list, since I expect my meta updated starting lists should be what most people of certain hero powers/heroes run, except for my super cool tech cards. Looking at you Spammy Arcanist. You can also just when in doubt, go scout my easy to use guiding tier lists for passives. They are located in each heroes section under treasures and passives. And then for the 6-heads out there, you can hit me up in the comments with tips and tricks I am not aware of, in turn helping me make the guide even better in the future!
8. These aren't really principles anymore, but I suspect there is another bug.
Okay, so here is what is up homies. Two days ago the moved Battle Totem, Disks of Legend and Totem of the Dead to the ultra rare pool - they are problems, atleast DR doubling with certain treasure and Disks with Vanndar. Battle totem I could take or leave.
But every run I do after the patch it throws Battle Totem my way. Hmmm, what's up with that? Is today just my lucky day?
Everyone else seems to have those passives also. Its not just me. Okay. What then? Did the patch just not roll out correctly? Well I see All Together Now is in the passives pool 2 on the left most screenshot, so clearly the patch is on the server.
Then I thought. I wonder if its because I chug my decks full of certain keywords (Battlecry for instance) and the algorithm they use to give you "Good passive from the second pool" somehow compounds a higher percentage for you to draw that passive in your three options, for each time a certain keyword appears in your list? If that is the case, then Battle Totem might be a 1 in 100, but since I have 15 Battlecries in my 15 card deck, it compounds to still be the most likely pick, with Rally the Troops and All Together Now, and of course my decks are full of minions which is probably the keyword that increases the likelihood of Bronze Signet. 
This is just speculation though, but it seems to be the most likely explanation to me?
Aight, guide time.

 

Starting lists bundled with analysis

 Vanndar (Neutral) - Current Global Winrate 77.7%

We are ordering these after what hero/class wins the most!
I have two caveats about Vanndar before we start. He is not exactly a budget hero, his deck is very expensive and I would not recommend crafting for it right now, since his winrate is bonkers I assume we will see nerfs to this hero in the near future. We already saw the first indirect nerf with Disks of Legend being moved from Passive pool 2 to Passive pool 2 Ultra rare. This will also correct his winrate a bit downwards. But not much in my opinion and since Scepter of Summoning performs about equally well. Also the "pump the deck full of legendaries to tutor Disks of Legends" isn't the only strategy to go for with Vanndar. My list for instance has quite a few legendaries, but also some lower rarity tech cards that I really enjoy. The second caveat ties into the first point which is Vanndar has been nerfed and his winrate is subject to change over the next couple of days, though I dont suspect it will do much. Realisticly he might drop by a handful of percentage points at the most.
Ates if you do read this. And i suspect there is a greater than zero chance of that. I think the problem is Battle Tactics and I think the balancing point would be to not let it reduce cards under 4. Vanndar is still a powerhouse, he just wont be dropping double 10 drops on you for 4 mana anymore. It would also indirectly nerf Scepter of Summonings interraction with Vanndar since the cards cant be reduced under 5 now, or maybe under 4 depending on wether you guys wouldn't let it reduce cards that would go under 4, or just caps the reduction at 4 mana. Which is a huge nerf to the passive for Vanndar without having to disrupt the powerlevel or placement of the passive itself in the current ecosystem - which by the way seems spot on.
Reasoning for certain cards and treasures:
  • I prefer to put cards into the starting list that helps with the main objective of the starting list, which is winning the first 3 games. Thats why I have put in some tempo slowing taunts like Icehoof Protector and Taelan Fordring
  • I have also included combo/lethal denying cards like Loatheb
  •  Cards like High Inquisitor Whitemane have been put in for the cases where you do have to trade off your big minions, but you dont have a reduction loaded hand to boot. This allows you to trade and maintain tempo at the same time.
  • My biggest breakthrough with Vanndar was the inclusion of Spammy Arcanist, this card has saved me on so many occasions I can't count it already. My last 12 wins run with Vanndar (I have never gotten Disks of Legends with him btw and still easily average 10 wins with him) would not have happened if it wasnt for Spammy Arcanist soloing my opponents mad tempo turn two - see picture below. And for the record, I use external software for both telling me which order minions are playing in, secret helper and when their cards were drawn.
  • I also like to include "Spells" with a body attached like Spammy Arcanist, since I cant include the spells in a neutral deck. This also goes for the finisher Alexstrasza the Life-Binder and the removal from Goliath, Sneed's Masterpiece
  • We are playing as Neutral Vanndar always because it means we will never really get a bad bucket. The Neutral buckets are often filled with huge legendary minions and there will be no weak spells that try to get in the way, because there are no neutral spells.

 

Mulligan strategy:
In every match up where you start with less than 30 hp, and in most match ups that play minions (Shaman, Warlock, Paladin, Mage, Warrior, Hunter, Druid) you're mulliganing with the goal of not dying. This means you wanna find taunts and board clears. Lokholar is also good in the match ups that want to zerg you down, because the reduction you apply to the card will be added on top of the 5 reduction he gets when you go under 15 hp.
You obviously dont keep your treasure since its draw at the start of the game. But another mistake I see people make is playing their treasure. You generally don't want to do this until turn 3 at earliest where you can both hero power and play the treasure. The reason for this is you would rather draw a big minion than a discover a mediocre spell card, so you can apply discounts to a larger hand of big minions.
Treasures and passives to look out for:

Treasure pool 1

There is really no big ones here. The Exorcisor performs sort of well as it works well as removal that you're lacking with no guaranteed removal spells in your deck. Same goes for Vampiric Fangs and Necrotic Poison. Mindpocalypse can accelerate you in a meaningful manner, and sometimes overdraw your opponent. Crusty the Crustacean being a Legendary used to be the nuts because it worked as removal and would double if you had Disks of Legend, but thats a lot more rare now with it being ultra rare. That being said Crusty is still a great treasure.

Ez T1 tier list

Great

Good

Treasure pool 2

My personal favorite is Ancient Reflections for reasons mentioned in the Tips and tricks section. You generally want mana cheat or removal here, especially because Vanndar with its current power level is pretty guaranteed 7 wins, and at that point your risk of meeting a mirror match is extremely high because the other Vanndars are also winning a lot. You're generally looking for Wand of Disintegration Staff of Scales for removal, or a Hyperblaster and Bag of Coins is your mana cheat, to start throwing down those huge minions a turn earlier than normal.

Ez T2 tier list

Great

Good

Passive pool 1

You're looking for Crystal Gem so you can always fire your hero power on turn 1, starting the acceleration of dropping units immediately. You can also go with Inspiring Presence, since you will often have a hand of legendaries that cost 2 mana, so when you drop one another will go to zero and before you know it you played 4 10-mana cost creatures in a turn for two mana. Mysterious Tome is always good because it just adds free value and sometimes survivability that you will need to not get ran over by fast tempo decks. Rocket Backpacks can also help you stay alive by giving you some initiatve with those huge minions you drop every turn, though there is a lot of rush in the deck already so keep that in mind. Small Backpacks is also fine because it allows you to reduce 4 more mana in most cases per hero power, but now we're getting to the alright and not great ones.

Ez P1 tier list

Great

 

Good

Passive pool 2

Disks of Legend is to no ones surprise really effective in a deck comprised mainly of huge legendary minions, it averages about 83% winrate, we won't be seeing much of it these days with it in Ultra rare though. However Scepter of Summoning is right behind it with a whopping 82% winrate because it effectively gives you a free hero power or two at the start of the game. The only problem being that you cant bring cards to 2 mana anymore since everything costs 5 and gets reduced to 3 and no further, but thats a small price to pay for dropping a 10 drop on turn 2 with Crystal gems. Emerald Goggles is lacking a bit behind at about 70% winrate but effectively gives the left most card in your hand a free hero power reduction. So it helps with tempo, though you have to be mindful of this in the mulligan. Is the leftmost card in your hand really the one you wanna drop first? If not it has to go back in the pile. And last but also least we have Bronze Signet which for once isnt actually just bad overfilling of your hand. It adds a ton of value and makes your hero power hit an additional unit per draw in most cases. It does make Varian, King of Stormwind the king of burning Taelan Fordring though - but does anyone really like Taelan anyways?

Great

 

Good

Buckets

Probably just wanna take the ones with big bois who have stars next to their name. You will get plenty of those.
Tips and tricks:
One of the best win conditions of a Vanndar deck is Ancient Reflections paired with Ragnaros the Firelord for a 6 mana 56 damage combo. I ran it in one run and it was'nt extremely consistent but its close to a 6 mana Purified Shard so its okay for it to be not guaranteed in the opener.
Coined one shot with 5 mana.
You dont wanna play your Signature Treasure For the Alliance! too early, since it pollutes the deck with tradeable 0 cost spells, so you're not drawing huge game winning minions that you can reduce the cost of. There is however match ups like Bomb Warrior, where you can chug a ton of dead none bomb cards into your deck (15 to be precise), when things start to get dicey. The 15 extra cards also makes it very hard to lose to fatigue.
Here is an important one that will enable you to guarantee some lethals with this deck. Cards that do something at the end of the turn, do so in order of which one was played first. You will often have situations where you have an Abominable Lieutenant and Ragnaros the Firelord to drop on the board or have one down and the other ready to drop. So what determines the correct order of play? Well, in most cases you want the Abominable Lieutenant down first, so it can eat the last unit before Ragnaros the Firelord shoots his 8 damage fireball, so the fireball goes face. This has won me a couple of games in recent memory, I however don't happen to have screenshots on hand of situations where this happens. But its a good mechanic to be cognizant of in Duels, Ranked or Arena none the less. Its also why in the screenshots I post you will see a little number on top of the minions head, that is the order of play with 1 being the first minion on the board that is still alive, that was played.
In my experience Yogg does not like Vanndar players. The boi seems to cast Cataclysm every chance he gets and yeet your hand into the Nether. I am not saying dont play Yogg, I am just saying use him as a last resort.
As mentioned somewhere else Lokholar the Ice Lord reduction applies after your reduction, so an 8 mana Lokholar the Ice Lord will go to 3 when you drop under 15 for example.
My choice of hero power, Starting treasure and Deck list:
 
Big Vanndar list Big Warrior Deck by OzaiHSDuels - Feb 1, 2022
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 Instructor Fireheart (58%) and Drek'thar Shaman (63%) - Current Global Winrate 60%

This guide is still in order of highest winrate to lowest, but Shaman is not actually the second highest after Vanndar. Mage is. I have upped Shaman a hierachical step because Battle Totem was moved to Ultra rare earlier today and for that reason Mozaki is sure to drop more percentage points in winrate than Fireheart, because Battle Totem the most enabling treasure for Mozaki, but Battle Totem is second to Rally the Troops by a significant margin for Fireheart (And Drek'thar Shaman, but you can pretty much always assume I talk about Drek Shaman when I talk about Fireheart). I hypothesize that they are both equally affected by All Together Now moving to treasure pool 2, but we will see when more data is available and I have more experience with the new balance changes.
Also as you can see from the title of this Shaman section, Drek'thar shaman is the second highest winrate, but they average out around 60%, hence the individual brackets next to the names and the averaged winrate at the end of the title. I still think you should pick Fireheart over Mozaki, but thats just personal preference with me being more geared towards minion and tempo decks and less towards "hehe you cant play" decks. Yes, I hate Freeze Mage. It's not a secret.
Reasoning for card certain cards and treasures:
  • Snowfall Guardian is one of the slower elementals and for a starting list he is quite expensive. However the upsides to him for stalling especially with Vanndar being such a powerhouse right now, are too great for me not to include him in the starting deck.
  • Bru'kan of the Elements is very slow for both your gameplan and the first couple of games. However he provides a broad spectrum of options for healing to go a bit longer. He gives you some potential needed burst which you lack in a spell starved deck. He is also a battlecry to tutor the second passive algorithm that is supposed to give you passives made for your deck. In this case we are going for Rally the Troops.
  • I have had some debate about Glacial Shard and Sleetbreaker and have come to the conclusion that the instant freeze for a one mana discount on the unit and one mana on the freeze (2 mana total) is just better to effectively apply the gameplan of elemental shaman in Duels.
  • The Signature Treasure for Drek'thar is just amazing, but Fireheart is a bit lacking in good options. I have decided to go with Payload Totem Specialist like many others for a couple of reasons. One: it also is a battlecry so it tutors our second passive well. Two: I dont want the overload from Tempest's Fury. At the end of the day Elemental shaman in Duels is purely about tempoing out and the overload can just be to costly in my experience.
  • I have decided not to include Bolner Hammerbeak, I have tested him and I never really got anything significant out of him. The same goes for Kalimos, Primal Lord since he is just too slow for inclusion in the starting deck. However, Kalimos, Primal Lord I do like to pick up in later buckets.
  • There is an argument to be made for Murmuring Elemental, since he will double your Bru'kan hero cards battlecry, but other than that I dont see him having much of an effect and therefor he has not made the cut.
Mulligan strategy and gameplan:
Shaman is a pure tempo deck - this goes for both Drek'thar and Fireheart. You're generally looking for low cost elementals like Wailing Vapor, Kindling Elemental, Fire Plume Harbinger. If you already have one of those you can go fishing for a Arid Stormer or a Hot Spring Guardian - Dont sleep on Hot Spring Guardian on the early turns, your hero might not need healing but I have won multiple matches on keeping my Wailing Vapor healthy enough to deal another one or two devastating blows to the enemy hero. Granite Forgeborn used to be a keep if you had All Together Now in pool 1, but that is not an option anymore so the jury is out on the Forgeborn. Maybe if you have Crystal Gem and coin you can keep him. Earth Revenant is generally only a keep against mage, and only if you have lowdrops - he is a great slayer of the many 1 health freeze minions Mozaki plays in the initial turns.
You want to get on board, stay on board and value trade when possible. You dont have a lot of reach in your deck for the most part, so the brunt of your face damage has to be dealt by minions.
Treasures and passives to look out for:

Treasure pool 1

Shaman has some cool options here. My personal favorite is the combination of Enrage and the hero power Ferocious Flurry - in a deck that needs reach doing 14 damage from hand for the cost of 5 mana can be what makes or breaks a run (Bear in mind that this is only for Instructor Fireheart, as Drek'thar will be using another hero power). Treasures that work well for both of them are minion and board based treasures. Royal Gift is especially good for the same reason that Enrage is. You often need reach or burn, and you often have the board (if you dont you're probably in a losing state anyways), and royal gift on a windfury minion can just be an out of nowhere huge damage burst that can finish the game. Same goes for Gentleman's Top Hat which can both help you finish or you can do the hat dance where you play it on a minion, then trade that minion in and then let the hat bounce through a turn buffing minions you're trading in until it lands on a minion that is not comitting the honorable sudoko on this turn (Very Deryl-esque). I am a firm believer in picking Blade and Hilt of Quel'delar every chance I have. Both are pretty good in Fireheart with Blade being a good burst option for the hero power and Hilt being a good board state improvement at a low cost. Otherwise Puzzle Box can be quite rewarding in decks that hold the board and same with Blood Moon. Worshipper is always a strong minion, but especially in Ferocious Flurry Shaman.

Ez T1 tier list

Great

Good

Treasure pool 2

As many other Hero's we also love a Wand of Disintegration here, same goes for Staff of Scales though Staff of scales do have some risk of losing value in Shaman since you need board space for the SNEKS. Book of the Dead is very close to Wand in terms of tier here, since it goes down in cost fast with your own minion swarm dying off and it provides both board dominance with some needed reach on top. Bag of Coins is a great option for mana cheating some tempo out and taking the game by storm (hehe, Shaman, storm). Blade of the Burning Sun is great because it is just 10 damage for 6 mana every turn for Fireheart. It especially used to excel in Shaman when you had to pick Battle Totem because Rally the Troops wasn't offered, since you would get +4 attack for your minions with each activation and you often ran out of cards to play every turn, so it was a nice way to fill mana. I have included it a little further into the paragraph here, which implies it is a bit weaker because of Battle Totem moving to Ultra Rare.

Ez T2 tier list

Great

Good

Passive pool 1

This used to be All Together Now with a huge advantage over the second and third best passives, but since thats a Passive pool 2 passive now, we will need new contenders. Since Shaman is a tempo deck Crystal Gem helps you apply your gameplan effectively, especially when you have coin, you have some devastating turn 2 plays like Forgeborn to reduce the cost off all future plays. Other than that there is nothing really to say here except for the fact that Mysterious Tome is ALWAYS a good option when its there because it just guarantee's free value. Sometimes it can be game winning on its own. Other time the effect is small, but it's always there.

Ez P1 tier list

Great

Good

Passive pool 2

In this pool Rally the Troops is your absolute nuts. It gives you unlimited draw. It gives you tempo from reduction. Its just a great passive. Bronze Signet does surprisingly well in this deck aswell since it makes sure you rarely run out of minions to play and you do have some hand cost reduction effects. Other than that there really isn't much to say since you should get offered Rally or Signet almost every run. There is some people who like Battle Stance because of the synergy with the hero power and it helps you maintain board control. I dont think it's a bad passive and it is the one I would pick if after Signet and Rally, but it is really not as good as the stats makes it out to be in my opinion. And other than that you probably just want a value generating passive if nothing else like Runic Helmet or Cloak of Emerald Dreams, but they aren't great. And Emerald Goggles can also pass, but it empties you out so quick and you won't go very far with it.

Ez P2 tier list

Best

Great

Good

Buckets

You are always looking for buckets with the cards you put in your starting deck. This goes without saying but is'nt always true for everyone, so it gets said here none the less. You sometimes have some strange choices where it's likely better to pick random minions with battlecries to keep the Rally the Troops value going, than generally good minions or shaman spells without battlecries. 
Tips and tricks:
The way that Freeze works in Hearthstone is that it makes a minion skip a chance to attack. That means that if you have a minion who's attack you don't want to use for whatever reason and you drop a Snowfall Guardian, the unit that you decided not to attack with will be ready to attack again next turn. Any unit that has attacked this turn will however be Frozen next turn and miss its chance to attack. It also means that if your windfury units like Arid Stormer or lets say you have picked up an Al'Akir the Windlord in a bucket. If that unit attacks once it will still skip its second attack of the turn and be ready to double attack again next turn.
If you have Rally the Troops as your second passive, and the run has gone so far that you're at 40 hp, holding on to Bru'kan of the Elements in your starting hand can be a viable strategy since he is one of the hero cards that actually massively improves your hero power and makes it generate tons of value. However, this is rather risky and should only be done if you know for certain you have a good start with battlecries and a good chance to chain battlecries for tempo and Rally.
Bru'kan of the Elements battlecry works with double Battlecry effects - yes its obvious, yes I have still wondered if that was the case. Elemental Chaos until recently would also activate twice because it cast Bru'kans battlecry, however that was hotfixed :(.
My choice of hero power, Starting treasure and Deck list:
 
  
Shaman and Drek'thar Shaman starting list. Unknown Deck by OzaiHSDuels - Feb 1, 2022
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 Mozaki, Master Duelist - Current Global Winrate 62.7%

Mozaki took a hit in the balance update that happened on the day of writing, which has been mentioned multiple times. Battle Totem was moved to ultra rare and I do expect that to hit Mozaki quite hard since cards like Varden Dawnsgrasp now will decisively just be a frost nova with a body and not a frost nova, an oldschool flamestrike and a body. Also Mordresh Fire Eye not being a reliable finisher later in the run. The health and armor gain will also take quite a turn for the negative. However Rally the Troops is statisticly as powerful as Battle Totem, so it's possible Mozaki will stay on about 63% winrate, but I doubt it.
Conclusive thoughts: Pick with caution for now.
Reasoning for card certain cards and treasures:
  • I prefer to play Coldlight Oracle and Prize Vendor. There is three reasons for these cards in the deck. The most important one to me is that you often end up playing multiple Infinite Arcane instances just from Magister Dawngrasp since its your only Arcane spell for a while. So the draw cards are there to give you access to the extra cards you put in your deck with the multiple Infinite Arcanes. The second reason is they can run out of cards, you can't. The third reason is that milling a card in Duels can be a killing blow. You get one Signature treasure, some decks are build around this. You get one Pool 2 treasure, and milling that can be the difference between lose and win - mill your opponent when you can.
  • I want to mention as a caveat that the above mentioned draw murlocs might be subject to change with Rally the Troops being the new most likely second passive. This takes the deck from a burst and board clear to a more attrition based direction. If this happens its possible we need to make a few changes to better tutor out Glacial Downpour and stall the game, by adding more frost spells. I will get back to this when the meta settles on the new patch.
  • Leyline Manipulator is great for you to dump all your Ice Shards from your hand, as it does tend to get very clogged, especially now that Rally the Troops is gonna be an endless card draw machine.

Mulligan strategy and gameplan:

You generally always want to find yourself a Wildfire since its mana efficient and you're generally the deck on the defensive. Many opponents will put minions down faster than you and start swinging at your face to kill you before you draw your stall and health/armor gain. Other cards that you want in the opener could be a Amplified Snowflurry with its ability to freeze out a minion for free while progressing your Mordresh Fire Eye activation and it puts a body down to defend you. If you already have Wildfire, you want to consider Reckless Apprentice if you're going up against a broad board class - especially Harvest Time! Druid has a tendency to have a board full of 2 health minions on the turn when you can drop Reckless Apprentice, and if you dont deal with it, he tends to kill you next turn. However Mozaki does have the safety net of Frost Shards being able to somewhat bail you out of bad mulligans with small and annoying minions the opponent feels like they have to deal with.

All that being said, this is one of the hardest decks to pilot since you have to identify the games where you're able to be the aggressor - for instance it's often prudent to be on the offensive if you have just a semblance of a good start in the first couple of games. Doing 20 damage is very easily achieveable for many decks, and the cards that are generally used to stall can now be used to lock your opponent out of dealing with your board while you swing haymakers at their face. Another thing making this deck hard to pilot is you have to use your resources smart to live till you can turn the tides of battle. This is especially true now because you will on average need one more Mordresh Fire Eye to go off before your opponent is dead, than we did with Battle Totem.

Treasures and passives to look out for:

Treasure pool 1

Having spells of different spell schools than is normally achieveable by mage can be very valuable in this deck because of Magister Dawngrasp. You can get more out of cards like Holy Book, Necrotic Poison, Mage Armor and Vampiric Fangs than most other classes, so these should be considered top tier by default. There is however spell schooled spells that rarely do much for Mage, and should generally be avoided still like Sow the Seeds since you know ... You're kinda making your deck into a bonfire at some point and Mutating Injection can be a drawback just as easily as a benefit. Your opponent often has the board advantage, so its likely to be a detriment. The jury is still out on Creepy Curio - on one hand we want to put stuff back into our deck after we burn it because otherwise Rally the Troops will eventually kill us, but the Shadow Spell slot is generally sought after for other stronger cards. I suppose it comes down to wether or not you can get your hands on a powerful shadow spell and wether or not you get Rally the Troops, like with many other things there is no defacto right or wrong rule here, just principles we can apply to increase our chance to win. Other than schooled spells Looming Presence performs well since any health gain is good in this deck and draw becomes very relevant in this deck, even if you do light your deck on fire.

Ez T1 tier list

Great

,

Somewhere in between

Good

 

Treasure pool 2

My personal favorite is not actually the one that is generally looked at as the strongest. Book of the Dead is in my opinion the shadow spell that just rounds this deck out perfectly. Its a schooled spell, it controls the board, it gives you extra reach you can lack - especially now with double Mordresh Fire Eye being ultra rare. Mana cheat in the form of Bag of Coins is generally very strong in Mozaki because you're sometimes gonna need to extra available tempo or clear it allows to simply not die out before you draw the cards you need. Wand of Disintegration is great, it controls the board, it's an Arcane spell so you can generally be pretty sure to cast it again with your hero card if you haven't already cast Infinite Arcane. Blade of the Burning Sun also performs well in mage, mostly because its and unlimited source of damage and draws with Rally the Troops. Anything else is in my opinion Second tier with only a few really weak options like Archmage Staff, Phaoris' Blade and Canopic Jars falling pretty far behind.

Ez T2 tier list

Best

Great

Good

Everything else.

Passive pool 1

To my surprise Freeze Solid and Arctic Armor have changed places since last patch, which means that Freeze Solid now is the top performing pool 1 passive with a whopping 64.7% statistical winrate. This might be even more expressed now that we dont have exactly the same burst damage we used to so pushing out the extra damage this passive allows might be the facilitator of being able to finish out games. Otherwise our old friends Mysterious Tome and Crystal Gem perform well in Mozaki because you need the added value and acceleration in the beginning to not die. Sticky Fingers also has wide benefit in Mage as it allows you to dump your Frost Shards for only one mana and every card you get from Infinite Arcane will be getting an extra reduction. Open the Doorways has historically been performing well, and I dont think thats gonna change much with the new patch but it is possible that the extra value will not win out against more aggresive options like Freeze Solid, especially with the possible inclusion of more frost spells in the near future.

Ez P1 tier list

Great

Good

Passive pool 2

You might have picked up on this throughout this text but Rally the Troops is your best option here, with Glacial Downpour being a possibly close second, and might even a frontrunner if you run more frostspells in your starting list or pick up many Frost buckets along the way. Other than that we're always happy to see tempo options like Party Replacement or Legendary Loot.

Ez P2 tier list

Broken, and rare as F (soon?)

Best

Good

Buckets

The hero power bucket has traditionally been a good option. The Frost bucket has traditionally been a good bucket. I don't see any reason why that would change. You can also take the Ice Block bucket just because its Ice block. It can buy you an extra turn - many many times in some cases ... 
Tips and tricks:
I will be honest. I don't play mage much because I think the gameplay is toxic as ****. Completely none interactive gameplay is the bane of Hearthstone in my opinion so this section might be the most lackluster Tips and Tricks of the guide. I am mainly gonna focus on things I generally tend to forget.
Infinite Arcane works in the order that if you play multiple instances, your first pick in turn will go into the deck first and the last pick will be the card on top that you will draw at the start of the turn. The order of cards will generally be the order you have put them into the deck as unless a shuffle effect enters your deck. Magnetic Mines for instance SHUFFLES a card into your deck, which means it will shuffle your deck and therefor reorder it, making the order unpredictable.
While we are on the topic of Magnetic Mines, mage used to be good against it because you light your deck on fire at some point, removing the bombs. Now they also run forced draw cards like Prize Vendor, Coldlight Oracle and Southsea Scoundrel so having a deck primarily made up of bombs can be quite the bad experience. That being said, we are probably not gonna see a whole lot of bomb warriors after Battle Totem went away, in many ways bomb warrior is just a shitty wizard and they need the same things we do with Mozaki.
Like I have mentioned earlier, there are many treasures that are schooled spells - you want to keep an eye out for those. I may or may not have lost a game from forgetting that Mindpocalypse is indeed a Fel spell and it will indeed get cast again with Magister Dawngrasps battlecry which can burn badly if you don't currently have a deck to draw from.
I would not recommend it, but Zola the Gorgon is somewhat replaceable by Youthful Brewmaster.
it's possible with the new need of reach that Mask of C'Thun will work its way back into mage, as a great shadow spell and a good nuke card. Time will tell.
My choice of hero power, Starting treasure and Deck list:
 
Mozaki and Drek'thar mage starting deck Hero Power Mage Deck by OzaiHSDuels - Feb 1, 2022
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 Archwitch Willow - Current Global Winrate 59%

Willow is a very underpicked hero in Duels if we go by pickrate should correlate with winrate, which is my idea of how Heroic Duels should work. It does seem to be that people don't yet fully grasp how weak Mindrender Illucia (Priest) has become as she is still one of the most picked heroes and how strong Willow has become as she is still one of the least picked heroes. She is also a tempo deck, just like Fireheart is and is therefor quite strong in the early portions of the run where tempo can just end a game by turn 4 with the healthpool being so low.
Reasoning for card certain cards and treasures:
  • We are running Soulcial Studies and for that reason we are running a minion based souls package.
  • The reason I have chosen to not include the spells based soulcards is two pronged. One: We are trying to tutor Rally the Troops so I am trying to include battlecry minions over spells, even if those spells are generally good. Two: The spells that I would normally include is Soul Sheer which I have not included because it somewhat feels to slow and it relies on your opponent playing minions it can kill, which is more prevalent lately with Shaman and Warlock being strong, but still problematic with heroes like Vanndar being most picked, and a soul sheer just tickles an 8 drop. The other card I would normally include is School Spirits which was a great card pre-patch when Priest and Harvest Time! Druid was around and put a full board of nasty sneaky health snakes Voidfiend or cute little beasts and trees with 2 hp or below. But since those heroes are very out of the meta I don't see the need for School Spirits. Also, you're trying to be the board guy. Doing 2 damage to all minions bad.
  • I like Dreadlich Tamsin for this deck because much like shaman, your hero power is great until it isn't anymore. And when it isn't anymore its nice to have other options. And armor can be a big difference maker in the early games where you have 20 max hp.
  • I have had corruption issues with Circus Medic, but its a very versatile card that can add the reach you need or save your butt in a pinch with a body attached and it's a battlecry, so she is here to stay.
Mulligan strategy and gameplan:
We will always be keeping Spirit Jailer, a 1/3 and a 3/2 for one mana is just to good to be true. We will be keeping most low battlecries when we get Rally the Troops and even tempo dropping things like Animated Broomstick just to get the ball rolling sometimes when we have our second passive. We will be keeping Luckysoul Hoarder, Cult Neophyte and Mankrik in most cases, especially if we have coin or Crystal Gem. Shadowlight Scholar is kept if you have a Spirit Jailer or another way to put souls into the deck fast.
Our gameplan is simple, we put as many stats on the board as fast as we can, and we overwhelm our opponent. There is some ways to come back from an early misfire, but it's unlikely in most match ups. We value trade when it makes sense, and we generally try to pump out damage from having more on board than our opponent does.
Treasures and passives to look out for:

Treasure pool 1

Board buffs, effective removal, good weapons, battlecry units. There is very little difference between Willow and Fireheart/Drek'thar Shaman in that regard. We want Blood Moon, Quel'Delar pieces - blade and hilt, Puzzle Box, Necrotic Poison, The Exorcisor, Gentleman's Top Hat, Royal Gift ... You get the gist. The overall principles for Duels and minion based tempo decks apply here.

Ez T1 tier list

Great

Good

Treasure pool 2

Here Willow does branch off from Fireheart and Drek'thar shaman a bit, as she plays a different assortment of minions and has different problems inherent to her deck. I think the snap pick here should be Book of the Dead Willow generally likes a Phaoris' Blade because she has much more access to healing than Shaman and lack of potential reach than Shaman. Blade of the Burning Sun is also great here. Gnomish Army Knife also finds more value here for a couple of reasons. One: Willow has huge cheap minions like Void Drinker that can be comboed with it. Two: Willow lacks reach more than Shaman does, charge can help bridge that gap. Mana Cheat is amazing in tempo decks, I strongly recommend Bag of Coins for this reason. Bag of Stuffing has a high winrate for Willow, but I think it's more a pick you would do when you ended up with Battle Totem and not Rally the Troops last patch, but since we are gonna see less of that now I think it knocks stuffing down a bit. I will still advocate for this treasure in case you don't get good draw options, since tempo has to come from somewhere. Also Wax Rager is literally the highest performing treasure in Willow decks, but since its ultra rare I have chosen to include it last. If you dont get any of those options, go with a board clear.

Ez T2 tier list

Great

Good

Passive pool 1

All Together Now was a strong frontrunner. Unfortunately its dead to us now. Mysterious Tome and Crystal Gem are the tempo options that jumps out at us here. If you don't get those just pick something that doesn't hurt you. I am just gonna tell you this once. All Shall Serve seems like a good option. It is not. It will mill you to death in the first couple games. I never pick it. Ever.

Ez P1 tier list

Good

Bad

Passive pool 2

If we exclude ultra rares, Rally the Troops is the huge winner here with 66% winrate. I know people who run Shadow Spells also have succes with Eerie Stone since it removes a minion from them and adds one to you often, but I don't run shadow spells, so I can't be to sure about this, the winrate is generally high with this passive though. Other than that you're looking at picking up Emerald Goggles for getting on board quick, just bear in mind that a passive like that will require extra draw. Bronze Signet while it dosen't help your tempo, will make you run out of gas slower, which is a benefit if nothing else is available. Otherwise, Meek Mastery helps but isnt great and Captured Flag is great but Ultra rare. You always pick the tempo options if you can in this deck, so that means we are snap picking Party Replacement and Legendary Loot

Ez P2 tier list: 

Best

Great

, 

Good

 

Buckets

Take the one with soul stuff, its almost never wrong. Other than that we are looking for wellstated minions and battlecries.
Tips and tricks:
Luckysoul Hoarder is very rarely worth corrupting. Just tempoing him out efficiently getting a 3/4 and a 3/2 is often prefered. If you already have Rally the Troops you should be always looking to do this, since there is literally no real downside.
If you don't feel the need to hold Loatheb for some reason, putting him down on curve when going first will deny many Pool 2 treasures since a lot of them are 5 cost spells - I am looking at you Wand of Disintegration and Staff of Scales - they are coincidentally also the cards that screw you the hardest in the format. This is of course dependant on Loatheb still costing 5 mana. I thought that it wasn't relevant if they hadn't used their coin, until I remembered that coin is a 5 mana spell when you drop Loatheb.
Spirit Jailer is a valid target for Zola the Gorgon, tempo is all we got.
Skipping a 3 Mankrik bucket is generally seen as a sin with this deck. Not because its amazing, just because its a fun bucket and we can actually pick it with little to no drawback.
My choice of hero power, Starting treasure and Deck list:
 
Willow starting deck Duels Unknown Deck by OzaiHSDuels - Feb 1, 2022
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Hero power: Soulcial Studies
Signature treasure: Demonizer

 

 Turalyon the Tenured - Current Global Winrate 54.6%

Now we're getting into the heroes with a sharp drop off in winrate. Its a bit of a shame in my opinion that they nerfed the Royal Greatsword, since I don't think it was that suppresive, but if they are trying to stick to their guns with a single card shouldn't determine a match outcome then it's not in itself a bad thing to do. However, with how strong other classes are, I really would like to see this go back to 5 mana. It doing 90% of a players starting health in the first two games was a bit much though. But Paladin was still awful against Freeze mage, so its not like it wouldnt have found it place at 3-4th in the meta - but I digress. Again. Turalyon was my favorite hero last patch, and he is still fairly okay, but I don't get to play him much since he is number 6th on my tier list (The order of this guide can be seen as the way I tier the classes). This is also why the analysis of the heroes will get shallower as we go deeper into the tiers, because I really haven't gotten around to test these heroes that much in the new meta.
Reasoning for card certain cards and treasures:
  • The thing I bounce back and forth the most in this list is 4 or 5 legendaries. I am currently in the 4 legendaries is the sweetspot mindset. The reason for that is tempo decks seems to be running rampant and there is really more need to be on board and ready to contest, than maybe having a Royal Greatsword hit that makes the deck cough instead of sending a champion.
  • So for that reason the 5th Legendary, which is normally between Ragnaros, Lightlord and Ragnaros the Firelord because I always try to select legendary minions that does something immediately when pulled from the deck - but back to the point, for that reason the 5th legendary is currently a Redemption.
  • For a long time it seemed like I was the only one playing Selfless Sidekick to tutor the Royal Greatsword but I am starting to see it show up in high win lists here and there, and I am happy people are embracing the card. Especially now with the Royal Greatsword mana nerf, its just Royal Greatsword tutoring on a 6/6 body.
  • I prefer not to use the handbuff package, it just dosen't perform well in my experience. Its too slow and you aren't really getting that much bang for you buck
  • I still choose to include Highlord Fordragon even though he one: Does not exactly do something right when he gets pulled, and two: is a handbuff card. The reason for that is that he helps tutor the passive pool 2 passive that enables the deck these days.

Mulligan strategy and gameplan:

In general we are looking for the small divine shieldy bois and girls. We are talking Righteous Protector, Shielded Minibot, Goody Two-Shields and Annoy-o-Tron. These cards are almost always good because they are such a pain to deal with for your opponent. However they don't contest the board very well, except for Goody Two-Shields because of their low attacks. So that needs to be kept in mind. Paladin is not as underpowered as the stats suggest, he is just extremely tech card and mulligan based so if I were you I would pay the most attention to this part of the paladin guide, as this is where the winrate really comes from.

No matter the state of Paladin, I have been way outperforming the stats. And for the record, nonw of those runs involve Grommash's Armguards. I happen to be extremely unlucky with passives.

So paladin can be strong in almost every match up, even the ones that are seen as statisticly difficult. We will start with the hardest one: Mozaki

Against Mozaki you need things that stops the Ice Shards from hitting you. You can't even keep Nerub'ar Weblord which is traditionally the card that you keep against battlecry decks to slow them down. Because you only have one gold, get the Greatsword out. Don't be frozen when you get it out. If you can manage those two conditions you can often pull enough a head that if they dont have a freeze for one turn, you win.

Now I used to get real creative with paladin. My high winrate with it came from the fact that I knew how to mulligan in the early games and how to tech for the later stages of the run. Last patch that meant dealing with Deathrattle Hunter. So I would put Deathwarden in my starting deck and found out it literally just makes hunters concede instantly. But it also just makes Harvest Time! Druids leave you alone when their eggs dont pop and their living mana dont give mana back. And it beat the Questline armor druid designed to deal with priest cause they concede in embarrasment when Twig of the World Tree don't give you 10 mana crystals. But those lists are gone for now, and so is Deathwarden - But they will be back, and so will he.

  

Moving on. You meet the no longer so dreaded pirate decks - you keep that Nerub'ar Weblord, it will slow them down so much some of them just concede to save time. This should also work for Fireheart/Drek'Shaman and Willow since all their minions are well stated battlecry minions. But I haven't gotten around to test paladin much in the current meta of things so I can't say with certainty.

Now for the big one. Vanndar has one of his worst match ups with paladin if they hit the right unit in the mulligan. Stoneskin Basilisk is sort of hard to deal with for Vanndar. Yes there is Goliath, Sneed's Masterpiece and in some cases Abominable Lieutenant if certain conditions are met. But that's it. Anything else he has got gets the two for one treatment by our dishonorable little Argent Squire pretender. And it comes right back with From Golden Light or Redemption. I swear to you. This works. I have a ... Friend ... Who lost to this with big Vanndar. He even sent me a screenshot of it.

Treasures and passives to look out for:

Treasure pool 1

You're a board guy. Everything that applies to other board guys applies here. If you aren't on board, you're losing. You want the minions, you want the board buffs. Draw is also good cause you just wanna find that Royal Greatsword or that Selfless Sidekick. You do not want to put any sort of weapons into this deck at any point since it would pollute your weapon tutoring effects.

Ez T1 tier list:

Great

Good

Treasure pool 2

Mana cheating is good here. If you happen to have Bag of Coins you can either play a strong unit early that can be ressurected with your hero power, or sometimes you can just lay down the law with a turn one or two Royal Greatsword. Bag of Stuffing is generally a good treasure here since a lot comes down to can you play your sword on 5/6 or can you not play your sword on 5/6. Wax Rager performs well in this class. But he kinda does in all classes. I wonder why he is ultra rare ... Hmmm. Anyways. Board treasure are good, mainly ones that ruins your opponents board. We are talking Wand of Disintegration, Staff of Scales and Book of the Dead here. All are great.

Ez T2 tier list: 

Great

Passive pool 1

This is where Paladin has the chance to just guarantee a double digits win run. No passive pool 1, nor 2 passive performs close to as good as Grommash's Armguards in paladin. You will draw your Royal Greatsword at the start of the game, because you have listened to the guide and not put any other weapons in your paladin list, and dodged them in buckets. You will reduce the cost of said Royal Greatsword by 1 and therefor guarantee it gets played. Every. Damn. Game.

Ez P1 tier list:

BROKEN:

I am making a new paragraph for the other passive pool 1 treasure because Armguards are the Vanndar of passives for Paladin. So if we don't get the nutty nuts, what do we want? Well. Boring stuff. We want our old friend Mysterious Tome. It helps us stay alive till we find game swinging turns. We want good old Crystal Gem for the same reason. We want Small Backpacks just to get us closer to drawing Royal Greatsword and minions that keeps us alive till we can play it. after that the immediate minion value passives takes the spotligt. Rocket Backpacks lets us act with initative which can be amazing with divine shield units. Righteous Reserves lets us effectively hold the board and value trade and plays really well with certain pool 2 passives we are looking for.

Ez P1 tier list continued:

Great:

 

Good

Sorta aight

Passive pool 2: 

We are looking for the general tempo stuff, because it works real damn well in paladin. That would be Party Replacement and Legendary Loot. We are looking for ultra rares like Captured Flag and Stargazing and we have been trying to tutor Avenging Armaments with our deck. The more Holy warrior buckets you have picked up, the more you want Avenging Armaments, if you also have Righteous Reserves, Avenging Armaments will take you places. So generally the thing we will be looking for is Avenging Armaments since the algorithm should favor us for that with our deck composition. Other minion centric passives are great also, I both recommend Hagatha's Embrace and Meek Mastery here. If none of those are available, we are going for some mana cheat value with Emerald Goggles or Scepter of Summoning.

Ez P2 tier list:

Best

Great

Good

Buckets

As a rule of thumb divine shield minions good, weapons bad. But with all heuristics they aren't always true, just the case most of the time. So take that with a grain of salt. Mischief Makers can be a really good bucket for Paladin. Especially in a Meek Mastery run.

Tips and tricks:

Be cognizant of keeping your resspool clear for the first minion. It can be quite valuable to make sure its not polluted with for instance a 1/1 Knight of Anointment that you picked up in a blessings bucket. I use external software that separates what died, from what got poofed into something else and keeps track of my general ress pool. It comes in clutch to know what's in there every now and then. Goody Two-Shields has pretty much soloed games for me just by being coined on two and being my resspool minion. You would pay 2 mana for a 4/1 divine shield unit with spellburst get Divine shield back, and you don't expend cards for it. Any. Day. Of. The. Week. She does very little for stopping a zerg though, so grain of salt. Again.

Have a little thought about what's actually in your less than 2 pool before you cast Call to Arms, from one paladin player to hopefully another. Things can go real bad if you use your 4 mana turn on summoning a shielded minibot or nothing.

Something that has saved me more times than I can count is this sequence. I am 10 ish health. I have Lokholar the Ice Lord and Hold the Bridge in my hand and 7 mana to play with. Luckily I coined my greatsword out earlier. So I attack. I get Cariel Roame out of the deck, she attacks and reduce Hold the Bridge to 2 mana, I play Lokholar the Ice Lord I buff him. He attacks twice. I am back to full health. Everyone claps. Now this sequence is in and off itself not that important. What is important here is that holding onto Hold the Bridge and using it with Lokholar the Ice Lord who is discounted or got called out of your deck by a Greatsword attack, can save your life. Now I love tempo a lot more than the next guy. A tempo Hold the bridge is generally a bad idea. Thats it. Maybe this tip is more for me than for you tbh.

Also probably my favorite card in the deck is Far Watch Post, it used to deal with Priest, but it does have a soft taunt on it against tempo decks because it disrupts their curve a lot. Its second to Nerub'ar Weblord in slowing down fast decks. But you know. Taunts with Divine shields are great at that also.

 

My choice of hero power, Starting treasure and Deck list:

 

Turalyon starting deck Duels Handbuff Paladin Deck by OzaiHSDuels - Feb 1, 2022
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 Rattlegore - Current Global Winrate 53.4%

 I am gonna be straight with you here. This is the last hero I am gonna write about and I will not go into to much detail here. But I do have some knowledge for you. We are gonna play Pirates.

Reasoning for card certain cards and treasures:

  • Pirates
  • Yohoho
  • Ahoy
  • Arrr

Mulligan strategy and gameplan:

Step 1:

Drop the pirate which cost is closest to your current mana. Sometimes that means you have to do addition to use multiple pirates in one turn. Fear not. This can be done with practice.

Step 2:

Step 3:

Profit?

Treasures and passives to look out for:

Anything that looks remotely like booty - and also battlecry and board stuff. And value stuff. And tempo stuff.

Ez T1 tier list:

Great: Unit buff stuff

Ez T2 tier list:

It's all about equal.

Ez P1 tier list:

Great

Tempo stuff.

GREAT BUT SURPRISING

(For Recycling: Yes, you're just trying to live till you get The Juggernaut and for Grommash Armguards: But I won't get anything out of my first questline completion HELLO?????? - Correct, but you will have a 2 mana cost 3/3 weapon that makes everything hit harder, accelerates your gameplan, allows you to keep Patron in starting hand and win fast AND ACTIVATES YOUR WEAPON CONDITIONAL PIRATES. Trust me, this passive is actually the hidden NUTS!)

Ez P2 tier list:

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat


(Faster Juggernaut, faster wins.)

Extremely over valued and kinda weak

Tips and tricks:

I actually do have some tips though. if you have equiped Spiked Arms be cognizant that you will look like an absolute fool if you play Staff of Scales next turn and slowly kill off every single one of your snakes. And then every single one of the respawned snakes. And waste all your mana on that turn. And your opponent will rightfully emote you into oblivion. And you might still pull through because of the The Juggernaut. I have done this. TWICE. Except for the pull through part.

Gruntled Patron is in many ways your second treasure. If you have Spiked Arms equipped and play down the patron you will get a full board of 5/2's. That is 35 attack power on board. This is basically how you out rushed Priest when they were top of the pack last patch.

You can use Bruising on minions that cant otherwise attack, even frozen ones. But not Ragnaros the firelord for some reason. That guy just refuses to move. No matter if its gonna cost you a game. On 11-2. He dosen't care.

You would rather drop a weapon conditional pirate without a weapon, than not drop a pirate at all. Bloodsail Cultist Bloodsail Raider Fogsail Freebooter

I am not even joking here. When I see a Rattlegore as the best option I put this video on and I play as fast as aggressive as possible.

Proof:

Now I am not saying Rattlegore, or "Quest warrior" is bad or anything. I am just saying it's extremely easy to pilot and your time is probably better spent making 80th percentile decisions and getting through to the next run. But that's just me, and I just happen to be the guy with the platform right now. That neither makes me right or wrong, it just means my opinion happens to be the highlighted one.

 

Oh right. Here is a deck list and some pictures of hero powers and treasures:

   

Rattlegore Duels deck "Quest Warrior" Yohoho Quest Warrior Deck by OzaiHSDuels - Feb 2, 2022
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Epilogue

 

This is where I conclude my guide. I am aware that the Rattlegore section turned out a bit different than the rest of the guide, but I think (and hope) we can all appreciate that Pirate warrior just needs some meme'ing sometimes. Especially when there is some truth behind the memes.

I have not decided to make guides for the remaining classes since they seem all but dead to me in the current state of the meta until someone reinvents them somehow or the miniset (UBRS anyone? Or we all thinking Onyxias lair now? Definately dragons though amirite?). If you do end up with one of those screens where they are your only options. Try something new and fun. You will lose, and it won't really be all that fun. Or you can go netdeck a list that got 12 wins somewhere. Or even better Sinraptor has a really well written guide with some cool ideas which you can find right here - https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/8217-advanced-duels-guide-with-example-decks-and. You should really go and check that out if you haven't already for some info on the classes I decided didn't make the cut. This plays into my first principle of duels. Play the stuff that wins. I don't really play those heroes. And when I do, I am trying to make whacky stuff work.

If you have made it this far an read all of my ramblings I just want to say thank you. This is my first time writing a guide, or just some gaming related article, or just something in English. So I would appreciate any sort of constructive feedback you might have I can use to make the guide better in the future. As I have mentioned in the guide, I do intend to keep this guide meta competetive and update it as we go.

I would also like to quickly address the critique of Duels I encounter the most often:

  1. The game mode is snowbally and unbalanced - Yes it is. So is Hearthstone inherently, we have just seen a period of Rogue dominatin the Standard meta to a point where it suppressed most other things. Now Rogue is nerfed and a new king of the hill will show up till he is eventually knocked down by innovation from the players side, or action from the dev team. This has historically been the exact same for Duels as a game mode, with the best classes hitting about 61-63% winrate, and rogue last patch in standard having about 60% winrate. With that being said, as you can see in the hero analysis, Vanndar is currently completely out of the power curve. He is averaging 78% winrate and that is just compleltely unnacceptable and I hope they do something about it soon.
  2. I need cards to play it - Yes you do. This is in my opinion a good thing because it makes for a good mix of randomness in buckets/treasures/passives, but with some control from initial deck building that will help you atleast win the first couple of games in every run if you know what you're doing. It also enables something that I think Arena is somewhat missing which is a meta that you can work around. Back before the stagnation of Arena killed Kripp's interest in the mode he would always say "You can't play around stuff anymore, there is too many things and too much random generation". Well in Duels there is a meta, you know the first 15, or close to, cards of the opponents deck after you get the hang of it. You know where in the run your opponent is and what pools he has gotten stuff from. You know what initial treasure he is likely to use, what his win condition is likely to be and so on and so forth. This is in my opinion a good thing.
  3. When they ban cards in Duels, that I have crafted specifically for the mode I dont even get a refund - Now I have unlimited cards, dust and gold so this dosen't affect me personally, but you guys are absolutely right. If they take away some of the playability of a card, then you should be compensated for owning it. Its inherently worth less now. The only one that loses here is ... Bobby Kotick? I don't even know if that is true. I would say his strippers and escorts, but he dosen't seem like the kinda guy that tips anyways.
  4. The mode is abandoned - Only by the players. The Dev team of this is outspoken, do interviews, hang out in twitch chats, address issues. Duels is getting more dev attention than any other game mode currently.
  5. There is some QoL changes that would make it better - Yes brothers and sisters. If we could save deck templates for later runs life would be so much better. If Casual just allowed you to pick between all classes so you can do your unlocks/test your stuff reliably things would be so much better! If you have any QoL changes you would like to see, please tell me about them in the comments so I can add them also. But that dosen't make the mode bad. It just shows that there is room for improvement. I love the mode. I hope I can help you see it's bright side also <3

This is my attempt at exactly that! I hope you see it and I hope you can use it. And if not then sorry Doogiesham, I have failed you, but I will keep trying! Godspeed Doogiesham wherever you are.

Aight I am out.

Terminology and notes:
Tutor: Its a MTG reference and refers to the card Demonic Tutor which let you find a specific card you wanted - I also use it to mean search the passive library for a passive or otherwise abuse algorithms to give the output I want.

 

The winrates I use and statistics I have gathered are from the external software "Firestone" which runs on the Overwolf platform. The criterion I have used for my data collection is all ranks for several reasons. One: There is very little data if you sort by for instance above 7k heroic mmr, and I would rather have statisticly significant data of a broader population, than statistics with low power of the more elite population. Two: I assume most people who start out with this guide is below the first cut off in Heroic mmr when they pick the guide up. The second assumption might be faulty since its based purely on the bellcurve of heroic mmr in duels and the psychological litterature suggest that people who seek out information on how to improve will generally be on the higher side of the bell curve, but its the assumption I have chosen none the less.

When my statements are not statisticly founded or evidence based, but more anecdotes from experience I make a point of saying so in the text.

Reach: Things that will bring the opponents health closer to or below zero, directly from your hand. Term used interchangeably with "burst".

Ez T1, T2, P1, P2 is short for Treasure 1, Treasure 2, Passive 1, Passive 2. Ez is short for easy. Its easier to use than my actual analysis is to read.

 

 Last updated February 4th 2022.

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