Are You a Master Duelist? October's Challenge is Here! Episode 3: Deathly Hallows

Greetings, and welcome to the third episode of an Out Of Cards exclusive community challenge. This series focuses on creative deck building in Hearthstone Duels and we aim to give the game mode love it deserves.

Roughly every three weeks, we will create a new Duels challenge, consisting in building a starting deck with a certain restriction - be it mana cost, keywords, including certain build-arounds and so on. Every player will be invited to join and build a deck with said restriction: we'll even provide some samples ourselves, so that you won't be forced to go to the blank drawing board.

Those who'll be able to provide worthy results will be awarded with a reward!

Deathly Hallows

This month's challenge is a pretty flavorful one: we're in Spooktober, so what's better than a Halloween-themed challenge?

• You have to build a starting deck containing at least 7 Deathrattle cards.

To be more clear, this deck building restriction doesn't limit your deck building options to just collectible minions: Weapons and Signature Treasures count as well!

Challenge's Information and Rewards

This challenge will begin today, October 10th, and will end on October 31st. During this window of time, you'll have to start a Duels run with a starting deck including at least 7 Deathrattle cards.

Everyone who posts proof of a 7+ wins run in the dedicated submission forum thread will be awarded with a different amount of Gold, an on-site currency you'll be able to earn from different activities and that will be used to purchase cosmetics in our on-site shop. Remember that, in order for your run to count towards the challenge, you'll have to provide an appropriate proof of your feat; otherwise, your result won't count.

Here's a quick breakdown explaining the rewards you'll receive based on your performance:

These are the criteria we'll use to determine the winner in case of identical scores:

• A Heroic run will be considered more difficult than a Casual one, therefore Heroic players will have the priority.
  • If you get the best score overall with a 10-wins run in Casual and somebody else gets a 10-wins run in Heroic, the latter will be the winner of the challenge.
• In case of more people getting the same score in the same mode, the winner will be decided by the submission time.
  • The quickest person to a Heroic run with a 12-0 will be the ultimate victor.
  • If more players will get to 12 wins, losses will count as well: a 12-0 will be considered better than a 12-2 or a 12-1.

The winner will be contacted through Direct Messages after the submission time has ended.

If you want to submit your score, follow the instructions in the forum thread.

If you are curious about how the challenge is going, you'll be pleased to know that we've got a dedicated leaderboard for you to check out: be sure to put your name up there!

Possible Strategies - Passive Treasures

Since Deathly Hallows is centered around a specific keyword - Deathrattle - talking about possible strategies regarding Treasures is much easier. In particular, there are a handful or Deathrattle Passives that you may want to take a look at.

Totem of the Dead - The exact (and way less popular) counterpart of Battle Totem: classes that are able to consistently trigger Deathrattles of their minions (we can think of Hunter's Death Games or Warrior's Bruising) can get quite a lot of value out of this one. Definitely a good pick

Mummy Magic - Another really good Passive to be offered, especially if your Deathrattles spawn units or deal damage: more immediate impact on the board will definitely help you down the road!

Deathly Death! - Since the destroyed minion isn't necessarily an opposing one, chances are that you may end up blowing your own board. Sure, it has 'Deathrattle' written on it, but let's pass on this one. It's so bad...

Not Deathrattle-specific Passives, but boy do they make wonders together. In case you've never come across this interaction, Rocket Backpacks' Rush effect counts towards Special Delivery's trigger, so if you play a Deathrattle minion each turn, you'll end up with copies of it, both with Rush!

Possible Strategies - Active Treasures

Apart from generally solid Active Treasures like Loyal Henchman, Looming Presence and Necrotic Poison, there are a few ones that can generate some quite amusing shenanigans with Deathrattle cards.

Gentleman's Top Hat - Even if you have just one Deathrattle minion on your side of the field, if it spawns a minion, you won't lose the hat! Especially good with triggers like Deathstrider for multiple hats (Battlegrounds players know what we're talking about).

Jaws - It may look underwhelming at first sight, but we're talking about a weapon with 5 charges that casts Deadly Poison every time a Deathrattle minion (not just yours: your opponent's ones count too) dies. Solid damage output.

Princess - It may be bad if you are not a Deathrattle-centered deck, but this is not the case. Getting the effect of three of the cards you willingly put in your deck is going to be usually good.

Ancient Reflections - The memes are endless! Endless armor with Mo'arg Forgefiend? Sure! Endless damage with Darkmoon Tonk? Count us in!

Wax Rager - There's a reason this one is placed in an Ultra Rare Active Treasure category. Just make sure your opponent won't steal/replicate it. 

Suggested Starting Decks

As much as we encourage our participants to put their deck building skills to use, we do not want to cut out those who may want to give this challenge a try, but do not want to build a 15 deck from scratch. Therefore, here are some starting decks you may want to take inspiration from and use them to slice through the competition!

Deathrattle Demon Hunter

Forged in the Barrens introduced Deathrattle as a new archetype for Demon Hunter, so this challenge is really fitting for this deck. Even though Duels' synergy level is usually higher than Standard's, Death Speaker Blackthorn is still a very good card. Moreover, the card pool gives you access to tools like Plated Beetle (really good and cheap defensive unit) and Sludge Belcher (two Taunts in one), all of which can be brought back by N'Zoth, the Corruptor.

Since you'll have a lot of units to trade with, especially thanks to Illidari Strike, we think that Recycling might be a really solid tier 1 Passive Treasure to keep you alive while you execute your own gameplan. For pretty much the same reason, Gift of the Legion represents a good Signature Treasure, even though someone could opt for the rather unusual Binding Chains.

Quest Deathrattle Priest

Awaken the Makers is another really flavorful choice for Deathly Hallows. This Quest, released all the way back in the Journey to Un'Goro days, synergizes really well with the Deathrattle restriction, and gives you a good way to escape the intense aggression that infests the game mode. In fact, Amara, Warden of Hope does not have a healing effect like Reno Jackson: it sets your health total to 40. Sure, the condition to meet is not the easiest in the world, but the reward is definitely worth it.

Moreover, both played and summoned Deathrattle minions count towards Awaken the Makers' Quest completion, so Mummy Magic will is one of the most useful Passive Treasures you can possibly get.

There aren't any insanely good Signature Treasures for this specific deck, so the good old Shadow Word: Void will be a more than acceptable pick for any occasion.

Deathrattle Warrior

Even though Rattlegore does not have any particular Deathrattle-related Hero Powers or Signature Treasures, we think that Bruising represents a nice way to pop some of your Deathrattles, as well as the occasional Frenzy from Kresh, Lord of Turtling and such. Therefore, we put together a Duels N'Zoth Warrior, an archetype that had much success in Standard back in the day.

We picked Auto-Armaments as Signature Treasure for its card draw potential, as well as for its synergy with Bruising (which usually allows you to get at least 2 draws out of it, but Su Leadfoot is another tool you should respect.

Now that you know everything you need, grab your deck: it's time to D-D-D-D-Duels! Good luck to everyone!