Alterac Duels Meta Update #4 - Best 12-Win Hearthstone Duels Decks for February Week 3

Greetings, and welcome to the first Onyxia's Lair Out of Cards Duels Meta Report.

Writing up a new meta report has been quite challenging over the last few weeks: First, the introduction of Vanndar Stormpike and Drek'Thar, then, multiple balance changes kept invalidating large portions of our gathered content, forcing us to continuously postpone our meta report. However, the release of the Onyxia's Lair Mini-Set seems like the best moment for us to have a look at the meta we just left behind and to provide lists that are still going to be very competitive in the upcoming competitive environment.

With this being said, 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!

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 @Avalon_OOC or through an in-site ping in Private Message.

Persia's 12 Wins Dragon Drek'Thar

Let's start with what was defined "a glass cannon" by the creator themselves. The starting deck you see below aims to combine War Commands and Dragon Affinity's mana cheat to drop threat after threat for a low mana investment.

However, not being able to pick Dragon Affinity seems to hurt the deck quite a lot, as it doesn't have any other backup plans to rely on. However, if you manage to hit the good Passive then you'll definitely have some fun, especially if you wanna try out the new Kazakusan and Raid Boss Onyxia.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Dragon Affinity

Second pool - Meek Mastery

Ultratorom's 12 Wins Elemental Drek'Thar (Shaman)

As you'll see multiple times in this meta report, nerfing a large portion of the broken tier 2 Passive Treasures made the remaining ones more impactful: in particular we're talking about Flame Waves and Rally the Troops. While we'll see about the former in a bit, for now let's focus our attention on the latter.

Battlecry synergy has always been what made Elemental Shaman rise and fall in the meta, and now that most of its counters are gone (with Fire Mage looking scary but not too much), the archetype has a solid chance to get on top of the food chain.

Fire Plume Harbinger and especially Granite Forgeborn are what makes the deck going, especially since you can discount and then draw your Elementals with War Commands.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Pillage the Fallen

Second pool - Rally the Troops

Although with a slightly different list, chrome575 was able to achieve the same result.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Crystal Gem

Second pool - Rally the Troops

OldWhig's 12 Wins Fire Drek'Thar (Mage)

Fire Mage had a few flaws, one of which was missing a decent card draw engine. As you might have already understood, Harness the Elements is incredibly good at doing it, and therefore allows you to cycle through your deck with ease.

With these premises, Flame Waves becomes incredibly powerful, and being able to pick it while plating Fire Drek'Thar is going to give you many wins within the very first few turns of the match. On the other hand, missing it will hurt you badly, as Flames of the Kirin Tor is not terrible, but at the same time cannot quite compensate the power level gap with the aforementioned Passive.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Not specified, but Crystal Gem, Firekeeper's Idol and Mysterious Tome are all fine

Second pool - Flame Waves

AgentCroque's 12 Wins Overload Drek'Thar (Shaman)

Fire, but Nature too. Harness the Elements has proven to be exceptional in Questline Command the Elements as well, giving you those resources you need to get your hands on Stormcaller Bru'kan and then to abuse its powerful Battlecry.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Natural Force

Second pool - Spreading Saplings

Slightly different list, but Witchi agrees, and the results speak for themselves.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Natural Force

Second pool - Spreading Saplings

OldWhig's 12 Wins Frost Hero Power Mage

Battle Totem is gone, but Frost Hero Power Mage seems to not have disappeared from the meta radars. While Infinite Arcane to 7 mana is not going to be irrelevant, Freeze Solid represents another source of damage you can use to set up surprise lethals.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Freeze Solid

Second pool - Glacial Downpour

Kwareon's 12 Wins Big Vanndar

You thought the nerf to Battle Tactics killed Big Vanndar? Hah, not quite. As you'll see in a bit, the archetype can still pack quite a punch, although it is bound to meet more difficult conditions than before. Now that Disks of Legend is gone, you'll necessarily need another reason to play an entire deck full of big Neutral minions, and Scepter of Summoning can do the trick: while it's not going to summon an additional body, it will allow your threats to come down earlier than normal, and therefore maintain that share of "unfairness" than any Duels deck must be able to generate.

However, not being able to pick Scepter of Summoning will hurt you a lot, as the archetype cannot afford big misses right now - the balance changes did their job.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Cannibalism

Second pool - Scepter of Summoning

Just to show that the archetype is still good, jigsawxfalling hit 12 wins as well, again with Scepter of Summoning as tier 2 Passive.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Rocket Backpacks

Second pool - Scepter of Summoning

Persia's 12 Wins Deathrattle Vanndar (Priest)

Team 5 nerfs Big Battle Tactics Vanndar? No worries, as Persia will find another way to break the meta. For this occasion, the main dish is Deathrattle synergy, and namely Awaken the Makers and Xyrella, the Devout.

Promote! gives your cheap units (especially all the eggs this list runs) firepower that can be combined with Rocket Backpacks for more proactivity and Mummy Magic to generate more layers of threats and progress your Quest faster; moreover, MM will always leave a token behind for you to buff again with your Hero Power.

Devout Blessings, a Signature Treasure we haven't seen a lot, grants big card generation that is going to end up being crucial in long matchups: consider it as a Bag of Stuffing for when you're low on gas!

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Rocket Backpacks

Second pool - Mummy Magic

AgentCroque's 12 Wins Soul Warlock

Same reasoning as Elemental Drek'Thar: after nerfing most of its contenders, Rally the Troops is back on top of the meta as one of the most impactful Passive Treasures available. Therefore, even an old but very Battlecry-focused archetype like Soul Warlock can be very strong. AgentCroque took the chance to give us a couple insights about this starting list.

Quote From AgentCroque

Robes of Shrinking was surprisingly good! In the 10-2 game I drew Sow the Seeds turn 1, giving me 0 mana "give your deck +1/+1" and I just walked all over my opponent.

Deck is fairly simple to play: mulligan for Soul Fragment cards, ESPECIALLY Spirit Jailer - that guy is completely broken in this deck. Try to play on curve as hard as possible and pick up Rally the Troops as your Pool 2.
Only lost to a turn 1 Nerub'ar Weblord and Totem of the Dead Deathrattle Hunter with 2x Princess.

In buckets pick Soul Fragment cards (duh), Spirit Jailer being the most powerful one. Then take board centric buckets if possible. Felosophy is also a nice pickup!
Zola the Gorgon in your deck is not really meant to copy any specific card, nut loves copying Spirit Jailer and Demonizer the most.

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Robes of Shrinking

Second pool - Rally the Troops

Witchi's 12 Wins Rush Warrior

We end this meta report with quite the unconventional list for both the cards played and the Hero Power chosen. Witchi decided to revisit Standard's Rush Warrior in Duels, building their deck around strong Rush synergies and the E.T.C., God of Metal/Grommash Hellscream finishers.

Quote From Witchi

With the doubling passives gone it's time for the next best thing, Special Delivery! Rush Warrior the forgotten archetype (now without Bruising). Triple Patches the Pirate on turn 1 followed by double Rokara on 2 is pretty good.

Moreover, they also wrote a nice guide in the deck's dedicated page: we encourage you to check it out!

Passive Treasures Chosen

First pool - Crystal Gem

Second pool - Special Delivery

Do you like Duels? What are you playing right now? Let us know in the comments below!