Duels bucket manipulation?

Community Discussion
1

i haven’t done duels in a while but it lined up for me to get into them for a bit … partly due to dailies and partly due to achievement hunting

for ref: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/class-balance-achievement-hunting-and-you/113097

overall, i feel like the duels experience is fairly underwhelming despite the imbalance of when it first came out … that said, the point of this post is trying to figure out if there is a way to get better chances at certain buckets and if so to find out if anyone knows if there are any resources out there about it

basically, still trying to find il’gynoth from discovers b/c i don’t have a lot left on the achievement … but there are other legendary based achievements that may wind up being easier to complete in duels if bucket manipulation is a thing … i remember being able to sort of do this back at the start of duels to get cthun for my priest runs, but currently, it feels like the buckets are all just kinda trash

for il’gynoth specifically, i’ve gotten it through paprazzi twice in duels in the few days i’ve played the mode, and none through buckets, even though the buckets lists here say that it should exist somewhere:

https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Student_Stelina_(Duels_hero)

so idk if those are up to date, if i’ve been extremely unlucky, if my deck “seed” is not manipulating the buckets properly, or what … but it is pretty annoying to fill your deck with lifesteal cards and then not once be offered what is clearly a desired card … as i’ve been playing and seeing what i’m getting offered for this deck

Duels Deck
Class: Demon Hunter
Format: Wild
1x (1) Unleash Fel
1x (2) Youthful Brewmaster
1x (3) Aldrachi Warblades
1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard
1x (3) Chaos Leech
1x (3) Eye Beam
1x (3) Paparazzi
1x (4) Ashtongue Battlelord
1x (5) Summoning Ritual
1x (6) Kurtrus, Demon-Render
1x (7) Argus, the Emerald Star
1x (7) Mythical Terror
1x (7) Priestess of Fury
1x (7) Xhilag of the Abyss
1x (8) Illidari Inquisitor
1x (10) Sire Denathrius
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which i’ve tweaked from the original game plan of “manipulate buckets for lifesteal effects” to more of what i had been doing in wild where i was playing a control oriented game to try to get as many discover effects as i could while holding some lifesteal damage in reserve, and thus see if getting deeper into the run gave me more of an idea for what buckets might hold … however, from the “patterns” i’m seeing, this deck, which can get me 4~6 wins decently, isn’t finding il’gynoth (and an earlier version of the deck only found instrument smasher twice, and since then it has disappeared … that’s another achievement i still need, which i think can only otherwise be discovered through the 3-drop beast that discovers a 4-drop)

so yeah, if there’s any good resources about the bucket manipulation for duels it would be great to know about

edit1: ofc, as soon as i post this i get an il’gynoth in a bucket … but i used an entirely different deck to try to force it out based on the cards on the fandom page … basically, i took my best shot at putting together a “winning” deck (as in, get get a few wins to see what buckets pop up, not can go to 12 wins) out of the cards under the “whirling weapons” heading, and after going 3-1 i found my 3rd madness at the darkmoon faire bucket which had il’gynoth … although i don’t have many lifesteal cards in the deck to enable the combo … hoping to get this done in the next game or two >.< … still idk why it seems to have been so stingy with the other deck(s) … i’ll probably test this deck out a few more times to see if i can get another il’gynoth even if i finish the achievement this run … still interested to see if there’s a resource about this kind of thing 0.o o.0

edit2: for reference this is the deck code that got the il’gynoth (and thankfully i did get the achievement that run) … only 1 lifesteal card within the deck =/

Duels Deck
Class: Demon Hunter
Format: Wild
1x (0) Sigil of Silence
1x (1) Fury (Rank 1)
1x (1) Shadowhoof Slayer
1x (1) Twin Slice
1x (2) Chaos Strike
1x (2) Umberwing
1x (3) Aldrachi Warblades
1x (3) Dreadlord’s Bite
1x (3) Felsteel Executioner
1x (3) Hench-Clan Thug
1x (3) Satyr Overseer
1x (4) Blade of Quickening
1x (4) Marrowslicer
1x (5) Glaivebound Adept
1x (8) Illidari Inquisitor
1x (8) Inner Demon
AAEBAfDvAxCLugPmuwPgvAP5yAP+yAPRzQPb0wPN3QPX3gPr7wPC8QOAhQS4jgSDnwS2nwS/+AUAAAA=

2

I don’t know if you missed it, but buckets were changed to only give cards from expansions.

They don’t adapt to your deck anymore beyond giving you cards from expansions included in your deck.

3

so if i only use darkmoon faire cards in my starting deck, will i only get darkmoon faire buckets?

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4

I can’t confirm or deny that, but that’s my understanding, that it was going to offer you buckets grouped by expansion set.

Edit: Try it out in unranked and see would be my suggestion.

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5

so, quick test and made an all madness deck with demon hunter … after the 1st game got 1 madness, 1 k&c, 1 witchwood … so, i’m going to keep taking madness to see if it will just always offer at least 1 madness

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6

THanks for coming back to update the results! I really wasn’t sure.

7

fyi, 2nd game, same buckets (different cards) … still picking darkmoon, onto game 3

edit1: made it to game 4 fortunately (deck is underpowered for duels imo), 2 madness buckets and 1 fractured … il’gynoth in none of the madness buckets thus far =/

edit2: strangely enough, i went onto a druid and an elise run (mostly druid / neutral yshaarj build in the opening deck) … druid seemed to tilt toward madness + sunken, and elise seemed to veer hard into madness plus a little of badlands (!) … so idk what that means on such a small sample size, but it is interesting …

edit3: i’ve done quite a few runs now, and it seems quite clear that if you stick with a deck that focuses on one or two expansions you will primarily get those expansions to choose from … it also seems like depending on the class, certain non-starter-deck expansions are more likely to be suggested … i’m not sure if there is any way to coax the cards in any particular direction, but it seems like in terms of manipulating the buckets, this does seem to work fairly consistently … now as to building a “viable” deck within these constraints … =X

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