this is very sad for me, Duels have aided in my insomnia no long drawn out battles waiting for someone to play, quick changes in strategy kept my mind occupied, such a shame they don’t see the same value in Duels as I do, but at least I won’t be buying the next upgrades I will now just stick to battlegrounds. SO sad they ruined Mercenaries by making only fire can win, and ruined twist when they branched out to wild cards and not just class cards, which I thought that was where they were headed. What a great learning tool but nope and now duels is gone. I sadly see the end of my Blizzard era in sight.
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Why they are removing duels instead of mercenaries is going to be one of the biggest mysteries of our time.
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I’ve been playing Duels since release and while I do dabble in Standard, Arena and BGs as well, it is the mode I play most often. I have many, many fond memories in this game mode, as well as a wealth of knowledge and experience in regards to certain treasure and card combinations. My collection is singleton tailored to allow me to play many different decks and even to this day, none of my runs use a copy-pasted deck list; I experiment every time and delight when I stumble into something that works well.
So many replies above me have articulated my confusion very, very well. I think the biggest among them is, why? You couldn’t just leave it alone like mercenaries? Was it really that taxing to your man-hours and resources to deliver a patch four times a year?
Now I feel like I’m in a panic. There are so many deck ideas and stuff I want to try and hit the right treasures with and stuff, and when this mode leaves, it will close the door on an experience in game that is quite literally unique. These games cannot be replicated on wild or even in friendlies.
I have been dutifully playing this game across a few alt accounts since Witchwood, and never have I felt the urge to quit and find a game where the developers have some empathy for their playerbase more strongly than I do now. I think what’s worst of all is this mode will not be replaced by something even close to what might fill its shoes. Of all the days I have played this game, this has been the worst for me so far. I am totally incredulous and heartbroken by this announcement.
For anyone here I have fought on the mode before or in the near future, it’s been an honor, a privilege and an actual good time playing with you all. I’m going to keep queuing up until I can’t anymore.
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Duels Mode was the mode I played very little! I think I played more Mercenaries with a friend until I realized that Mercenary was too boring!! Mercenaries was supposed to be a Gacha game and Blizzard didn’t even know how to do that!! It would have been just like competing games and it would have been wonderful, but no, Blizzard had to try to revolutionize the world of games like: Gacha, through Mercenaries… and it was that rubbish!!
Delete both modes, I don’t care!!
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while there were definitely some decisions i wasnt the biggest fan of lately, this is by far the worst. battlegrounds and duels are the best thing hearthstone has going for it
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well, no reason left to play hearthstone. This is the only mode that kept me around, and only reason i bought expansions. RIP
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Wow, what a kick in the gut. I went from wild to duels about a year or two ago. I haven’t played in a few months but it was the only mode I even played anymore in the only Blizzard game I even play anymore. What a disappointment.
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Last couple years only bought expansion to have the cards for Duels not the other deadbeat modes thats the same thing over and over and all u do is craft the top deck and play enough and bam your legend, boring! Duels always had crazy outcomes which made it fun.
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While Duels was great, I won’t be too sad to see it go. Especially if it diverts resources to making the rest of the game better!
Man, this is super disappointing. Duels was always an enjoyable mode to play. It was my most played mode from when they first released it (until Ates left the team) and I still play it regularly (About as much as I play standard, even though it’s in maintenance mode atm). That was the best thing to happen to HS for me since they stopped making new Tavern Brawls. It’s obvious that the HS team doesn’t care about any mode other than standard anymore (I still play the old solo adventures pretty often, even if a lot of bosses’ AI is broken now). They don’t even put effort into the modes as is, Players like Regis, Zeddy and more recently Roffle were trying to put life into Duels, players like Rarran (And even Voxy for a bit) were trying to put interest into the best old game modes that are still in the game (Solo adventures). Even the game that the HS team seemingly WANTED to fail due to poor advertising and poor communication Mercs was helped out a lot by people like Zeddy, Regis and Old Guardian, meanwhile the HS team is just slowing support for game modes, then killing them off. First Arena (Thankfully that got a bit of a boost with the new legend at the start thing), then Tavern Brawls, then Mercs, then Classic and now Duels (Though Twist will soon join the dead games with the way they are treating it). I think as soon as Duels leaves, I will as well (I don’t think I’m alone in this thought either). HS was fun while it lasted, but it’s obvious that they only want the game to be played in one way, and that isn’t the way I enjoy playing the game.
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Disappointing. There are still some players playing duels.
You can’t divert no resources into another game mode. They didn’t do anything for duels, it’s just PR talk.
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I’d have to assume the team is shrinking and they need to focus them elsewhere in more profitable avenues. Do you really think it’s a coincidence Microsoft takes over and we get announcements that different formats and modes are being removed?
No. Microsoft doesn’t make money by keeping devs on projects that don’t directly make them money.
I think if this makes Hearthstone a better game overall, it’s good, but I get a sinking feeling that Hearthstone is going to get stripped to the barebones and then ultimately shut down.
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I hope that their is enough outcry to make them change this decision.
I am sorry for your loss you seem genuinly saddend my friend i am sorry 
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This is very bad news for me and (in my opinion) it’s a wrong decision by Blizz. Duel is the game mode that brought me back to HS (I had quit HS twice before), and I have never felt addicted to this game and spent money on it before playing Duel.
Duel gives me the motivation to play the game that I didn’t find in other modes:
Duel has clear tactics, not just focusing on value trade like Arena.
Playing Duel gives me a sense of progress in my collection, unlike ranked (which I feel has no purpose after hitting legend - 2-3 hours of grind)
Therefore, Blizz, please reconsider this decision. This is the last thing that keeps me attached to this game.
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Duels was the only thing keeping me still playing. It was also the only mode that wasn’t infested with bots. Maybe if you fixed the botting problem in wild I’d still play, but no reason. Plenty of better single player games. Great job removing the only fun mode. Hopefully along with it you also remove all the customers who actually spent money on your game. I’ve spent hundreds over the years, sure many others feel the same.
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Dang that’s really sad… Duels is my main reason for playing Hearthstone.
I guess at least this way I won’t have to buy anything anymore as you don’t need expansions to play Battlegrounds.
I understand not continuing development, but I don’t understand why it has to be removed? Why not allow it to be played as is like with Mercenaries?
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excellent, blizzard’s self-destructive policy marks the end of hearthstone’s only fun game mode, very similar to a rogue like with cards, I’m sure that soon we will read a post like “we announce the end of the hearthstone project, thank you all for having spent real money on a game that will leave you with cosmic nothingness since there is no physical counterpart to the cards, see you soon”
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Why don’t you just kill hearthstone all together?
you are doing it anyway
I got full cards even the wild ones just to enjoy duel and now you are deleteing it
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First they came for Mercenaries
And I did not speak out
Because I did not play Mercenaries
Then they came for Classic
And I did not speak out
Because I did not play Classic
Then they came for Twist
And I did not speak out
Because I did not play Twist
Then they came for Duels
And I did not speak out
Because I did not play Duels
Then they came for the mode I play
And there was no one left
To speak out for the mode I play
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