How to play (and win) Decor Duel, World of Warcraft’s new Prop Hunt mode

Decor Duel is a quirky PVP mode added to World of Warcraft Midnight in patch 12.0.5, and it’s basically just hide and seek, but magic. If you’ve played any of a number of Prop Hunt modes in a wide variety of games (including an official Prop Hunt mode that shows up periodically in Overwatch), it’s basically that, but they really want to push the whole Player Housing angle.

If this is your first time seeing this game type, we have a few tips. If you’re an old hand at this, the WoW version has several twists on the classic archetype that you’ll want to know.

The How (and Why) of doing Decor Duels

For your first match, I’d suggest you just queue up and have fun. Don’t overthink it. Just familiarize yourself with the abilities at your disposal and their hotkeys, especially for the Seekers. Also, yes, everyone is wearing some weirdo alternate transmog. It’s likely because they don’t want you tipping people off with a weirdly misplaced enchant glow or a particularly angular shoulderpad or something. It is just the price you have to pay for fun.

As you play that first match, you’ll begin your grind to accumulate Illusionary Coins. With those coins, you can improve your abilities, for both hiding…

• Disguise – Change your appearance to a different prop – baseline
• Swap – Swap locations with a nearby decor – baseline
• Trap – There are several of these, you have to pick them up before you can use them from the inside of the central building – baseline
• Eccentro Magic Pulse Enhancement – stuns nearby Seekers – 20 Illusionary Coins
• Make Decoy Enhancement – lets you make a decoy – 20 Illusionary Coins

…and each role of seeker. The seekers also all have the ability “tag” on the 1 key, which lets you actually knock out your opponents after Finding them with your other abilities.

Spellbreaker

• Dispelling Focus – baseline
• Dispelling Leap – 20 Illusionary Coins
• Swift – 20 Illusionary Coins

Arcane Ranger

• Anti-Magic Arrow – baseline
• Clockwork Sentinel – 20 Illusionary Coins
• Stealth – 20 Illusionary Coins

Nullifier

• Nullify Magic – baseline
• Nullification Field – 20 Illusionary Coins
• Riftwalk – 20 Illusionary Coins

I’m not sure that any of the Seeker classes are more or less effective than the others. It varies based on you and your playstyle.

It may be both good and bad news, but in my experience there is very little variance in terms of coin rewards. If I find a ton of people and hide til the end, five extra coins for excellence. If I get tagged out almost immediately and find one person, five extra coins. You get six extra coins for a win, which is based on the best of two: how many opponents your team found, and how quickly, and vice versa. If everyone is found on both teams, the team with the combined highest total time hidden wins. Definitely make sure you pick up the quest from Propaganist Naicira for 50 extra Illusory Coins for two matches played when you can.

Unfortunately, those Coins are also used for all the cosmetic rewards, too. And as per usual with Player Housing Decor, you’re probably going to want multiples of those.

The best hiding spots for Decor Duel

Here’s the thing. If I tell you my best hiding spots, the second this is published those great hiding spots will instantly be bad hiding spots because everyone will know to check there. It’s not gatekeeping — really, it’s protecting you from yourself. But I do have a few tips.

An important rule of thumb for pretty much all Prop Hunt modes across gaming is to think about where people look while they play, and place yourself outside of that typical line of sight. My experience in WoW is that everyone is looking at their feet at all times. Go back and watch those Race to World First VODs — even at the highest levels of play people are just constantly looking down. In WoW players rarely look up, and if they do, the camera automatically adjusts so that it’s level if you move your character around. So, see if there’s a weird high perch you can sidle your way toward, out of that typical line of sight. This also gives you a bit of flexibility in terms of escape routes. Conversely, if there’s one person left you just cannot find, look up. I enjoy playing Spellbreaker with Dispelling Leap for getting up high in a hurry.

Also, people will rarely double back to the places they’ve searched already. While I don’t advise you to just keep running around willy nilly, going to a quiet nook several seekers already searched halfway through the game may be a good idea — and if you’re a Seeker, maybe look through that tent a second time. There are a lot of random items scattered around the map, and they change every match, so just because you suddenly see a chest on a table where last match there was a lantern, or nothing, doesn’t mean somebody is there.

When there are 30 seconds to go, all remaining Hiders are Found for the rest of the match, radioactive pointing Hunters Mark and all. At that point, if someone’s coming for you, deploy your traps (if you have them) and cross your fingers. Come what may, you’ve already earned those five coins for excellence (because almost everybody gets those anyway).