Hearthpwn

Midrange Hunter:

I hope you all enjoy and I would be more than happy to answer basically any questions you may have, from “What’s your favorite color?” to “What would you take out if I don’t have ___ or ___?”

Guide:

Let’s start off with the basics. This deck revolves around beast synergy as well as a few spells that can get recast with Zul’Jin for extra value. Cards like Zul’Jin and Dire Frenzy give the deck a pretty decent late game that can compete with some of the most control decks including Control Warrior and Control Shaman (although that one is not nearly as popular). Additionally, the early game on this deck is extremely strong with the potential from Scavenging Hyena and Animal Companion along with all the other smaller beasts that you can use to flood the board. Lastly, Master’s Call and the fact that there are a handful of cards that are 4+ mana means that the deck really doesn’t run out of steam that easily either.

Gameplay:

 

Mulligans:

Cards that you should ALWAYS keep into pretty much every matchup are Master’s Call, Animal Companion, Shimmerfly/Springpaw (Matchup kinda matters in terms of which 1 drop you want to keep), and generally the Headhunter’s Hatchet. All of these choices are slid keeps into any matchup even if not talked about in the specific matchup below.

 

Matchups (Mulligans and Strategies)

 

Druid: Assume that Druid is Token. This matchup is slightly lower than 50% on average, but with proper knowledge on mulligans and strategy, you could probably get it to 50%. Into Druid, you generally want to keep Unleash the Hounds, the Headhunter's Hatchet, and whatever rush minions you can get to help control the early board. On top of these choices are the ones in the general mulligans above. As for gameplay, you want to try to control the board and combo off with a Scavenging Hyena if you can due to Druids lack of removal, but due to the fact that your main goal is surviving till you can get some strong late game value from Unleash the Beast, Dire Frenzy, or Zul’jin. So long story short, try to survive and snowball into the late game or a Scavenging Hyena, although none of these cards are priority keeps.

 

Hunter: Assume that this matchup is goblin Bomb, but it could be a mirror. Into this matchup keeps should be similar to Token Druid and again you want to trade into everything because you don’t want the mechs to get magnetic effects if you can prevent it. Into beast hunter, you do not want to get too wide of a board as to not get punished by Unleash the Hounds, but you do always want to have some threats on the board, so around 3ish minions are optimal. Yeah, basically into Mech you just don’t want to get magnetic effects to snowball if you can avoid it and if you can establish control and rush them down they have no heal so it's fine.

 

Mage: Assume that this matchup is Cyclone Mage. This matchup is different than the other 2, you don’t want to keep the rush minions all that much because there won’t be that many minions that you need to kill. What you want to keep into this matchup, other than the general stuff, is a Scavenging Hyena to bait out early removal so the Mana Cyclone play is weaker OR so you can snowball early before they can get Mountain Giant combos off. You HAVE to rush them down and kill the Mountain Giant or they take over the board with like 4 to 6 giants and taunts that you can’t get over after that. Other than that, the general keep is a solid choice and you will find that in most cases when you are in doubt, the standard keep is the way to go. You CAN also keep Dire Wolf Alpha to up the tempo of the game which you have to do in general into this deck and is an ok alternative 2-drop if you don’t get the Scavenging Hyena.

 

Paladin: Assume this matchup is Mech Paladin. This is probably one of your if not your very worst matchup. It really doesn’t matter what you do you just want to rush them down and keep the same as Mage. However, the reason this matchup is so difficult is that the mechs in this class are a lot more defensive than the ones in Hunter so there will be Divine Shields, high health taunts due to the Bronze Gatekeeper, lifesteal, and an accelerated tempo if they get a good Galvanizer off.

 

Priest: This class is still around? XD

 

Rogue: This matchup you need to assume that it is miracle or maybe pogo. Either way, the rush down is the way to go similar to the Mage with the main difference being that the 2-drops you would normally play are threatened by Backstab. This means that in order to play around that, you might not want to keep the Dire Wolf Alpha and if you want to keep the Scavenging Hyena you need to have a minion on board or a way of pumping its health early so they at least need to ALSO hit it with the weapon. Overall, because of the free early removal on some pivotal beasts AND the fact that it can proc combos, Rogue is a rough matchup that also has removal like Fan of Knives and Sap to deal with wide boards or pumped up minions respectively. Rushing them down is your best option and if you are against Pogo Rogue this will be a lot easier to do cause it takes a while for them to start to snowball. If you can into miracle/tempo, don’t really trade ever and force them to make the trade because if you trade you miss out on damage (value trading into like an EVIL Miscreant is ok so they don’t get to Shadowstep it or transform it, but for the most part face is the place).

 

Shaman: Oh Shaman, this one is a tricky one but generally assume the Overload Aggro or maybe murloc. Into murloc you want to trade as if it were token druid or mech hunter so they can’t get valuable murloc combos off ESPECIALLY the Underbelly Angler. Keeping the Unleash the Hounds is huge in this matchup along with Rush minions. This matchup is actually pretty decent for you and you don’t have to worry about removal until turn 8 when they could play Hagatha the Witch. Overload, on the other hand, is a totally different beast and is honestly a kinda bad matchup. The weapons and cheap removal make it difficult in the same way Rogue is, but it also has high-value cards like Thunderhead, Unbound Elemental, and burn spells that can all be used as a way to rush you down OR control the board and just outvalue you. Into this matchup, you wanna just kill the high-value targets when you can and try to bait out burn and removal so you can play better cards later without fear (Like Animal Companion / Witchwood Grizzly in combination with Dire Frenzy). (Full disclosure, I haven’t played that many overload shamans so this is just based on the few matchups I have had.

Warlock: Assume this matchup is Zoolock, and even then it is almost never played so this will be fast. This is basically the same idea as Token Druid and Hunter accept this one has a priority target if it gets out on the board Magic Carpet. Other than that there really isn’t that much difference, just control the board so they can’t blow you out or get a Sea Giant out for cheap.

 

Warrior: Assume this matchup is Control or Bomb Warrior. This matchup you do NOT want to keep rush minions or Unleash the Hounds because you just won’t get value. However, early snowball cards similar to Mage would work wonders because they wouldn’t be able to kill the minions until around turn 4 or 5 with a double Warpath or Brawl. Obviously, warrior has a ton of armor and Shield Slam and Rush, but those really aren’t THAT much of an issue in my experience because the minions are small enough and can be replaced fast enough that single target removal feels pretty lackluster. The REAL way you win this game is with a big Zul’jin play, by reactivating Dire Frenzy, Unleash the Beast, Animal Companion, Master’s Call, and even Kill Command, you get SO MUCH VALUE that if they don’t immediately have a Brawl to respond they lose, and even if they do you have a full hand and extra cards in your deck so you are nowhere near running out of resources either. Basically, you try to rush them down early and force them to use removal, then you hit them with the late game bomb and overrun them with high-value late game minions because a lot of the Warrior’s removal is gone.