Hearthpwn

Greetings Hearthpwn travelers,

My name is Kargoz. While I've hit legend every season with hunter, this is the first deck that I've had enough faith in, with regard to both its uniqueness and viability to post on this site. I've tried every iteration of hunter deck this season (s5), and this is my personal favorite. Once you get the hang of it, this deck offers a satisfying, highly addictive playstyle with the potential to scale to top legend ranks. Feral Synergy is a beast heavy, mid range deck, that is highly robust and capable of powerful wombo combos.

General Strategy:

This deck has tremendous synergy between its beast minions and beast reliant spells (BM, KC). Generally you mulligan for minions that fit a nice early curve and or your Eaglehorn Bow to help keep board control. IMO, keep unleash only if you're up against warlock. Handlock in this meta is virtually non-existent so you can safely assume zoo. Control board as best you can while not overextending until you get to the mid game where you gain tempo through your Rhinos and Loatheb. Leverage your strong mid game into a turn 8-9 lethal.  This deck has very synergistic cards that are good independently and even better dependently. I've outlined some of the common combos below, of which you can get creative with. In addition to the obvious Leeroy into buzzard unleash, tundra rhino can charge pretty much everything both in the deck and outside the deck (webspinner rolls such as the beast, corehound etc.)

For a more in depth gameplay breakdown scroll down...

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Card Justifications:

BESTIAL WRATH - A unique card that is highly underrated, especially with the newly implemented cards such as Unstable Ghoul. Using BW allows you to trade very effectively while keeping your board healthy. The situational beast requirement is basically a non factor due to the deck's vast amount of beasts and you can get quite tricky with the immunity e.g immune to aoe and all sources of damage. If you're skeptical, give me the benefit of the doubt and try it out.

EXAMPLE USES FOR BESTIAL WRATH: (1) Proc traps while being immune from effects (explosive), (2) immunity from deathrattle / aoe effects such as the ones from abomination and unstable ghoul, (3) cast on opposing beast to remove effects such as taunt, (4) Prevent poison effects from cards such as Maexxna and Cobra.

KING MUKLA - Mukla is very strong on its own, however, it offers much more value in Feral Synergy. Firstly, it's a beast so you can houndmaster it and give it immunity it with BW. You can also use it to proc buzzard, buff it with timber / leokk, and charge him as a 5/5 with instant value with Tundra rhino. Coining out a turn two Mukla is also incredibly strong as you can deal with any possible banana plays with cheap, efficient removal that doesn't result in any tempo loss such as HM or BW.

RHINO - Absolutely integral to this deck and quite possibly my favorite class card. This card is a top priority kill target for your opponent because if they leave it on board, you can punish them so hard. You can charge Webspinners into some insane rolls which can subsequently charge too (the beast, core hound), Mukla, buzzard etc. In addition, while the 2 attack is sub par the 5 toughness makes it highly durable and when "houndmastered" turns into quite the wall. Also with Bestial Wrath you can play him as a 4/5 immune charger.

Tundra Rhino Basic Play Example: The classic tundra play would be to turn 5 rhino, turn 6 play high mane and trade it with a strong minion such as Loatheb. Then continue to charge with the subsequent hyenas for a massive 10 damage distribution. Throw a casual buzzard before hand for two draws and two damage.

RAPTOR VS CROC - The choice here is between raptor and river croc. Raptor can kill clerics, voidwalkers, blademasters etc. and is immune to cabal shadowpriest and stampeding kodo. Raptor also hits harder than croc when playing it with rhino. The downside is that it dies to most aoes and doesn't 2 for 1 with anything. The upsides of croc are that it is much tankier and when buffed with houndmaster has the magical 5 toughness. Croc survives backstabs, consecrates, holy novas etc.

TRACKING, OR LACK THEREOF - This deck isn't as much of the miracle archetype as many other hunter decks are. Thus, I forfeit the trackings to make the deck's early game more consistent. In addition, flares already make it so your effectively playing a 28 card deck.

1x EAGLEHORN BOW - While not as amazing as fiery win axe, the bow is still very strong without traps as it removes acolytes, harvest golems, clerics, voidwalkers etc with ease. Nearly every game it shows up this bow proves to be useful and only feels underwhelming when you put 2x in a deck and you draw them both.

FLARE - Incredibly strong card that many pros view as broken. Mages, Hunters and even Paladins run secrets now which buffs this card even more. In the words of Reynad "if this card was neutral I would run 2 of in every deck as you effectively run a 28 card deck".

LOATHEB - No need to explain. Get board control. Drop this mushroom sniffer. Profit.

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GAMEPLAY BREAKDOWN:

Early game: Mulligan for webspinners, raptor, animal companions or bow. You can keep hound master in your starting hand if you have coin and a couple low mana beasts to try for a turn 3 play with him. This same logic applies for your opponent in the mirror match so always prioritize clearing all beasts prior to t3 if they have coin or t4.

Rarely should you keep kill command as it is a card you want to draw into later and use as a finisher.

Mid Game: Control and replenish the board efficiently until turn 5 where you begin to setup for your lethal strategy. Depending on the context of the game, drop loatheb or a tundra rhino into a turn 6 highmane. a t6 Highmane on a controlled board is a very strong play with very few responses.

Playing rhino before dropping your highmanes is ideal as it baits out significant removal due to its 5 hp (shield block into shield slam, eviscerate, swipe etc). Even if your rhino gets killed off right away it's a win win as its charge gave it instant value anyways and it's death indirectly protects your bigger threats.

COMMON COMBOS / INTERACTIONS:

1. Buzzard + Unleash 5 mana draw / control mechanic

2. Timber Wolf / Leokk + Unleash

3. Huffer + Bestial Wrath = 4 Mana 6 damage immune charger. Same goes for Rhino 4/5.

4. Rhino + Highmane + Hyenas

MATCHUP OVERVIEW: (Will Update in Depth Soon)

HARD - Control Warrior, Tempo Priest, Backspace Rogue.

MEDIUM - Kolento Hunter, Aggro War. Token Druid. Zoo Lock.

EASY - Mad Scientist / Trap Hunter, All Mages, Ramp Druid, Paladins.

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Thanks for reading. :)

If you have questions or need anything, feel free to reach out to me on stream or via battle.net. I just started streaming recently so any views or subs would be greatly appreciated!

STREAM: http://www.twitch.tv/trinusgaming

BATTLE.NET: jheldridge@gmail.com

I will 100% add more to this deck in the following days.