Hearthpwn

 

I haven't played Hearthstone a whole lot this past year or so, but I work in the restaurant industry and it's obviously been VERY slow lately so I'll play on my phone when the going gets really rough. Unfortunately, this means that I didn't have a deck tracker installed for most of the climb from about 3:30PM today up until 7PM when I hit legend but I'm gonna guesstimate that the winrate was around 75-80% given how quick the climb was (4 and a half hours from Diamond 4 with one star to Legend, including time spent actually working and the commute home.) I'll be listing off and explaining a couple somewhat abnormal card inclusions and exclusions before delving a bit into the gameplan, matchups, and mulligan. However, keep in mind that generally speaking a lot of cards are in here simply because I wanted basically every card in here to be capable of burst damage, given that this deck isn't really gonna be able to control the board to much extent.

INCLUSIONS-

Stonetusk Boar - I'm sure it's odd to see Stonetusk in a deck without Scavenger's Ingenuity. First off, I sincerely mean that every single point of face damage in this deck counts. However, another key reason this card is in here is that there aren't really any other reliable 1 mana Kill Command activators, besides potentially Shimmerfly, which could be worth a try now that I can comfortably mess around a bit in legend. When the opponent has gotten board control and starts putting taunts up, you're gonna want to hang onto this little guy for a kill command.

Abusive Sergeant - I've seen Abusive pop in and out of whatever the current standard face hunter list is ever since the deck was revived due to Toxic Reinforcements, and while he may not have been optimal before the rotation, I firmly believe that he is now. Abusive synergizes super well with boar, hounds, Wolfrider, and after a Toxic Reinforcements board sticks. He can also be used to help clear a modest taunt around turn 4-5 without having to use any direct burn from hand so that you might be able to sneak in another Eaglehorn or Wolfrider hit before the game enters the pure burn phase.

Leper Gnome - Versatile little card to jam on 3 with a hero power or fill out your curve later on. The insanely low curve and hero power focus of the deck really allows you to spend all of your mana on damage every turn and this card is super effective in that regard, there's never really a bad time to throw a Leper out.

Blazing Battlemage - To keep it short as this doesn't need a ton of explanation, Battlemage is an always-keep when going first and a usually-keep when going second. She's simply has the best average damage output and can often get 4-6 extra damage or force the opponent to use resources (and therefore forego tempo) to remove her early on.

EXCLUSIONS-

Dwarven Sharpshooter - In most Hunter decks I believe that Sharpshooter is a near auto-include and one of their best one drops ever, but not in this one. To be frank, you just REALLY wanna send that Hero Power face every time, and I feel like the 2/2 statline of Battlemage is a lot more effective for pressuring the opponent and forcing them to trade inefficiently.

Scavenger's Ingenuity - While I like the idea of face decks with this card in it, I just think it's kinda clunky and a little bit too slow for this deck. Hitting a 4/4 boar is nice, but spending two mana to cast this, two mana to play a 4/5 Phase Stalker (in a deck that doesn't really care about the board too much) AND the two mana to get the Secret out with your Hero Power is super clunky to work in when you wanna be hero powering every single turn. It's funny that a 2 mana tutor with a stat buff is too slow for this deck, but it is.

Animal Companion - Hitting Huffer is great, but Misha gets removed super easily in this meta and most opponents will laugh at Leokk unless you manage to stick it while you already have a board with two or more minions, which won't happen often. Animal Companion is good on turn three, but you wanna Hero Power and play a one drop on three. Playing this card gets worse and worse every turn after turn three, as if you do it on four you're missing a hero power and on turn five you're probably behind on board and entering the pure burn phase so you'd rather be playing a Bow, Wolfrider, or Unleash.

Pack Tactics - I think this card is super cool, but you'd really much rather be consistently getting Explosive Trap off of Phase Stalker. It's cool to get a 3/3 Leper Gnome or another Phase Stalker, but the swing turn with Explosive Trap is actually super important for slowing the opponent down a bit and forcing them into some awkward trades or clearing their board and forcing them to try and reset their tempo on turn 5.

Teron Gorefiend/Mok'Nathal Lion - Again, this is a package that I like a lot, but in my opinion holds the deck back overall. While it's super cool and often quite good when it goes off, it's also rather conditional in a deck with no draw or tutor mechanics besides Tracking and really suffers due to Highlander Rogue running Sap and a lot of Demon Hunters running the 1 mana silence/cycle card with outcast. Moreover, however, it's definitely a classic case of a "win-more card"- any game in which you manage to stick enough gnomes without being removed and have the spare mana to play Teron (let alone the lion) without dying or your opponent taking a lot of board control is almost definitely a game that you would be winning anyway. The only realistic way that this is going to win games that you wouldn't win already are games in which you manage to set up the gnomes, then play Teron, and then play the lion, which is really not going to happen very often with how rarely your gnomes are going to stick past turn 3-5 and how rarely you're going to be able to draw all of these pieces. In most other situations, these cards are going to be taking up valuable space sitting in your hand instead of being cards that burn out your opponent.

If anything, running just Teron without the Lions could be worth considering, maybe in place of a Tracking or Unleash the Hounds, but at the moment I'm not too confident that Teron would be more helpful than having either of those cards. However, I would definitely love to see more experimentation with this package, I think it has a lot of potential and could maybe work in a more midrange/draw heavy burn deck at some point down the line.

GENERAL GAMEPLAN

Not really too complicated to be frank, this is face hunter after all, but there is a bit more nuance to this archetype then people realize. One thing that I think is super important and a big mistake I see a lot of players making on ladder is that you almost always want to Hero Power every single turn unless your opponent has something that desperately needs to be removed (first things that come to mind are Battlefiend, Shadowjeweler Hanar, and Murloc Warleader. You never want to just be jamming a Phase Stalker on two or a Wolfrider/Bow on three. You want to milk your Hero Power as much as possible such that you save resources and can have a ton of reach later on. This is why the curve of this deck is so insanely low, it's probably the only deck I've ever played in which the most expensive cards cost three mana. I'll run through the ideal first few turns -

TURN 1 - Toxic Reinforcements

TURN 2 - Hero Power

TURN 3 - Hero Power and 1-Drop (Preferably Leper Gnome or Blazing Battlemage. Don't feel bad about jamming an Arcane Shot or Rapid Fire face here or into a minion if you have to.)

TURN 4 - Phase Stalker and Hero Power, activating your reinforcements and putting an Explosive Trap into play. This puts 5/6 of stats into play, will deal 6 damage to their face over the course of the next couple of turns, and the explosive trap will force them to trade awkwardly if they have a board. If they don't have a board here, you're often just going to win in two to three turns here to be honest. 

Another key tip to this deck is being cognizant that you always want to play your cards without direct reach/burn (Battlemage, Eaglehorn Bow, Wolfrider) BEFORE you play your cards with reach (Leper Gnome, Kobold Sandtrooper, your burn spells, etc). This is because you will usually be losing on board by turn 6 or so, meaning that your reachless cards will rarely be connecting to their face (especially if they have a taunt up, which they usually will), but your burn cards are just as effective and you can count on them to close out the game for you. Make sure that you're wary that there is often going to be a point where their board presence is going to threaten your life total, in this case don't be afraid to remove one or two things with chargers or a spell if you think that you'll be able to kill them directly over the next couple of turns. This is also where Unleash the Hounds is really important, it's great for killing them, either directly or by poking through a taunt, once they've established a sizable presence on board - it's the closest thing this deck has to a "late game" card.

MULLIGAN GUIDE -

In general, ALWAYS keep Toxic Reinforcements and Phase Stalker. You're basically going to be hard mulliganing for these two cards. If you have both, feel free to keep a one drop for turn three. You're usually going to be keeping Blazing Battlemage unless you're on the coin, in which case you're often gonna want to use that extra card mulligan opportunity to search for Toxic Reinforcements.

MATCHUPS -

Demon Hunter (Aggro) - Pretty even, probably slightly favored. Oddly enough, I felt pretty okay against a lot of Demon Hunters. However, this is probably the only matchup where I found myself often spending resources to remove some of their threats. Arcane Shot is great for Battlefiend and whatever that 4/2 is that generates 2/2s, so feel free to keep it in the mulligan. I think a big reason that I had an okay time vs this deck is that their turns 2-4 often feel a little more passive (by their standards, at least), allowing time to weave in hero powers and set up Toxic Reinforcements. In that sense, I feel like this matchup kind of comes down to whether or not you get Toxic Reinforcements. Other times they'll just kinda do their demon hunter thing and run all over you, but when they draw the nuts I feel like pretty much any deck is just as helpless.

***- EDIT 4/30 - In the time since doing this initial writeup, I've found myself winning a lot more games against Demon Hunter than losing, to the point that I actually think this deck is anywhere between somewhat favored to very favored if you manage to draw Explosive Trap or Phase Stalker. For this reason, I can actually recommend keeping Explosive Trap in the mulligan if you haven't drawn Phase Stalker, the card is really that good in this matchup and can either save a game that you're losing or completely shut them down if you guys are going toe-to-toe/you're winning already.

Druid (Spell/Token) - Only ran into one on the climb up, felt pretty favored. I feel like the Kael'thas nerf helps this matchup a lot on our end. I just got too far ahead during their passive early turns with Fungal Fortune and whatnot for them to come back from.

Hunter (Dragon) - Felt a little unfavored if they were running the hybrid build with Scavenger's Ingenuity and the porcupine, can't deal with that efficiently. However, I did manage to grab a couple wins off of this deck simply from them trying to establish a board and having to use that board to remove my minions rather than pressure face. Face Hunter is obviously even, this is actually another matchup where the board somewhat matters, given that your opponent both having the board and all of their burn spells is backbreaking.

Mage (Spell and Highlander) - VERY favored. Spell mage is an absolute cakewalk, I sincerely felt like there was almost nothing they could've done, even in one game where I ended up with two explosive traps in my opening hand. Highlander Mage was a little trickier but still felt very favored. I didn't lose to a single Mage on the climb up.

Paladin (Libram and Murloc) - Libram seems highly unfavored, Consecrate is super powerful in this matchup and the 4/6 taunt is tough enough to get through, not even counting that it reduces the cost of the card that restores 8 health and summons an 8/8 taunt with divine shield, so yeah suffice to say that matchup seemed really bad. However, the deck seems very lackluster otherwise so I wouldn't expect to see it a lot on ladder. Going into the two murloc paladin games I had, I thought it would be super difficult but I actually ended up winning both. Explosive trap just destroys their whole game plan, so be sure to use rapid fire, arcane shot, or boar to keep their murlocs at 1 health with explosive trap active if you can such that they can't get through it via the 4/4 that gives Murlocs +1/+1. In the games where this happened, they ran of steam super quick and I ran over them once they became unable to deal with Explosive trap. Also, don't be afraid to use Arcane Shot on a tidecaller.

Priest (Resurrect and Highlander)- Both are highly unfavored. Not much really needs to be said here, Priest can just sit back and remove everything and heal until they lock you out with Sandhoof Waterbearer. Managed to win one Priest game but it was super super close.

Rogue (Highlander Galakrond/Tempo Galakrond)- Highly favored. Rogue is known for not having access to a lot of effective healing and taunts, so not a ton needs to be said here. Generally you're just going to be racing their face as this deck doesn't really get going till around turn 5, and by then you're usually too far ahead for them to recover from. Main thing to be wary of is Shadowjeler Hanar, as if you can't remove it they can potentially lock you out with an ice barrier or well timed explosive trap. For this reason, I actually recommend overextending to remove this card. Otherwise, just watch out for the armor gain from Galakrond and hope that they don't draw a 0-mana Kronx and you should be good. Rogue is everywhere on ladder which is really good for this deck, I actually saw more Rogues than Demon Hunters, and the only game I lost against a rogue was one in which they dropped Hanar early and I couldn't remove it.

Shaman (???) - Poor Shaman. Totem Shaman is probably unfavored for us if I had to guess but I wouldn't count on seeing one too far past a rank floor.

Warlock (Zoo) - Unsure, probably slightly unfavored. Only ran into one Warlock running the Scrap Imp Zoo package, managed to burn them out over time as Explosive Trap kept their board modest and the imp itself is pretty slow. However, I drew really well that game and still had to use some cards as removal rather than burn so I'm gonna say it's probably a bit unfavored. Didn't see a control Warlock, so maybe the Sac Pact nerf did a real number on old Gul'Dan.

Warrior (Egg) - Only ran into one, seemed like a kind of tricky matchup but I did manage to win pretty comfortably.

That about covers everything, I think. Good luck and happy smorcing.

EDIT - 4/30/2020:

-2 Wolfrider +2 Bluegill Warrior

The one mana difference is huge here, as 2 damage for 2 mana is a LOT better in this deck than 3 for 3, plus it's easier to jam with an abusive sergeant on Turn 5+. To be honest, I would've started with Bluegill in this deck over Wolfrider but I honestly kind of forgot that Bluegill was even a card.

Also added explanation for the exclusion of Teron Gorefiend/Mok'Nathal Lion and adjusted write-up for the Demon Hunter matchup, which I now believe is somewhat favored.