Hearthpwn

Hatcher Hunter - The Fun Way to Make Your Opponent Rage Quit

Hi all. Like many of you, I saw the addition of Teron Gorefiend and Mok'Nathal Lion as a great reason to retry Deathrattle Hunter, and it took me from Bronze to the high ranks with relatively little effort.

Matchups:

• Demon Hunter: Consume Magic is a card to be worried about. Make sure you get value out of your deathrattles, and try to spread out as much as possible. 
• Druid: extremely favourable. Let them play Poison Seeds and see what happens.
• Hunter: hyper-aggro can be a challenge, but they often give you the space to grow your board until it's out of control.
• Mage: Mulligan for a fast start. Secret Mage can be beaten if you use their secrets against them. Quest Mage can be stopped if you can keep their broken cards off the board. If Polymorph is ruining your day, you're not being careful enough.
• Paladin: capable of shutting down Mechs and Murlocs (thanks to Glaivezooka). Midrange decks are fine, you just have to stay on the board.
• Priest: resurrect decks have to be taken down fast or you just won't be able to hit them in the face enough. But you know all about that by now. Make Mass Hysteria work to your advantage, and don't overcommit into Psychic Scream.
• Rogue: easy wins across the board. Just don't let Teron Gorefiend or Carnivorous Cube get sapped before you trigger them.
• Shaman: As long as you play around Hex where necessary, you shouldn't have too much trouble maintaining total control of the board.
• Warlock: as with any board-centric deck, you'll probably have to work hard to get to their face. But every matchup is winnable, if not favourable. Defile can be managed, Lord Godfrey is a nightmare.
• Warrior: if you build up your board, they're done for.

The cards:

• Play Dead: duh.
• Runic Egg: Step 1: play it on turn 1. Step 2: play Glaivezooka on turn 2. Step 3: profit. In the later game, it has the potential to draw all the cards you'll ever need.
• Feign Death: again, duh.
• Glaivezooka: incredibly useful for buffing eggs and countering aggro.
• Goblin Prank: practically designed for this deck. Much easier to use than Houndmaster Shaw, and more likely to win you the game against aggro. Don't keep it in your mulligan though.
• Nerubian Egg, Serpent Egg, Devilsaur Egg: the core of the deck. Keep them in your mulligan.
• Spawn of N'Zoth: once you have a wide board, this has the potential to win you the game very quickly.
• Teron Gorefiend: sometimes keep it in your mulligan, because it's just that good. If the Deathrattle goes off more than once, your board becomes nearly indestructible.
• Terrorscale Stalker: if you trigger an egg on turn 3, you're probably going to win.
• Defender of Argus: not only do your eggs get buffed, but you force your opponent to hatch them for you. Very handy at the right moment.
• Mok'Nathal Lion: copy a Devilsaur Egg for a massive tempo gain. Play it on Teron Gorefiend or Carnivorous Cube and you just set yourself up for a win.
• Necromechanic: incredibly valuable. And practically a taunt, because it will scare the bejesus out of your opponent.
• Wing Blast: very easy to trigger, and it helps you to retain/regain control of the board.
• Carnivorous Cube: at the right time it will fill out your board and shut your opponent out of the game. At the wrong time, it will fill your board with unbuffed eggs and you won't be able to do a damn thing about the opponent hitting you in the face. Not the best card in the deck, but it's handy for keeping you on the board against control.
• Loatheb: Shuts down Quest Mage, Mecha'thun Warlock and Resurrect Priest for a turn.
• Deathstalker Rexxar: because it gives you cards that heal, poison, trigger deathrattles, and buff your beasts. Infinite late-game in one card. And a board clear. Bonkers.
• Sylvanas Windrunner: one of the scariest deathrattles in the game, and you have so many ways to trigger it. Very useful against big threats.

"Why not..."

• Tracking: Runic Egg has the potential to draw more than one card, and I just can't find the space for it. Also, removing combo pieces from my deck makes me sad.
• Diving Gryphon: you're only running two rush minions. Pretty janky, and you have Runic Egg for card draw.
• Nine Lives: I used to play it, but all too often it sits in your hand waiting to be useful. I'd call it a 'win more' card.
• Stitched Tracker: ruin your tempo with this one simple trick! Massively unsuitable for this kind of deck.
• Zixor, Apex Predator: this card makes sense in a deck that runs Scavenger's Ingenuity, but we don't. And turn 8 is pretty late in Wild - at that point you're better off blocking combos with cards like Mojomaster Zihi.
• Dragonbane: in a deck without Genn Greymane, you have to wait until turn 6 to trigger it on the turn you play it.
• Houndmaster Shaw: on turn 4 it's just a 3/6. We already have two of those, which are more likely to go off and with more impressive results.

Alternative builds:

• Mad Scientist/Pack Tactics etc.: obviously the secret package is great, but adding that means removing a lot of useful cards, which will affect the consistency of your combos.
• SN1P-SN4P/Spider Bomb/Explosive Sheep/Zilliax: if you're going to run mechs, run a lot of mechs. Otherwise these cards are just awkward. Apart from Zilliax - which you can swap with Carnivorous Cube to improve aggro matchups.
• Augmented Porcupine: either you build your deck around buffing this card and Mok'Nathal Lion or it sucks. Tried it, didn't like it.

Have fun and remember to give the opponent a 'Well Played' when they realise there's nothing they can do to stop you.

Update: replaced one Defender of Argus with a Wing Blast, to improve early game and avoid the nightmare of having two Defender of Argus and nothing on board.