Hearthpwn

Hey! I'm TheJordude, player for compLexity Gaming and for the December 2015 season I hit legend with my tuning to RomanP's Trap/Bow Hunter.

You can find me on:

Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/TheJordude

Twitter: https://twitter.com/coL_TheJordude

I usually don't check messages here/reddit very often, so if you have any questions feel free to tweet me or drop by my stream!

Introduction:

This deck is a variation of the classic Face Hunter, the main goal of the deck is to burn your opponent down fast and efficiently... you will find that your games will last around 5-8 turns if everything goes smoothly, so this is a great way to climb the ladder to legend quickly.

vod of hitting legend with the deck: http://www.twitch.tv/thejordude/v/30507508

Reasons behind certain cards:

Southsea Deckhand - This card is replacing Abusive Sergeant from the standard face hunter. The reason why you have Southsea Deckhand is that you play 4 weapons so the pirate will often have charge when you play him so he is reliable on his own. Yes Abusive Sergeant buffs a minion right away but he is not as reliable later in the game since you give up board control as the game goes on and this deck runs a lot more spells and weapons than minions.

The lineup of traps: Explosive Trap makes sense because this is a face hunter so it does damage to your opponent and can help clear the board since you hardly trade anyway. Originally I had 2 Misdirection but I find the trick only works the first time so they play around it after making the 2nd Misdirection useless, so I put a Bear Trap instead. Misdirection is good to surprise your opponent as it can do a lot of damage to their face or trade their own minions. Note that Misdirection can now target your stealthed creatures and if possible you should always try to set Explosive Trap first so Misdirection doesn't activate on a minion that is dying already.

Mad Bomber - This card replaces the standard Knife Juggler. I like Mad Bomber in this deck because it will often do more pings than Juggler because you don't run many minions in the deck. You forfeit the Juggler + Unleash combo but Mad Bomber is great to coin out or play on turn 2 as it can often sneak in some extra face damage or snipe some early game minions.

Everything else in the deck is what you'd expect to see from normal face hunter so I don't think I need to explain them :p.

Substitutes:

- Desert Camel I originally wanted to play this card because all the one drop's can synergize well, however I found the meta has too many decks with 1 drops currently and I never wanted to play this card when I could. You can probably put this card back in if the meta shifts slower and less 1 drops are in people's decks.

- Brave Archer You can replace your 1 drops with this card as it can sneak in extra damage if you use your hand quickly, similar to how you play for Quick Shot

- Abusive Sergeant - If you like Abusive better, you can put him in, its mainly preference.

- Snake Trap - You can have Snakes instead of Bear Trap, again its preference.

- Leeroy Jenkins - More charge damage, however I prefer ending the game through burn spells so you can get through taunt.

Any other suggestions or questions about a card let me know and I will try to get back to you!

Tips on playing this deck:

- Go face most of the time and make your opponent trade unless its a super value trade, trade to survive a turn, or you can efficiently trade into a annoying priority minion such as Knife Juggler. SMOrc SMOrc

- Be efficient with your mana!!! Plan your turns ahead figuring out how you can utilize all your mana every turn while not running out of cards to quickly. To not run out of cards by turn 4, try weaving in your hero power to maximize your damage.

- Count how much damage you can do. See if you have enough to burn your opponent down from hand in a couple turns or if you need to slow it down using your hero powers.

- You almost can't deal with heals, if they have it hopefully you can burn through it. With taunts try to figure out the most efficient way of dealing with them and use your silences wisely.

- If you are not holding any other weapons, you may want to hold your Eaglehorn Bow equipped in case you can get extra charges with secrets. This is conditional based on if you have the time for the turns or if you think they might play a taunt then you need to attack. The bow is one of the most valuable damage dealing cards in this deck since you run so many secrets.

Mulligans:

The mulligans are pretty much the same in every matchup:

- Any of your 1 drop minions

-  Mad Bomber

- Mad Scientist

- Animal Companion / Eaglehorn Bow if the rest of your curve is good

 

Matchups:

I don't have detailed stats of the matchups but I have a general idea of whos favorable.

Aggro Shaman: 50/50

This really goes either way depending on who gets the stronger start.

Warriors: Slightly favoured

If you get a strong curver early on you can push a lot of damage before the warrior can stabilize. Its only slightly favoured because if you don't get a fast start or the warrior has answers in the early game it becomes hard to get pass their tank up. Eaglehorn Bow is very important for this matchup.

Druid: Slightly favoured

Similar to warrior, if you get a strong curve in the beginning and the Druid doesn't have all the answers you will normally be able to push a lot of damage early and burn them out in the end. Druids tend to have more taunts so Ironbeak Owl is very important.

Hunter: Favoured

Hunters won't run heal and have very few ways to taunt so the faster hunter is normally favoured, and nothing gets much faster than this variation of hunter. Mad Bomber and Explosive Trap usually deals with the board while you push face with everything else.

Tempo Mage: 50/50

This matchup can go either way depending how well the tempo mage draws. Normally a strong Flamewaker clear early on gets you, otherwise they don't run heal or taunt so you can push damage quickly against them.

Freeze Mage: Slightly favoured

This deck can burn freeze mage down fast enough, but if they get a strong opening to get both the Ice Barrier activated then it can be a hard matchup, and the secrets hardly do anything.

Paladin: Favoured

The only time I find myself losing is if I can't get a strong start and my opponent has Mysterious Challenger on turn 6. Otherwise you out damage them early and clear the board with Explosive Trap and Mad Bomber. Unleash the Hounds also gets a lot of damage in this matchup as well.

Priest: Unfavoured

Priest probably has the most taunts at the moment, so its a very hard matchup unless they draw poorly.

Rogue: Favoured

Rogue doesn't usually run taunt so its easy to hit their face. The combo of Eaglehorn Bow and traps gets a lot of work done in this matchup.

Warlock: Favoured

Hunter still has an advantage over any type of warlock because of their hero powers. You should win most of the time unless they pull Reno Jackson right on time.

That's basically all I have to say for this deck. If you don't seem to find success for this deck for some reason do not give up. This deck does require some practice so that you can really fine tune your decision making. There are always quite a few options during a lot of your turns, so it may help to look back at your games to identify them and confirming which was the best.

I also provide private coaching for anyone that prefer individual guidance to improve. If that is something you would be interested in just send me a private message here and we can go on from that.

Coaching demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jieTE4P1ngg