Hearthpwn

If you look at the Deck you see it has a lot in common with the normal Midrange Hunter: Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion, Savannah Highmane, Piloted Shredder, Mad Scientist etc.

All the strong Hunter Cards and the good and sticky neutral cards.

The difference is that I play no burn cards( Kill Command, Quick Shot) and a little bit more card draw in form of Loot Hoarder due to the synergy with Feign Death.

I also play a little bit more end game with Sylvanas Windrunner and the big Sneed's Old Shredder.

And well Feign Death :D

So lets start with talking about Feign Death and how versatile the card is.

The deck plays 17 Deathrattle cards so it is almost guaranteed to get value from Feign Death.

Feign Death costs only 2 Mana so what can we expect from 2 Mana in termes of value?

Lets say our board consists of a Webspinner, a Loot Hoarder and a Mad Scientist or Haunted Creeper.

This is not a rare situation in the early game.
Feign Death draws you a beast from Webspinner, it draws you a card from Loot Hoarder or Mad Scientist and summons 2 1/1 token.

In this case Feign Death drew cards and established board control and this is the strength of the card, its versatility.

How versatile this unique card is, you will see
in the upcoming section:

You can use it as card draw with Webspinner, Loot Hoarder and Mad Scientist.

Or you use it to summon minions from cards like Haunted Creeper, Piloted Shredder, Sludge Belcher, Savannah Highmane and Sneed's Old Shredder.

In addition to those methods you can use it with the Boom Bots summoned by Dr. Boom or with Sylvanas Windrunner for a 2 Mana Mindcontrol.

Now that we clarified the different uses of Feign Death, **WHEN** should I we use it?
When is it worth it and enough value?

This is a really hard question to answer because it comes down to experience but I will try to simplify it a little for the beginning.

When you play vs aggro decks like paladin or hunter dont be greedy with it.

Hitting a Haunted Creeper and a Loot Hoarder is already enough and do not use Feign Death vs Aggro if you can play something like a Piloted Shredder on curve.

Always compare what you get by playing Feign Death and
consider if it is not just better to play a certain other card in you Hand.

Even though it looks tempting to draw 2 cards, maybe you do not even need cards but tempo instead.

Against Control classes you can and often should be greedy with your Feign Death.

Save it for the turn 8 Sylvanas Windrunner Combo or the turn 10 Sneed's Old Shredder.

This is optimal but there are cases where you have for example 2 Loot Hoarders and a Savannah Highmane on board.
Then just go for the Feign Death there.

In this section of the Guide I want to explain
certain card decisions:

1 . 2 Hunter's Mark

Hunter's Mark is the only Hard Removal Spell I have.

I play a lot of low attack minions like Haunted Creeper and Webspinner [/card] as well as [card]Unleash the Hounds.

Hunter's Mark removes Giants, Mysterious Challenger, Sludge Belcher, Dr. Boom, Fel Reaver, Druid of the Claw and many more.

In a nutshell, if you have 1 damage it removes everything without a Divine Shield.

2 . Big Game Hunter

This deck goes more in the Mindrange/Control direction and BGH is great as a third hard removal.
Nobody expects Big Game Hunter in Hunter(lol) and it is really good against all the meta decks.

Aggro Druid has Fel Reaver and Dr. Boom

Secret Paladin has Dr. Boom, Mysterious Challenger if it got buffed by Competitive Spirit or Avenge [/card](not a rare situation).

They will also [card]Blessing of Kings their Piloted Shredder or Sludge Belcher because they do not play around BGH against Hunter.

Lots of Targets in Warrior, Handlock and Zoo(last 2 are not really meta but I faced 3 on my climb)

3 . No burn spells

Kill Command is not a really valuable removal most of the time and even though it sometimes sucks not to have any damage to finish you opponent off,burn is not the win condition for this deck.

The funny thing is they will still play around Kill Command [/card] and [card]Quick shot because who plays no Kill Command right?

But why no Quick Shot? It is decent early removal?!

Quick Shot is basically the Hunter's Darkbomb in this deck because the draw effect will almost never apply.

4 . Why no Houndmaster?
There reason why I dont play it, is simple.

There is no space for it.

The list is already really tight and if I could I would play 1

Ok time for the Mulligan:)

First rule: Never keep Feign Death!

Yes it is versatile and yes it is responsible for the decks name but that is it.

Compare it to Arcane Intellect in Tempomage.

It is a great card but you do not keep it in your Mulligan( at least you should not:D)

Second Rule:
Never keep the Traps

Regardless of the matchup always keep:

Webspinner, Haunted Creeper, Mad Scientist, Kings Elekk, Loot Hoarder.

Now the class specific Mulligan where you have to keep cards next to the cards from the must keep section, dependent on the class you are playing against:

VS Druid:
BGH(I know what you think but keeping the Big Game Hunter and shooting the Fel Reaver won me the game vs every Aggro Druid I played against),Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow


VS Mage
Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion, and look for Flare as the Mage secrets can be very annoying

VS Rogue/Shaman
Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion


VS Paladin:
Unleash the Hounds, Animal Companion(with Coin), and Flare since the meta has many Secret Paladins


VS Priest:
Hunter's Mark, Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion


VS Warlock:
Big Game Hunter, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow


VS Warrior:
Savannah Highmane, Sneed's Old Shredder, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow


Ok one last note on the win conditions
This deck is not Facehunter and not the typical Midrange Hunter.

It has no Burst, so you have to out-value your
opponent with Feign Death, Savannah Highmane, Sneed's Old Shredder and Dr. Boom in control and midrange matchups.

 

I know the deck looks really weird and it is.

It is a completely different deck than the normal Hunter you face(no pun intended).

The deck is really fun to play especially the Sneed's Old Shredder surprise:D

In one game I got Anub'arak vs a Priest:D

You can imagine how this ended;)