Hearthpwn

Noble Royals

Version 2 - Ready for Knights of the Frozen Throne
Difficulty: easy
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Leolph
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/leolph

 About this deck:

Holy cow, this was a long way to get a final version of a quest hunter deck ready that is viable for the ladder. There were so much thinks to consider which might not be seen when you look at the final decklist. How much 1 drops are enough? How much are needed? With no board clears, is there any comeback when you have lost the board (usually this is a typical loss for a hunter). How do you regain enough cards when you played all your 1 drops? What are healing and defensive plays? What is the game plan before and after the quest? Which 1 drops are good in the current meta? I think you get the idea how much time you have to invest to create a viable list.

If you are a streamer and play this deck on stream please give credit! Thanks!

 

How to play this deck:

Playing any quest deck in this current meta is already a tempo loss, especially as hunter who has no comeback mechanisms and loosing the board usually results in loosing the game. So you need 1 drops that have a good impact on the board. A lot of theorycrafters say that 11 is the right number to go for the hunter quest but with my experience I went better with 12, because the main focus on this deck is to get the quest done. So let's have a look at the 1 drops:

Argent Squire - solid one drop that will live until next turn for most of the time
Fire Fly - will give you 2 steps to for the quest progression, also can create a good early board
Glacial Shard - early game a good way to dictate the trades, later it can prevent 1 attack from a huge minion, so a pseudo heal
Hungry Crab - murlocs are still cards in the meta, not only the usual murloc package (keep in mind that Coldlight Oracles are also played a lot these days and worst case you can eat your own ones). The Hungry Crab is also a beast, so it can activate the extra damage on Kill Command
Jeweled Macaw - the weakest 1 drop of all, but a beast with the same benefit as the Hungry Crab concerning Kill Command and might give you a play for midgame
Mistress of Mixtures - 4 heal is a lot for hunters, especially as a class with no access to healing cards in the class cards segment, also a strong body for a 1 drop

Prince Keleseth - this card is good whenever you play it, you can play it before or after completing the quest. Playing it after the quest is especially good against Priests, but usually you prefer to play him as soon as possible. Since it's the only 2 drop in the deck let's have a look at the 3-drops:

Deadly Shot - removal for the big guys, hard to kill the right target though if there are too much minions on your opponents board, but sometimes you have to take the risk
Eaglehorn Bow - removal to fight for the early board and help you protecting your 1-drops
Kill Command - usually used for taunts to get in some chip damage from your 1-drops or to finish a big guy. Seldom used as face damage as you are used to play this card like this!
Mind Control Tech - like with Deadly Shot, RNG is a thing here and often decides in which direction the game goes, but a very good comeback card, especially when your opponent played a Spreading Plague and you are staring at five 1 drops on your side.

Your card draw package:

Tracking was not enough to refill your hand fast enough with 1 drops to get the quest done as fast as possible. And with Prince Keleseth in the deck it's very hard to find card draw in the 1 drop slot, only Runic Egg is in this pool and it's only useful after you played Prince Keleseth, so not a consistent option for card draw.
In the 3 mana slots you have either Acolyte of Pain or Coldlight Oracle and a 4 mana slot is way to expensive for card draw. Acolyte of Pain does not give you the card immediately and also it can be denied, while Coldlight Oracle cycles itself and gives you an extra card. Also you have the chance to mill a card against control. Usually Coldlight Oracles are bad against aggro, but look at the curve of this deck, so it might not be that bad. And don't forget, it's a target for Hungry Crab if your opponent does not play murlocs.

Your defensive package:

2x Tar Creeper and Prince Valanar, another good royal in this deck who can also provide some heal. Version 2: added 2 Stonehill Defenders to increase the taunt package by 4 taunts.

All these cards should make it possible to finish the quest on turn 5-8. Turn 9 is a little bit late and turn 10 is a loss in most cases unless you find your death knight class card.

If you do he is the play for turn 8+ to switch from aggro style to control style which is the only reason why quest hunter is even a thing in this meta. So if you use Tracking and see Deathstalker Rexxar he is a MUST PICK!. When you are in death knight mode, the rest of your deck does not matter anymore (and you should have finished the quest by this time), so every turn you go for Build-A-Beast and choose a beast with a maximum of 8 mana cost so that you can play it that turn.

Good luck stichin' 'em together! :)

No Tundra Rhino, Nesting Roc, Bonemare? I tried all those cards but they are all to slow. You need to focus on finishing the quest before turn 9 and having dead high cost cards in your hand does not help. Later you should have Build-A-Beast and can create taunts or chargers like you want when the RNG is with you.


 
More infos / footage:

I'll add here more stuff after I got some feedback for the deck