Step 1) Fill your hunter deck with 1 drops with some big play minions (7-10 drops) as well (but not very many)
Step 2) Quest - soaking up opponent's board with your 1 drops.
Step 3) once quest is achieved drop Hemet.
From that point on you either draw the big drops or 1 drops that let you draw another card. Huge value in that.
Bonus points if your 1 drops are deathrattle minions and one of your big drops is Nzoth
More Bonus points if you can bounce the quest card (youthful brewmaster) for more deck value.
4
Indeed, the First Mate isn't OP before but now the synergy with Small-time Buccaneer and Patches is just insane. Most of the time you don't care about the weapon at all and just override it with a better one, but having an extra 1 drop to pull out Patches, enable Buccaneer attack and a turn 3 Bloodsail Cultist is huge. The problem is the early synergy of the deck is just overwhelming with the weapons . Pirate Rogue has kinda the same synergy but not enough weapons, see how worse it performs.
6
You can smash the hell out of a Whelp if you have a weapon though. Face Warrior wasn't anywhere near Tier 1 before the pirates were introduced, although they had both Korkron and Arcanite. That says something.
2
White Eye is there as additional value against grindy control decks and decks like Renolocks. I reckon it gives you more value than other alternatives, and it's a 5/5 Taunt with N'zoth synergy as well. It's good.Thing from Below won't give you that kind of value in your deck, and you'll find yourself struggle playing against Renolocks more often.
1
3
I like normal animation