Hearthpwn

Hi guys, this time we have a deck that has stood the test of time, but has almost disappeared in the FACE of the new Meta: The Face Hunter.

 

People hate aggro decks. There is Aggro shaman, Zoolock and then there is this deck. What made Facehunter hold a candle to any of those decks was cards from the early days where GVG and naxx were rampant, Glaivezooka and Mad Scientist. In a change, this deck is more minion oriented to suit the current meta, with On the Hunt and Animal Companion. There is no doubt that Hunter has a good minion in Fiery Bat, Huge Toad has been added to compliment the theme of multi-damaging minions, which may not necessarily hit the face. 

P.S.: Reckless Rocketeer was in because i havent enough dust or luck for Leeroy Jenkins, BUT NOW I have the dust, so yes its in the deck!!

 

Do leave an upvote and when it hits 10, i will do my best for a mulligan guide and strategy guide, do check out my other decks and do leave comments if any of the decks can be improved. Do take note that i dont splurge cash on anything (so expansions will take a while), but up till then, Happy Laddering!

 

Update 28/5/16: While i was doing up the guide, chrome crashed on me and my data was lost, i am rewriting it, i am terribly sory.

 

AND THANK YOU for the upvotes and I really really do appreciate them and your comments on the deck. It may not be my first time posting a deck on hearthpwn, but i would like to introduce myself to you! 

 

My name is Zenthon and i am a player in asia, who is currently playing on the NA server. I pride myself on being a F2P Player, which means that ANY EXPANSION I own was grinded for 2 weeks, via quests, and i dont own blackjack mountain yet. Although i picked up hunter in the first few weeks i played when i started (last december), i am more of a Warrior Player and am more inclined to use it on ladder.

 

The purpose of this guide is to give the Traditional Face Hunter the facelift it could use for the Old Gods. I stress that it is not a good deck to go on ladder, right now as it is still being refined, but i feel that it is really great for questing and really quick tavern brawls.

 

THE DECK

Face hunter is the quintessential deck that embodied the word "aggressive" in its blood and sinew. The deck plays a hard number of early game cards, super fast Charge minions, direct damage spells, coupled with the Steady Shot hero power, used to guarantee a win by turns 5 - 6.

Unfortunately, we lost the likes of Arcane Golem and Leper Gnome to the nerf hammer, while standard rotated out GVG and Naxx, especially Glaivezooka and the Mad Scientist. This face hunter deck revolves around the random RNG 1 damage to start the game before closing out with direct damage or bigger Charge Minions. 

THE EARLY GAME

 The main thing about the face hunter is that it prides itself on playing many early drops, which you should always mulligan hard for, so that you can achieve the main objective of this deck early: To go face. But these are the early minions that you should mulligan especially aggressively hard for in the early game and drop them as soon as you can:

Fiery Bat: The essential answer to leper gnome, starting out with 2 attack and a deathrattle 1 damage to any enemy could either put you closer to ending your opponent, or set you up for a better trade. 

Worgen Infiltrator(not listed): One of the better minions to start with, especially since it has the handy stealth. While he is on the board, you may want to anticipate when your opponent you want to play an AOE, so you should try to get the best value out of it by attacking before that time comes. Otherwise, it is good as a card to remain in the background to threaten early game enemy minions with 2 health

 Huge Toad(Not Listed): A good 2 mana 3/2 body with a closing of 1 damage to an opponent. Do pick him up in the mulligan unless you are facing rogues who can answer to this with a simple backstab.

Kindly Grandmother: Now THIS is what we call a true-born hunter card, which synergises very well with Knife Juggler, but also a very good proc for your Kill Command. This minion should be traded away as soon as possible to make way for the Wolf to emerge

Abusive Sergeant(not listed): only keep him if you have other early drops to ensure good value.

Alleycat(not listed): Good early aggression and late game proc for Kill Command and Knife Juggler. But now that we are removing Knife Juggler, there simply is no use for the cat to be present.

Secretkeeper: with the addition of the various secrets in the deck, this 1-drop is crucial to the package's power for a face hunter.

Southsea Deckhand: It is just a vanilla card for us, take no bother on it as it is our Patches the Pirate summoner. It will be a doozy if you can get the charge off the Eaglehorn Bow though.

Patches the Pirate: The main purpose is not to be a charging pirate. The main thing about Patches' ability is to be able to thin out the deck and guarantee drawing more important cards later on, therefore the inclusion, however random it is.

 

Early Spells

In a face hunter deck, you would want to make the tempo-like plays that would almost immediately swing the game in your favour. The hunter’s niche spells are based around summoning minions, which you should KEEP in your hand on the first draw.

 Animal Companion: Whatever you get from this spell would only serve as a good start to your board presence, which is essential in this deck. Of course Huffer would be your best pick!

Bear Trap(not listed): this is a good starter with the opponent being baffled by secrets so early. However, it sets up a state where you can get a taunt minion on the board as early as you can while developing the rest of your board, and can also fake out your opponent in not attacking with his developed board, or setting up a kill command.

 

On the Hunt(Not Listed): perhaps the Old gods were merciful in a sense that they provided us with a flexible damage spell that generates a minion, this could proc your Kill command or even synergise well with Knife juggler!

 

 

TO Keep or not to keep?

 

Eaglehorn Bow: This is really a question to be very honest, Do we keep the weapon? Just like the Fiery War Axe, this weapon is good for early board control and can double up as face damage, but only keep it if you:

 

1. have your early drops
2. Hold the coin

 

 

Arcane Shot(Not Listed): Another board control spell at 1 mana, i would say not to keep it at all in the early game, use it as a tool in the midgame to endgame to do efficient trading after bringing down your opponent’s health.

Quick Shot: It depends on whether you are facing another aggressive deck or not, u this should generally be kept for the draw engine as the deck runs out of steam easily.

Traps

The Karazhan Expansion gave rise to the best 3-drop hunter can get, being Cloaked Huntress, which synergises with more secrets that have been included in the deck, namely the following

Explosive Trap: unless you know that you are playing against a zoo deck, never keep this spell in your hand.

 Freezing Trap: Great against the pesky shamans and also hard-hitting warriors, the added bonus of +2 mana cost would be crushing to the opponent. However, I strongly recommend that you look at quantity of this card and also the nifty Cat Trick, as both traps are very situational.

Cat Trick: Finally a card that hunter has received, can play around the strong AOEs that other classes play, so as to leave a minion on the board. Only ever play this secret, when you have multiple minions on the board.

Snipe: Kills turn 2 Totem Golem, while in a good combination with Freezing Trap.

Snake Trap: Relatively valuable secret, especially good field filler to oppress the opponent

Knife Juggler: Retired

Boy are we glad that Knife Juggler actually survived the Nerf hammer, and has retained its insane ability, losing a lot in the rotation of Haunted Creeper. But you should NEVER keep it in your opening hand unless you hold On the Hunt, which would bring about a 2 damage burst: one to an enemy of your choice, and the other which would be left in the hands of RNGesus.

 Other than On the Hunt, you hold the valuable Unleash the Hounds which synergises really well with the juggler as he flings damage around the board while you get your Hounds with charge. if you already had Leokk on the board, The Hounds would be almost unstoppable, but beware of Ancient of War though…

 Unfortunately, I have chosen to retire this unit as it really does not perform well in the current metagame, in favour of an early pirate slammer and deck-thinner.

 

Mid-Endgame

You would want to start the midgame by playing you charge minions to push for damage, keeping in mind that you should be using your hero power to do the work most of the time.

Wolfrider(not listed): High attack and charge is the way to go, it can either push for damage or push out early taunts on the board if need be. I have also retired this minion in favour of the new addition to my collection - Leeroy Jenkins

Argent Horserider(Not Listed): probably one of the better cards from the grand tournament, the divine shield makes it extra sticky and a good minion to receive buffs from the Abusive Sergeant and other minions to trade against other bigger minions and clear the way for your zoo-like field to attack the face.

 

In the endgame, you should be able to finish off your opponent really efficiently, as long as he is at 10 health or lower, using the following cards: 

Kill Command: Flexibility of the damage range is not the main issue, but the fact that it can hit the face, would be the best incentive to keep it till the end unless absolutely necessary to drop it on a big minion.

 Reckless Rocketeer(Not Listed): Yes, i dont have Leeroy Jenkins, but at the stage of the game where you can end it all, we have seen many people fail when they play Leeroy Jenkins while their opponent has their Knife Juggler on the board, which results in the knives being thrown at your finisher. Yes, he may be no 6-attack minion, but he is still a good budget minion to do a solid finisher with no board downsides or risks.

 

Strategy

Face, face face, face is the place. Do not miss an opportunity to go to the face, make sure like the warrior, you are always playing your hero power to hit the face. In a sense, this is how you would want to play most of the time, mirroring a warrior turn: summon/cast spell > Attack > Hero Power > End

 Your best matchups would most indefinitely be the suicidal warlock, until he plays Reno Jackson and also probably the other midrange decks like the newly minted midrange shaman. Druid would also be a walkover now that they would be very low and unable to keep up with the fast pace that you would set for them. 

 Worst matchups? Definitely priest as it has been designed to really counter the hunter with extremely slow plays. Control warrior is also another bad candidate to play against. So if you are questing and meet these two classes, just concede unless you meet their aggro variants.

 

 

All in all, this deck while really quick to play and also simple to play, is not viable to use on the ladder, as we have all seen in the past months. What we have here is just an update to the extremely annoying deck that dominated casual games and made some parts of the ladder unbearable, but it never hurts to look back at the good ol’ hunter days as this deck goes deeper and deeper into retirement. RIP Face Hunter, you were the greatest cancer before Aggro Shaman and after Mech Mage, and you would not be missed too much.

 

Overall, WOG has given each and every class different playstyles to go along with the existing cards while freeing up card slots with the standard format. The stale meta saw a breath of life and players have innovated new decks with brand new cards, now that auto-includes like Dr. Boom, Death's Bite and Sludge Belcher and many more have rotated out. 

I personally had fun tinkering with this deck for each match I've played and i believe that is what Blizzard would have and has always wanted for the people who play this amazing game. Kudos to Blizzard on this update, and please do give a +1 if you feel that this guide has been helpful.

Likewise, please do leave me comments on the deck if i can do anything to improve it. Happy Laddering, and all hail the Old Gods.

 Edit, 13 May 2016: Finally obtained Quick Shot after grinding for Blackrock Mountain. Suggestion by user Jackoldj to switch out Arcane Shot has been really good. However, Arcane Shot could be used if you are a new player and have not much access to cards in adventures yet.