Hearthpwn

Hey there everyone and welcome!

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A Little About Me

I am a 18x Legend Player with 2x Top 100 finishes who goes by the battletag WingsOfWax or WingsOfWaxIII on other social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Twitch, and YouTube). I have over 15+ Years of Magic: The Gathering Experience, but as of the release of Hearthstone: Beta been converted to this new and exciting card game.

Over the past year, I have been creating videos, articles, and casting live streams to help educate newer players about Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. As of right now, I am mostly known in the Hearthpwn.com community for creating a Naxxramas + 2,000 Dust Budget Guide 11 Deck series as well as putting Burst Rogue back into fruition.

These days I am working full time, go to school, and still create Hearthstone content whenever I find my schedule allows it. I love educating all types of players whether new or veterans about becoming a better strategy card gamer. I am creating this guide (and others) to help educate and grow the Hearthstone Community even further.

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Introduction to my YouTube Channel:

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Warning: This is an aggro deck. It has inconsistencies similar to any other Aggressive strategy and is not exactly straight forward to play. There is a lot (not all) of SMOrc'ing (Face is the Place) to be done, but you will have to plan out your turns according to how your hand is sculpted for optimal plays that leave you in the driver seat. Playing out this deck takes time and practice to fully master and play well, but it can be done and eventually could take you to the Legend status you desire. 

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It has been a while since I truly pushed for Legend (almost 6 months now) and this month something changed in me that made me really want to achieve 18x Legend. 

There are two decks I will be spotlighting that brought me to my end goal, but the first one I will discuss is this Midrange Hunter list which fought me through the bottom of the Ranks up until Rank 1. I had tested a few different Secret Hunter lists and always felt like they were coming up short on threats or you had to assemble certain combos in order to even get a victory. These styles felt inconsistent to me and always fell apart to some key removal and board clears.

Eventually I had enough with constantly losing or coming up with about a 50% winrate and figured I'd test out a version that was a bit more sturdy with minions that resembled the old fashioned Midrange Hunter lists from over a year ago but with the addition of Barnes.

General Guide:

Each game was a bit tricky since every turn you had to evaluate what your opponent might do and what options you have in hand and on board. You also have to keep in mind what you can and can't play around (for instance, Reno [typically you can't]). This is not an auto pilot SMorc (Face) hunter strategy and requires a bit of thought behind each play.  

Typically you want to hold the board (be making profitable trades) and staying aggressive (dealing small increments of damage each turn). Against Control strategies you tend to be doing the opposite, dealing large increments of damage each turn and making small profitable trades. Be sure to use your weapon to trade kill opposing minions before trading in your minions. 

Card Choices:

Argent Squire - Is only relevant when aggro is prominent in the meta (including Shaman). Squire is a here to deal a little bit of damage to your opponent or to deal act like an Elven Archer/Mortal Coil to finish off minions. Divine Shield also means it has a better chance of surviving a damage board clear. 

Tracking - Originally I started with 2 Trackings but eventually made the decision to add in Ragnaros for a second late game card. Tracking is not something you want to keep in your opening hand since typically turn 1 is not the best time to be searching for a specific card when you have little to no information about your opponent. Use it when you have the mana or when you really need something. 

Cat Trick - The deck started off with 2 copies of Cat Trick, but after a few games where the second copy was stuck in my hand too long, I decided to cut it for a Freezing Trap. Cat Trick is great versus sweepers since it comes into play after the sweeper has gone off. Having a 4/2 stealth means another solid target for Houndmaster as well. 

Deadly Shot - A necessary card versus any Taunt heavy decks. Unfortunately it is not the greatest against Shaman, but you can typically find an opportunity to set it up to take out a large minion. Also, don't be hesitant on using Deadly Shot to kill a Totem Golem.

Barnes - There are 15 minion targets which is comprised of:
2x (13%) bad - 2x Houndmaster
6x (40%) good - 2x Argent Squire, 2x Fiery Bat, 2x Huge Toad
4x (27%) great - 2x Kindly Grandmother, 2x Infested Wolf
3x (20%) awesome targets - 2x Savannah Highmane, Ragnaros
This deck has one of the best percentages for a positive outcome from Barnes while being Legend Competitive. When it comes to deciding between your turn 4 plays, think about what sets you up for more options later. If you are behind on board, Barnes is usually the play, if you are ahead on board, then Infested Wolf is probably better. 

Ragnaros the Firelord - We needed a finisher in the deck that wasn't absurdly costed and could help us occasionally get lucky with Barnes. 

Honorable Mentions:

Call to the Wild - When I was ranking up, the Meta was almost 50% Shamans. Call to the Wild is a great card, but is unfortunately too slow. If however your meta is filled with more control than Aggro decks, I could see cutting Argent Squires for Call to the Wild.

Explosive Trap - I have no problem with Explosive Trap, but personally I just found Cat Trick and Freezing Trap more useful in all of my games. Feel free to cut one of these mentioned traps for an Explosive if you find yourself against a lot more Aggro. 

Princess Huhuran - This opens up another slot that is dead with Barnes and there honestly isn't many great targets for Princess to take advantage of. You have 6 targets that are useful, but I'm not sure I can justify her in the list. You are welcome to give Huhuran a shot in exchange for Tracking, but I find Tracking to be more useful t5 or later. 

Mulligans:

Versus Aggro/Midrange (Including Shaman) - Argent Squire, Fiery Bat, Cat Trick, Huge Toad, Kindly Grandmother, Quick Shot, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow

Versus Control - Argent Squire, Fiery Bat, Cat Trick, Freezing Trap, Huge Toad, Kindly Grandmother, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow (if trap = yes), only one of any 4 drop

If you have Coin, be sure to keep a hand that can take advantage of it. For example: 2x 2-drops for t1 2-drop into t2 2-drop. Another Example: 2x 3-drops for a t2 3-drop into a t3 3-drop. 

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Legend Gameplay:

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Here's to hoping this deck/guide is in some way beneficial to your Grinding Experience! The deck has performed extremely well for me and won games I thought were not possible to do so. 

If your looking for a deck to get you out of the lower Ranks, this one will surely do the trick when piloted reasonably well.

Interested in learning more? Feel free to stop by my Twitch Stream and subscribe to my YouTube, in which I'll either be playing Ranked mode with a variety of decks. 

Follow On Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/wingsofwaxiii

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Don't forget to +1 if you enjoyed the read/video/decklist.

Thank you for checking out this deck and I hope it serves you well.

Good luck and grind on,

-Wings