Hearthstone Deck Check: Let the Hunt begin...

Hello everyone, Endblade here. Today I'm gonna share with you guys (yes I finally succumbed) my Hunter deck, influenced largely by many Hunters that I've faced on ladder as well as getting some inspiration from Hearthpwn, Youtube, and watching streamers on Twitch. But mostly from just facing Hunters on ladder.The focus of this deck is as I named the deck- to zerg down your opponent much like Zoo, but the playstyle is slightly different, with some decent mid-game presence and secrets to mess with your opponent.

As you can see, the early game is littered with many low-cost deathrattle minions like webspinner, loot hoarder, leper gnome, mad scientist and haunted creeper, which means that playing a minion on turn 1 onwards should not be a huge problem given the bottom-heavy nature of this deck. Generally you would want to mulligan for low drops like your Undertaker, which synergises excellently with your minions to get buffed up 2-3 times and deal some damage and force out a Wrath on turn 2 by druid, hunter's mark+arcane shot combo or kill command by hunter, frostbolt by mage on 2, and etc. 

What I'm trying to say is that more often than not, Undertaker will win you games if played aggressively rather than used to trade for board control. For this deck, you don't neccessarily need to fight for board control, because usually what happens is that by turn 5 or so the opponent is at less than 20 health or even in the low 10s, which then makes it very dangerous for him to leave my minions alone and go for me (unless its' hunter mirror match or zoolock type matchups) and hence they will be forced to clear your board first by using their AOE or better yet, trade their minions to kill off yours. I run many single copies mainly because hunters in terms of spells don't have much space for it, and in most cases you want to leave the hunter's mark for big taunts in the way of your minions or tracking, which serves as a good filtering mechanism but I realize for these cards more than 1 generally is useless, as you want to go for damage and spells like these do not help contribute to applying pressure on your opponent. This deck is not as fast as zoolock type of play but not as slow as the warrior control. 

Ironbeak Owl is there because 1) its' a beast and 2) it gets rid of taunts

Now for traps I chose one Freezing Trap, one Explosive Trap mainly for the utility and both are useful in different cases, the former being as a tempo play while the latter to act as possible board clear or even as 2 damage to the opponent. Misdirection is there as a surprise play, I used to run Snake Trap, that is useful too but I prefer misdirection because of the surprise factor as well as the possibility of the attacking minion attacking the opponent's face, which is hilarious. Mad Scientist helps you fish out for these traps for free

Flare as a card is useful, it acts somewhat like Tracking but against Secret Mage and in mirror matches, can mess with them quite a bit by popping their Secrets.

Eaglehorn Bow synergies well with the various Traps as well as is good as minion removal. Don't be afraid to go for face with this, sometimes, the extra 3 damage helps threaten lethal earlier.

Now Animal Companion is just great because all the Beasts you get generally are useful, the Pig-guy (Don't know his name) is arguably the best and helps you push for damage, Leeok is good when you have a well-developed board of minions and can help ensure favourable trades if needed. Houndmaster is just there to provide an option for Taunt, and is a good 4-drop generally for Hunters since Beasts aren't that hard to come by. 

Kill Command arguably is the best card in this deck, and it wins games if you topdeck it (which HAS happened before), and is possibly decent removal. 

Loatheb is a arguable choice, but I run Loatheb in almost all deck that I've played post-Naxx just because he has so much utility. For example, he delays AOE like Flamestrike and Lightning Storm by turn, which can seal the deal when you already are threatening lethal and just want assurance he won't get lucky and topdeck some spell to undo all that you have done.

Savannah Highmane, ah this card. I used to not like it much, but with Undertaker synergy being a real thing here as well as the total stat of a possible 10/9 for 6 mana, you cant really go wrong with this guy. He has helped win games before as generally people will tend to want to remove Svannah ASAP, and your other minions will slip under the radar unnoticed. Not to mention at 5 health he is at the sweet spot beyond many AOE spells like Auchenai+Circle of Healing combo, Flamestrike, Spell-Powered Lightning Storm, Deadly Poisoned Blade Flurry, and the like.

So far this deck has helped me to go 10-1 on ladder, I lost to a mirror hunter who outplayed me. In casual I have won 5 lost 2, one due to bad draws and the other to a ramp druid (I rage quit that game he double innervated on turn 3 to summon an Ancient of War) I was so pissed haha. Generally you want to mulligan for as aggro a hand as possible especially against slow control as you got to beat them before they get to the endgame, where you will just lose out. For me, games rarely stretch past turn 8, with the occassional turn 9 or 10 but I have not played a fatigue game with this deck, generally after turn 9 or so you start to lose options and lose steam. SO try out this deck on Ladder and see how it does! 

UPDATE:This deck has so far gone 13-1 on ladder and 7-3 on casual.

So until next time,

EndBlade

Hearthstone deck check: Tempura Rogue

Hello everyone. Today I will be posting a deck check on my current favorite deck to play and it is also very straightforward, inspired mainly by Trump and his view that every play must be a value play. Now I got this concept of a this Rogue on Hearthpwn from a player called Flood, and although this deck may be very similar, I have been trying out many variations of this midrange styled Rogue especially after the nerf of Leeroy and the start of the new season in October. For those of you who are not updated on the Heathstone scene, recently about a week ago Leeroy Jenkins, yes the one we have a love/hate relationship with, has finally been nerfed. Now at first I didn't give up on him yet, I tried to make the leeroy miracle work its magic but alas the burst potential was no longer there. Not to say that it wasn't any good, but firstly I lost my matches due to the fact that leeroy was one of the outs I had to deal 20+ damage for a shock win, and was the winning image of the deck. 

Another reason why I stopped playing miracle rogue was that I wasn't interested in trying to make malygos miracle work, it was just that malygos was more of a gimmicky card to me and I didn't like the style of play the new miracle was shifting towards. But I was reluctant to put down rogue altogether so I tried something different. Tempo rogue. While I haven't played much hearthstone, so far I have gone in about something like 10-3 with this deck, and winning with this deck is all the more rewarding due to the nature of this deck- you have to make every turn count, and tempo build up and board control is the mainstay of this deck. Now onto some of the card choices and my explanation for them.

Now firstly we have the standard lineup of rogue removal cards and buffs such as cold blood, backstab, deadly poison and eviscerate. Now why only one Cold blood? Most of the time you generally use cold blood on maybe turn 4 onwards as part of a combo, you can use it on argent squire if people leave it on the board (many people underestimate argent squire and haunted creeper) which you can use to your advantage, by cold blooding them to deal early damage and pressure your opponent into make inefficient trades and wasting removal on your early drops, so that your mid game minions become more sticky. Blade flurry is good AOE and can prove to be a zoo deck's undoing. But we only play one, so use it wisely, preferably with a deadly poisoned wicked knife. But blade flurry stacks with spell power, so be mindful of that. A thalnos  powered blade flurry deals 2 across the board and can mess up with aggro decks. Bloodmage thalnos is the MVP of this deck, you may think: meh, what can a 1/1 do? But it combos so well with your spells like backstab, eviscerate, to help you push for damage to the face or remove creatures. And when playing against hand lock Giants, a thalnos powered backstab plus eviscerate can kill the 8 health minions they place on the board. Fan of knives is there for the AOE board clear and in some cases, cycling potential to grab the minions you need to smooth out the curve. Be wary of using it too freely though, unlike miracle which cycles through your whole deck this is a one shot one kill kind of thing. So only use it for the card draw if absolutely needed. More often than not, it helps to remove 2 health creatures be fanning and attacking with the knife on turn 3. The early game is important, it is CRITCAL that you have a smooth mana curve for this deck, if not your game will be pretty rough. Hence the early drops to help build up the tempo.

Now assuming you establish some form of board control in the early game and it's now turn 4-8. Now is the time where Tempo Rogue really shines. With 4 drops like Chillwind Yeti (why Yeti you may ask), you can't go wrong with a value minion. It has 4 attack which is the sweet spot for Priests and 5 health, which places it out of Direct flamestrike, swipe and the like. And although some may want to place gnomish inventor (nothing wrong with that), a minion like Yeti tends to be quite sticky especially if you get it out early e.g. Turn 3 coin into yeti or turn 4 drop. Most players also don't expect to see yeti in constructed, so there is the surprise factor initially. Overall it's just a solid minion to have. Defender of argus is there mainly to taunt up tokens from the haunted creeper and argent squire so that your early game minions don't become obsolete in the mid game and can trade favourably. But it's situational and you might not always have a solid board so 1 argus is enough. Now sap although a 2 mana card is NOT an early game play. Rather, you want to hold it in your hand until you want to disrupt your opponent's tempo on turn 5 onwards. Loatheb is there for a similar purpose but to screw around with your opponent's spell casting ability. Assuming you need one turn to kill him but am vulnerable to a turn 7 flamestrike or a possible board clear, you plop down Loatheb and make them cry tears of sorrow as you seal the victory the next turn with a cold blood.

Azure drake is there as a card draw mechanic as well as a useful spell power to buff your spells up to kill high health minions. Many times I find myself with azure drake and/ thalnos on the board which makes my eviscerates to the face deck deal damage like kill command or even more. Sludge belcher  is there as a solid taunt body to delay and protect your smaller minions so that you can continue to chip away at your opponents health. Argent commander is real value, it can contribute immediately to the board by removing 4 health minions while just popping the divine shield, you can make it your turn 6 play to push for damage and pressure your opponent into removing it somehow. Another card which annoys taunt heavy decks or decks which run sludge belcher, Druid of the claw etc. is the Black Knight. While it may sit dead in your hand against aggro typed decks, in control typed decks this card shines. I have won games just by destroying taunted up mountain Giants and messing with my opponent's strategy. This card just contributes to the board immediately, much like argent commander but to a different extent. 

Now that I have explained the rationale behind the card choice, I will now move on to explanation on how to play this deck and the match ups it may face in this meta. Stay tuned to this post, I will be writing up on it soon.