Face Hunter Deck

Table of Contents

• +Face Hunter
  • 1. Aim of the Archetype
  • 2. Strengths and Weaknesses
  • 3. Key Cards and Crafting
  • 4. ChangeLog
• ×Face Hunter Deck
  • 1. Card List
  • 2. Mana Curve
  • 3. Mulligan
  • 4. Early-Game
    • 4.1. Early Trades
  • 5. Mid-Game
    • 5.1. Weaving in Steady Shot
    • 5.2. Counting
    • 5.3. Losing the Board
  • 6. Individual Cards
    • 6.1. Crackling Razormaw
    • 6.2. Scavenging Hyena
    • 6.3. Tundra Rhino
  • 7. About the Author
  • 8. ChangeLog

This variant of Face Hunter was played by Stan Cifka at the Vienna tournament in April 2017. It is traditional in build, and as such it employs efficient early minions to threaten the enemy face and aggressively occupy the board.

1. Card List

This deck costs 1,640 and it is made up of the following cards.

Hunter Cards	Neutral Cards
2x Alleycat MSG 2x Fiery Bat TOG 2x Jeweled Macaw Un'Goro 2x Crackling Razormaw Un'Goro 2x Kindly Grandmother Kara 2x Scavenging Hyena 2x Animal Companion 2x Eaglehorn Bow 2x Kill Command 2x Rat Pack MSG 2x Unleash the Hounds 2x Houndmaster 2x Tundra Rhino	2x Fire Fly Un'Goro 2x Dire Wolf Alpha

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2. Mana Curve

3. Mulligan

Mulligan aggressively for curve in every match-up. Being able to play something on each turn is the key to success in this deck.

If you have The Coin and are playing against another aggressive deck, then you can keep reactive cards such as Eaglehorn Bow and Unleash the Hounds. If you are going first, however, you should still aim to mulligan as normal.

If you have a curve, and a hand of sticky minions such as Rat Pack and Kindly Grandmother, then you can keep Houndmaster alongside them. Activating Houndmaster's Battlecry on Turn 3 or 4 is often too much for your opponent to recover from.

4. Early-Game

You will be looking to curve out as aggressively as possible and try to dominate the board early. Despite often being called "Face Hunter", it is often better to make some early trades in the first two or three turns to gain control of the board. After control has been gained, then your minions will have free reign to start doing large amounts of repeated damage every turn.

4.1. Early Trades

It is usually false economy to play a Turn 1 Alleycat and then not use one of those minions to kill an opposing 2/1 while developing a Kindly Grandmother. A lot of the time, your opponent will be able to kill the first half of the Grandmother using a spell, or Hero Power, and then finish off the 3/2 with their 2/1 minion. Your Alleycat will have hit for 1 damage on the turn it could have traded, and 1 damage the next turn, while the Grandmother could get three damage in in one turn, and have the chance to stay alive for even longer.

A card that helps with the early trades is Scavenging Hyena. In the situation above, playing the Hyena before trading results in a very powerful 4/3 minion for only 2 Mana. As the overwhelming majority of minions in this deck are Beasts, the Hyena will get a buff on a regular basis.

5. Mid-Game

From Turn 3 onwards, you will often be trying to simply do as much damage as possible. Getting your Houndmaster to buff a minion, any minion at all, is usually of huge importance. With that in mind, Rat Pack is a very strong 3-drop when you have Houndmaster in hand. If you have Rat Pack and Animal Companion both in hand, you will need to consider all of the options of the Companion, and choose between the two 3-drops according to which one is likely to do the most damage by the end of turn 4.

5.1. Weaving in Steady Shot

Due to the nature of Face Hunter, there is usually no space for card draw. This means that at some point, sooner rather than later, you are likely to run out of cards in hand. If you empty your hand by Turn 7 and then use your Hero Power, you will often do less damage than if you had kept back a card on Turn 6, and used your Hero Power on that turn AND on Turn 7. Depending on your hand, this process can be used even earlier on occasion.

5.2. Counting

Throughout the game, you should get into the habit of counting of how much damage you are able to deal from your hand. By subtracting this number away from your opponent's health total, you are left with a number that represents how much damage you are required to deal with your Hero Power. Using this information, you can carefully allocate your resources to determine the turn you are able to kill your opponent, allowing any excess resources to be used to disrupt and slow down your opponent.

5.3. Losing the Board

There will come a point where it is no longer viable to try to hold on to the board. Remember, the early fights took place to try to force through more damage, but this is not a board control deck. When the fight has become hopeless, that is the time when you will usually look to ignore the enemy minions, and reduce their Health total as quickly as possible, before it is too late.

6. Individual Cards

6.1. Crackling Razormaw

Crackling Razormaw is a very powerful card, and if it does not interrupt your curve, then you can be greedy with it. Many of the Adapt options will increase damage, either directly through buffs or Windfury, or by giving the minion greater survivability. However, this greed should not usually come at the cost of missing 2 Mana on an early turn, if you have to play it on Turn 2 to occupy the board, so be it.

6.2. Scavenging Hyena

Scavenging Hyena has many uses, but most of them involve playing it and then trading your minions. As with the Crackling Razormaw, though, if you have to play it onto the board, unless it is a suicide mission, you should usually do so. When counting damage, always be aware that you can do more damage by trading in 1/1 tokens generated by Unleash the Hounds when you have the Hyena in play, than by directly attacking face with the Hounds. Each Hound that dies buffs the Hyena by 2.

6.3. Tundra Rhino

Tundra Rhino works very well with Kindly Grandmother and Rat Pack. When the minions die with Tundra Rhino on the board, the minions that spawn from the Deathrattle can then also attack. This will often allow you to clear a problematic big Taunt.

7. About the Author

L0rinda has extensive experience with Hearthstone. After starting out with Arena and becoming one of the most prominent streamers in that format, he moved over to Constructed and now primarily spends his time as a caster for Blizzard, Starladder, and Dreamhack.

8. ChangeLog

+ show all entries - show only 10 entries

• 04 Aug. 2017: Deck Guide re-written for new Icy Veins archetype format.
• 10 Apr. 2017: Deck Added: This deck was a part of Stan Cifka's winning line-up in the Vienna tournament.