Basic Deck Building: Hunters

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Hey guys! This series is meant to provide new players with information and tips for building basic “starter” decks involving the 9 classes in Hearthstone. The idea is to explore basic card combinations and synergy and get beginners thinking about how to approach building or improving their own decks! These guides assume that you’re at least level 10 with the class being discussed and therefore have access to all of the class’s basic cards.

This week we’ll be taking a look at the Hunter class. Hunter offers a lot of good minion synergy and game board control with class cards alone, which makes it ideal as a “first deck” for someone new to Hearthstone or new to collectable card games in general! Our Hunter deck is made entirely from cards available in the basic card set, which is free for everyone to use! Let’s take a look at how different parts of the deck work together.

The core of this deck (and most current Hunter decks) are minion cards that have the attribute “Beast” attached to them. A great way to take advantage of this Beast synergy early on is to play the card Starving Buzzard as soon as you can. Starving Buzzard has the card text “Whenever you summon a Beast, draw a card.” Since you’ve got a lot of Beast cards in your deck you’ll potentially be drawing a lot of extra cards if you play the Starving Buzzard right away. Drawing more cards than your opponent gives you a big advantage because you’ll have more options in how to spend your Mana each turn than they will!

Let’s take it one step further. If you play the card Timber Wolf on your next turn you’ll be able to draw an extra card because of your Starving Buzzard. Timber Wolf has the card text “Your other Beasts have +1 attack.” Which means your Starving Buzzard will now be able to attack this turn for 3 damage instead of 2 because it has the Beast attribute! Combining synergy like this is a good way to gain multiple benefits at once from your cards and is a major part of building and playing decks in Hearthstone.

One important thing to consider though is that it might not always be a good idea to play a card right away, even if you have the Mana. There are a lot of ways your opponent can kill smaller minions (like Starving Buzzard) in the early game and it’s important to learn what classes are better at removing early threats than others. An example of when it might be a good idea to save your Starving Buzzard and Timber Wolf rather than play them right away is in a game against a Warlock. Imagine that you’ve got 1 x Starving Buzzard and 2 x Timber Wolf in your hand. You know that Warlocks have the spell Demonfire, which might destroy your Starving Buzzard before you have a chance to gain the benefit from its card text on your next turn. Rather than playing Starving Buzzard right away you could play another other minion instead like River Crocolisk. Then when you have access to 4 Mana in one turn you can play your Starving Buzzard and then both Timber Wolf cards. You’ll get to draw 2 extra cards that turn because of the Starving Buzzard and have a 4/2 (Starving Buzzard), and 2 x 3/2 (Timber Wolf) minions on the game board because of the attack bonuses you gain from Timber Wolf. All three cards are a threat and will probably present a tough choice for your opponent next turn as far as what minions to try to remove first.

What the “right choice” is as far as when to play your minions will change each game and it’s going to take practice to learn what the best decision is in each situation!

Spells, Secrets, and Equipment make up the rest of any Hearthstone deck. Since we don’t have any Secret or Equipment cards in our deck , it’s time to look at spell synergy!

The most obvious example of spell syngeryin the Basic Hunter Deck is the card Kill Command, which has the text “Deal 3 damage. If you have a Beast, deal 5 damage instead.” Let’s say for example you don’t have any minions in play at the moment and want to play your Starving Buzzard, but your opponent has a 3/5 Sen’jin Shieldmasta out on the board already. If you play your Starving Buzzard and your Timber Wolf this turn you’ll get to draw an extra card, but he’ll be able to destroy one of your minions next turn without losing his. Luckily you’ve got Kill Command in your hand and you realize that if you play Starving Buzzard first you’ll be able to then do 5 damage to his Sen’jin Shieldmasta with Kill Command and keep your minion (hopefully!) safe until next turn.

Spells usually don’t have direct “card text synergy” like Kill Command though. In fact the other spells like Arcane Shot, and Multi-Shot are meant to be used together with your minions to create situations in which your minions can do damage to the opposing Hero. Using these cards to eliminate minions with the “Taunt” text or ones that might do a lot of damage to your Hero are keys to winning with this deck. You could also use one of your spells to damage an opposing minion just enough for one of yours to finish it off!

This deck relies mostly on cards that can be found in the basic Hunter card set. You’ll always have to include some neutral (non-class) minions as well though. Core Hound is a large minion with the Beast attribute that you can play as a strong late game threat. Other neutral cards like Stormwind Champion and Raid Leader are non-Beast minions that can give valuable stat bonuses to your other cards. Razorfen Hunter may not be a beast, but the 1/1 Boar that it summons as its Battlecry is!

Most often the overall theme for a Hearthstone deck will come from the chosen Class, but there will always be neutral minions that can support the theme. In this case our theme is to get a lot of “Beast” cards on the game board so we’ll pick neutral cards that can make all those Beasts even stronger.

Now that you’ve got a good understanding of the basics of the great Beast synergy that the Hunter class has to offer you can take your deck for a spin out on the ladder to test yourself against some real opponents. As you unlock new Hunter class and Neutral cards with Packs and Arcane Dust make sure you keep an eye out for cards like Scavenging Hyena and Dire Wolf Alpha that will make your Hunter deck even more terrifying. Unleash the Beast!