Don't leave just because this is a Face Hunter Deck, give this guide a chance XD. (Started with a simple deck because if people don't like these guides I didn't want to waste my time on a deck that was a little more complex).
Last Season I was Legend 669, I have proof on my twitter.
I didn't realize that there was another guide very similar to this one when I initially made this post, here is the link to that guide and it has more general info if you want a quicker guide on how to play the deck while this one has more matchup specific information. Sorry to JokeJedi for causing the confustion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/eauiwo/the_2000_dust_face_hunter_deck_that_took_me_from/
Overview / TL;DR: So obviously the whole goal of this deck is to go face, and to go face HARD. You can use the various synergies cards have with your hero power to gain an advantage on the board and you don't actually need to rely on many minions to win games because of how much value you get out of your hero power. This deck has an insanely good matchup against Mage, Shaman, Warlock. This deck goes even with a slight advantage against Hunter (cause it beats highlander), Warrior (cause you get a little more value out of aggro then they do in the short term), and Rogue (they either buff their hand and win, or you kill them before they can). You get destroyed by Priest, Druid, and Paladin (Mostly Holy Wrath). Also don't worry about losing streaks with this deck, because it is VERY streaky based on if the opponent has the perfect response OR if you get a good or bad hand.
The ideal turn 1 through 4 is
- Toxic Reinforcements
- Hero Power
- Dwarven Sharpshooter + Hero Power
- Phase Stalker + Hero Power
Basically try to get as much value out of the hero power as you can, press that button every time you have the chance because it, along with synergies several cards have with it, is how you win. Also always go face unless there are certain minions that I will get into in a sec.
Mulligans: You want to try to keep Dwarven Sharpshooter and Toxic Reinforcements and a 2-drop (not secrets), and eaglehorn bow or animal companion if you at least have at least 2 1-drops or a 1-drop and a 2-drop. You actually kinda wanna HARD mulligan for the side-quest because it is just that good early with the only cards I don't mulligan in this face being the Phase Stalker and the Dwarven Sharpshooter (those 2 cards you ALWAYS want to keep because they are also really good just in general)
Weird but potentially good keeps include:
- Unleash the Hounds is a decent keep against hunter because a lot of the time it is quest and since they like to play minions and develop a board, you can use that to push your own aggro. Also against Face Hunter, this card can capitalize after they finish their side-quest and help you push a little extra damage and go aggro. Lastly, Pirate Warrior and Zoolock have a lot of minions and you can get a lot of damage out of the OPPONENT'S aggro.
Decklist:
### face
# Class: Hunter
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Dragon
#
# 2x (1) Arcane Shot
# 2x (1) Dwarven Sharpshooter
# 2x (1) Rapid Fire
# 1x (1) Timber Wolf
# 2x (1) Toxic Reinforcements
# 1x (1) Tracking
# 2x (2) Explosive Trap
# 2x (2) Freezing Trap
# 2x (2) Misdirection
# 2x (2) Phase Stalker
# 1x (2) Spellzerker
# 2x (3) Animal Companion
# 2x (3) Eaglehorn Bow
# 2x (3) Kill Command
# 2x (3) Unleash the Hounds
# 2x (4) Lifedrinker
# 1x (5) Leeroy Jenkins
#
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#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
# Generated by HDT - https://hsreplay.net
Stats: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FxaYQcK7fL3jce9tIffSpof6Kddrv-wh6TaufQg6y30/edit?usp=sharing (This started off as just me, but this doc is open for anyone to add to in order to help get more precise statistics cause my 30-60 games is a small sample size). Original Stats were:
Stats from Spreadsheet
Video Gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Tz5M3zRxs
Matchups (Only the Important Ones)
ZILLIAX: If you have an Arcane Shot, do not be afraid to use it to kill this guy because it will limit his healing, and you get to keep a minion on board.
Dragon Druid: Sadly this is the only Druid matchup I am going to talk about because Token/Treant is just not played like AT ALL. Anyway, against this matchup if they play embiggen it actually helps you because it slows them down and gives you a chance to do a lot of damage quickly. The main thing you have to watch out for in this matchup is AFTER Embiggen is played you have to always be careful of a zilliax. This means, if you can play a freeze trap on turn 5, 6, or 7 (depending on how many embiggens are played) you can actually save yourself a lot of extra damage because it will remove its buffs, stall out his health gain, and stop removal. Other than that, you wanna go mostly face unless its to set up for that freezing trap play. They have no massive board wipe in this deck, so if you go wide (meaning just playing all your minions whenever you can) you have a chance of overwhelming them if they don't get taunt minions or Zilliax on curve. If you don't have your sidequest on the board, you can easily not use your hero power 1 turn and choose to mass minion against this matchup.
Face Hunter: Whoever can SMORC better will win this matchup most of the time. However, don't be afraid to use your Eaglehorn Bow or small removal spells to kill the opponents Phase Stalker to lower the value that they can get out of the card. You can ALSO prioritize killing the Dwarven Sharpshooter but only do that if you plan on playing some minions of your own that you want to protect (like your own Phase Stalker) but if you don't have any minions you want to protect (maybe like an animal companion as well) then just leave the dwarf and smack face. Keeping Unleash the Hounds against hunter was something I recommended earlier because you don't know what the matchup will be for sure and that means that at any point if he floods the board and you feel like you are losing control, you can just play Unleash for a nice surprise board and damage (usually after they finish the sidequest). This deck will run no heal (other than Lifedrinker) so the damage will almost always stick and you want to do as much as you can so you don't miss lethal later. Be mana efficient, if you have some mana up you usually want to play a card unless you are specifically saving it for something later (like saving a kill command for when you have a beast on board).
Highlander Hunter: This matchup is going to be a lot less common than Face Hunter and will be along the same lines of popularity as quest. Against this matchup Unleash the Hounds will do the worst, but can still find some success depending on how many minions they play, but it also may be a dead draw so if you play against a lot of them maybe stop keeping Unleash the Hounds. Playstyle wise, you want to go full face with the only minions I like killing being mechs because it keeps Zilliax from becoming freaking unkillable and too much of a swing for you to handle. Basically, you will most likely win this matchup if they don't get a big Zilliax that heals them for 5 or 6 AND has a large amount of health, normal Zilliax you can deal with moderately well with a few different forms of removal and it won't heal so much that you can't come back. Your minions will not stick on the board for this matchup because they have rush and removal, so wait to play Phase Stalker until you can play it AND hero power for value (3 with coin, 4 without). Prioritize the Side-quest, go face and never trade unless its a mech in my opinion (even then you can go face if you are setting up lethal), and press the hero power as much as you can. You can literally ignore the fact that they might hit a spike late game, just play EVERYTHING so they can't make it to late game.
Quest Hunter: Ok, so this one is similar to Highlander Hunter so I won't be too specific, with the only difference being Unleash the Hounds pops off against this matchup and they will usually have a board of 3 to 5 minions at all times (maybe more) and if you play it go face and force the opponent to make trades so you don't miss any damage, even if you might take more in response, this is because if they are already going faster than you, you are probably going to lose anyway. This deck has a good late game, so just ignore it and remember you are on a clock, so every point of damage matters so almost never trade.
Highlander Mage: This matchup is FREE for you. I am 5-0 against it and the reason it is so good is because they have no healing. All the damage you do will stick, they have no other mechs to worry about that they can put Zilliax onto, and they are kinda slow to begin with which means playing a Phase Stalker on turn 2 and using hero power turn 3 is a huge tempo boost they can't respond to or keep up with. Full Face against this matchup everyone, ignore every other minion because there is no ongoing effect you need to worry about, no mechs, and again their lack of healing means even if you lose control of the board later, you can still close out the game with Hero Power and maybe some spells if you draw them. Khartut Defender IS healing, but if you have no minions to kill it with it will never die and GIVE the Mage Health XD. This deck is mostly bad against you because you don't rely on minions after like turn 4 or 5, which is when Mage starts gaining board control, so losing board control doesn't matter. If they play a secret, remember to always hero power first if you have Phase Stalker out, because if they use Flame Ward to kill it, you can get 1 extra secret on the board before it dies.
Holy Wrath Paladin and Resurrect Priest: These matchup you ignore all other minions in every situation. There is not a SINGLE situation in which you hit a minion because if you don't kill them super early, they will heal, control the board, and play Time Out (Paladin) to prevent damage. Your only chance is to totally dump your hand, hope they don't have early removal, and do as much damage as you can. Against these matchups, you don't need to hero power as many times because you need to use your cards, which have better overall value. I mean, don't hero power turn 3, play the Bow or Animal Companion to set up for more damage fast, play lifedrinker turn 4 for board presence for more damage potential later and hope they don't stabilize the board so you can get hits in with minions.
- The reason why the Hero Power strategy doesn't work in these matchups is because the whole point of this deck is to get the most damage out of every turn/card as you can. This means its more efficient to hero power some turns instead of playing a card, if you can't do both, because you aren't maximizing the decks damage total damage (because you missed a hero power). In most cases this works because cards have hero power synergy and most classes don't have THAT much healing so playing "slow" for an aggro deck to maximize damage overall will make your odds of winning higher because this deck stops trying to gain board pressure after turn 4ish anyway. HOWEVER, these 2 decks have a ton of consistent heal which means slower but maximized damage won't win, you have to win in a burst before they can heal a ton. It's unlikely you will win because its not how this deck is supposed to be played, but it is your only chance…
Deathrattle Rogue: This one is very RNG. You wanna have the same mentality going into this deck as Mage, ignore ALL minions and just go hard face. This is because if they have the Apothecary to buff their hand on turn 4, you lose the bard 100%, but if they don't have a Vicious Scalehide in hand when they get the deathrattle off, they won't be able to outheal the consistent damage you did to them over the course of several turns. So the main way you win is either they DON'T HAVE lifesteal rush minions when they buff their hands OR they don't have the hand buff combo on turn 4, in which case this matchup becomes much easier because you don't need to worry about big minions. A way you can play around this deck a little bit is hitting minions ONLY IF they have the Apothecary out. If you hit all the other minions on his board and have a freeze trap on the board, they could lose the deathrattle OR have its activation be delayed a turn or 2 in which case your few turns of extra consistent damage might win the game. Other than that, play like its Highlander Mage as said earlier, go face hard and give up the board after they hit their spike, because if you don't have any minions on the board they can't rush into any of them and gain healing (not having any minions on board has ACTUALLY won me a few games not just in this matchup, but other ones that run Zilliax or vicious scalehide XD).
Galakrond Shaman: This deck after the nerf actually took a big hit, especially into this matchup. The fact that their Invokes have slowed down means that their Dragon's Pack is less consistent, which means you can get a few more hits out of some minions which gives you more consistent lethal. Also, the Sludge Slurper having only 1 attack means that it is less likely that the only way this deck can beat your 3 health minions on curve is if he gets a Kobold Lackey to deal 2 damage. Also, the fact that his invoke is slower means he has less removal in general which again allows more minions to stay on the board longer and do more damage. This deck is pretty much full face, BUT, sometimes Rapid Fire should be saved to deal with a swarm of 2/1 Invoked minions, if you are in danger of being killed, instead of used as damage. This matchup can be good for Unleash the Hounds, but since the board swarm doesn't happen until like turn 6 now, it's likely you draw it later on, so you don't need to try to keep it. I am 5-1 against this matchup and honestly, the only loss came from BEFORE the nerf, the fact that this deck has slowed down makes it a much easier win now. The only weird thing about this deck is that I like to use my minions to kill the Mana Tide Totem because my minions don't take any damage from it (so they can do damage later still) BUT it keeps him from being able to draw cards, which is always good.
Quest Shaman: This one is similar to Galakrond. They have weaker early game now with the nerfs, and even if they aren't going Galakrond/Invoke they don't hit their power spike till around turn 5 or 6 anyway because that's around when they finish the quest. Similar to the Mana Tide Totem, I use my minions or some removal to deal with the EVIL totem to delay the opponents power spike which has proven to be an effective method of winning this matchup. This is because if they finish their quest and have 1 or sometimes even 2 Lifedrinkers they can TOTALLY swing the game, so against delaying the quest as much as possible to keep from them gaining 6 to 12 life is always nice for an aggro deck. Being more minion based in this matchup is also good (so you don't need as many hero powers early) because they don't have much removal, and what they DO have has overload so it still slows down their quest and means you have more time to do damage (your minions lowkey become sacrificial lambs baiting to see if he has removal…)
Zoolock, Pirate Warrior, and Aggro Paladin: This will focus mostly on Pirate Warrior, but since the other 2 are similar play styles I am including them in this section instead of making 2 separate paragraphs (especially because these other decks are pretty unpopular). Unleash the hounds can be very good in his matchup and into these matchups is the ONLY time you actually might use this card for control instead of aggro. The reason this is the case is because if they have a better board than you and have more damage done early, sometimes spending the 1 card to deal with a couple can swing the tempo back into your favor, and since they rely on minions to do damage and you don't, the clear board doesn't hurt you as much. Dwarven Sharpshooter also means you can control the board a little bit as well which I find myself doing often into these matchups, because I know they will either do damage to themselves to regain board control (Warlock) or the opponent will eventually run out of steam due to lack of card draw (Aggro Paladin and Pirate Warrior) AND I can have a few minions on board to slowly do damage to the opponent too. Against Zoolock, killing the 1 health minions with Rapid Fire can also be a good call to preserve minions if you have the card in hand, so again don't be afraid to use it to clear low health minions to keep your minions alive. These matchups are a lot more about balancing controlling board with damage, and using spells to control the board is super nice with secrets/cheap removal while you hit face with minions and your hero power (unless you are using it to control the board with the Dwarf).
Galakrond Warrior: This matchup is weird and I would recommend just going full face into it. They have some removal, but it actually comes from using their Hero to kill your minions after an Invoke, so even if you start to lose board control they are still taking damage. After turn 4, they start getting rush minions so giving up on the board is again your strategy and you wanna focus on spells and weapons and hero powers to kill your opponent. The reason this works even though they are warrior is because this is a kinda aggro/tempo deck, which means they won't be using their defensive hero power that often which means that your damage will most likely stick. Then you just burst them with spells or Leeroy when they are low and they lose before they starting gaining armor every turn with their extra mana late game.
If you want to support me so I do more guides like this, please check out these other links and/or upvote them and this post. Thanks for reading to this point.
Blog: https://betterhearthstone.blogspot.com/2019/12/in-depth-face-hunter-guide.html
Hearthpwn: https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1325553-in-depth-guide-best-aggro-deck
If you have any Tips on how I can make better guides, please tell me cause I would love to do better.
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