Hunting Mastiff
Hunting Mastiff is a 2 Mana Cost Common Hunter Minion Beast card from the The Witchwood set!
Card Text
Echo Rush
Flavor Text
"Shh! You're going to start a howl!"Hunting Mastiff Additional Information
Hunting Mastiff Card Review
The Rush mechanic is really cool, but it’s not exactly exciting on a 2/1 minion. I mean, that’s the point, because it also comes with Echo, so it would be too strong if the stats were higher. But the problem is that you can’t play it, hit something and still have a minion on the board. Unless you’re using it to clear a board of Totems, Doomsayer and such, which sometimes is the case, but not that often.
What I like about this, and well, like about any other Echo card is flexibility. A 2/1 with Rush for 2 mana would not be good. But you can use it to fill your Turn 4, 6, 8 and even 10 by playing more. Too bad that it jumps by two, so you will have to round them up if you want to clear anything with odd health. E.g. a simple Tar Creeper would stop 3 (6 mana worth) of them.
The thing going for this card is obviously the Beast tag. At 1 mana, this would probably be broken thanks to e.g. Scavenging Hyena or Dire Wolf Alpha. But at 2 mana, those synergies are just “okay”. For example, on Turn 8 you can play Hyena, 3x this, clear something and pump Hyena up to 8/5. Definitely not bad play, but not super exciting either.
The biggest issue I have with this card is that it might not fit into any Hunter archetype. It’s just too slow. I don’t think that you’d want to play this in Midrange, because Echo cards are generally better in slower decks, who can take advantage of the flexibility. If you play on curve anyway and want to finish the game as soon as possible, then you won’t really appreciate Echo until your last turns.
One important thing to note is that the Zombeast pool (from Deathstalker Rexxar) is going to be updated for The Witchwood, meaning that it will be one of the potential picks. And adding +2/+1, Rush AND Echo to something for 2 mana seems quite good.
All in all, this card is pretty weak by itself, but makes up for it with its flexibility and synergies. So, all in all, it’s okay – not spectacular, but not bad. I just feel that it might be too slow for Midrange builds, and as we all know, Control Hunter is not really a thing.
Card rating: 6/10
Hunting Mastiff Full Card Art
This will be really fun to combine with other minions in DK rexxar’s hero power
this card isnt good enough 2 mana ONE HEALTH isnt good enough period.
HUNTER NEEDS a 1 mana 2 2 echo, 1 mana 2 3, 1 mana 3 3, they need something,
something better then not good enough dire mole which is a neutral. Theres a reason no other classes play dire mole because its ba. A 1 3 neutral for hunter being best 1 drop going into next expansion is basically saying you give zero fuks about hunter. Priest has cleric, mage has worm, even druid had a 1 mana 2 2 thats never even used, lock has a 3 2 and a 1 3 taunt, Paly has plenty of 1 drops, hunter has nothing. Just remove hunter add monk or something maybe that can fix hunter. Until hunter gets a 1 drop Hunter will remain in the dog house since 2015/16 3-4 years of not good. Only thing that saved hunter in recent months is barnes which is HIGHROLL, rng, spells and for hunter makes ZERO SENSE and bad for the game.
This card is really good paired with the wolves. If you throw down two timber wolves you have 16 rush damage for 10 manna. And you only used low cost cards to do it.
Since they’re fixing DK Rexxar for this expansion, this should be a fun addition to Zombeasts!
Ex.: Stoneskin Basilisk + Hunting Mastiff = 5-mana 3/2 Echo. Rush. Divine Shield. Poisonous.
What does “beast” do?
This card is really solid wow..
This card could be insane with hyena and the hunter Deathknight mixing him with other beasts
Combo with stampede to refill hand with beast
Value removal that combos with scavenging or direwolf untapping which don’t untap in value decks. Hunter is weird.
Man this card it’s a bit underrated , it’s versatile and it will do wonders in arena.
If you havet thundra rhino on board already, Will these rushminions get charge aswell?
yes
however a minion with rush and charge still cant attack face the turn its palyed because of how rush reads ( i would assume anyway)
I believe it’s the order it’s given. If you give Grom “Charge!” which means Grom can’t attack hero’s her charge can’t attack heroes. But if you can’t attack because of Rush (already on card) then is put on board to be given charge, will make it either to attack heroes. (that’s my logic, may not work lol)
Depends on the programming of rush I guess. Maybe rush’s code says blatantly “Can’t attack heroes on the turn this is played”.
Though even if this were to be the case I’d expect Blizzard to hardcode around it.
It would be more interesting if it were a 1 mana 1/1 with those keywords or a 2/2 with echo. I doubt such a thing would make Quest Hunter even a viable deck since the reward was never great to begin with.
It is a flexible method of breaking through taunts, something midrange hunter has always needed, but that would be 6 mana to break through a Tar Creeper and 10 mana to break through a Voidlord, not to mention the Voidwalkers it spawns.
There are some things you can do with it, but Hunter as a class never really needed this sort of flexibility.
1 mana 1/1 would be too strong with Hyena. Unless they would get rid of Beast tag too.
There are worse things in the game at the moment, even if it were dropped on turn 10 ending with a 18/10 Hyena. I suppose the situation of the Hyena play on turn 2 into 3 1/1 that die, resulting in an 8/5 could be an issue that could snowball into a Hunter win, but Rogue has been able to do the same sort of things with Van Cleef since the game’s inception on turn 3 and Unlease the Hounds has been doing similar things for a long time now. Van Cleef is a Legendary, but you don’t have to hope your 2 drop survives to get the combo off with that card, and more often than not, your opponent will be able to deal 2 damage come turn 2 or 3.
Even as it is right now, Hyena could functionally be a 6 mana 6/4 with a battlecry of deal 4 damage to a minion with this card, which would be pretty decent for what it is. My suggestion would make it a 10/6, but that sort of stat line is manageable by that point.
The reason it is a 2 mana 2/1 is probably because of Hyena, you are right on that point, but I think it could be fine as a 1 mana 1/1 even with that.
in order to get an 8 attack vancleef you need to spend 4 cards, what youre suggesting wound only take 2. thats where the real problem comes into play, you pay a lot more resources for early large vancleefs.
and hyena is not even the worst combo that could come from this
2 card deal 18 damage to enemy minions
3 card deal 26 damage to enemy minions
2 card draw 5 cards deal 5 damage
these are not ok for hunter to have. hunter as a class has always been a class that is super strong early on come back combos like these don’t fit the class and would make it way too strong in the late game where it’s supposed to be the worst.
Playing 4 cards (Let’s say Backstab, Preparation, Fan of Knives, and then Edwin VanCleef) as Rogue to summon an 8/8 is something that isn’t completely unheard of on turn 3. Summoning only a 6/6 is more likely on that turn, but big Hyenas created by a 2 card combo have existed ever since Unleash the Hounds took on the form it currently does. Sure, it requires some set-up by your opponent to make it really big, but there are some decks that would at least prefer not to send early game resources into a 2 drop.
The first two combos you listed off are both 10 mana and leaves you with a board consisting of just a 1/1 and a 1/1 and a 2/4 that could’ve been a 4/2 or a 4/4 with taunt instead respectively. Those combos also only deal with the minions on the board rather than getting damage to the Hero. Against any control deck worth its salt that isn’t running out of plays to make can probably deal with a board wipe on turn 10. Also, that second combo would only deal 18 damage (1 for Timber Wolf, 3 for Animal Companion, and 6 for the 1 mana 1/s. 6*(1+1+1) = 18)
That last combo is a bit more interesting though since it is a crap version of Ultimate Infestation that can’t be thrown out on turn 7 or occasionally earlier, doesn’t heal for 5, can’t throw the damage at the hero to pressure them more, leaves a 3/2 to the board instead of a 5/5, but does still draw 5 cards. A fairly powerful late game combo with Starving Buzzard would probably do more good for the class than not since it is a combo that would not be used until until the late game and functionally does nothing more than draw you 5 cards when playing against slower Midrange, control, or combo decks. Plus there are more powerful things in existence right now like Divine Favor and the aforementioned Ultimate Infestation.
Lastly, class characteristics need to be a lot more fluid than you imply they should be. Giving a traditionally aggressive class some class appropriate control options will do more good for the game than ill, and any combo with Starving Buzzard would be difficult to abuse with aggro deck seeing as it is horribly understated for its cost and would need to draw at least 3 cards through its ability in order to make up for that.
pretty sure they was thinking timber wolf, timber wolf, 8 mastifs. each mastif gets +2 attack meaning 3*8 =24 meaning they still can’t do math…
The problem with quest hunter was never the reward.
Didn’t even read the rest of your post after that. You can’t offer anything of value after that.
If a quest’s rewards were not worth meeting the deck building requirement since the two are intertwined, it is a bad reward. The same applies to Jungle Giants and Unite the Murlocs.
In The March Queen’s case, running about 15 1 drops in a hunter deck was easy enough and allowed for a fairly consistent and quick completion rate of the quest, sometimes early enough to play Carnassa on curve. However, the 15 3/2s that cycled themselves were usually easy to kill with the typical sort of cards that are good against decks that go wide and once they stopped drawing into each other, they killed the momentum the deck created by piling as many minions as they did onto the board. If you played Carnassa on turn 5 and you went 2nd, you’d have 35 total cards in your deck, and a 3 in 7 chance of drawing a brood and perhaps starting a chain of summoning broods, but that was unlikely.
You could wait to play Carnassa to increase the chances of drawing Broods, but the longer you wait, the less meaningful those broods will be.
While the deck building requirement of a Quest Hunter deck did play a part in its failure, Fire Plume’s Heart proved a wonky requirement with a good enough reward was extremely playable, even if that playablilty slowly declined as time when on.
Blizzard forcing the control hunter that nobody will play
Just like nobody played spell hunter?
You’re my favorite
Just like no one played big spell mage? Just like nobody played Jades? Just like nobody played possessed lackey and void lord? Just like no one would play Dr. Boom? Like nobody played Patches??
The community always shows negative responses to things that end up being a lot better than they ever expected.
Buzzard synergy i guess…