Face is the Place

Greetings Traveller,

today I show you the standard version of the most liked deck of whole hearthstone – the Face Hunter! (don’t claim something other!). This deck is about protecting your minions with your secrets and kill your enemy as fast as you can. The hardest part is to decide when to go to face (in most cases) and when to kill your enemys minions with your own or with your spells.

Card Decisions

Cards in this deck

• Argent Squire – nice for trading and it’s very sticky.
• Fiery Bat – nice 1-drop with very helpfull deathrattle. It’s a beast too, so maybe keep it in your hand to activate your Kill Command.
• Worgen Infiltrator – 2 damage for 1 mana through the stealth.
• Cat Trick – your main weapon against spell based decks (control or tempo). A 4/2 with stealth for 2 mana is incredible in this deck.
• Explosive Trap – very important to clean zoo or aggro boards… and it deals FACE DAMAGE
• Freezing Trap – Fuck you, Totem Golem! Very nice card for early board control and minions who have a big impact.
• Quick Shot – your main tempo card. It’s your answer against all the Mana Wyrms and Tunnel Troggs out there.
• Snake Trap – your enemy don’t expect this, you get beasts and 3 minions wich are nice for your enemys face and for traiding. But I don’t know how impactfull it realy is.
• Dire Wolf Alpha – nice to pair with Argent Squire, Kindly Grandmother and Unleash the Hounds. And it is a beast.
• Kindly Grandmother – First traid then go to face. Very nice in matchups wich uses much board clears. In most cases they cannot remove the deathrattled minion.
• Eaglehorn Bow – a key card in this deck. Try to get some secrets out after you played this and keep the bow “alive”. When you play it together with your hero power you do 5 face damage a turn.
• Animal Companion – are you playing hunter? A yeah, you do.
• Kill Command – 5 damage to face or removal for some big taunt or impactfull minion. Maybe you have to keep a beast or Unleash the Hounds in your hand to activate it. In most cases use it to bring your enemy to lethal or as a finisher.
• Unleash the Hounds – Very nice against zoo, token druid or shaman with all the totems. You get much hounds for trading (together with Dire Wolf Alpha) and face. Be sure that all hounds fits on the board.
• Argent Horserider – sticky for trading and it has charge. Solid 3 drop.
• Wolfrider – 3 Damage and needs to be removed.

Cards wich are not in this deck

• Cloaked Huntress – i tried it and the huntress don’t has that much impact as it seems to be. Free secrets are nice but you should have enough of them in your hand AND you need to refill your hand after this. All these points are not that profitable for this deck
• Savannah Highmane – the main point is – you whant your enemy to be dead at round 6 or 7 so the higmaine is just too slow. Maybe you can bring one in when there are many control decks at the meta.
  

  
• Call of the Wild – similar to Savannah Highmane but even slower.

General Playstile

In generall you whant to kill your enemy as fast as you cany play on curve and use your hero power as often as you can. Simply all damage go to the face and give your enemy a board to deal with. You are the aggressor and your enemy is the defender so he should kill his minions by trading in yours. But there are some special rules.

• Big impact minions – There are some minions wich have too big impact for the whole game for just letting them alive for example Flamewaker, or Knife Juggler, just for naming some of them. These Minions need to be killed at all costs. In best case you can use your remvoals (see below) If you can’t you should use your minions.
• Taunt minions – There are some decks wich play many taunt minions. They must be removed if you whant to go to face.
• Very unfavorable trades – your enemy can remove your Huffer or your Argent Squire with a 1-health minion? He will remove Huffer who does 4 times more damage then the Argent Squire. Remove this minion with your Argent Squire first. This should just be done in the early game to keep board control. When your enemy is under 15 live and can’t heal himself you should go to face, face, face.

In the first 3 rounds you should play on curve. After that, you should use your hero power every turn and play as few cards as you can. At round 4 you should play a 2-drop + hero power, turn 5 play a 3-drop and hero power. With this tactic you make sure, that you don’t run into a big board clear. If the situation needs this you can break out of this pattern, maybe when your enemy has a board full of small minions you can play a Explosive Trap and Eaglehorn Bow at turn 5.

Removals

In some cases you have to remove enemy minions. Here are the best possibilitys to do this in order of effectivity:

1.  Tempo Cards: Quick Shot, Eaglehorn Bow or Kill Command are very nice to remove your enemy without loosing tempo. Be sure, that you deal exact this amount of damage as they have live. It’s very uneffective to remove a Totem Golem with a Kill Command. For this case use the second variant.
2. Freezing Trap is nice to get tempo and give your enemy a very expensive and uneffetive minion. You can play it very nice when your enemy drops a single big threat on the board you can’t deal with.
3. Dire Wolf Alpha can be perfectly paired with your 1-drops (favorable Argent Squire), Snake Trap, Kindly Grandmother, Argent Horserider or Unleash the Hounds to get more value out of these cards. Use it at the Very unfavorable trades – case
4. Traiding – if there are no other possibilties you have to kill your own minions to save the game.

Mulligan

You should plan your first 3 rounds with your mulligan. Try to get your curve in your hand. Don’t hold two 1-drops or just 3- drops. In the Matchup and Mulligan Guide your favored keeps will be marked with a (f) if you have two of one kind in your hand.

Matchups and Mulligans

Slightly favorated

Mulligan

Argent Squire(f), Fiery Bat, Worgen Infiltrator, Freezing Trap(f), Kindly Grandmother, Eaglehorn Bow(f), Animal Companion

Tips

A Druid has single big threath wich make your Freezing Trap very effective. He plays Innervate + a 3- or 4-drop in round 1 or 2? Bring it back on his hand and you won’t see it again. If you realize that he plays C’Thun – save your Kill Command for his taunts. If you have a secret he just won’t attack so you have to kill his minion. When he plays token save your Unleash the Hounds for a big token round. A big-impact-minion is Violet Teacher – kill it, when it hits the board.

Even

Mulligan

Argent Squire, Fiery Bat(f), Worgen Infiltrator, Explosive Trap(f), Freezing Trap, Quick Shot, Kindly Grandmother, Eaglehorn Bow(f), Animal Companion

Tips

Face and prevent damge. Go to face with simplay all and get tempo in best ways. Explosive Trap is nice to kill the big amount of 2-health minions, a Freezing Trap buys time. A hunter don’t realy have these defensive big-impact-minions and a Savannah Highmane needs to expensive removals so just ignore them.

slightly unfavorated

Mulligan

Argent Squire(f), Fiery Bat, Worgen Infiltrator, Explosive Trap, Quick Shot(f), Eaglehorn Bow(f)

Tips

First – try to spy wich deck he is playing. Mage has so many decks so this is the most important thing.

Tempo Mage

Board control and big-impact-minions are the key wordsy because the Tempo Mage has so much of them. You have to kill his Mana Wyrms (this is the reason
why you hold Quick Shot), and Flamewaker to win this game. The Explosive Trap and Eaglehorn Bow helps you to get them to a nice trading-health. After you cleared this you can go to face.

Reno Mage

Play sloooow. Use your hero power often and dont’t overcommit with your Kill Command. Use your spells just when can kill your enemy or to get tempo because othwerwise he will heal himself out of lethal. If you can kill him before round 6 (look for his Ice Block) – do it!

favorated

Mulligan

Argent Squire, Fiery Bat(f), Worgen Infiltrator, Quick Shot, Snake Trap, Explosive Trap, Kindly Grandmother(f), Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion, Unleash the Hounds(f)

Tips

Because of his hero power, the Paladin has much tokens on the battlefield wich making Unleash the Hounds very effective. Youre Explosive Trap and Snake Trap are very effective against the aggressive variants but useless against the N’Zoth Decks. Kill the N’Zoth Decks as fast as you can and try to avoid uneffective trades with his tokens.

slightly favorated

Mulligan

Argent Squire, Fiery Bat, Worgen Infiltrator(f),Cat Trick, Kindly Grandmother(f),  Eaglehorn Bow(f), Animal Companion

Tips

Use sticky minions like Argent Squire, Kindly Grandmother and Argent Horserider to get board presence. Cat Trick is very nice because you get a 4-attack minion wich cannot be removed with his spells. Try to play slow but steady and don’t ovehealm in a big board.

favorated

Mulligan

Argent Squire, Fiery Bat(f), Worgen Infiltrator, Cat Trick, Freezing Trap(f), Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion(f)

Tips

Pressure is the key word. The Rogue has no minions before round 3 or 4 so you can buy much time with a freeze trap wich removes the for more turns. Force him to remove your minions with his spells and his weapon – you have more minions as he have spells and his weapon is face damage for himself.

even

Mulligan

Argent Squire, Fiery Bat(f), Worgen Infiltrator, Freezing Trap(f), Quick Shot, Eaglehorn Bow(f), Animal Companion

Tips

Use your Freezing Trap to stop the enemy Totem Golem and Kill Command for the enemy’s Thing from Below or lethal. Eaglehorn Bow and Dire Wolf Alpha-buffs are perfect for killing the Spirit Wolfs. If you expect a Lighnting Storm drop your Kindly Grandmother. Unleash the Hounds can be very effective (espacilly with Leokk) because of the big amount of totems.

Your main problems will be the taunts ( Thing from Below, Spirit Wolf). If you can deal with them it should be fine.

slightly favorated

Mulligan

Argent Squire(f), Fiery Bat, Worgen Infiltrator, Explosive Trap(f), Snake Trap, Eaglehorn Bow, Animal Companion, Unleash the Hounds(f)

Tips

There are two different Warlock Types

Zoolock

Here you have to go to face and made the enemy trades unefficient. Don’t present them your effective minions. Use your Explosive Trap as a board clear. Snake Trap is nice too to add some board presence. Unleash the Hounds is very effective in this match up.

The longer the match lasts the more hp the warlock have to melt down with his own hero power.

Renolock

Play slow. Use your Freezing Trap to control the early game and use your Kill Command only as finisher or to remove key-minions. Kindly Grandmother is nice if you expect a board clear.

unfavorated

Mulligan

, Fiery Bat, Worgen Infiltrator, Cat Trick(f), Freezing Trap, Kindly Grandmother, Eaglehorn Bow(f), Animal Companion

Tips

There are two problems with warrior. First he has many board clears and second he has a good healing-rate. Don’t fear the Fiery War Axe because it damages the Warrior too. 

Tempo Warrior

Try to save answers for his Twilight Guardians and Fierce Monkeys – they are your main problem.  Don’t overhealm into a Ravaging Ghoul and use your Freezing Trap to control the early game.

Control Warrior

Like in every Control Matchup – play slow. Cat Trick is a nice answer because the Control Warrior is very spell heavy. Use your Quick Shot for card draw and try to save many secrets for your Eaglehorn Bow to get much value from it.

The most problematic point is the huge amount of armour a control warrior can create. Try to keep the armour down so he can’t use his Shield Slam.

At least – have fun and if you have some suggestions – just post it below!