Odd Face Hunter Mulligan Strategy & Guide
Higher Priority (Keep every time)
- Proactive 1-drops – Argent Squire, Fire Fly, Dire Mole, Glacial Shard – Those are the best Turn 1 plays you can make most of the time. You absolutely want to start with a 1 mana minion on Turn 1 (or even two of them if you have Coin) to start dealing early game damage.
- Animal Companion – Great Turn 3 play (or Turn 2 with Coin) – Huffer is amazing for obvious reasons, Misha can protect your board and Leokk is good if you already had something on the board and you can buff it.
Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)
- Acherus Veteran – If you already have another 1-drop in your hand, especially with the Coin. It’s pretty bad by itself, but
- Glacial Shard – If you go second. Freezing your opponent’s face is generally pointless on Turn 1, so this is better as a reactive play, to freeze your opponent’s 1-drop and get some extra tempo.
- Candleshot – Against Aggro. It’s not great in slow matchups, but when you face a deck like Aggro Paladin or mirror match, it’s one of the most important cards.
- Important: If you don’t have any of the “proactive” 1-drops, you can keep one of those just to have a Turn 1 play!
- Unleash the Hounds – Against Paladin, especially Odd Paladin. They flood the board in the early/mid game, so Unleash will often summon four or five 1/1’s with Charge, and that’s great – not only you will deal a lot of face damage, but your opponent will have to trade with all of the Hounds too, buying you more time.
Odd Face Hunter Play Strategy
Odd Face Hunter is your all-in Aggro deck. It’s a bit like pre-nerf Pirate Warrior, but even more aggressive, to a point when “Face” deck is a better name than “Aggro”. Normal Aggro decks, like Aggro Paladin, aggressive builds of Zoo Warlock etc. still want to use their tools to control the board – that’s how they get ahead, that’s how they gain tempo etc. They often NEED their board to win the game. This deck is different, between the Hero Power, Charge minions, weapons and burn spells, board control is not that important. You can win the game even if not a single minion sticks.
That said, even a deck like that can’t completely ignore the board. You can do it most of the time in slower matchups, but you just can’t do that against other Aggro builds. You want to do trades, but not just any trades – smart trades. Clear only the highest priority minions. For example, when Paladin drops a Knife Juggler, you do want to get rid of it, otherwise he will get lots of value and clear your board for free. Similarly, if you can get a good trade, especially if it protects your board, you take it. Let’s say that you have a 1/2 and a 2/1 on the board and your opponent has a single 1/1. By trading your 1/2 into that 1/1 you lose 1 damage right now, but you will most likely get more in the long run, because you protect your 2/1 minion and your opponent either has to use extra resources to deal with it (when you develop other stuff), or he will take damage from it again and again.
However, even against Aggro decks, there is a point in which you can no longer control the board. Your mid game is absolutely terrible when it comes to that. Your minions are low health, they can’t trade efficiently etc. If you get to the mid game, you try to finish the game as quickly as possible – clear only the minions that threaten your life total very hard (e.g. if your opponent has a 5/3 minion on the board that would put you on a quick clock, running your Wolfrider into it is okay – buying extra turn means AT LEAST 3 extra damage from the Hero Power, and possibly even more from a card you draw) or have a potential to heal your opponent.
Silence is a very useful tool – generally you want to keep it for the big Taunts, e.g. Voidlord, but silencing a strong Deathrattle is also fine if that’s going to get you ahead. Silencing Doomsayer if you have some board is good too – you don’t give your opponent an opportunity to get ahead. Sometimes you even use Silence to clear the buffs (like Blessing of Kings), debuffs (like Aldor Peacekeeper or Humility, but that’s uncommon) or unfreeze your minions – if you face a Mage who plays a Frost Nova and freezes your Wolfrider, Ironbeak Owl can be used to unfreeze it and deal the 3 damage immediately. Depending on the situation, it might be the optimal play.
Talking about the slow matchups, those are usually much more straightforward than aggressive ones. First of all – you want to maximize your damage in the long run. After Turn 3-4, try to weave in your Hero Power every single turn. Generally, on Turn 2, 2x 1-drop is most likely better than Hero Powering – same goes for Turn 3 and a 3-drop (especially Animal Companion). After that, however, try to Hero Power every turn and then fill the rest of your mana with your cards.
It’s important to understand your opponent’s key turns and what can they do. For example, you should realize that Priest can most likely drop a Duskbreaker on Turn 4 (or 3 with Coin), so instead of playing more into it, you can take it slow and e.g. play a Hero Power + weapon or something if you have a board already. Similarly, you need to know how much your opponent can heal or Taunt up, and when. For example, if you face a Taunt Druid, you absolutely don’t want to Hero Power on Turn 2 or Turn 3 – you want to put as much minion pressure as possible. From Turn 4 onwards, he might drop a Taunt every single turn, so you want to capitalize on minion damage as early as possible.
Another example is Alexstrasza. Let’s say that you play against Mind Blast Priest – the deck runs Alexstrasza. With a mix of Hero Power, Divine Hymn and such, he might be able to survive that long. You need to understand that Alexstrasza can come down on Turn 9, healing him up to 15. So instead of using your Burn damage or weapons right before Alexstrasza turn, you try to set up lethal with some minions (it doesn’t have to be much, like Wolfrider + a 1-drop is usually enough if you got him so low already). Now, if he decides to clear the board, you kill him with that weapon/burn damage/Leeroy Jenkins etc. And if he does drop Alexstrasza, you still have that board and burn cards to work with, which means that you can most likely kill him. Every deck is different, so you’ll need to adjust your play style accordingly.
Just another tip regarding the decks you face – I’ve seen a lot of players keeping Leeroy Jenkins until you can finish your opponent, and that’s often a mistake. Just smacking him on Turn 5 when you still can is often the right play. If you know that your opponent plays Taunts, it might be a dead card later, so it’s better to capitalize on that damage as soon as you can. You can keep him as a finisher only if you know that your opponent won’t drop charge. In a similar way, you want to play your Charge minions and weapons FIRST, before cards like Arcane Shot and Kill Command. Of course, if you have 1 mana leftover with no 1-drop to play, Arcane Shot into your opponent’s face is okay, but if you can choose between equipping Candleshot and going face and using Arcane Shot, go for the Candleshot. In case your opponent drops a Taunt, you will no longer be able to get your weapon or minion damage that easily (unless you Silence it) – but your spells will always get through.
Odd Face Hunter Card Substitutions
Odd Face Hunter is one of the cheapest decks in the current meta. Baku the Mooneater is basically the only Legendary you need. Leeroy Jenkins is helpful, but not necessary, you can sub him with other cards. Below, you will find a list of potential card substitutes and tech options – those are the cards you can consider adding to your deck depending on the meta you face etc.
- Emerald Reaver – Another 1-drop. It’s a 2/1, so has aggressive stats, it deals 1 damage immediately (to both Heroes, but you don’t really mind that) and it’s a Beast, so you can use it to activate Kill Command later in the game.
- Southsea Deckhand – With 4 weapons in your deck, this card will often be a 1 mana 2/1 with Charge, which is really good. The problem is that if you don’t have a weapon equipped, a vanilla 2/1 for 1 is not great.
- Jungle Panther – Since it has Stealth, it will survive long enough to attack most of the time. It’s a bit like a delayed Huffer from Animal Companion. Good on Turn 3, but much worse late in the game, where Control decks already get to their AoE turns – they can snipe it while it’s still in stealth.
- Blackwald Pixie – It’s a solid card in this deck because of its flexibility. You can drop it on Turn 3 as a 3/4 – not great, but can either get some damage or some good trades. Then, on Turn 7, you can use it to double your Hero Power, dealing 3 extra damage. I’m not a big fan of this card (because most of the games are already decided before Turn 7), but I’ve seen it in some builds. DO NOT run a Clockwork Automaton, though – it’s just way too slow for this deck.
- Hench-Clan Thug – Some builds run it, because it has insane synergy with Candleshot. You can drop it as a 3 mana 4/4 and then snowball it if it doesn’t get answered. The problem is that it’s pretty bad without Candleshot (Eaglehorn Bow is often too clunky to combo with the Thug).
I play 2x Hench Clan Thug, 2x Fungalmancer, 1x Cobalt Scalebane and Azalina Soulthief in this… Cut out 2x Acherus Veteran, 2x Argent Squire, 1x Ironbeak Owl, 1x Wolfrider. Works very well…Much complexity…
I don’t get why Blackwood pixie is better than automaton
I mean for pixie u needs to hero power play it then hero power again which is 7 mana 6
damage and a 3/3 on the
board. But automaton is play it then hero power also 7 mana 6 damage but a 4/4 on the board.
You can play Pixie on the curve if you don’t have a better turn 3 play. Automaton is pretty useless until Turn 7. That’s the big difference: its flexibility.
I like to put in a Clockwork Automaton…if it can survive for one or two turns you can deal insane amounts of damage with you hero power
My opponent Cube’d his Automaton and won 🙁
Well last season i went 14-0 from 5 to legend with this list and i faced a whole lot of decks.
Your math doesn’t quite work. You somehow gained 25 stars by winning 14 games without a streak bonus. Yuuuup!
What about using Raid Leader in place of Acherus Veteran and Hunter’s Mark instead of Tracking?
Seems like a really bad idea. Tracking is important in the late game to find your burn cards, and hunter’s mark doesn’t do any damage. Raid leader just sucks though; this isn’t odd paladin where you have a million 1/1s all the time.
Very good deck,got me from rank 20 to 11.Counters very well all warlocks,against big taunts i teched x2 hubter’s mark.The only deck that gave me some problems is odd pala
*hunter
If hunter has divine favor, this deck will become tier S
This deck is mot suitable from rank 20 to rank 10.
By the way, It is the best deck to meta snipe cubelock.
Baku Hunter? “Fringe deck”?
Pffft
This deck is really one of the worst hunter decks I’ve played. Only one taunt is enough to make you lose. I know it is cheap (I also made it for this reason just to see how the season goes) but it is a waste of time and money! At least 75% lose rate. Even toast’s regular hunter deck got me a couple of weeks ago at 11 and with this one, I’m stuck at 18 (during the good days).
The problem is not the deck if you stuck rank 18 to my mind.
I literally went from rank 14 to rank 10 without a loss. You’re doing something wrong.
i’ve done rank 13 to 4 in a couple of hours with this deck so you can only bless yourself i guess
Come on. You didn’t do that. 5 stars at each rank that’s 20 wins in a row. This game is heavily rooted in RNG, at some point you would have gotten boned with draws. Why come on here just to lie, that’s just sad lol.
Wrong, it’s only 12 with the win streak system…
I’m playing this deck in my smurf, because of the cheapness, and i’ve reached 85% win rate with no problems… (rank 25-12)
35-27 Lvl 20 – lvl 15 Every druid gains 15-30 armour to turn 6. Every shaman heals 24+ hp to turn 7. Pussy taunt meta. Deck has low viability. Owns rogues 50/50 with pallies.
I said, I don’t know is it coincidence or not this deck is rubbish, It loses almost all match ups. Moreover it is extermely, fascinatingly dull to play with.
i see player play this deck at rank 4 vs dog and she win
Even if you say that… the famous Trump used this deck
IMO using 1 Blackwald Pixie instead of Leeroy jenkins is safer. 7 mana 6 damage with no taunt minions holding you back.
Nice sub!
look at all those new cards.. lul
and if you draw it you hate your life. lol
I made this deck because it is super cheap and I’m waiting for the meta to settle in before i spend my dust. Pretty decent deck. something for me to play until I see what is going to be good.
This deck is INCREDIBLE
I run this deck with Marsh Drake + Hench Clan Thug and works amazing, aiming for rank 2 now with a decent win rate. The amounts of damage this deck can bring is insane, thanks for the guide ill keep checking it!
Which cards did you swap them with?
Ya, I find that worgen infiltrator and jungle panther to weak, I have found great power in runing bear shark and black wald pixie, bear shark is just an aggressively stated minion that is fairly hard to kill. The blackwald pixie is great for pushing that important last minute damage on turn 7 or 8.
It’s the most hyper-aggro I’ve ever played. I usually play Control, but man… this deck is so brainless.
Mirror match is crazy though. No brains. Face damage only.
I’d just like to defend aggro decks here if you don’t mind. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into focusing face; it’s a balancing act not unlike miracle and OTK decks, which require careful resource management in order to pull off their combo. If anything, one could argue that Control decks may require less thought than aggro or OTK because “how hard is placing a taunt?” (Of course, I know it’s more than that, but my point is that anyone can call something brainless if they simplify the strategies down to something brainless.)
I actually play this deck quite a lot, and Hunter is one of my favourite classes. I’m not saying all Aggro is brainless, but this deck specifically feels that way to me.
I made my own face hunter list, and have played it from rank 8 to rank 3 so far. Usually i hate playing aggro, and i call these types of decks brainless as well. However, I noticed exactly what the guide suggests: holding on to resources and knowing the right turn to strike with certain cards drastically increases the win rate. Its certainly not extremely complicated like control or even fun for that matter, but it’s not brainless.
I just cant seem to get this deck to work i have only won like 5 out of 20+ games its just so easily shutdown by taunt / healing or board clears even cheap ones due to pretty much all of your minions has 1-2 health so most other decks can easily clear your whole board by turn 3-4
I know that hunter is all about that early board presence early on, but sometimes in an unfavored match up constantly pushing that hero power instead of playing a 1 cost minion can go a long way. I run blackwald pixie just for that reason.
This deck sucks anybody that has a lot of cards with taunt easily beats this deak.
Does prince keleseth fit in this deck? And it fits what to change?
No not at all its an odd deck so you can’t run even cards.
No, Keleseth is a 2 cost. Not odd.
Its even, so no
You are playing Baku and you even want to play Keleseth ?
change Baku to keleseth xD
This deck is pretty fun. Gone 8-5 with it so far. Its only been 1 day into the expansion but I’ve noticed a ton of decks with healing and taunts, which really hurts this deck. When it works and I win on turn 6 its amazing. Sometimes I can pull off a win thanks to the enhanced hero power by turn 10. But beyond that, shutdowns happen a lot.
Nice deck. Remains to be seen if the meta will kill it or not. Thanks for posting it though.
This deck is meh… not bad… not the best either….
Any deck with competent heals or taunt minions and you’re GG.
This deck is getting obliterated right now, I’ve played hunter for a long time and I’m still unable to see how people are managing to pull these said winstreaks. I like the concept but I’m finding it really inconsistent.
Exactly. This deck has lost every time in brutal fashion. It never comes close even with the perfect opening hand.
26-12 and Hit Legend.
What a insane fast deck.
“fast deck” for sure….
first impression of this deck is that it is a too valnerable against aggro decks like paladins cause all the minions are low health so you will loose the board at about 4th round and its game over after that
Even if opponent clears the board you smash his face with 3 dmg each turn
Just like in old face hunter, you can use Unleash the Hounds to get a ton of burst damage off your opponent getting greedy and building a board after clearing yours. Depending on the match up, this can be 7 burst damage (plus 3 from the hero power for 10) out of nowhere.
Yeah, that is the only reason I lost vs Hunter. If you don’t draw it, good luck.
this deck is awesome.
I have played six games with this decks and it was six wins!!!
does anybody have suggestions for what i can use instead of leeroy? Im quite low on dust right now
Hydra I guess
on my new F2P account I am using 2xReckless Rocketeer (Not in this deck though). It is worse than Leeroy as a finisher (+1 Mana -1 damage), but can also sometimes be played on the second last turn for 5 face damage.
Ah forget it it is 6 Mana 🙁
does anybody have suggestions for what i can run instead of leeroy? Im quite low on dust atm
Reckless Rocketeer is your best best. The purpose of Leeroy is solely for a finisher so big minions like Bittertyde Hydra don’t work.
Reckless Rocketeer is 6 mana. You can’t play her with Baku in the deck.
STRANGLETHORN TIGER can work….
This deck is nutty and meta defining. Just went 10-0 on day 1
Why no Bear Shark? And -1 Ironbeak Owl +1 Hunter´s Mark, great sinergy with the Candleshot. And also, I have doubts with the hydra, maybe very slow as you said. Thank you for the guide, I´m gonna play Baku Hunter for sure.
And what about the new Duskhaven Hunter? Is versatile instead of jungle panther
It would be better if it was always a 5/2, but you never want to play it as a 2/5 in this deck 🙂 You want to maximize the face damage. The slight advantage of Panther is also being a Kill Command activator.
Just a quick thought, what’s your take on adding the quest in addition with Baku?
Quest is not good in a Face Hunter deck – it’s too slow. Not only you start with one less card, but this deck is not tuned to finish it quickly.
You might want to make an Odd Quest Hunter deck, but it would look very different from this build!
Good deck, good writeup. I had theorycrafted a deck similar to yours. My changes:
-2 Acherus Veteran, -2 Fire Fly, +2 Glacial Shard, +2 Emerald Reaver: The top 1-drops are pretty clearly Deckhand, Infiltrator, and Gnome; after that, I think it’s arguable what’s better. I think Shard is underrated; Reaver is probably worse than AV but I’m experimenting with it as guaranteed damage and a cheap KC activator. I don’t like 1-attack minions (excepting Gnome) without DWA.
-1 Candleshot, +1 Hunter’s Mark: Great DPM, but the 2nd copy is often a dead card due to Eaglehorn.
-1 Owl: Meta-dependent, starting with 1 and will adjust from there.
-1 Vicious Fledgling: Definitely a threat, but if you can stick any of your 3-drops for a turn, you’ve probably won.
+2 Stitched Tracker: Experimenting with this to pull extra Charge minions and/or Owl. Also considered Blackwald Pixie here but likely too slow.
Thanks for the suggestions! I teched those into my deck and have had great success.
Great guide, thank you.
Would this deck outrace fast paladin decks?
Recently Cave Hydra was run in Face Hunter lists for dealing with Dude and Murloc Paladins, so I wonder if it would be necessary in WW.
I also wonder if Glacial Shards could be good in this deck.
It’s a trade off between tuning it to beat cube lock or tuning it to beat paladin and it naturally wants to beat cube lock more.
What would a Wild version of this deck look like? Argent Horserider instead of…? Anything else?
Also, why no Arcane Shot?
Arcane Shot is pretty useless when the point is simply to smash face as hard as possible. Why do 2 damage and lose a card slot when you can do three with hero power? Also, most 1-mana minions get in for a lot more than 2 damage (usually 4) and require an answer to be dealt with. Spells just do a thing and that’s it.
### chunbailie
# Class: Hunter
# Format: Wild
#
# 2x (1) Acherus Veteran
# 2x (1) Alleycat
# 2x (1) Candleshot
# 2x (1) Dire Mole
# 1x (1) Emerald Reaver
# 2x (1) Fiery Bat
# 1x (1) Fire Fly
# 1x (1) Hunter’s Mark
# 2x (1) Leper Gnome
# 2x (1) Lowly Squire
# 2x (1) On the Hunt
# 1x (1) Southsea Deckhand
# 2x (3) Animal Companion
# 2x (3) Argent Horserider
# 1x (3) Ironbeak Owl
# 2x (3) Kill Command
# 2x (3) Unleash the Hounds
# 1x (9) Baku the Mooneater
#
AAEBAR8GjQGiAtQF3cIC68ICnvgCDKgCtQOSBdsJthO6E+mrAritAuq7ApXOAuHjAovlAgA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone
Fledgling is pretty weak imo, especially when a deck like this has trouble controlling the board without 2 drops. Forget getting frostbolted, fledgling might not even survive the board. 2nd Unleash is always a great choice for face hunter to replace Fledgling here.
I wonder about the inclusion of tracking in this deck. Since you will almost never be looking for something specific, I’m thinking another 1 drop (maybe Dire Mole) would be an improvement. I suppose it could function as a last minute search for Kill Command or Leeroy, but that is about it.
Yes, Tracking is mostly to use it when you’re looking for your burn damage to finish the game. Tracking might also let you “skip” the Baku draw if he’s in the top 3 cards of your deck.
But you can absolutely run some 1-drop instead – Dire Mole, Argent Squire, maybe even Abusive Sergeant 🙂
Have you considered running the card that refreshes your hero power or the one that doubles the dmg or are they just too slow.
Check out the last paragraph of the introduction 🙂
Thx