Wild Giants Hunter Deck List Guide – Kobolds and Catacombs

Our Wild Giants Hunter deck list guide will go through the ins-and-outs of this deck! This guide will teach you how to mulligan, pilot, and substitute cards for this archetype!

Introduction to Giants Hunter

Giants Hunter is a combo deck based around Naga Sea Witch. In a patch just before the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion Naga Sea Witch’s effect was changed to apply before effects on individual cards. With this change, Naga Sea Witch now sets the cost of cards like Mountain Giant to 5 before they reduce their own costs further, allowing players to play a horde of 8/8 minions as early as turn 5 (or 4 with the coin). At first Druid was the obvious class to play the combo in with its mana ramp, newly absurd draw from Ultimate Infestation, and “third copy” of Naga Sea Witch: Aviana. However, the strength of the deck comes from belting out Giants on turn 5, and oddly enough the class with the highest chance of doing this is Hunter. King's Elekk, Stitched Tracker and Tracking filter and search through the deck for its combo pieces, creating relative consistency.

Wild Giants Hunter Mulligan Strategy & Guide

VS Everything

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• King's Elekk – Provides early board presence and considering the high cost of many minions in your deck it’s likely to replace itself.
• Stitched Tracker – If you don’t have Naga then it can find it for you, and if you do have Naga it can find a Giant. Great consistency card, and against aggro it’s one of your few low cost minions.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Naga Sea Witch – The deck leans so heavily on this card you will almost never toss it back, but if you know you’re against aggro and you don’t have a plan to live until turn 5 then it won’t do much for you. Unless you know you’re against aggro with no early answers always keep.
• Bright-Eyed Scout – This is entirely dependent on what your earlier curve is. Most early minions in the deck are better to have than this one, but if you have Elekk and Stitched Tracker in your hand already then Scout completes your curve. This potentially sets up a turn 4 Giant or a consolation turn 5 play if you don’t draw Naga.

VS Fast Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Quick Shot and Eaglehorn Bow – Early removal cards are good against aggro. You want to live until your Naga turn, and these help you get there.
• Animal Companion – Having something to contest the board against early minions always helps against aggro and a third of the time this will produce a Taunt.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Deathstalker Rexxar – The armor and aoe effect help a lot against faster decks. If you already have some early plays this is probably the highest priority card in the deck. Once played, Rexxar often swings the board to your advantage, and his hero power can create Taunt or Charge minions to keep you alive in the subsequent turns (Charging minions can trade the turn you play them). The only reason to throw Rexxar back is that he costs 6 mana, so if you don’t have anything else to do beforehand he can’t help you.
• Sea Giant – Aggro decks frequently go wide, which often gives you an opening to play Sea Giant pretty early. Sea Giant creates pressure and can trade with a lot of things, but he doesn’t protect your life total fast enough. Only keep if you have early removal.

VS Slow Decks

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

• Naga Sea Witch and Company – Apart from the cards in the “VS Everything” section, you want to hard mull for Naga, and if you have her keep Giants. Having only Naga on turn 5 is pointless, but each Giant you keep without Naga is one less chance to draw her by turn 5. If you also have a Stitched Tracker there’s more leniency on which Giants you can keep without Naga, but limit it to Giants you could play early even if she’s not drawn.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Mountain Giant and Clockwork Giant– These two giants are the most likely to be playable early against control without Naga. Clockwork is going to be the earliest against decks like Cube-lock that draw a lot of cards, but you will likely be able to play either of them on turn 5. If you don’t have a Naga or Stitched Tracker send Mountain Giant back, and if you’re playing against a deck that’s likely to play a bunch of early cards send Clockwork back.

Wild Giants Hunter Play Strategy

The game-plan of this deck is to play Naga Sea Witch as early as possible to create a huge board of Giants. If on turn 5 you have 3+ Giants to play then you can often end the game there, which would be Plan A, but this deck has a couple contingencies. If the Giants survive but aren’t quite enough to deal lethal damage, there are burst damage cards that can be used in combination with Hunter’s hero power (Steady Shot) to close the game out. If the opponent has an answer (like Lightbomb) then the new plan is to make another board of Giants on turn 10 with Loatheb to protect them.

VS Aggro Decks

Aggro definitely makes up most of this deck’s worst matchups. If you draw enough early minions and removal you can often survive until turn 5 or 6, which is when you’re in position to start taking control of the game. If you can keep the enemy board low then you can fall back on your Naga Sea Witch with a ton of Giants plan, but you can also take the board back with Deathstalker Rexxar. Rexxar often clears the board and is the only life gain in the entire deck. Rexxar’s hero power should be used every turn after he’s played to search for minions more capable of keeping you alive than the ones in your deck. You can find Taunt minions this way, which protect your life total, or Charge minions to remove opposing threats. Bloodworm can be discovered, and in combination with a Taunt or a Charge can help buffer your life total. If you survive long enough you can either out value your opponent or set up a big Naga turn to close the game out.

VS Control Decks

Now that Raza Priest isn’t a thing anymore, few control decks have a good answer to a successful turn 5 Naga board, so mulligan aggressively for combo pieces and if you pull off turn 5 Naga you probably win. If you don’t draw enough Giants to deal 30 damage the deck does have some decent burst potential. Your opponent will probably target your Naga with any removal they do have, or trade into it with whatever board they had prior to your turn, but if it lives you can play Loatheb to protect your board or Call of the Wild to push for lethal. If your opponent does remove the Naga then you can’t play Call of the Wild, but all of your low cost cards are usable again, so if your Giants put your opponent low enough you can finish them off over the next couple turns with cards like Quick Shot and Eaglehorn Bow in combination with Steady Shot. Animal Companion will generate Huffer a third of the time too.

If your opponent has an answer then your new plan is to play the combo on turn 10. On turn 10, you can both build a big board of Giants and make your opponent unable to respond to them with Loatheb. If your opponent has cards that can clear an entire board of Giants then after turn 5 you need to wait until turn 10 to fully commit, but you can play a Giant by itself here and there along the way to keep your opponent responding rather then creating threats of their own.

Wild Giants Hunter Card Substitutions

If you’re missing expensive cards outside of the Naga/Giant combo (Naga and all 8 Giants are essential, don’t play the deck without them) then you can easily still play this deck. The draw to play the combo in Hunter is Tracking, Stitched Tracker and King's Elekk, all of which are either Basic or common. Apart from those cards and the combo, everything in the deck is pretty much filler, and able to be replaced. Be careful adding minions to your deck however, the more you add the less consistent Stitched Tracker and King’s Elekk become.

• Loot Hoarder, Novice Engineer, Flare or Bloodmage Thalnos – Much like Freeze Mage and Raza Priest, this is a combo deck that wants to run less than 30 cards. Cheap cards with “draw a card” on them effectively shorten your deck size. Thalnos is not a budget craft obviously, I only mention him because players are likely to have him in their collection due to his general playability, and of the 2-mana “draw a card” cards he is one of the better ones.
• Gadgetzan Jouster, Armored Warhorse or Master Jouster – This deck contains 8 of the highest cost minions in Hearthstone, which is why King’s Elekk is so good in it. None of these cards are optimal, but they’re a fine (or fun) substitution for cards that might be better.

This list is built to maximize the chance of having Naga Sea Witch on turn 5, and isn’t really geared to counter aggro. The nature of the Naga combo makes this deck much better at crushing control players, so if you’re looking to target aggro a different archetype is probably a batter choice. However, if you want to play this deck and have a better chance against aggro there are some things you can add. These cards would take the spot of the less impressive draw cards like Coldlight Oracle and Bright-Eyed Scout. When teching for aggro just keep in mind that each anti-aggro card you add makes a turn 5 Naga less likely.

• Arcane Shot – Early removal, clears small things. Can add to your burst damage potential.
• Hungry Crab – With the downfall of Pirates, Murloc Paladin is back in force. Especially going second, if you remove the first Murloc with Hungry Crab your chances look really good, no matter what deck you’re playing. I’m probably going to start adding this, but I haven’t experimented with it yet.
• Doomsayer – The great neutral answer to aggressive starts, Doomsayer often makes your opponent skip a turn if they can’t generate 7 damage after your turn 2.
• Unstable Ghoul with Toxic Arrow – This combination creates a full board clear, but there are several problems with it. Silence ruins it, and neither of the combo pieces are worth much by themselves. Ghoul can clear tokens like Silver Hand Recruit though, and Toxic Arrow can kill a 2 hp minion. Toxic Arrow is an Epic that is absolutely worthless outside of this specific combo, so I can’t recommend you craft it given how unstable the combo is. If you want to meme or really want an early board clear it is an option.
• Explosive Trap – Another early board clear for Hunter, although your opponent is bound to see it coming. There is some merit to adding a secret package to expand on this, including other secrets, Mad Scientist, Cloaked Huntress and Lesser Emerald Spellstone. This would give you more to interact with aggro decks early, but would significantly reduce your chance of pulling off a turn 5 Naga combo. If you want to go this route, it’s probably better to do it in a different Hunter archetype.
• Unleash the Hounds – Unleash is a great answer to wide boards, and combos pretty well with Sea Giant. Of the anti-aggro techs in this list, this is probably the most well rounded.
• Deadly Shot – Some lists include this automatically, which is totally fine. Deadly Shot can clear large threats like almost no other Hunter card can.
• Flanking Strike – Clear a minion, make a minion. There’s a chance this card is optimal, as this deck wants things to play before 5 and prefers they not be minions.