Basic + Naxxramas + Blackrock Mountain Starter Hunter Hearthstone Deck

Editor’s Note: With the new Standard Format in 2016 for Hearthstone, we highly recommend going for cards in the Classic set and Whispers of the Old Gods (Standard Format). Here are budget guides, also from Sheng, to get you started!

• Budget Standard Standard C’Thun Druid
• Budget Standard Midrange Hunter
• Budget Standard C’Thun Mage
• Budget Standard  Aggro Paladin
• Budget Standard C’Thun Priest
• Budget Standard C’Thun Rogue
• Budget Standard Midrange Shaman
• Budget Standard Zoo Warlock 
• Budget Standard Combo Warrior

Introduction

Greetings, I’m Sheng, a Legend rank constructed and 7.5 win-average arena player. I run HearthstoneCoaching.com where our coaches have helped many students achieve the same.

Whether you’re a newer player, or an experienced one who just wants to find the most efficient way to spend your cash or in-game gold, you can never go wrong by investing in Hearthstone’s single player expansions. Both The Curse of Naxxramas and Blackrock Mountain have provide unique and useful cards that cannot be unlocked anywhere else. This is the Hunter Hearthstone Deck.

My Blackrock Mountain decks are a new series of guides where I try to construct the most  effective Hearthstone decks I can for each class, with only one contraint — that I only use cards from the Basic, Naxxramas, and Blackrock Mountain card sets.

These 0 dust decks are meant to help newer players kickstart their Hearthstone journey, by providing unique and viable decks that can be used against friends and foe on casual or ladder (though you may want to check out the upgrade section at the end of each guide to get further on the ladder).

Deck Playstyle

Blackrock Mountain Hunter is an aggro deck that focuses on using Hunter’s hero power to kill opponents by mid to late game. Before we weren’t able to build this kind of deck because there weren’t enough damage spells and Beasts to make it work, but with the inclusion of several cards from Blackrock Mountain such as quick-shot and core-rager, this style of play is much more viable.

While on the surface it seems that this deck doesn’t require much thought outside of dragging minions to your opponent’s face for lethal, much of the key to winning with this deck is about calculating how much damage you need for lethal in following turns and saving your spells and charge minions to deal a great deal of damage in one turn before your opponent expects it.

Minions – 19

2x webspinner

• 1 mana for a 1/1 isn’t really mana-efficient, but he’s a Beast, and his deathrattle is extremely useful in our deck. Because we only have access to a limited set of cards, there’s potential that he’ll draw better Beasts than what we have in our deck. I’m looking at you, savannah-highmane.

2x bloodfen-raptor

• A standard vanilla 3/2 body that will apply some pressure early on and benefits from Beasts synergies.

2x bluegill-warrior

• The Bluegill Warrior’s primary role in our deck is to provide extra damage later in the game. While on the surface the two damage he provides seems redundant due to our hero power, we need to see him as an additional 2 damage on top of our hero power later in the game, which may help us secure a game.

2x haunted-creeper

• This spider is our counter to aggressive decks that like to drop multitudes of 1 health minions. He’s a mini harvest-golem that spawns two 1/1 tokens instead of a single 2/1 token. The spawned tokens become nice targets for buffs.

2x wolfrider

• The Wolfrider, like the Bluegill Warrior, only has one primary job — to do damage directly to our opponent’s face. While the Wolfrider is a bit weak to classes that can deal 1 damage with their hero power, utilizing the hero power is a somewhat anti-tempo play, preventing opponents from putting up the defences necessary to deal with your threats already on the board.

2x core-rager

• The Core Rager isn’t particularly special. The primary reason why he’s been included in our deck is due to the fact that he is a Beast, synergizing well with houndmaster and kill-command. Don’t be afraid to play him on turn 4, as the battlecry will almost never hit.

2x houndmaster

• This card has an insane value with its really nice buff and the decent 4/3 body that comes with it. The card itself is not a beast but is probably one of the main reasons to play a Beasts focused Hunter.

1x loatheb

• Loatheb is an amazing card… when played correctly. 5 mana for a 5/5 is fair, but it’s Loatheb’s ability to shutdown opponent’s spells that makes him so valuable. Play Loatheb on turn 6 before a mage can cast flamestrike on turn 7 and he’ll win you the game.

2x nightblade

• While Nightblade isn’t mana efficient for her cost, she gives us additional reach. The 3 damage from her battlecry is amazingly useful in our rush deck, and can help us get closer to piecing enough damage to kill our opponent.

2x reckless-rocketeer

• 6 mana for a 5/2 isn’t particularly mana-efficient, but the Reckless Rocketeer provides us with a way to deal with annoying 5 health taunts like senjin-shieldmasta, and is a great source of direct damage.

Spells – 11

2x hunters-mark

• The Hunter’s Mark is primarily used to deal with taunts or large minions we cannot ignore.

2x arcane-shot

• 2 points of direct damage. Not much more to be said. Can also be used to deal with minions we can’t ignore, but generally you’ll want to hold on to this until you either need to deal with a taunt or have lethal.

1x tracking

• Generally, you want to track for answers or to track for damage, so this isn’t a card you’ll want to keep in your opening hand. A timely tracking can provide you 5 damage for lethal, or that hunters-mark to deal with a large taunt.

2x quick-shot

• 3 points of direct damage. The advantage here is that you might be able to draw an extra card if you topdeck this card with no cards in your hand. More cards = more damage.

2x animal-companion

• Your best play on turn 3. It’s hard to say which Beast you’ll spawn from this card, but in my experience it’s generally the one you want the least 😉

2x kill-command

• Usually 5 points of damage. You’ll want to hold onto this card until you have a Beast on the board so you can deal the full 5 damage, unless you’re desperate and need the 3 damage to survive or to clear a taunt for lethal.

Blackrock Mountain Improvements

quick-shot

• A pretty key card in our deck. There’s no card draw mechanism in our deck outside of tracking, and with our deck composition, Quick Shot will often draw you into more damage.

core-rager

• This replaces oasis-snapjaw in our earlier incarnations of this deck, though they were never quite as aggressive as this one. While both oasis-snapjaw and Core Rager are excellent targets for houndmaster, Core Rager gets the edge as its four attack is more important to us.
• In general you can disregard the battlecry as it’s unlikely you will be able to play Core Rager from an empty hand. Don’t be afraid to play him on turn 4 for tempo.

Mulligan Guide

In general, you want to mulligan so that you can put out minions on your first three turns. If you’re going second, feel free to keep a single 4 mana minion so that you can coin it out on turn 3. Coining out a minion on turn 3 is actually a significant tempo boost, as some 4 mana minions will trade with two or more 2 or 3 mana minions.

While it’s not super-intuitive, your goal early on isn’t to directly deal as much damage to your opponent’s face, so cards like bluegill-warrior and wolfrider shouldn’t be kept, even though they’re 2 and 3 mana respectively. You’ll need to establish a control of the board before you can freely attack your opponent.

The general idea is to control the board early, and then draw into your charge minions and damage spells later to finish your opponent in the mid-late game.

Cards to Keep

• 1 Mana: webspinner
• 2 Mana: bloodfen-raptor, haunted-creeper
• 3 Mana: animal-companion

Remember, you want to plan out your first three turns with your opening hand, so if you already have a 1 mana and 2 mana minion, you should mulligan away your remaining card or two to dig for a play on turn 3.

Upgrades

Here are a few cards that will improve your deck.

• Minions: abusive-sergeant, leper-gnome, ironbeak-owl, knife-juggler, mad-scientist, arcane-golem
• Spells: explosive-trap, unleash-the-hounds
• Weapons: glaivezooka, eaglehorn-bow

Weapons are especially useful, because they’re extremely cost-efficient for how much damage they can do over two turns.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed the guide to our Blackrock Mountain Face Hunter deck. As always I’d be happy to answer questions from you in the comments section. 🙂

Coaching Lessons

If you’re interested in reaching Legend rank, or earning unlimited gold from arena, my team at HearthstoneCoaching.com would love to help! We’ve provided over a thousand hours of excellent coaching to students around the world. 

Want to Become Better at Other Games?

I also run RankOneCoaching.com, where our top coaches will develop a personal plan for you to achieve your dreams in other games. Personal lessons are an in-depth experience and most students improve significantly after just one full session!

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