Community Deck Test: Hunter Snakes and Drakes

Introduction

Hello once again my Hearthstone peeps. I am HalfBroke Chris and I thank you for checking out another one of my articles. Thanks to everyone that commented on my last article. I know that it caused a little bit of disagreements because Secret Pally is truly one of the most popular decks right now. That makes it even more controversial because there is no middle ground of opinion when it comes to that deck. I really just wanted to try and just get everyone to understand where the other side is coming from when it comes to that deck.

So, in this week’s article, I want to try something new. I have a deck that I will go through and breakdown below but the thing that is a little different is I want this to be a deck that we all test as a community. Then, after a few days a comments from you guys, I will come back with another article and post the results and final thoughts on the deck. I think it will be interesting getting everyone that wants to try this deck thoughts on it after playing with a few times. I am big promoter of this community and think it is one of the best in all of gaming. So I wanted to try and get everyone together to see what results we can come up with.

What I would like from you guys is to send me your thoughts and results with the deck either in comments below or via a post or message on Twitter. If you actually play the deck extensively, send me a screenshot of your stats with it via a deck tracker. Also, feel free to send me any changes you may have made to the deck. Then, after a few days, I will take all of that information, and my own play testing, and come back with the final results of how the deck played and what everyone thought about it (i.e. if it is a viable deck on ladder or not).

So, let’s just jump right into the deck.

Snakes and Drakes

The first thing I want to point out is I did not come up with this deck and can’t take any credit, good or bad, for it. It was shown to me via a podcast and I thought it looked like it could be a fun deck to give a shot. It is a different take on a Hero that everyone has played with extensively one time or another. That Hero is Hunter.

We have seen the true Mid-Range Hunter and, of course, Face Hunter decks but this one is a little different. It is based around snake-trap and volcanic-drake and is more of a Mid-Range style of deck. It has more card draw and just overall more options than most hunter decks.

After doing some quick play with this deck, the first thing I noticed was how cheap you can get Drake down for. The card loses cost for every minion that has died in a turn and with cards like unleash-the-hounds and snake-trap, you end up popping away some 1/1’s away very quick in a turn and then can play the Drake very cheap.

The other thing is cult-master. This card, in combo with the above cards, can refill your hand very quickly and give you more card draw than you would usually see in a Hunter deck. With that being said, this deck has many ways to get more value with a card than a normal Hunter deck with cards such as webspinner and haunted-creeper. Everything combos well together.

This deck really is made to kind of control the board as you wait for a few big boys, such as savannah-highmane, to come and take control and win the game. The other thing this deck has that helps it also is the element of surprise. Not many people will expect some of the combos or cards within this deck and it is truly possible to win games just off of that alone.

Mulligans?

So the question is, what do you mulligan for with this deck. Looking at it on paper, if we used paper that is, and just a few games I played with it, the biggest thing you want to do is truly curve out well over the first few turns. The other thing is getting the secrets out of your hand and hoping to draw a mad-scientist instead. That way, as we all already know, allows you to have a body on the board and a secret. It’s all about value and this deck is no different.

Other cards that I tried to keep in my hand was knife-juggler and [/haunted-creeper[/card]. The Juggler I wanted in my hand for various reasons. One, it is always a good card if you can keep it out. The other thing is I liked putting it out as bait. I wanted people to try and know it off the board. That way, later one, the cards I wanted to stay alive had a better chance of sticking around.

As you may notice, there isn’t many one drops in this deck, as in minions. It means that the chance of no play on the first turn is going be very high. I think though, as you guys help test this deck, that it really doesn’t need that first turn drop as much as other Hunter decks need.

The biggest thing I think you want to do early on, and this is just my approach with it as of right now, is letting your little minions make good trades to keep control of the board and using your secrets wisely. This will allow for the bigger bodies, such as the Drake and the Boom, to come along and win you the game.

The Test

So over the next few days, let’s see how far we can take this deck. It plays very well and I think it can be a very viable option on ladder. I am going to be testing it and hopefully make a video also to post with the next article. What I want is for you guys to take a few games too and see what you come up with. For instance, keep track not only of your win rate but also what decks you played against.

One thing I did notice while playing a few early games is this deck seems to do well against Secret Paladin. It never really lets them get control of the board at all and seems to have an answer for whatever they throw on the table.

You can post the results in a comment below or, if you would like, send me a message on Twitter or via a tweet. You don’t have to follow to tweet me some results but it would be great if you would (yes I know it is a cheesy Twitter plug). Now, I don’t expect your results to be super detailed or for you to take a huge amount of time doing this. Just keep things as simple as you want to. The biggest thing and easiest one also is using a deck tracker. I recommend anyone doing this already so you can see what deck plays the best as a whole but it also makes it very simple to see what your win rate is.

Also, if you try a different card in the deck, let me know that and how the playing goes. I would love to see how different cards may run in this deck and what cards you replaced, if any.

In a few days, I will take everything and organize it all up into a neat little article. The biggest question we all want answered is, is this truly a great deck to grind out a ladder run with?

Closing

I love the Hearthstone community and think this is a great way to bring some of us together, with all of us having different play styles, and see what we can do with a deck. I think the community is one that truly wants everyone to get better as a whole because that helps everything grow. In the end, that helps this game we love have longevity and also helps it grow into, what I think, will be one of the biggest competitive esport games in the world.

I now stream on Twitch and the schedule is Sat-Wed. nights at 10 pm EST or so until I don’t want to play. So be sure to come hang out with me and see what deck I may be goofing around with. Also, please follow me on Twitter. I like to tweet out questions that end up being articles and also use it to help keep everyone up to date on what is going on in Hearthstone and with me.

I thank each and every one of you for all the comments last week. It was a very cool thing and I hope you all join in on this community test.

Once again, it is that time to say….

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