GvG Experimental Decks Series – Legend Control Hunter

Introduction

Hello everyone ! I’m Spark, Top Ranks Legend player, and today I’m following up on the Experimental Decks Series from GvG.

You probably already know my background with Control Hunter before Naxxramas and with the new set being released it’s time to take a look back at my good old Pyromaniac Secrets build !

The strategy of the Deck revolves around applying constant board damage to control the opponent’s threats throughout the game and find a window to slam your win conditions on the board.

Deck Breakdown

wild-pyromancer is still a very important tool for the Deck as it combos pretty well with arcane-shot to deal with swarm strategies or hunters-mark to remove resilient minions from the board.

mad-scientist is a key early play to pull out explosive-trap and snipe from the Deck and sustain your eaglehorn-bow to keep controlling the board and maintain some form of pressure.

steamwheedle-sniper can serves different purposes but it’s pretty obvious that allowing your hero power to target minions is a perfect effect for a Control strategy as it allows you to finish off snipe or hunters-mark target while developping your board.

piloted-shredder and sludge-belcher are replacing senjin-shieldmasta and azure-drake from the older build to give some mid game presence that can prevent aggression from your opponent.

savannah-highmane is still one of the main late game threat as the card provides insane value and can bait some hard removals to give a free way to some other win conditions presented below.

gahzrilla is a pretty nice addition from GvG as you have many ways to power it up if your opponent can’t deal with it : wild-pyromancer, arcane-shot and steamwheedle-sniper.

dr-boom and ragnaros-the-firelord are the true MVPs of your late game presence as they have both an immediate impact on the board and their randomness is not really an issue for the Deck since bringing some more damage to the opponent’s face also synergies pretty well with the Hunter tools and gameplan !

big-game-hunter, harrison-jones and the-black-knight are very useful tech card in the current meta. The first one helps not wasting removals on common targets like dr-boom or molten-giant, the second will always have a target thanks to sludge-belcher and the last one is pretty much justified by all those weapon classes around.

gladiators-longbow is a great late game weapon to push for lethal or deal with mid-sized threats whithout taking any damage !

Loatheb and other shiny win conditions are also viable if you lack some of those cards but it still slightly sub-optimal 😉

Finally, sylvanas-windrunner makes an appearance in the Deck to add some more mid game power and because it combos so well with feign-death. Most of the time, I use those cards together but sometimes you can also find good value to feign-death to build a powerful board with savannah-highmane while triggering some useful Deathrattles like boom-bot.

Mulligan Strategy

Always keep : mad-scientist, wild-pyromancer, arcane-shot

Aggro match ups : explosive-trap

Control match ups : piloted-shredder

Situational keep : 

• eaglehorn-bow against Warrior and Priest or when you have the-coin against Aggro Decks
• steamwheedle-sniper if you have the-coin and a decent hand already
• hunters-mark only with wild-pyromancer when you expect early aggression or against Priest

Gameplay Videos

Here are some interesting gameplay example of me playing the Deck. Besides the result, it is supposed to show some interactions of the Deck through extremely close and funny games !

The playlist contains the following match ups : Midrange Druid, Ramp Druid, Control Warrior (x2), Handlock, Miracle Rogue, Midrange Shaman, Zoolock (x2) and Face Hunter.

Closing

I’m really happy to bring back Control Hunter to a decent state and I actually used it, along with other Decks, during my climbing to Top 20 Legend.

Even though it is less consistent than my Midrange Deathrattle Hunter, it is still pretty solid and extremely fun to play ! 

As the Deck is pretty hard to pilot at first, I higly recommand to practice in casual mode before playing it on the ladder and I want to point out that the meta is not always favorable to it, so be careful 😉

Here are my winrates with the Deck including Casual and Ranked play :

That’s it for the guide guys, I hope you’ll enjoy the Deck as much as I do !

Don’t forget to rate the article if you liked and don’t hesitate to discuss about it or ask any question in the comment section below 😉

Be sure to check out more of my work on Hearthpwn or here on HSP, follow me on Twitter if you want to keep track of my updates and suscribe to my Youtube Channel for some Gameplay videos.