MUA: Fatigue Warrior vs Hunter

Introduction

This is the matchup analysis of Fatigue Warrior versus Hunter.

Sample Decklist

We’re using this decklist as a basis. Keep in mind there are decklists with slight variations, each one tweaked to the player’s own taste and the meta they’re facing.

Mulligans

Cards To Keep

Fiery War Axe Slam Bash Death’s Bite

Situational Keep

Shield Slam in combination with Bashor Shield Block

Harrison Jones if the rest of your hand is good

Hunter Meta Decks

No matter what kind of Hunter you play – Face, Hybrid or Midrange – they are pretty hard matchups. Standard Control Warrior build had it much easier thanks to the early game minions.

General Strategy

Since this deck runs no minions, it has to rely on the removals and weapons. The sad part about using the weapons to remove stuff is that you use your health as a resource. Which is really risky against Hunter. For example, he uses the Wolfrider to deal 3 damage. If you hit it with weapon to remove it – you take 6 damage in total. And since weapons are often your only way to remove stuff, you take a lot of damage in the early game. Turns 5-6 are usually the ones where everything’s decided. You need your defensive stuff then – Shield Block, Sludge Belcher, Shieldmaiden in order to survive.

Early Strategy

When it comes to the early turns, no matter what kind of Hunter you face, they should have pretty good curve. Even if they skip a 1-drop, they almost always have 2-drop.

On turn 1 you can often already identify what kind of Hunter enemy plays:

• If he drops a Webspinner, it means he’s Midrange.
• If he opens with Worgen Infiltrator, he’s a faster build.
• Leper Gnome and Abusive Sergeant can sometimes be seen in all three builds, so you can’t be sure yet.

You generally don’t like the 1-drops. Your only clear way to deal with them is Fiery War Axe, and it really feels like wasting. But you still should hit the Webspinner unless you have some Whirlwind effect you plan to use soon, it saves you a lot of health in the long run.

Haunted Creeper is probably the most annoying 2-drop – you can’t really take it down, because killing it just puts more power on the board. The easiest way to deal with it is waiting until your Death’s Bite turn or if you intend to play Revenge on some turn. Then you can just hit the Creeper and the Whirlwind effect will kill the 1/1’s for you.

Knife Juggler might seem scary, but it’s not if you have any answer. Axe, Slam, Shield Slam, Bash. He’s one of the things you WANT to see on turn 2 actually, because you almost always have a way to kill it and it doesn’t have any Deathrattle.

Last 2-drop is Mad Scientist. This one is scary not because of the body, but because it leaves the trap behind. Some of them are easier to deal with, some of them are harder.

Dealing With Traps

The traps that require you to hit enemy face are best for you. Explosive Trap and Bear Trap can just be ignored for the bigger part of the game. You just don’t hit the face until you completely stabilize.

Snake Trap is really annoying. If you don’t have a Whirlwind effect to kill the Snakes, you’re going to take a lot of damage from them. Freezing Trap is something in-between. You don’t care about it until turn 5-6 when you actually start dropping your stuff. The bad thing is that you have no small stuff to proc it in this deck. You’re going to freeze the 5+ drop most of time.

That’s where the matchups start to get different. Since turn 3 Face Hunter starts rushing you down with Chargers and stuff. You try to answer them without losing the health if you can. You don’t care about card advantage – Hunter is going to run out of cards before you anyway. You want to survive, it’s your first priority.

Midgame Strategy

Try to squeeze in Hero Powers every turn. If you get the game to turn 5+ and you’re not dying, you should start winning it. Taunt up with Belcher, gain some Armor with Shieldmaiden. Once you get an opportunity to play the Justicar Trueheart you won the game – Hunter won’t be able to race you when you gain 4 Armor per turn. The tricky part is that Justicar loses you a lot of tempo, so you probably need some board already to play it. Once you stabilize, start going into face. Even though you have a few minions, most of them have high attack, so you should take Hunter down in 3-4 turns. Grommash is a good finisher here, you also want to start smacking Hunter’s face with weapons (try to use the minions to remove unless you are really at high health total, like 20+). Once you’re the one who puts the pressure and you’re out of burn range, Hunter can’t do anything.

Midrange and Hybrid builds are much harder, because the game only starts at turn 4-5. It should be rather slow until turn 3, but after that he starts dropping his mid game threats. Before turn 4 you generally want to get rid of the Beasts from the board so he can’t get Houndmaster value. Piloted Shredder is another annoying minion.

This deck has hard time dealing with Deathrattles and Midrange Hunter runs A LOT of them. Probably the biggest and most annoying one is Savannah Highmane. On turn 6, you’re going to have really hard time dealing with it unless Hunter had terrible start. It usually takes 2-3 removals to get rid of it. In worst case scenario you might even be forced to hit the first body with weapon.

On top of Highmane, Midrange usually ends the curve with Dr. Boom. If Midrange Hunter gets perfect curve with a drop on every turn, you can’t beat it. And I mean it – even if you deal with all the drops somehow, you won’t have enough health to stabilize and Hunter will finish you off with the burn.

Against Midrange Hunter you also have to play a little more efficiently. Obviously your health is still #1 concern, but you can’t really throw too many removals just to preserve some health, because the Hunter’s late game threats are much harder to remove and not removing them means death.

Hybrid is something in between. It doesn’t have that good late game, but runs more aggressive/charge minions that can threaten your life total directly from his hand. Just like Midrange Hunter, with a good curve you’re going to have really hard time winning the game. But it’s a little less consistent – it might miss the curve sometimes and that gives you opportunity to take a breath and save some life.

Tips

• Harrison Jones is a decent card against Hunters. Eaglehorn Bow is a really strong card, because it threatens A LOT of damage for 3 mana. The standard 6 damage is not as scary, but with some Secrets, Hunter can get up to 4-5 attacks from it. Meaning that if you get rid of it in time, you save yourself a lot of health. Having the body on the board is also nice, because you can make some trades without actually losing health.
• When it comes to Big Game Hunter – against Face and Hybrid builds you can play it on the board for the tempo. Against Midrange, you generally should keep it for the Dr. Boom or even buffed Savannah Highmane (if he manages to hit you with it you’re pretty much dead anyway, but Big Game Hunter can SOMETIMES save you).

Resources

• For the deck overview, check out this guide.
• For alternate and tech cards, visit this guide.
• For other guides and matchup analysis of Fatigue Warrior, visit its meta deck section.
• For other popular meta decks, visit the meta decks page – it’s updated on a weekly basis.

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