by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

Much like in World of Warcraft, the hunter hero relies on the strength of his beasts. Particularly in the case of Rexxar, there are significant benefits to utilizing the interplay that beast minions have with each other. There are numerous beast-specific buffs to take advantage of. Particularly in the earlier rounds hunters have the ability to crowd the board with cheap beast minions.

While this deck doesn’t specifically align with the typical constructed deck types, it does provide a fair amount of situational flexibility which makes it easier to learn and execute than more advanced deck builds (like aggro decks).

Last week, we focused on a hunter deck that relied to a large extent on traps. This build emphasizes minions (beast minions to be exact), and is easily put together with basic hunter and basic common cards. While it may not be perfect, it is assembled cheaply, and will get you through your hunter dailies with ease.

Defensive Beasts and Spells

• Hunter’s Mark x2 – Great for whittling a massive minion down to almost nothing.
• River Crocolisk x2 – I am listing this 2/2/3 card as defensive, because it can be played very early in the game, and it requires some resource commitment from your opponent to get it off the board. The 2 Damage isn’t huge, but various beast-buffing abilities in this hunter deck can quickly turn the River Crocolisk from an nuissance into a threat. As an alternative with more bite (pun intended) but less survivability, try the Bloodfen Raptor.
• Ironbeak Owl x2 – The Ironbeak Owl is an almost “must have” card for any deck . It is a wonderful card to help you get past pesky taunt minions, and great to have in your back pocket later in the game to disarm over-buffed minions. For the hunter, the added bonus is that the Ironbeak Owl is also classified as a beast, meaning numerous hunter buffs could potentially come into play.
• Kill Command x2 – For when you absolutely, positively need to do some damage to a hero or a minion. Oh look, extra damage bonus if you have a beast out! And you totally have lots of beasts out.
• Ironfur Grizzly x2 – Taunt cards are good. Taunt cards with bite are even better.
• Silverback Patriarch x2 – If one set of taunt cards is good, two sets of taunt cards are twice as good.

Offensive Beasts

• Stonetusk Boar x2 – An excellent and cheap card for putting up pressure early, or take out a minion with low health points.
• Timber Wolf x2 – A good example of a beast minion buffing other beasts. At 1 Mana, it can be rolled out quickly, and buff other minions early in the match.
• Houndmaster x2 – It makes a beast angry. You wouldn’t like it when it’s angry. I am including it as an offensive card for the extra bite and survivability, but the added taunt brings another defensive and strategic consideration as well.
• Oasis Snapjaw x2 – At first glance, this card doesn’t seem like much with only 2 Damage. However, at 4 Mana it is super-cheap for a 7 Health card. And or course, the Oasis Snapjaw is a beast; buff it with your other cards, and suddenly this 2D/7H card becomes a behemoth of trouble that isn’t easily dealt with. For more strategy suggestions, check out our Weekly Spotlight: Oasis Snapjaw.
• Tundra Rhino x2 – This card is an almost perfect mid- to late-game card. It gives all other beast charge, so paired with a number of low-cost beasts in later rounds, you are looking at a nice Zerg rush stampede.
• Core Hound x2 – Of all the colossal late-game match ending minion cards, the Core Hound is the only one that is classified as a beast. It’s perfect.

Board Control and Resource Management

• Arcane Shot x2 – 2 Damage for 1 Mana, this is a wonderfully potent card, low cost card. Use for board control of for putting pressure on your opponent’s hero.
• Starving Buzzard x2 – A low cost card that will let you draw a new card each time you play a beast minion. And guess what, you have loads of those to play. Best played right before you lay down another beast minion.
• Multi-shot x2 – Requires two enemy minions to be on the board, but it’s a very effective card to regain mid-game board control.

And now it’s time to unleash the zoo, my friends. (Check out the game play video below – move ahead to the 10:15 mark to see the Starving Buzzard win the game with its card draw ability.)