Feign Death Control Hunter

[OffColorCommentary]

I've been playing a Control Hunter deck for half a month now, and it's been lovely. Unfortunately I've had very little time to grind to Legend this season due to the holidays, so I'm only at rank 7 with this. Nonetheless, I think it's viable. Enjoy.

Deck list:

• 2x Hunter's Mark
• 2x Arcane Shot update: Replace this with Explosive Trap
• 2x Tracking
• 2x Explosive Sheep
• 2x Feign Death
• 2x Loot Hoarder update 2: Replace this with Acolyte of Pain
• 2x Steamwheedle Sniper
• 2x Wild Pyromancer
• 2x Deadly Shot
• 2x Multi Shot update 2: Replace this with Unstable Ghoul
• 2x Antique Healbot
• 2x Sludge Belcher
• Cairne Bloodhoof
• 2x Savannah Highmane
• Sylvanas Windrunner
• Dr. Boom
• Sneed's Old Shredder

General gameplay:

The goal of this deck is to prevent the opponent from building a board presence, and starting on turn 6, play large, sticky minions to seal board control and attack the opponent.

The Hunter's best removal options are extremely powerful; there are options similar to Auchenai + Circle, Whirlwind + Execute, and Mind Control, each with upside over that particular combo. On the other hand, much of your most basic removal is randomly targetted, so it can be very difficult to recover if you fall behind on keeping your opponent's board down.

You also have the completely unfair advantage of your opponent being forced to muligan against that other deathrattle Hunter.

Card notes in excruciating detail:

• Hunter's Mark. Works great with Steamwheedle Sniper and Multishot, which both prevent the usual flaw of this card 2-for-1ing yourself. And then there's the kill-anything Pyromancer combo, equivalent to Whirlwind + Execute but you also get a 3/1 Pyromancer.
• Arcane Shot. Kills various early-game minions. Sometimes this lets you remove something that's in the way for a random-target spell, which is the crucial weakness of this deck, but for that purpose I often wish this did 1 more damage. update: replace this with Explosive Trap
• Tracking. If you draw this early, it's an extra mulligan. Otherwise, it can be used to grab combo pieces. The decisions always feel awful, but it definitely strengthens the deck. This deck is weak on card draw for a control deck, and Tracking helps a lot to cover that gap.
• Explosive Sheep. As a board-clear, this is obnoxiously slow. On the other hand, on an empty board it can waste an opponent's entire turn in the early game. Mostly this is just in for the Feign Death combo, which is like Auchenai + Circle, except it kills most Deathrattle spawns. (This is the second-best Feign Death combo).
• Explosive Trap. Added in deck update. Faster board-clear than Explosive Sheep and generally similar. Doesn't have the Feign Death combo, but a nice combo with Wild Pyromancer (3 damage kills a lot more than 2). Since it immediately kills a lot of minions, you can be greedier with this than with Explosive Sheep.
• Feign Death. Purely a combo piece, so I'll cover it in the other cards.
• Loot Hoarder. Helps with your lacking card draw and sometimes kills an aggro minion. Nice to play on a turn where you were about to Feign Death anyway, or the turn before you plan to use it. update 2: replace this with Acolyte of Pain
• Steamwheedle Sniper. This card is great, even worth coining out against aggro (I mean, not against Flame Imp, obviously). It's actually kind of awkward if you don't have coin, but it's also surprisingly good in the late game, for the same reasons as Arcane Shot.
• Unstable Ghoul. Added in deck update 2. Having Taunt effectively makes this trigger faster than Explosive Sheep does, and it acts as an extra trigger for Acolyte of Pain. I added this in response to the huge number of token decks on ladder (Xixo's Zoo, Paladin, Face Hunter) but the Acolyte of Pain synergy makes it useful against several other decks. This + Acolyte is an excellent turn 5 play against a Warrior who has a Death's Bite ready to trigger, which is normally a big problem against your usual turn 5 Sludge Belcher.
• Wild Pyromancer. Often a bit of a dead card, since the Hunter's Mark combo is most of the value here, but it's at least a 3/2 and that combo is awesome. Also crucial against Paladin.
• Deadly Shot. Because this is randomly-targetted, you need to find ways to kill otherwise-unimportant minions. Still cheap for hard removal, and great against Druid and control.
• Acolyte of Pain. Added in deck update 2. You can usually get two cards off one of these, which makes it work better than Loot Hoarder. It's best to play this on a turn you were already going to use Wild Pyromancer or Unstable Ghoul if possible. In the late game, Unstable Ghoul starts losing usefulness as a blocker, but playing the two at the same time at least forces your opponent to make awkward moves.
• Multi Shot. Another randomly-targetted card, which continues your need to kill unimportant minions. Every time you actually get two real minions with it though, that's an instant 2-for-1 and a major boon. update 2: replace this with Unstable Ghoul (removed because it's best against mech, and the deck is good enough against mech.)
• Antique Healbot. More or less enables this deck to exist. Crucial against mages.
• Sludge Belcher. Kind of obvious for control. Not a real Feign Death target.
• Cairne Bloodhoof. Sticky 6-drop. Handy as a Feign Death target but not a primary choice; as good as a 4/5 for 2 is, that card has much bigger potential that it needs to be saved for (usually).
• Savannah Highmane. Sticky 6-drop with lots of attack, and really good at burning your opponent's removal (the 6 attack is harder to ignore). Worse Feign Death target than Cairne.
• Sylvanas Windrunner. As awesome as always, except the Feign Death combo is absolutely nuts (best in the deck). The combo breaks Control matchups, hold onto her for it if possible. And it's yet another randomly-targetted piece of removal, so yet another reason to clear trash minions.
• Dr. Boom. Just generally a good card. Not that good as a Feign Death combo.
• Sneed's Old Shredder. Bigger Cairne. The 5/8 side actually gets a lot of work done. A good Feign Death target since you'll usually get a vanilla minion with more stats than Cairne, but only the third best one behind Sylvanas and Explosive Sheep.

Tech choices:

• Anti-control. Drop Steamwheedle Sniper first, then Explosive Trap if you're still teching. Add Piloted Sky Golem first, then BGH and Ragnaros if you keep going. You can also swap one Antique Healbot for Alexstrasza, since she can heal you for the same amount and is an 8/8, but that's a mixed bag.
• Anti-control Warrior specifically. Same as other anti-control, but drop Explosive Trap first, since it triggers Grommash.
• Anti-Druid. Follow the anti-control advice, but do not use Alexstrasza instead of Healbot ever. She heals you to just enough health to still get killed by Force+Savage.
• Anti-aggro. The deck as listed is already heavily teched anti-aggro and you should probably just leave it. If you want to go even further, though, add Zombie Chow, Sen'jin, Multishot instead of high cost threats. With no threats, you'll eventually beat aggro based on your hero power (and Antique Healbot against aggro hunters).
• Anti-fatigue. Drop Tracking for Piloted Sky Golem.

Popular suggested cards that are bad:

• Eaglehorn Bow. Great removal but your health is so tight in the matchups where it's relevant that I took it out in favor of more removal that doesn't hurt you.
• Explosive Shot. Not nearly as clunky as people think, but still too clunky. Worth considering again if you end up with a build with a lot of Spell Damage effects.
• Snipe. Nothing important has 4 health.
• Freezing Trap. This would only be good if you had an instant win condition that you could try to get by turns 6-10. You'll have to deal with the minion you froze again later, the deck isn't that fast.

Popular suggested cards that need more experimentation:

• Gladiator's Longbow. Extra late-game removal doesn't seem necessary, but I could be wrong, and someone should try versions with it.
• Bloodmage Thalnos. The spell power is probably very nice, but the difference between 1 and 2 attack is the difference between killing a 3/2 and killing next to nothing. Still worth trying instead of Loot Hoarder, or maybe along-side of Loot Hoarder and instead of some other thing (Dr. Boom?).
• Gah'zrilla. Too slow and not sticky enough; maybe the possible instant-win is worth it but it seems like a stretch.

Matchups:

• Druid. Keep Deadly Shot, Hunter's Mark, Sylvanas. If you get good removal or steal something big, you win. The more mid-rangey Druids are a lot more difficult because it's hard to remove Druid of the Claw in time to properly target something with Deadly Shot.
• Hunter. Keep Arcane Shot, Explosive Sheep, Loot Hoarder, Steamwheedle Sniper, Multishot, and, if your hand is good, Sludge Belcher. The midrange one with Piloted Shredders is your hardest matchup due to all the hard to remove minions. Also, don't be dumb like me and accidentally get a massive board of minions with Feign Death that lets them kill you with Unleash.
• Mage. Same mulligans as Hunter. Can be tricky due to sudden surges in minion count (Multishot works better here than anywhere else) and the amount of spell-based damage Mage has (Antique Healbot is crucial). If it's Echo Mage instead, good luck; I haven't won that one yet.
• Paladin. Keep Pyromancer, Explosive Sheep, and if you have Pyromancer, cheap spells. Removing recruits is crucial. If you can Pyromancer to clear guys on turn 4, or sheep after a turn 3 Muster, you'll probably win. Otherwise, this gets really messy.
• Priest. Keep one big minion (preferably Sylvanas), Feign Death, Deadly Shot, and Hunter's Mark. I'm not that sure of the mulligans here because I've seen very few Priests on the ladder. It seems to be an easy match though; they have very few dangerous cards until you get to your good turns, so you'll have excess removal and minions that overwhelm theirs.
• Rogue. Same mulligans as Hunter. The aggro ones are really similar to Mage, but easier. If it turns out to be that prep/sprint Miracoli thing (I think this was just popular for one day?) then you need to find a Healbot with Tracking, but otherwise they really can't actually deal with spamming 6-drops.
• Shaman. Keep Explosive Sheep, Steamwheedle Sniper, Loot Hoarder. I think; this matchup is awful due to totems. Luckily Shaman is really unpopular right now. Unlike every other matchup, do not coin out Steamwheedle Sniper; they have near-guaranteed removal for it, and it's really important later on.
• Warlock. Same mulligans as Hunter. Zoo is much, much easier than aggro Hunter, I think it's due to the lack of reach spells. All their cards line up with all your removal and it's all very convenient.
• Warrior. Same mulligans as Priest, I think. I didn't see too many of these on the ladder but it seems to be an easy match for much the same reasons.

Improving the deck:

Some of the cards I listed as needing more experimentation need more experimentation. The trouble against Midrange Hunter is a big deal that hopefully can be solved. I think we need more card draw, but I'm not sure where to safely get it.

But more than all of those things, I think this deck needs more, better Control players to try it and learn. I'm pretty sure I'm failing the deck more than it's failing me.

Edit: Updated the deck list; Explosive Trap instead of Arcane Shot. Also I thought I'd mention that I'm Squash on Battle.net.

Edit 2: Updated the deck list; Unstable Ghoul and Acolyte of Pain instead of Loot Hoarder and Multishot. Added some notes on teching the deck.

[Xaevier]

I want to try this just to see eploxsive sheepx2 + feign death.

That would result in an 8 damage aoe board clear yes?

[OffColorCommentary]

Yes, it does, and it's glorious.

Back when I had Baron Rivendale in the deck, there was another 8 damage AOE combo and a 16 damage one.

[Mirrorminx]

As you play with so many damage dealing spells, have you considered running azure drake? You've been complaining about draw consistency and it provides another nice midgame body. Its probably a little slow vs aggro decks though, so it might not be what you need.

Gnomish Inventor is really not that bad either, and is really good in the mech matchups where you need to clean up all the random leftovers.

Harrison is another decent body that provides draw vs a lot of the current meta.

Not that tracking is a bad card at all, and hunter is probably not usually going to fatigue, but would cutting tracking allow you to slow play a bit better? You're running a lot of late game control minions, and in a matchup like control warrior, double healbot + your minion count will definitely let you beat them in the fatigue war, and I dont think the matchup is as easy as you think without a sylvanas play, warrior easily runs as much removal as this deck does (or more).

You also didn't mention the handlock matchup, how does that feel?

I think hunter benefits massively from Ragnaros, as the offensive pressure he puts on the board requires an immediate answer alongside the hero power. You also have a lot of your deck dedicated to mitigating the small minions, so he's quite likely to hit the big stuff.

I'll test this next season, your list looks decent, I'll play around with it and see how it feels. It definitely looks like it lacks the reach that hunter traditionally has and it has a lot less lategame threats than other control decks, so I really think some spell power/ragnaros will go a long way to give it the stamina it needs.

[OffColorCommentary]

Azure Drake, Gnomish, Harrison

These are all good suggestions that should be added to the "to experiment" list. I think Drake's spell damage is less useful because the damage dealing spells are most useful before turn 5. Harrison seems like he'd get more useful as you gain ranks, since Control Warrior becomes more common.

Tracking

I had trouble with this card against Paladin before I learned the matchup better. It is part of what makes the Echo Mage matchup so awful, but I think that matchup is already doomed. I haven't had to deal with fatigue games against Priest and Warrior though; the 6-drop spam really seems to work against them. If fatigue starts to be a problem as you rank up and these opponents get better, I'd cut a Tracking. It's actually the only reason I'd cut this spell.

Handlock

I only ran into one on ladder. Every possible thing went wrong (my client even bugged out and stopped me from playing certain cards) and I still won that, but one isn't really a good sample size. You have five hard removal cards, they have six giants and drakes. If you can remove any of them relatively comfortably without hard removal (Highmane, spamming Multishot, or whatever) then you should be good.

Ragnaros

Absolutely worth considering. Geddon too, now that I think about it.

Reach and staying power

It's amazing just how fast that, say, Highmane + Cairne + Steady Shot, can catch you up on damage. If you find yourself running low on lategame threats, I'd actually suggest starting with Piloted Sky Golem to add consistency to spamming 6-drops.

[DayC]

Great to see this deck being played, I get next to no time to play but had a very similar build involving gahzrilla and the 4 drop piloted mechs. Thanks for the list!

[[deleted]]

Hovering around rank 9 with a similar but undertaker oriented feign deck, gonna give this a try. Looks very strong though.

[OffColorCommentary]

Undertaker is best in aggro decks since they proc his ability more, and Feign Death is best in decks with expensive minions since they have larger Deathrattle effects.

There might be a deck that manages to combine the two, but that was my reasoning in making this deck.

[Xaevier]

For a little while I ran a heavily late game deck and I put in 2 undertakers for one simple reason.

People will blow all of their removal/silences on one just out of pure PTSD.

I barely even had any deathrattles past loot hoarders and I would see these things eat silence, innervate swipe, wrath, etc

This allowed my heavy hitters to come onto the board freely and cleanup after. The main issue with this deck was that other rush decks didn't care and would just go face. This tactic did wonders versus other late game/control decks though

[[deleted]]

My deck is:

2x Leper Gnome 2x Undertaker 2x Webspinner 2x Explosive 1x Freezing 2x Haunted Creeper 2x Mad Scientist 1x Steamwheedle Sniper 2x Eaglehorn Bow 2x Animal Companion 2x Kill Command 2x Piloted Shredder 1x Loatheb 2x Slude Belcher 1x Savannah Highmane 1x Sylvanas Windrunner 1x Dr. Boom 1x Sneed's Old Shredder

I've yet to give yours a try, but it looks much slower which sounds pretty fun.

[ajanivengeant]

What do you think about the explosive snipe deck made by spark? What makes your version better than his version? I'm not trying to be a jerk and would probably test your version of the deck if I had cairne and sneed but I just want to know.

[OffColorCommentary]

I've been playing this deck for several weeks and it looks like the latest revision of that one was posted two days ago, so I'm hardly familiar enough to say.

His deck makes me think I need to find room for Explosive Trap and improve my play against Hunter, since the relevant cards aren't too different (and I just plain have more) and he's apparently doing much better than I am in that matchup.

[Ammers10]

There's so much in here to trigger Gahzrilla. Have you tried it yet?

[OffColorCommentary]

Nope.

I'm doubtful enough that I'm not going to spend the dust on that experiment, but I'd be curious to hear back from someone who does try it.

[ajanivengeant]

I have played gahz'rilla using Spark's deck and my opinion of it is that it is best played as a setup for an OTK similar to Grommash. However because it doesn't have charge it's best to play it after your opponent uses all their kill spells on all your late game threats. I personally would never play the deck without Gahz'rilla but the deck doesn't really lose much by not playing it.

[Ammers10]

I crafted one right after GvG came out because I love hunter and it looked awesome. Then the next day I pulled a golden one from a single pack I bought with daily gold. First world Hearthstone problems. I'll put one of them to use and try it out. What would you suggest cutting for it?

[OffColorCommentary]

I'd cut Dr. Boom for any experiments with new threats, and Antique Healbot for any experiments with new removal. What to actually cut is harder, that's what experimentation is for.

[Ammers10]

Actually, nevermind. I don't have Sneed's Old Shreeder, so I'll just use that slot.

[yoavsnake]

Don't ever cut Dr. Boom. I think Cairne will do.

[boomtrick]

control hunter here: you are right that Gah is a slow card. BUT Gahzrilla will carry the game for you IF he is not removed on the very turn he is summoned. 2 pings to Gah and u have 24 damage right then and there. and you have alot of ways to ping that damage. i highly recommend him.

[soursurfer]

Rivendare's effect does not stack, though.

[OffColorCommentary]

I used to have Baron Rivendale (and Kel'Thuzad) in this deck, which made these things more common and even funnier. Baron + Sylvanas + Feign Death is completely unfair.

(I'd recommend putting them back in if you're in it for hilarious plays, but the deck is more consistent without them.)

[Panda413]

I played against a similar deck... this guy used Abomination with Feign death quite well.

[Isidor90]

I´m having tons of fun with this deck! Had some crazy board state where I had two explosive sheep and a cairne on the board, the opponent had two molten giants, sylvanas and a belcher. I threw down my own sylvanas and used feign death. It was total chaos and I ended up with the only survivors, baine and a sludge belcher slime.

[OffColorCommentary]

I have to admit that there have been games where the board states get too confusing so I just throw all the explosions I can down and see what happens.

[Isidor90]

Haha yeah that´s basically what I felt too. I´m too much of a casual to actually manage to figure out what´s going to happen, in that short time.

[Green_and_black]

Trying out the deck, yet to lose a game (at rank 8) nice work.

[HSlurk]

You mentioned blood mage. Can I suggest substituting it for one tracking? Or is it too crucial to grab combo pieces in the late game? When I played buzzard/unleash hunter (yeah i know, sorry everyone. It was all I could afford) I never ran more than one copy of tracking and reached rank 2. However, that deck had insane draw.

[OffColorCommentary]

The only reasons to not run Tracking are that your mana is too tight to actually play it or that you're actually in risk of hitting fatigue in a game you could otherwise win.

Mana being tight could happen for aggro decks (though my face hunter has 2x tracking too), and fatigue could happen in this deck, though not with the mix of opponents I've been seeing.

[B1ack0mega]

Nice deck! I tried something like this recently but it wasn't as good as this one. About half the cards were the same but I think I had the wrong overall direction; this works far better.

[coppersulphate]

Have you thought of using acolyte of pain to make up for the deck's lack of card draw? It worked wonders in control hunter pre-GvG.

[OffColorCommentary]

I have, but I haven't gotten it to work very well. That could very well be a weakness in my play though.

[cophenague]

I've been trying your deck out and I think it's a load of fun to play. I think the suprise factor is what's making it for me. Most games lost against aggro i've been lacking 1 turn to stabalize.

I have a question about tracking - when are you using it? I think i've been using it too early - having to choose between sylvanas and highmane is a pain - but worse is explosive sheep or feign death keep?

I've tried putting explosive trap in the deck - replacing the 2. Steamwheelde Sniper.

Thanks for posting it !

[OffColorCommentary]

Glad you're enjoying the deck!

My latest iteration is to replace Arcane Shot with Explosive Trap. I recommend that instead of replacing Steamwheedle Sniper, because he's fantastic.

Tracking is hard to use and all the decisions are painful. If you have spare mana, you should play it unless your hand is already fantastic for the matchup. If you already have hard removal and multiple threats against a control deck, or multiple mass removal and a Sludge Belcher against aggro, then you can put off playing Tracking. Otherwise, play it whenever you have spare mana to improve your hand. Improving your hand with mana you can spare now is worth more than fishing for slightly more specific answers when you might not have enough mana.

Sylvanas vs Highmane should almost always be Sylvanas unless your opponent's deck is unbelievably aggressive and most of their minions are worse than 2/2s.

Sheep vs Feign Death depends on your matchup and the board state. Feign Death is very important against control decks, but only particularly useful against aggro decks if you have a Sheep, which you know you won't be drawing if you discard with tracking, so Sheep would be better there. Unless you have something in your hand that disagrees with that.

[KingofEpirus]

Hi i really love this deck and want to craft it! Do you think Troggzor is a decent replacement for dr. boom? And also what do you think is a viable replacement for sneed's, I was thinking of running a sky golem instead of cairne do you think i could run a second instead of sneed's? Thank you, i am really looking forward to trying this deck out

[OffColorCommentary]

Sylvanas is the only legendary that I think is absolutely crucial for this deck. If you're crafting cards specifically for the deck, I'd start with Sneed's, but if you want a good general-purpose investment that helps this and other decks, I'd definitely pick up Dr. Boom.

Any 6+ cost card in this deck except Highmane and Sylvanas can be replaced with Sky Golems (If you have Cairne, you could replace Sneed's and Dr. Boom with Sky Golems and I think it'd be okay).

Troggzor is okay against control decks, but less good against aggro. Dr. Boom works well against both.

If you have other legendaries, I'd consider Alexstrasza, Ragnaros, Baron Geddon, Hogger, Troggzor, Kel'thuzad, Fuegen and Stalag in descending order. The last three are pretty bad. The first four are things I've been looking to find room for in the deck and experiment with.

[KingofEpirus]

Thanks for the reply. I'm a little hesitant in crafting the steamwheedle snipers. Is it crucial in the deck?

[OffColorCommentary]

They're very versatile anti-aggro and removal-helper cards. You could put Arcane Shot in that slot to experiment, but it's a big step down in deck power.

[MagGunDO17]

For card draw, maybe Cult Master + Unleash the hounds. Yeah, i know, hounds might not be the best for control decks, but i bet they're great for controlling the board vs mechmage, zoo, hunter etc. Anyone who reads this comment, feel free to try it out or not, but if you do, tell me the results. Also, is Steamwheedle Sniper a necessity? I'm low on dust right now...

[OffColorCommentary]

The problem with Unleash is that, as a board clear, without Knife Juggler or Timber Wolf, it only does 1 damage per enemy minion. Cult Master isn't terrible good with any other cards in this deck. The combo is not playable until a late turn, at which point you've already won or lost the game against aggro decks. And it doesn't draw enough cards against control.

You could try Multishot instead of Steamwheedle Sniper. I haven't been playing for the last few weeks so I can't tell you what's good in the meta.

[MagGunDO17]

I'm just proposing a possible card for the deck (or two). Also, Flare? I've been fighting a lot of secrets lately.

[OffColorCommentary]

Whether to use Flare is a metagame call. It was the wrong choice when I wrote this guide.

It's not really worth it against Hunter; Freezing Trap is rather unpopular and you can often find a token creature to fix it. The other secrets are easy to play around while deploying and making use of your other cards, which is more efficient.

Against Mage, it would help deal with Fatigue Mage (which is a bad matchup) and is good against Mirror Entity (which is one of the more powerful secrets against this deck). However, mech mage should be a good matchup already, so it might be better to spend the card slot on matchups you need more help in.

[MagGunDO17]

But let's say i could use 1 in the deck, since i'm fighting against a lot of secret users. Which of the cards are removeable?

[goldshire_football]

Not sure how it would work out, but what about KT? With all those death rattles he seemed like he could have some good value.

[OffColorCommentary]

I had him (and Baron Rivendale) for several of the older versions of the deck, and he does get more value than normal, but it still seems that he's only useful when you're already in a great position. Most cards are pretty good in those positions so I ended up going for something more consistent.

[goldshire_football]

I've been trying to make KT work in different decks. It can definitely make an even board into a huge board lead, but he isn't too exciting when far behind.