Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft’s beta is really in full swing and now the players are starting to get into strategizing. The beauty of this game right now if that you can compare it to when Magic the Gathering was first released. There are only 381 cards right now. You do not have to look at the massive expansions over the years to jump in and have a good time. A lot of people might be put off by the in game store and paying to get all the good cards. While this aspect is true, there are still a few ways to be competitive on a budget. It you played a Hunter in WoW, if you dig Rexxar, and if you only have a few bucks, then an “Unleash the Hounds” deck is for you.
The best part of this Hunter deck is you do not need a lot of legendary or even rare cards to make it work. It can be done with almost all common cards. So for the player on a budget you can craft, a decent deck. The deck itself uses beasts as their primary attack mode. It can be played aggressively for an early win. If that is not your style, you can wait, build up your hand, and then unleash a huge attack crippling your opponent.
There are a ton of guides for this deck out there. However, I believe you never just take the pure list right from the internet. You really should make it your own and find cards that work for you. So what if it doesn’t follow the perfect formula, it should be made with your own personal stamp. Before we get into the personal stamp part, let’s talk about just a few must have cards for this deck.
Unleash the Hounds x2 – This is critical as most of your attack philosophy works within these two cards. Flooding the board with cheap beasts and then giving them the +1 buff and charging them unexpectedly will cripple your opponent. The reason you have two of these is so you can use one early on for intimidation and one later for the final kill.
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Next up are Beasts. You will want a lot of them. When choosing Minions for your deck, check to make sure they are beasts first. Always try to take a Minion that actually does something instead of just straight stats on a card. Here are a list of very cheap beasts which can be played early in a game without much cost and have some special abilities:
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Here are a few 2 or 3 cost beasts that you cannot live without. The Starving Buzzard is critical for drawing cards quickly. The Iron Beak Owl is great for dropping the ever difficult Taunts. Last but not least, Rexxar’s personal minions are always great.
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The next phase of beasts are your mid-range and big hitters. You can definitely use your own ideas here. There is a ton of room for creativity with these cards. I would say that Houndmaster is the best non-beast card in this range. When you get to the stage of the game where you are at 4-6 mana you want to win quickly, the longer you are in the game, the more killable you are by big spells. So playing these minions and then boosting them quickly for an attack really is critical. I think the perfect big hitter is the Savannah Highmane. Even though it is only 6 attack, when it dies the two Hyenas that spawn will add two more beasts to the board and frustrate your enemy. Here are a few suggestions:
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You cannot just take all minions. You have to rely on spells too. The Hunter comes with some good ones. These are also very basic and won’t cost you an arm and a leg to get.
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Side Note: Tracking is a Must Have in this Deck as well. Take two and don’t be shy about using them. Flares are great against Mages and other Hunters.
Defense is critical, especially against decks like the Mage who rely on heavy hitting spells at the end of a game. Here are some suggestions for good defensive cards. Hunter’s get Traps which are great for confusing your foes.
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The rest of the deck can really be built around what you like to play. There are a lot of general cards that give all kinds of good buffs. For now remember the important thing about an “Unleash the Hounds” deck; it is cheap. You can build it without spending a lot of money and play very competitive Hearthstone. As the game is still in beta, I am sure we will see possible nerfs to some of these cards. Right now though, this deck is a quick way to get started and have fun doing it. If you want to spend some cash this deck will only get better with cards like Snake Trap and Beastial Wrath, however you will have to buy a lot of decks to craft these cards Epic cards.
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