We launch a new series this week, designed to help us find new decks to try out in Hearthstone! Dan brings on his current favorite deck, a Hunter set centered on beasts, beasts, and more beasts.
Can his aggressive deck topple Josh’s favorite Warlock deck to become the first-ever, Happy Hearthstone Champion Deck? I know, but you don’t, so listen to the episode!
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The Links
- Watch our livestreams of the Hearthstone beta!
- Read more deck-building tips
- Read about the upcoming player tournament
- Sign up for the beta if you aren’t already in it!
Hello!
- Dan is on the show this week
- Topic: The first-ever Deck Challenge-palooza!
- Reasons to be happy this week
What is a Deck Challenge?
The basic premise is pretty simple: the guest host brings a constructed deck that they’re having fun playing at the moment. They explain what the theme of the deck is, how it works, what the key cards are to have, and why they think it’s fun to play.
We’ll always include a full card list (below) so you can build their deck, but we won’t list every single card on the podcast, since, well, that’d be boring.
After they’ve explained their deck, we pause the podcast and play a best-of-3-series, where I’m using the current reigning champion deck.
If the guest host wins, they get the official title of Happy Hearthstone Champion, and their deck becomes the reigning champion deck for the show. Future guests will have to play against it to try and earn their spot among the LEGENDS of the show!
We won’t do this every show, but it’ll be one of the formats we rotate through during the recording. We want it to be fun and entertaining, but most importantly, we want it to help you find new deck types to play around with. Early on, these won’t be the ideal decks you could build if you had every card in the game—because we know that most players won’t have every card in the game. These are meant to be decks that embody good ideas, that you can build off of, based on what actual cards you have access too.
Plus, it’ll be great for bragging rights if someone can build a deck that holds the reigning spot for a long time!
The Deck
- The Beastmaster: It’s a Hunter deck with a simple theme: every minion must be a Beast (type) or have something directly to do with Beasts.
- How it wins: It’s got a lot of creatures, which is combos together to rush the opponent and hopefully get some big creatures on the board quickly. It’s kind of an overrun-type deck, where you throw a lot at the opponent to keep him on his heels and take him down before he knows what hit him!
Five Key Cards
- Starving Buzzard: A decent beast, with a brilliant (and much-needed) card-draw effect that can be easily exploited.
- Multi-Shot: Removal is very important for keeping your beasts swinging. Multi-shot (and Explosive Shot) are the best removal available to this deck.
- Houndmaster: This is amazing. We should always have a beast on the table, but not many of them have Taunt on their own. This card fixes that, while providing an awesome stat buff.
- Unleash the Hounds: This is one of those Common-quality cards that plays like a Legendary in this deck. Later on in the match, you can bombard the board with beasts and immediately go!
- Tundra Rhino: Dan didn’t like this card before he built this deck, but like Unleash the Hounds, it’s way more valuable here.
“We have claimed this bear as our own. Let this paw print be proof!”
Full Deck List
You can read Dan’s full thoughts about why he built the deck the way he did, but here’s the simple deck list with no commentary (ordered by mana cost), if you want to try it out for yourself.
Important Note: As Dan discusses extensively on the show, this is not an ideal deck, but the deck he could build with the cards he has. This is meant to help you build a deck that can work without paying for tons of packs. You should adjust the card numbers to match what you have available to you.
Creatures
- 1x Timber Wolf (1 mana)
- 1x Ironbeak Owl (2)
- 1x Scavenging Hyena (2)
- 2x Starving Buzzard (2)
- 2x Animal Companion (3)
- 2x Ironfur Grizzly (3)
- 1x Jungle Panther (3)
- 2x Houndmaster (4)
- 1x Stampeding Kodo (5)
- 1x Tundra Rhino (5)
- 1x Savannah Highmane (6)
- 1x The Beast (6)
Spells
- 2x Hunter’s Mark (0 mana)
- 2x Arcane Shot (1)
- 1x Tracking (1)
- 2x Unleash the Hounds (1)
- 1x Explosive Trap (2)
- 1x Misdirection (2)
- 2x Kill Command (3)
- 2x Multi-Shot (4)
- 1x Explosive Shot (5)
Sideboard
Cards that Dan recommends adding if you have them, ordered from most to least valuable. See his other post for details.
- 1x Explosive Trap (2 mana), for two copies total
- 1x Explosive Shot (5), for two copies total
- 1x King Krush (8)
- 1x Ironbeak Owl (2), for two copies total
- 2x Snake Trap (2)
- 2x Deadly Shot (3)
- 1x Gladiator’s Longbow ()
- 2x Emperor Cobra (3)
- Eaglehorn Bow (3)
- Beastial Wrath (1)
- 1x Young Dragonhawk (1)
- 2x Dire Wolf Alpha (2)
- 1x King Mukla (5)
You can’t go wrong with any of these choices!
The Defending Champion Deck
Because this is our first Duel, there’s no deck defending the throne. Instead, Josh played his favorite Warlock deck, which has pretty average cards in it. In future Duels, the last deck to win will be the Defending Champion Deck, and have to fight off all contenders trying to usurp it.
The Duel!
Post-Duel Commentary
- Who won
- Obligatory bragging session
- Challenger Deck: How well did it perform?
- Defending Deck: How well did it perform?
- Best moments in the matches
- The Happy Hearthstone Champion Ceremony ™
Community
- Question: Card rarity vs. value from Derrick
- iTunes Review: Rince Art
Card of the Week
Song by Lori
Farewell
- Follow Dan on Twitter
- Donate to Dan’s charity event!
- What you want to see in future episodes
- What hosts you want to visit the show
- Bonus section with alluring mysteries!
Join The Podcast
- SUBSCRIBE to The Happy Hearthstone podcast on iTunes or this RSS feed.
- FOLLOW me on Twitter or Google+
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- PLAY with us in Hearthstone, whenever you get into the beta!