Is Face Hunter making you have second thoughts about your future career in Hearthstone? How can you be legendary and earn those Blizzcon points with all these militant Face Hunters crowding the ladder? How will anyone take your Twitch Stream seriously if you can’t even beat one of the most generic and cheesy decks in Hearthstone? I have asked my long-time friend, who reaches Legendary rank every month, to provide some tips and tricks to withstanding this Face Hunter fad.
Run heals and taunts to mitigate early damage
Both Earthen Ring Farseer and Antique Healbot are great suggestions to mitigating Face Hunter’s early burst. Play Antique Healbot when Face Hunter has run out of damage means Face Hunter has run out of sufficient damage for a win. As well, both are great answers to Freezing Trap, considering they are sent back to your hand where you can re-play them for more health recovery. They also make great trades against Face Hunter’s minions. These minions can be slotted into any deck no problem.
Paladins and Druids have a useful array of taunts and heals to prevent early damage from Face Hunters. Paladin is the master of rebounding through Lay on Hands, Truesilver Champion, and Guardian of Kings. Coghammer provides a divine shield and taunt to withstand those Explosive Traps and charge minions. Druid can run Healing Touch and Ancient of Lore, and big taunts such as Ancient of War and Druid of the Claw. Just don’t run Tree of Life unless you plan on milling a Face Hunter: but that’s not happening. Such is counter-intuitive.
Handlock is a bad match up against Face Hunter
But don’t let that deter you from playing Handlock. Cards such as Antique Healbot and Molten Giant can pull you through the match up. A couple of 8/8 taunts is threatening in every instance: even if a Face Hunter is saving a Hunter’s Mark. A potential 8-16 damage has to be dealt with immediately, and whenever you are re-directing Face Hunter damage away from your actual face, then you are doing a good job. If you last till turn 9, Lord Jaraxxus will heal you and provide you with mean 6/6 Infernals.
Run Kezan Mystic to steal their secrets
Kezan Mystic reads: “Take control of a random enemy Secret“. Slotting in one Kezan Mystic into your four drop position, will allow you to, in many cases, to steal their Explosive Trap, which is quite effective against Face Hunter’s own minions such as Huffer, Wolfrider, and their army of noisy hounds. In other scenarios, stealing Freezing Trap and Snake Trap will equally slow down Face Hunter’s momentum.
You Don’t always have to proc the Explosive Trap
Explosive Trap in some cases is unnecessary damage and can clear your board. If your opponent has Eaglehorn Bow, you’re opening yourself up to take additional damage. Sometimes it is better to keep your low health minions to trade. In some situations, it is smarted to heal or armor up rather than swat the Face Hunter’s nest.
Run decks that hard counter Face Hunter
Two easy class suggestions for hard countering Face Hunter is Mage and Warrior. Warrior is useful for their armor gain via Armorsmith and Mage their new card Flamewaker and Arcane Missiles aid you in retaining board control.
Of course, Warrior has two popular deck archetypes: Grim Patron and Control Warrior. For Grim Patron, Armosmith’s along with filling the board via Grim Patron then using Whirlwind replenishes your armor to slow Face Hunter’s burst. It also turns Face Hunter’s Explosive Trap against him. For Control Warrior, again Armorsmith is FAce Hunter’s number one enemy. Besides that, Shieldblock and Shieldmaiden, give enough armor to make Face Hunter’s burst damage seem like blow bubbles. As always, Alexstraza can fill your health back up in a tight position and provide you with a threatening board presence. With both deck types, Warrior’s hero power Armor Up! is useful in countering Hunter’s Steady Shot.
Mage has Counterspell, which shuts down Face Hunter’s Animal Companion, Kill Command, Unleash the Hounds, and their new Quick Shot: all required for a successful Face Hunter (cheesy) victory. Manaworm‘s stats are perfect for trading against Face Hunter’s arsenal. Flamewaker, in combination with cheap spells such as Arcane Missile, helps clear their board and deal damage to put the pressure on Face Hunter. Frostbolt is amazing to prevent further in-you-face damage from Face Hunter’s nasty weapons, which both Snowchugger and Water Elemental (being Mage exclusives) can also do.
Combination of early board control and mid to late game burst
This is strategic method with Rogue, Druid, and Mage in mind. Rogue can control the board with both minions and spells such as SI Agent and Backstab. For burst, Rogues have Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil and Bladeflurry. Druid excels with their combination of Taunts and heals to burn out Face Hunter’s momentum. They can burst when Face Hunter is exhausted via Force of Nature and Savage Roar. Mage, as previously mentioned, are masters of controlling the board through their frosty-goodness. Their burst lies in Frostbolt and Fireball.
Rogue can wrestle control of the board from Face Hunter through Backstab, Bladeflurry, Eviscerate, Fan of Knives, and SI Agents. The trick, however, is to save Fan of Knives against an Unleash the Hounds combo, or when Face Hunter has been spewing cheap minions onto the board in the first three turns. Consider that the highest health of Face Hunter’s minions is on average 2. A coined SI Agent on turn two is a very powerful play, but Backstab or Eviscerate is also a great lead in to SI Agent, especially if you are facing an early Misha or Leoc (via Animal Companion). In terms of burst, is useful for posing a strong threat against Face Hunter as if they fail to deal with the buffed minion, they are too fragile survive. This forces them to waste their damage on trades. Combined with Bladeflurry, it is three bonus damage to wreak havoc on Face Hunter’s face. Like Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil, Edwin Vancleef can force Face Hunter to change their strategy mid-game to deal with a threat rather than burst you down. Finally, Preporation sets up any of these combos when the mana crystals are down.
Druid can control the board through taunts, heals, and spells. Druid of the Claw or Sludge Belcher will usually eat their removal such as Hunter’s Mark, and Ironbeak Owl. In a best case scenario, Face Hunter will waste precious damage to expose your face to their burst. It is not neccesary to run Healing Touch as Ancient of Lore provides a great balance between board control and heals (of course, if in a winning position, the draw is always useful to find Force of Nature and Savage Roar). Wrath and Swipe will always get your control of the board back, considering how low health a majority of Face Hunter’s minions are. Keeper of the Grove’s silence is perfect to counter Mad Scientist or murder lingering charge minions. Druid’s burst comes in the form of Force of Nature and Savage Roar. If you have maintained board control, and have at least one minion on the board, then this combination in most cases leads to a victory worthy of a “Well Played” spam.
After controlling the board, Mage’s Fireball is more damage than a Face Hunter can withstand in most cases.
When all else fails, play Face Hunter
If you really want to thrust forward towards Legendary, it is not always a bad idea to rely on the dark side. Face Hunter is very good at winning quick games against unsuspecting victims such as newbies, and little brothers or sisters who have controls of their siblings account. Then, there are always those gluttons for punishment who, for some reason, try new decks in ranked matches: and these decks are almost always not equipped to melt a Face Hunter.
When it comes down to it, Face Hunter is great against most decks. It is only Grim Patron that doesn’t have any “bad match ups.”