Turn 3 - Companion or Master's Call?

On turn 3, if I have both Animal Companion and Master's Call. Which is best? Does it vary, and if so, what are the deciding factors?

Depends on your hand and matchup. If you're up against an aggro deck and need to seize the board, play Animal Companion. If you're up against a slow deck and already have board presence, play Master's Call.

Likewise, if you already have cards that you plan on playing on the following turns, then you don't need to Master's Call immediately since you aren't specifically looking for anything, yet. In such an instance, it is also usually better to go for Animal Companion.

It is entirely based on your situation.  If you have no board presence, you NEED something on the board so Animal Companion is your best option.  However, if you:
1) do have minions on the board

2) think you're playing against a control deck

3) need more options in your hand

Then it is a good idea to play Master's Call.

I would suggest that you be cognizant of the beasts in your deck compared to what you have in your hand and what you're playing against.  If you play against a deck that has a lot of board wipe, holding onto that Vicious Scalehide or [Hearthstone Card (spring paw) Not Found] so you can drop a Dire Frenzy on it in the same time is valuable. 

It strongly depends on the matchup, the rest of your hand and the board state. Two things to keep in mind : 1) When in doubt, play the tempo option. 2) If you're going to play Master's call, think about what minions you would want to draw and whether you can even play it/them on the following turn. EG you might as well fish for a hyena on turn 4 because you can't unleash + hyena until turn 5 anyway.

On turn 3, you’ll probably always play Animal Companion.

Master’s Call just wastes a turn and draws cards you don’t need that turn as your hand has 2-3 cards in it already. You sacrifice your tempo to draw cards you may have trouble playing after a tempo suicide like that, giving your opponent time to take the board back and breathe.

Compare that to Animal Companion, one of the best turn three plays on curve that still keeps a crazy amount of pressure? Yeah...

The default play is companion first, but there are some exceptions

You play call over animal companion if there's a beast (or combination of beasts) that will be powerful in the following turn.  For example, if the opponent has a fairy dragon on board, your huffer will trade down and the other two die to 1 damage but if you play call, you can get lynx + hyena for turn 4, which is a blowout

You should also avoid playing companion on curve if your opponent is likely to have a punish.  For example, if your warrior opponent played a town crier in the early game (this makes militia commander likely) or if he can coin dynomatic.  Another example is if your hunter opponent has some small beasts on board or played call himself the previous turn, he can easily lynx + hyena or lynx + wolf you on the following turn if you companion.  If you have an empty board vs a rogue's turn 3, playing animal companion enables backstab as an easy combo activator for their 3 drop (rolling huffer makes it extra bad, but the other two aren't great either in that situation)

Of course, sometimes it's right to play into things and hope the opponent doesn't have it, but if you have other things to do like call, it's generally better to do that first.  Due to the power of lynx combos, taking a turn off doesn't necessarily mean you'll fall behind on board.  Hunter these days play surprisingly well from behind, especially after casting call

Also, if you have dire frenzy in hand, you want to companion into frenzy into call if possible.  If your companion gets killed before you can frenzy, it's still recommended to get a frenzy off before call, unless there's a beast you really want to frenzy in the matchup and you need call to draw it (scalehide vs bomb warrior, timber wolf vs control for example)

Quote From NightCrawler

The default play is companion first, but there are some exceptions

[great advice snipped]

Thanks!

That's really useful.