Secret Hunter

Wild Hearthstone has thousands of cards, and a wide variety of possible decks. This incredible deck diversity is sometimes lost when only looking at the few decks common in the highest ranks. Wildest of Days is a series aiming to highlight a different off meta deck each week with an in depth guide into its strategy and gameplay. The decks are selected for having interesting synergies and using rarely seen cards.

Secret Hunter got a ton of new tools in the Alterac expansion. Earlier, the series covered Reno Secret Hunter. This is a non-Reno deck built around the power of Drek'Thar. There are only 5 minions, Drek'Thar and 2 copies each of Cloaked Huntress and Crossroads Gossiper. Therefore, Drek'Thar can pull out 2 of those powerful 3-cost minions that synergize with secrets for a powerful tempo swing. You will be able to play secrets for free and have Crossroads Gossipers grow in stats as the secrets are triggered. Drek'Thar can be discovered by Master's Call if you don't get him in your mulligan. You can easily get a full secret tree of 5 secrets up on turn 4 as well as Drek'Thar and a Huntress and Gossiper. To get more minions, the deck includes Petting Zoo and Lesser Emerald Spellstone. Other than Drek'Thar, the key new cards are Dun Baldar Bunker and Spring the Trap for draw and deck thinning and Beaststalker Tavish. This deck will have a powerful secrets and minion offensive early game, while being able to thin the deck and then draw Deathstalker Rexxar for a powerful value endgame as a backup.

Now, let's get into a guide on playing the deck. It's going to go through major overarching strategies to keep in mind, how to mulligan, gameplay tips on key synergies, and card choices.

Strategies

The main strategy is playing Drek'Thar and secrets to activate all your secret synergy cards for an early game tempo offensive. If this doesn't work, you use all your deck thinning to increase the chance of drawing Deathstalker Rexxar faster and then shift into a value strategy based on his hero power.

Secret Tempo - Early in the game, you want to focus on tempo. This can include using Cloaked Huntress to cheat out a lot of secrets for 0 mana, and then making a lot of 3/3s for low mana cost with either Petting Zoo or Lesser Emerald Spellstone. In addition, Drek'Thar and Crossroads Gossipers create more tempo and snowballing stats on the board.

Rexxar Value - Deathstalker Rexxar's hero power allows you to create Zombeasts every turn. This makes it so that you will never run out of value, and you can use this value strategy to win over control decks that have dealt with your secret tempo.

This deck has a lot of face damage due to Eaglehorn Bow being able to gain a lot of durability as well as the Hunter hero power. Therefore, it's often better to go face with your minions rather than trade, especially if against a class without a lot of healing. This way, even if you lose the board you can still win with the weapon and hero power a few turns later.

Mulligans

• Keep Drek'Thar, and Master's Call if you don't have him.
• Keep a Dun Baldar Bunker, two if not against aggro.

Gameplay

The key to playing this deck well is to play the right secrets at the right time to maximize their impact.

Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.

Drek'Thar Synergies

Master's Call is guaranteed to discover Drek'Thar if you haven't drawn him yet.

Drek'Thar will pull out two minions out of whatever you have left in the deck. Therefore, you can sort of manipulate and predict what he will pull out by discovering certain minions with Tracking or Master's Call. If you have 2 Crossroads Gossipers and 1 Cloaked Huntress in the deck, you may want to discover a Crossroads Gossiper if you can to guarantee that Drek'Thar will pull out one of each type of minion in your deck.

Don't always play Drek'Thar as early as you can. You want to have enough secrets in hand or in play such that Crossroads Gossiper will grow or Cloaked Huntress will get value. It's sometimes better to for example use Spring the Trap on turn 4 and then play Drek'Thar next turn so that Crossroads Gossiper is better protected with 2 more secrets.

You should try to either hold secrets in hand or play ones you don't think will activate quickly against a particular deck if you're setting up Drek'Thar. If you play them too early and then they get activated, Crossroads Gossiper won't grow as much.

Secret Synergy

Playing secrets, you should try to maximize their effect. Below are some thoughts about each secret in the deck.

Cat Trick - This can be played at any time since even small spells will trigger it, and you can start pushing damage with it early.

Ice Trap - Don't play this too early, especially if your opponent still has the coin. You want to try to play it to protect your board from a board clear or counter a medium or large mana cost spell.

Pack Tactics - You can play this at any time, but it's especially good if you can get this to trigger on Crossroads Gossiper as the copy summoned will immediately grow to 5/5.

Pressure Plate - This is great against combo decks as this may destroy a combo minion while the combo is being done if it involves spells. You can play it early against non combo decks but it's better to save it for later against combo when you see they are getting close to it.

Snipe - In addition to being able to disrupt combos, this is generally good for tempo. You may want to play it a bit later to avoid hitting very small targets but in general playing it early is ok.

Secrets will upgrade your Lesser Emerald Spellstone, and triggering them will upgrade Eaglehorn Bow. They also increase the number of minions summoned by Petting Zoo.

If you have a large number of secrets, it's better to play Petting Zoo than Lesser Emerald Spellstone even if that's less mana efficient. This is because Petting Zoo might not be as good the following turn if some of those secrets get triggered while the Spellstone is always high-value after it's upgraded.

Also, since you have 2 hero cards in the deck, it's generally better to play Beaststalker Tavish before Deathstalker Rexxar if you have a chance to do so. However, you may want to play Rexxar first and shift into the value strategy if you have not drawn Tavish yet.

Card Choices

This section is going to go through the main packages of cards in the deck. Each package has cards that help the deck with a specific goal. When playing the deck, it's useful to know what purposes each card serves and what other cards in the deck have synergy with it or help achieve the same purpose. This section might also be useful if you're interested in the reasoning for why each card was included in the deck.

Secrets

You can't be a Secret Hunter without secrets. Beaststalker Tavish isn't a secret himself but his Battlecry lets you discover them.

Secret Synergy

Cards that synergize with secrets.

Drek'Thar Package

These cards are key for your very powerful Drek'Thar swing turns, with Master's Call adding to the consistency of playing him.

Deck Thinning and Card Draw

This package is crucial for this deck, by being able to draw your secrets and put them into play from the deck you make the quality of your future draws higher and you will be more likely to draw Drek'Thar and your heroes.

Deathstalker Rexxar

Yes, Deathstalker Rexxar deserves his own section. He is game changing, to the point where an aggro deck that would've otherwise run out of value and lost with low cost top decks can instead discover high cost and powerful Zombeasts every turn and have a value endgame.

Secret Hunter is actually quite strong, with a very powerful tempo swing from Drek'Thar as well as generally high quality secret synergy. Although this is not the case for most decks in this series, you may want to try playing it in ranked. If you have a question or comment, or are wondering about a card substitution, post below.

What are your favorite wild decks? Which off meta decks have you been playing? Share them via our deckbuilder and let us know in the comments below!