Tavish Stormpike (Achievement) Hunter

Deck Idea

The goal of this deck is to focus on getting the Tavish Stormpike achievement while also not ruining your rank completely. The deck functions as a midrange, beast Hunter that has some useful tech cards and synergies for the Forged in the Barrens meta. Additionally, you might notice that the deck has the ability to "curve out" a beast from each mana level using Tavish Stormpike starting as early as turn 8 with Tavish+Tundra Rhino.

Wombo Combo

Card Decisions

Wild Bloodstinger - This minion acts as a 3rd Tundra Rhino, but also provides massively more damage if combo'd with Tavish than just Tundra Rhino alone. More importantly, Wild Bloodstinger is fairly strong against aggro to demolish valuable minions in your opponent's hand (e.g. Voracious Reader), very punishing against the current Miracle/Tempo/OTK Mage decks with Mozaki, Master Duelist/Flamewaker, and able to snipe Highlander minions in the ubiquitous singleton decks.

Tundra Rhino - Allows our combo turn with Tavish to work.

Eater of Secrets - Secret Mage is extremely common and strong, and so are annoying Paladin secrets from Odd and Call to Arms Paladin, so I included it to handle Ice Block and keep tempo against the secret-heavy meta.

Shan'do Wildclaw - Since the deck runs almost exclusively beasts, Shan'do is extremely powerful, especially when hit early in the game. Additionally, if she hits all of the combo pieces with a buff, it is a true 30-damage OTK.

Warsong Wrangler - Hunter lacks card draw, and this card draws us our beasts, buffs them, and creates a 3/4. Overall, a deceptively good card in beast Hunter decks.

The beasts I chose for this deck are not necessarily the "best" beasts for Hunter, but they generally maximize damage on Tavish combo turns, or they are just solid minions on curve that are annoying for our opponent to deal with (Bearshark being one of those cards after getting buffed a few times). For example, Raptor Hatchling is not a very strong card, but it shuffles a 1 mana 4/3 into our deck that can be the difference between lethal or not on combo turns. Likewise, King's Elekk is generally meant for big Hunter decks, but in this deck, it functions as a 2 mana 3/2 that sometimes draws us a card (with better odds as we get more Albatrosses in our opponent's deck).

Budget/Alternate Options

In general, the curve is very set in stone with the beasts played since this deck is trying to maximize value from Tavish Stormpike, but there are some cheaper or alternate options that can work. Since the changes are very much mana-determined, I will go through each mana specifically:

1-Cost - I chose Raptor Hatchling because it shuffles a 1 mana 4/3 into the deck which is strong on the combo turn, and I chose Sunscale Raptor because it is a 1 mana 1/3 beast that really scares the opponent into overkilling it (and sometimes it shuffles a bigger 1-mana beast into our deck). This mana cost is probably the most flexible because it is the least impactful on the combo turn, so choose whatever feels right for you. Alleycat, Wolpertinger, Dire Mole and Springpaw are all strong beasts that might be better in this deck.

2-Cost - I chose the highest attack beasts (aside from [Hearthstone Card (Duskboar[Hearthstone Card () for this slot, but pretty much any good beasts will work. Crackling Razormaw is a must for this slot.

3-Cost - King Mukla is worth consideration in this slot, but I found the 3-cost beasts to be the most consistent/strong in this deck. Bad Luck Albatross is a nightmare for a lot of decks and combos really well with Mok'Nathal Lion since many opponents try to leave Bad Luck Albatross up until they can silence it. Bearshark is very difficult for many classes to remove since most removal is spell based these days. Diving Gryphon is great removal with targeted card draw that this deck needs.

4-Cost - I chose Mok'Nathal Lion due to its synergies with Bad Luck Albatross and Diving Gryphon and because of its high attack. Burrowing Scorpid is really good against token/aggro decks, has high attack, and helps clean up minions to maintain board presence all while being difficult to remove until it gets an attack off. Armored Warhorse, Circus Amalgam, and Lost Tallstrider are all cards that could work, but they seemed less useful most of the time than the 4-cost beasts I put in the deck.

5-Cost - In order for this deck to have any lethal potential, Tundra Rhino is the only 5-cost beast you can run in this deck.

6-Cost - I included Wild Bloodstinger to act as a 3rd copy of Tundra Rhino, but it isn't necessary for the deck to work and could be replaced with more tech cards or another good beast in the earlier mana slots.

As for the non-beasts, Tavish Stormpike is obviously necessary, but Shan'do Wildclaw and Warsong Wrangler also felt very strong. If you don't have them, replacing them with card draw or value could work. For example, Dire Frenzy might be really good in this deck, but you would likely need to include Master's Call and/or Scavenger's Ingenuity. Similarly, Call Pet could be strong in this deck just as 2-mana cycle most of the time since you would likely be able to play the card drawn most of the time due to the large amount of low-cost beasts in the deck.

Final Notes

I did complete "Who Let the Dogs Out?" using this deck exclusively, but it did take many games. Unfortunately, although this deck is efficient, drawing Tavish Stormpike is difficult, and then getting a chance to combo is even harder. Sometimes you need to actually use him for tempo to win, or you can just greed for the wombo combo and likely lose.

My winrate was 53% (33-29) at Diamond 5 and up, and the deck was very fun overall. Aside from an unfortunate loss streak at the end of my achievement hunting, the deck performed very well.