In-Depth Deathrattle Hunter Guide

I hope you all enjoy and I would be more than happy to answer basically any questions you may have, from “What’s your favorite color?” to “What would you take out if I don’t have ___ or ___?”

Guide: This deck is a slower version of Mech Hunter that has several similar mechanics (Basically Mechs) but revolves more around powerful Deathrattles and combos than weaker deathrattles and just RUSHING THE ENEMY. Ok so the actual main goal of the deck is to use early minions tempo advantages like Magnetic and Galvanizer to not lose control of the board and eventually get to the point where you can get cards like the Mechanical Whelp out in order to combo with Nine Lives and eventually recast your great spell options after playing Zul’jin. I play a version of the deck with no 1 drop and a Nechromechanic in order to better play around your win conditions (Nothing is worse than randomly playing Nine Lives with Zul’Jin and getting Mecharoo…). Point is, this is by no means a FAST Hunter deck, but rather one that is similar to Mage that can build a big board very quickly.

Gameplay:

Mulligans: Over the course of me playing this game I have realized that into aggro matchups you really HAVE TO keep Zilliax, to regain some life after some early aggression and can be SUPER strong if put on a giant 7/7 dragon if you are able to survive long enough to do it without dying. Into Control you want to keep Mechanical Whelp, Nine Lives, Zul’Jin, and maybe even Necromechanic in order to capitalize on slow play (this focuses mostly on warrior because they will only be able to Brawl 2 times and your minions have deathrattles which mean that they will do something after they die too which makes it hard for them to deal with. In General, you want to keep your 2 and 3 drop mechs to help keep board pressure in general (and whether you decide to save them for later to combo and be super efficient or use them early to control the board and not get over run is up to you). Keeping Houndmaster Shaw with the coin is actually a really strong play too because if he can’t kill it and you follow with a turn 4 Replicating Menace you can actually clear a pretty substantial board (I will actually have an example of this in the video during the second game if you watch it). 

Matchups (Mulligans and Strategies)

Druid: I will say this every guide, CONTROL THE BOARD. Like I said, keeping some of the cheaper mechs (Especially if you can get out a Galvanizer) will be essential to you winning this matchup so they don’t burst you down with an early pump into Savage Roar. If you can make it to the Missile Launcher and Venomizer play you win the game, so stalling to that would be a solid call. This deck does NOT run Unleash the Hounds which makes wide boards difficult, but with some good comboing like with Houndmaster Shaw or Spider Bomb + Fireworks Tech you can potentially stall that long. That being said, if you need to play Venomizer or Spider Bomb early to not get blown out early, please do that because holding them to combo later is probably my biggest mistake with this deck (or used to be) and will just result in you losing more often because you were waiting for something you weren’t even able to do in the end.

Hunter: I think that this matchup will almost never be a mirror match so you don’t need to worry about that. The goal here is to make sure they don’t get mechs or beasts to stay on the board and then get your combos off to build a board of 7/7s. Into Mech you have the late game advantage of Zul’jin as a bomb if you make it that far but into Beast Hunter his Zul’jin will be stronger but your overall late game is stronger. Into both of these though YOUR OPPONENT has the stronger early game so don’t hold onto cards that you should use early to survive with the hopes of a satisfying combo later because you will probably die by then (I know from experience).

Mage: You want to combo first with this one. Both of your decks are trying to develop wide boards out of nowhere with little combos that get HUGE RESULTS!!! The things with this deck is in my opinion, it is more consistent because it has many things to develop a board or at least KEEP producing a board after a board wipe or 2. Like this deck if you trade your minions in to keep from dying, you have Nine Lives, Oblivitron, Zul’jin, and Missile Launcher + Venomizer are all viable options of coming back,, Mage has the RNG Mana Cyclone and Conjurer’s Calling on a few different minions.

Paladin: This one is bad but not as bad as several of the other decks I have done recently. This deck has ways of dealing with big minions with Spider Bomb, Venomizer, Missile Launcher, Nine Lives, and Hound Master Shaw as removal options and 1 REALLY solid board wipe option. Other than that, just control the board, don't let him get his mechs too big so he can’t get a giant Kangor’s Endless Army play and that is all you can do. He has a lot of draw and hand buffs and there isn’t a TON you can do about that but just know if you survive his 2 waves of minions (1 after the hand buff and 1 after the Kangor’s Endless Army) you win the game.

Priest: This class is still around? XD

Rogue: This one is kinda bad after Pogo Rogue. There is a brief windo when you start comboing and your board is bigger than his, but his stupid bunnies get out of control SO FAST if you don’t close it out you WILL get outpaced and he will also put Zilliax on a giant mech and heal back to full. Tempo isn’t terrible if you have Zilliax because that 3 HP and taunt and maybe even more HP can go a long way but these games usually end up close are rely on you knowing the patterns of Rogue. Like no minions on turn 3 means he can’t play Backstab and get combos off which lowers his value and he may choose to play nothing on turn 3 which SIGNIFICANTLY lowers pressure and is super good for you. Also know that they will usually have a Sap so a small magnetic effect can usually bait it out. I play a really good game against one in this video as well (First game) where I literally woulda won the game if he hadn;t topdecked lethal (like I said, all these matchups will end up close and I didn’t get Zilliax that time so I couldn’t gain those key 3 hp or more to win the game.

Shaman: This matchup will probably be bad for you because not only do you need to deal with the murlocs, but a lot of Shaman decks have at least Earth Shock and control variations have Hex. You need to try to control the board and combo off, if you can kill the Underbelly Angler you should as well please, if he gets a ton of value out of it you lose because he will overflow the board super quickly and buff them all up. The only way you win at that point if he gets like 3+ murlocs out of it is a DC from him.

Warlock: This matchup is basically the same as Token Druid. Get Venomizer and Missile Launcher and you win cause they have no response unless they get Magic Carpet and several 1-drops. The Main goal is to control the board and the combo off once you can stabilize, and if you can’t and you get rushed down you lose. Again, keep Zilliax to make sure you can get a little extra HP and remove a minion or 2.

Warrior: Ok, this matchup is the matchup this one shines into. You can flood the board with big minions over and over and over again. He has a ton of removal but you have several deathrattles that get you something even after they get wiped. You have many ways of generating 7/7s and warriors allow you the time to set up super strong combos like Necromancer + Nine Lives which gets you 2 7/7 dragons and puts the Mechanical Welp back in your hand and you can trigger the deathrattles again. ALSO, you can actually get the Oblivitron to consistently pop off because you have plenty of time to set up a hand where he will always pull a Mechanical Whelp and get you maximum value. You have no need to rush so you can use all your spells and get the best Zul’Jin possible as well. It is quite solid.