Our guide to playing the latest version of Control Hunter in Season 42.
Our Control Hunter deck guide has the best deck list for Season 45, with Mulligan advice, strategy tips, card combos and synergies.
Control Hunter is a Hearthstone deck that aims to take charge of the board right from the very start of any given match, restrict the opponent’s development as much as possible, and then arrive in the late-game with a whole host of sticky minion options that should allow you to mount a game-ending challenge.
In the second edition of our guide to this relatively new Frozen Throne deck, we’ve highlighted a deck list from one of the game’s best Hunter decksmiths, JAB. After the deck list itself we’ve got some Mulligan tips for you, before we finish up with an overview of all the combos that can be found in this particular version of Control Hunter
Should this archetype prove competitive in the long term we’ll come back and expand on this guide significantly, with specific match-up tips and more detailed Mulligan advice. Until then, we hope you find this guide a handy way of getting started with the deck! Let’s see what the new expansion does for the Control Hunter’s options.
UPDATE: 26th November 2017
The Control Hunter dream has yet to fully materialise in the Frozen Throne meta, but it looks as though the Kobolds and Catacombs expansion may inject some interesting options for the archetype. We’ve taken the opportunity to freshen up our Control Hunter guide ahead of the next card set, with a slightly tweaked deck list and updated strategy and combo information.
Control Hunter deck list and strategy
This is the Control Hunter deck that was put together by JAB for the Frozen Throne meta. We’ve not seen a lot of experiments with this archetype lately, and so this seems to be about as good as things get.
| Hunter | Neutral |
|---|---|
| 2 x Alleycat | 2 x Bonemare |
| 2 x Jeweled Macaw | 1 x The Lich King |
| 2 x Crackling Razormaw | |
| 2 x Kindly Grandmother | |
| 2 x Animal Companion | |
| 1 x Deadly Shot | |
| 1 x Eaglehorn Bow | |
| 2 x Kill Command | |
| 2 x Rat Pack | |
| 2 x Stitched Tracker | |
| 2 x Unleash the Hounds | |
| 2 x Houndmaster | |
| 1 x Infested Wolf | |
| 1 x Corpse Widow | |
| 1 x Deathstalker Rexxar | |
| 2 x Savannah Highmane |
Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.
Deck Import ID: AAECAR8GxQj+DM6uAsLOAsbOAobTAgyoArUD6wfbCe0JubQC6rsC7LsCicMCjsMC080Cps4CAA==
- 1. Best Budget Decks – Hearthstone: Best Budget Decks for Ashes of Outland
- 2. Tier List – Hearthstone deck tier list (Ashes of Outland)
- 3. Dragonbane Face Hunter – Dragonbane Face Hunter deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 4. Beast Hunter – Beast Hunter deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 5. Midrange Hunter – Midrange Hunter deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 6. Highlander Dragon Hunter – Highlander Dragon Hunter deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
- 7. Quest Hunter – Quest Hunter deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
Control Hunter Mulligan guide
It’s crucial that you play on curve throughout the early game, and so for this reason you should build a starting hand of one and two Mana minions, and look for whatever synergy benefits you can gain while doing so (think of Crackling Razormaw here, for example).
If you have those crucial first two turns taken care of – and particularly if you have The Coin – then you can think about keeping an Eaglehorn Bow, and even a Houndmaster if you think there’s a good chance you’ll be able to take advantage of that bonus Battlecry effect.
Save up to 40% on your Hearthstone card packs with Amazon Coins.
You get cheaper cards while also supporting the continued development of geeksplatform. Our Amazon Coins guide has more detail.
Control Hunter tips, combos and synergies
Here are some important tips about how you can combo together the cards in this particular version of the deck. This should give you enough strategic insight to get going with the deck until our next, more in-depth update:
– The vanilla version of Kill Command does a rather paltry three points of damage to the target you choose, but if you can get a Beast out on the board first then the damage increases to five.
– The bigger the Attack value of Rat Pack is when it dies, the more rats will spawn from its corpse. You can use cards like Crackling Razormaw, Houndmaster and Bonemare to empower this creature.
– Corpse Widow reduces the cost of all subsequently played Deathrattle minions by two Mana. The following cards are affected: Kindly Grandmother, Rat Pack, Infested Wolf and Savannah Highmane.
– Deathstalker Rexxar provides you with the Build-A-Beast abiltiy. This allows you to stitch together two previously killed Beast minions into a new creation that has its stats and Mana costs combined. Note that you can only gain a maximum 10 Mana minion from this process, and only the full text of the first Beast is carried over. If the second creature has a Keyword, you’ll gain that as well.
– At the end of each turn, The Lich King will add a randomly selected Death Knight card to your hand. There are ten of these special new cards in total:
| Cost | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | Death Coil | Deal 5 damage to an enemy, or restore 5 Health to a friendly character. |
| 2 | Death Grip | Steal a minion from your opponent’s deck and add it to your hand. |
| 2 | Obliterate | Destroy a minion. Your hero takes damage equal to its Health. |
| 3 | Death and Decay | Deal 3 damage to all enemies. |
| 4 | Anti-Magic Shell | Give your minions +2 / +2 and “Can’t be targeted by spells or Hero Powers.” |
| 5 | Doom Pact | Destroy all minions. Remove the top card from your deck for each minion destroyed. |
| 6 | Army of the Dead | Remove the top 5 cards of your deck. Summony any minions removed. |
| 7 | Frostmourne | Deathrattle: Summon every minion killed by this [5 / 3] weapon. |
– If you target a Beast minion with Crackling Razormaw it’ll be put through the Adapt process. This allows you to pick one of three possible buffs that are drawn from the following pool of ten:
| Adapt Name | Effect |
|---|---|
| Crackling Shield | Divine Shield |
| Flaming Claws | +3 Attack |
| Liquid Membrane | Can’t be targeted by spells or Hero Powers |
| Lightning Speed | Windfury |
| Living Spores | Deathrattle: Summon two 1/1 Plants |
| Massive | Taunt |
| Poison Spit | Poisonous |
| Rocky Carapace | +3 Health |
| Shrouding Mist | Stealth until your next turn |
| Volcanic Might | +1 / +1 stats |
