Beast Handbuff Hunter Deck Guide – Ashes of Outland

Our Heartstone Beast Handbuff Hunter Deck List Guide takes a look at this archetype from the Ashes of Outland expansion! We've got a look at the best list for the deck as well as mulligans, play strategy & tips, and card replacements!

While Beast influenced decks are nothing new to Hunter, one that could possibly be good with hand buff synergy is absolutely a new flavor! Hand buff decks were always pretty hit or miss in the past, so seeing Blizzard experiment with this style of play is a bit surprising. However, the cards that Hunter got in Ashes of Outland that support this archetype seem to be pretty strong. So, while we're skeptical of this making headway in the meta, there's still cause for hope if you've been wanting a playable hand buff deck!

Beast Handbuff Hunter Deck List

We've got an early look at this deck with a version by RegisKillbin! We'll be updating this list with more refined lists as the meta starts to shape up.

Beast Handbuff Hunter Mulligan Guide

Always Keep

• Dwarven Sharpshooter - Give us a minion on the board that has solid stats and can do some trading. It also lets us potentially control the board briefly with our hero power.
• Helboar - Low cost Beast that gives another beast in our hand additional stats. Not the greatest early game minion, but it does what we need it to do.
• Shimmerfly - Weak minion but gives us something to play early and gets us an additional resource. You would rather have one of the other minions, but this is serviceable enough to keep.
• Augmented Porcupine - One of the best targets for our hand buffs, because the damage can really get crazy if we can land a couple of them on this card. Also a great target for Fresh Scent.
• Zixor, Apex Predator - Strong early game minion that has an impact immediately when it hits the board. We can also possibly trade it immediately so the Deathrattle is guaranteed!

Possible Keeps

• Fresh Scent - Strong card but we need to hit have something early to land it on. You can keep this with a cheap beast.
• Scavenger's Ingenuity - Hunter usually struggles with card draw, so having a card that not only gets us a Beast but also buffs it is pretty insane. The +3/+3 is a great boost in stats, especially if we can get it on something low cost that can hold the board for a significant amount of time. Keep it if you've got something to play early on.
• Animal Companion - One of the everlasting Hunter cards is usually always worth keeping, especially with an early drop. Good card to keep if you've got The Coin.
• Diving Gryphon - Gives us a good way to remove a minion from our opponent's board, as well as gets us a card to replace it!

Beast Handbuff Hunter Tips & Play Strategy

While this is a pretty aggressive deck, we still have some stuff that can come out in the late game to swing back games into our favor. One of those things in particular is Beastmaster Leoroxx . If we can get a few powerful Beasts in our hand and hit this thing on curve, then we should be able to either finish the game or bring ourselves back into it.

In the early game, we're mostly looking to establish board presence and potential buff up some of our hand. If we can stick a Beast for our turn, Fresh Scent makes quite an impact and will help us possibly make a trade or put on some early pressure. We can also get lucky with Scavenger's Ingenuity if we hit something we can play the next turn. Getting a buffed  Augmented Porcupine would be a big boon for us and be difficult for our opponent to deal with.

Hunter got a new Secret in Ashes of Outland and we're currently running it in this deck! Pack Tactics seems to be a pretty strong card, particularly if we can duplicate a Deathrattle card that will get us an additional trigger.

Zixor, Apex Predator is one of Hunter's new Legendaries. It will shuffle a Prime card into your deck, which is a 8-mana 4/4 with Rush that has a Battlecry that reads, "Summon 3 copies of this minion." This is pretty powerful, and it having Rush makes it a possible draw from Diving Gryphon . Zixor is also a really good target to hit with Mok'Nathal Lion .

Another of the new cards that's pretty interesting is Burrowing Scorpid . Not only does it have a bit of direct damage attached to it, if you get a kill with it, it will gain Stealth. This gives us a minion that can possibly stick to the board and receive a Fresh Scent buff.

King Krush is your big finisher, whether you drop him on the board on turn nine or you get him down with Beastmaster Leoroxx . It can also be used to trade down a problematic minion in a tight spot, but obviously we'll mostly want it to go to the face!

Beast Handbuff Hunter Card Options & Replacements

• Phase Stalker - Pretty decent stats for the cost and could get us a Secret for the cost of a hero power.
• Kill Command - You've got a lot of Beasts and you might need some reach, so Kill Command is a common inclusion in most Midrange Hunter type decks!
• Houndmaster - We're playing a lot of Beasts and hitting an on curve Houndmaster is a pretty powerful play. It also would work well on an Augmented Porcupine.
• Maiev Shadowsong - This is pretty much a Neutral version of Sap, so it could give this deck a way to deal with a problematic Taunt minion that is preventing us from smacking face!