Bargain Bin
Bargain Bin draws us two cards of different types, depending on the type of card the opponent played. If they played a spell, then we draw a weapon and a minion. If they play a weapon, then we draw a spell and minion. If they play a minion, then we draw a weapon and spell.
This secret reminds us of Dirty Tricks and compares very favorably to it. Dirty Tricks was far easier to play around as the opponent simply needed to avoid playing spells to delay its trigger. You can’t avoid playing almost every card type, so Bargain Bin should almost always trigger on the opponent’s next turn. This makes Bargain Bin a 2-mana spell that draws 2 cards with a turn delay, which isn’t too bad.
This is still not a card we’d run without other secret synergies. But, considering that Costumed Singer is still in the format, it seems easy to include Bargain Bin in a Reno Hunter deck that runs a small secret package, for example.
The bigger bargain would be running it in a dedicated Secret deck. Bargain Bin can help us find Starstrung Bow, the archetype’s most valuable damage source.
Not strong enough by itself to bring these archetypes back to competitive relevance but might get carried there by Product 9.
Score: 2
Wilderness Pack
Anyone who’s played Ball of Spiders recently knows that random beasts are not a reliable source of value. It’s likely that you’ll find a reasonable beast to play with Wilderness Pack out of 5 options. However, spending 1-mana to do it defeats the purpose, as you’re likely losing initiative in the process. Just run a good card in your deck instead.
We’re also not convinced this is a good reload card in the late game. We can wait until we have loads of mana to spend on multiple beasts from Wilderness Pack, but that means we’re holding on to a dead card for multiple turns for the sake of an unreliable payoff, in Hunter of all classes that tends to favor aggression.
Wilderness Pack simply compares poorly to Ball of Spiders, which puts minions in play while generating permanent value. This is a hard pass.
Score: 1
Product 9
A callback to Subject 9. Rather than drawing secrets, Product 9 recasts friendly secrets you’ve managed to trigger. This is arguably stronger than Subject 9, as it puts stuff in play immediately, but it does require you to spend mana on secrets beforehand.
Much like Subject 9, Product 9 encourages us to run single copies of secrets so that its battlecry becomes more powerful. Recasting 3-4 secrets with Product 9 should be a powerful play, so we need to ensure we have a bunch of different ones.
Another card that works well with Product 9 is Observer of Mysteries. Note that Product 9 will recast a Mage secret, not just Hunter secrets. The only requirement is that the secrets are “friendly”.
This could be a strong payoff card for Secret Hunter. Reno Hunter should also be interested, since running single copies of different secrets fits the highlander deck building plan.
If a revival of secrets is in the cards for Hunter, it’ll be thanks to Product 9.
Score: 3
Final Thoughts: Reno Hunter has already shown signs of being competitively viable, so the addition of a secret package with Product 9 could give it another push. Secret Hunter will attempt to provide an alternative to Token Hunter.
