The Comprehensive TITANS Preview

 

Awakening Tremors

This spell generates three threatening worms for you to develop in the early game. While a single 1 mana 4/1 doesn’t sound like a great card, the fact you can play multiple of them in the same turn can get quite dangerous. Your opponent can’t afford to ignore them, and hero powers aren’t the best way to answer them. If you can force your opponent to trade into them, you’re getting a lot of value for this spell.

But that’s not the whole story. This card is a very strong enabler for a board flooding Hunter deck because of its synergy with Observer of Myths, which we will get to later. Combo Observer with three Worms and you have a massive, board-based finisher. Worms are also great targets for Hawkstrider Rancher, further supporting the idea of a Token Hunter archetype. It can be consistently drawn with Trinket Tracker, giving you another attractive 1-mana spell to draw alongside Bananas. Hiding Worms behind a Monkey taunt could get quite annoying too.

The card’s flexibility reminds us of Schooling, but with a more proactive spin. Worms may not have an immediate impact on the board, but they’re devastating if left alone to hit your opponent in the head.

Score: 3

Bait and Switch

This secret reminds us of Bamboozle, though it’s more consistent since the minion doesn’t transform and always gets the same value of stats. That could be relevant for a minion with a snowballing, static ability such as Costumed Singer. The problem is what happens when your opponent doesn’t attack your minions, but simply clears them utilizing removal or goes face since they’re ahead on the board. Our feeling is that this secret is not going to be very good in these situations and you’re better off sticking with Hidden Meaning and Zombees in a secret package, since they’re less likely to sit inactive for a long period of time. It’s going to be quite important to have your secrets trigger because of another card in this set.

Score: 1

Fable Stablehand

Fable Stablehand seems like a card that needs Awakening Tremors to be remotely consistent. Hunter is very unlikely to have a 4-attack minion by turn 3 unless you develop unanswered Worms, in which case you’re winning already. If you’re behind on board, Fable Stablehand looks like a bad card. You can use Stablehand alongside a Worm on turn 4 for a decent swing, but it’s the games where Awakening Tremors are not drawn that keep us unconvinced about this 3-drop. In fact, the neutral Rolling Stone seems like a better card to run in a Worms deck because it’s much easier to activate and cheaper. We’ll pass on this one.

Score: 1

Always a Bigger Jormungar

This spell buffs a minion by 2 attack and gives it Trampling Rhino’s ability, in which any excess damage done to an enemy minion is transferred to their face. This card could be a game breaking addition to Hollow Hunter. As if Hollow Hound needed more support but buffing it with ABJ means that damage dealt to adjacent enemy minions is also transferred to the face, since it’s damage done by Hollow Hound’s attack.

Let’s get this in order. You’re playing a baseline, 3/6 Hollow Hound on turn 7 and buffing it with ABJ, hitting the middle of three 1/1 Silver Hand Recruits. You’re dealing 15 damage to enemy minions, with a 12-damage overkill. You deal 12 damage to the enemy hero and heal for 27. This is a baseline Hollow Hound without any buffs. Things can obviously get more disgusting here.

This turns Hollow Hound swings into more than just massive recovery plays that helped Hunter become such a strong class. They become game winning nukes, crippling the opponent’s ability to develop a board into the Hunter’s looming off-board threat. Rush minions become charge minions. Mister Mukla is similarly scary with this buff, especially if you’ve played Lor’themar Theron and ramped up the Monkey King to a 20-attack stat line.

For Hunter, this is a game changing finisher, making its late game even more intimidating than before and limiting the opponent’s ability to pressure it without suffering a devastating blowback. We warned you of what’s to come.

Score: 4

Observer of Myths

Observer of Myths has an interesting ability that’s likely to confuse players. Let’s say you have an Observer on the board, and you summon a minion with 2-attack. The Observer will buff itself to 2-attack and the other minion to 3-attack. You will now have to summon a 3-attack minion to activate Observer a second time.

This card could be the cornerstone win condition of a new board flooding Hunter deck. Observer is a must-kill target that you can play on curve to snowball early, or ideally in combination with several cheap minions to execute a Grave Strength type of finishing play once you’ve already established a board. It’s particularly strong with Awakening Tremors, since the three Worms guarantee three activations of Observer for a total cost of 5 mana, but it should be incredibly easy to activate at least a few times with other minions in your deck.

Overall, it’s just an incredibly efficient and flexible finisher, almost guaranteed to become meta defining at some point in the future.

Score: 4

Titanforged Traps

This spell discovers and plays a secret for 2 mana, which is generally a stronger play than playing a secret from your deck. You can pick the best secret for the situation, and you’re not forced to run too many standalone secrets in your deck to enable certain synergies. On top of it, Titanforged Traps scales very well with Forge. Pay 2 mana and you double the effect, discovering and casting 2 secrets at once. This card reminds us of Rinling’s Rifle, which was an incredible tool for the class through its entire time in Standard. Titanforged Traps clearly isn’t as good, but that’s hardly an insult. The disruptive nature of casting two secrets at once can really slow down your opponent and makes it more likely that you will find an ideal secret for the situation. It’s a very good enabler for Starstrung Bow and should be a staple in Secret Hunter decks.

Score: 3

Absorbent Parasite

Parasite is a buff that can become emergency removal (a Redgill Razorjaw) at a pinch because of its standalone rush ability. A good comparison for this card is Castle Kennels. Kennels provides three buff charges that can work on any minion, but they’re -1/-1 smaller in stats, and can’t function without having a minion in play.

In that sense, Parasite compares favorably to a card that sees no constructed play, but is it that much better? We don’t think its synergy with the Mech tribe is going to be relevant in the upcoming format, since Hunter has not received any Mech support. A beast-centric deck doesn’t seem to be on the cards either, since Hunter is currently focused on running a small package of high impact beasts, which already have the rush keyword.

Parasite’s most likely use is in a deck that heavily focuses on abusing ‘Always a Bigger Jormungar’, but we’re not too impressed.

Score: 2

Starstrung Bow

This is a big weapon that deals 12 damage over 2 swings and gets discounted by friendly secrets that have been triggered this game. If we were to mark down the mana cost in which this card becomes strong, we would probably say 4 mana. At that cost, this Bow doesn’t leave the opponent with a lot of time to respond to it. At 3 mana, it becomes completely insane, being worth 12 damage for such a meager cost.

Is it realistic to get Starstrung Bow’s cost reduced in this manner? Absolutely. It’s enough to play a Forged version of Titanforged Traps to already discount it enough to become quite playable. Add Costumed Singer to the equation, increasing the consistently in which you draw secrets, and there’s something cooking here.

Hunter has already started to run Costumed Singer in some of its builds, without any other synergy, so that’s a good sign for the potential viability of a bigger secret package. We could see the re-emergence of a Face Hunter deck that looks to pound the opponent’s face far quicker than Hound Hunter does. A 12-damage weapon is certainly a big step to get there.

Score: 3

Hodir, Father of Giants

Hodir is a strange card. As an 8 mana 8/8, its effect needs to be game winning. That’s reliant on the kind of follow up you can set up for it. Since it’s quite expensive, it’s likely not a good fit for a faster Hunter deck that runs many cheap minions that may benefit from the buff. It’s just too slow to be impactful enough on turn 9.

Hodir could be an enabler for minions with scaling keywords. The immediate thought is Hollow Hound, but while Hound is a juicy proposition as an 8/8, there are some diminishing returns worth noting. First, you need to play Hollow Hound from hand. A Hound summoned by Faithful Companions does not get the buff (Hodir reads “play”, not “summon”).

The other problem is that Hodir does not work well with Theron, or with any other buffs since he completely overrides them. Theron works much better with Faithful Companions, big minions such as Mukla and Krush, and its buffs stack with Hope of Quel’Thalas. You could argue that it doesn’t hurt running both cards in the deck, but that seems incredibly greedy, especially when Hodir becomes a dead card post-Theron.

Hodir is better than Theron if you just have a baseline Hollow Hound in hand, but that does require you to hold Hound until turn 9, something that you’re often not going to have the luxury to do. There’s a way to make Hodir work, but it requires some significant changes in the makeup of the archetype. We’ll have to see if that conquers the established concept.

Score: 2

Aggramar, the Avenger

The Hunter TITAN, Aggramar, is all about his Taeshalach. Upon entrance to the board, you are given this 3/3 weapon. All three of Aggramar’s abilities provide a permanent upgrade to the weapon. This means that you can keep stacking these weapon buffs if Aggramar manages to survive for multiple turns. Let’s evaluate this TITAN like all others, by assuming that your opponent is not going to let it survive another turn, or you’re likely winning the game.

Maintain Order provides you with a consistent stream of card draw. Triggering its ability first means you’re going to draw three extra cards over the three weapon swings. That’s very good value on a 3/3 weapon on top of a 3/7 body that must be killed. If you’re low on cards, Aggramar will make sure to revitalize your hand.

Commanding Presence impacts the board in a significant way, summoning 3/3 taunts that are going to protect you in subsequent turns. If you’re playing against an aggressive deck, the ability to clear minions with your 3/3 weapon on top of summoning taunts to contest the board can help tip the battle in your favor. These taunts also protect Aggramar, increasing the likelihood of it surviving for another turn.

Swift Strike upgrades the damage output, giving you a 5/3 weapon. The immunity while attacking ability could be powerful, giving you a way to clear the opponent’s sustained pressure while avoiding all the damage. But who are we kidding? Most of the time that damage is going face. A 5/3 weapon is no joke, that’s a lot off-board reach to help you close out the game. The opponent needs to deal with a 7-health Aggramar while also trying to outlast your damage. Not an easy thing to do potentially on turn 6.

We can’t think of a single Hunter deck that’s not going to play Aggramar. It provides many benefits for the mana cost, it’s extremely flexible in giving you draw, board presence and/or damage. The only ‘drawback’ we can think of is that it might clash with Wildseeds, but that never stopped Hope of Quel’thalas from being one of Hunter’s strongest cards. It should not dissuade us from playing Aggramar either. This is a no brainer inclusion.

Score: 4

Final Thoughts

TITANS Set Rank: 5^th

Overall Power Ranking:  2^nd

Hunter looks crazy strong. Not only did the class receive a dominant finisher to its already established and successful strategy, but the class also has potential to greatly diversify and bring about new strategies into the format.

‘Always a Bigger Jormungar’ is the card that could get Hollow Hound nerfed. From one of the best stabilization tools in the format and the card that has successfully turned Hunter into a well-rounded and resilient class, ABJ could turn Hollow Hound into a game ending nuke. The massive potential burst damage and the play experience of not being able to play minions in certain situations against the Hunter could put the life stealing beast on the chopping block. It would be extremely unfortunate because we’re big fans of Hollow Hound’s design. Perhaps Hunter players should hope that this does not pan out as well as we fear it might.

There’s more to the class than Hollow Hound though. This set has quite a bit of support for an aggressive Token Hunter deck. Observer of Myths and Awakening Tremors are a package worth keeping an eye on. Hunter tends to mix board presence and over the top damage, but this archetype could be much more grounded to the board, forming a similar deck to Unholy-Aggro DK.

Secrets are also on the menu. Considering the amount of damage packed into Starstrung Bow, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Face Hunter attempt a comeback behind a secret package. The combination of burst damage and disruption on top of early game snowballing could be difficult to handle.

And let’s not forget about Aggramar. This TITAN is going into every Hunter deck. It offers the class so much of what it needs. Damage, draw, damage, board presence, damage. We also like the damage.

We fully expect Hunter to be one of the most dominant classes in the upcoming format and an early nerf candidate. Considering that the class tends to start expansions well because of its ability to punish unrefined strategies, don’t be surprised to see it top the win rate charts on the first week. It has everything it needs to succeed.