Arakni, Huntsman

By Brage Sekse Aarset

Table of Contents

Huntsman is a contract killer with their mind set on banishing our cards and gaining lots of silver in the process.

Huntsman’s gameplan

Huntsman is a fatigue oriented deck. Contract cards deal direct deck damage by banishing your cards, and sometimes they also grant Silver which can be used to buy back equipment from the graveyard, such as Graven Gloves, Blacktek Whisperers and Mask of Perdition. Typically, Huntsman will play a large number of defense reactions and try to chip in little bits of damage with their daggers before sending breakpoint contract attacks that are annoying to defend against thanks to the weapons’ effects.

We are a bit fortunate in that many commonly played contract cards are not so great against Guardians, such as Plunder the Poor. Their main impact is usually just banishing a card from our deck, which is not nothing, but at least Huntsman will not profit in terms of Silver.

However, two contract cards stand out from the rest.

Hunter or Hunted is essentially completely unavoidable. You have to attack at some point, and you only have so many copies of Command and Conquer. It will be played at some point, and you must simply hope that it doesn’t take away anything too special. If it hits a card that you have 3 copies of, you will take a big chunk of deck damage and might lose some power cards, as well.

Surgical exraction is more deterministic. When played in the second (or third) cycle, it can very reliably find a blue card and also take a card from your hand, which is really good value for a blue card.

As your deck dwindles down in size, Huntsman’s ultimate late game is essentially just attacking with their daggers, hoping that they have a decent life lead thanks to their defensive suite and equipment blocks, and that you don’t have enough good cards remaining in your deck to make a real impact.

Playing against Huntsman

Attack with big hammer. Sledge of Anvilheim or Anothos can send a good chunk of damage without expending cards. At the same time, you can pitch away your power cards, keeping in mind that true pitch stacking only becomes available once all three copies of Hunter or Hunted? have been played. It shuffles your deck, so your neat pitch stack will be rendomized each time.

If you are able to maintain a healthy life total, save some equipment blocks to deal with Surgical Extraction and have some good attacks squirreled away somewhere in your deck (eventually neatly pitch stacked), you are well positioned to defeat Huntsman in the late game.

Useful cards against Huntsman

Overcrowded is a great card into all assassins that play Codex of Frailty and Huntsman is no exception. If you have this in your graveyard, you can put it in your arsenal when they put Leave no Witnesses in theirs, and thanks to the tokens created by the codex, it can defend for 4.

Sledge of Anvilheim or Anothos (if your deck supports it) are must-haves against Huntsman. Being able to keep sending reasonable damage is very effective against this strategy.

Gravekeeping can be a sneaky little trick for banishing their Graven Gloves, denying them a decent chunk of defensive value over the course of the game.

Command and Conquer bypasses their large supply of defense reactions and probably forces them to give up whatever is in their arsenal (probably a defense reaction).