Queen Hunter: A surprisingly good Carnassa Hunter that’s a blast to play (breakdown and details)

Let me start off with my sales pitch: this deck dumps on res priest 90% of the time. (Please excuse any formatting craziness. I’m posting this from mobile and will fix it later if needed)

I’ve been playing this deck for about a year on-and-off. It’s undergone a few major revisions and countless minor revisions to get it to where it is today. I don’t really ever share my decks outside my friend-listers, but with the upcoming influx of Quest Rogues making a return, I wanted to give others the opportunity to enjoy this deck before it might be rendered unviable. It will likely struggle in the near future as its heaviest weakness would be that constant flow of 5/5 minions over-and-over.

It has tons of versatility and can be played aggressively or held back for strong, reactive turns. It performs exceptionally well against res priests, removing their most dangerous minions from their res pool and polluting it with Fungi that you can re-use to repeat the cycle. It also does well against secret mage and aggressive decks, by going wide and playing more proactively, getting Carnassa on board as quick as possible. The occasional mill matchup usually ends with them conceding sooner than later.

First off, here’s the deck:

Hail to the Queen Baby

Class: Hunter Format: Wild

2x (1) Adorable Infestation

2x (1) Animated Broomstick

2x (1) Armor Vendor

2x (1) Carrion Studies

2x (1) Infectious Sporeling

2x (1) Pen Flinger

2x (1) Springpaw

1x (1) The Marsh Queen

2x (2) Scavenger’s Ingenuity

2x (3) Magic Carpet

2x (3) Saddlemaster

2x (3) Stitched Tracker

1x (3) Zixor, Apex Predator

2x (4) Toxmonger

1x (5) Lorekeeper Polkelt

2x (5) Tol’vir Warden

1x (6) Deathstalker Rexxar

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The Cards

Ok, so here’s a ranking and breakdown of all the cards with descriptions and use-case info:

Queen Package and Core Cards

These are pretty obvious. They’re core-package cards that make this deck work. Honestly, most are so obvious I won’t waste your time with descriptions.

1x (1) The Marsh Queen

Quest.

2x (4) Toxmonger

Poison.

1x (5) Lorekeeper Polkelt

Lines up DK, Warden for Draws, Tox, and occasionally sets up a Prime Zixxor top deck when needed. Carnassa is nice enough to reshuffle your deck after you draw what you need.

2x (5) Tol’vir Warden

Draw.

1x (6) Deathstalker Rexxar

Stuff.

Essential Cards

I wouldn’t run the deck without these cards in particular. They provide so much utility and value I feel like the deck would falter without them.

2x (1) Animated Broomstick

Quest activator that weaponizes sporeling, tracker, warden, and tech cards, and allows you to polymorph strong res and deathrattle targets, then trade minions for more sporelings.

2x (1) Infectious Sporeling

Your control opponent’s new worst nightmare. They always get held for a strong rush play to get rid of huge threats.

2x (1) Springpaw

These continue to be an invaluable quest activator. They give you at least 2 activations, are compatible with every spell in the deck, and literally have no downside to running.

2x (2) Scavenger’s Ingenuity

I last-second re-labeled this as an essential card. It’s just such a strong draw card that works well with the 3 beast cards in the deck and even late-game is a solid draw. In most situations where it matters, you can play what you draw with this on the same turn.

2x (3) Magic Carpet

Having 6 health, the carpet can be a real pain to remove. It also improves every quest activator and raptor you play. This is also an essential card for throwing Sporelings at stuff.

2x (3) Stitched Tracker

Need more Sporelings? Stitched allows you to create copies of whatever you need usually when you need it. As a bonus, since most minions have synergy and utility in this deck, it really allows you to setup some strong plays on demand.

1x (3) Zixor, Apex Predator

Zixor Prime provides a very strong swing turn later game and he can be force top-decked with Polkelt, or drawn as a 6/6 with Scavenger’s Ingenuity mid-game if you’ve pulled both Springpaws.

‘I Like The Card’ Tier

These are cards that I personally feel are essential at this present time, but they have been swapped in over time to improve the deck and I would certainly replace if something better came along.

2x (1) Adorable Infestation

An amazing 1 cost buff card that gives you a quest activator. This card does a great job of keeping important cards alive, it gives you a card that works with your synergies, and it plays nicely with Pen Flinger.

2x (1) Armor Vendor

Before adding Armor Vendor, most losses vs secret mages and common aggro decks were happening a turn or so before a win by a slim margin when the opponent realized they needed to focus on face. This card really helped mitigate those situations. It’s also a really nice 1-cost body that works well with carpet.

2x (1) Pen Flinger

You’re not going Miracle Hunter with Flinger in this deck, but he’s a strictly better 1-draw Tox synergy than pretty much every other card not run in the deck, and he is a quest activator that usually drops multiple times.

Token Tech Cards

The tech cards of choice. If you’re going to change a card, these are the ones to look at, but honestly, they’re both quite good and been essential in winning games.

2x (1) Carrion Studies

The weakest card in the deck. That said, it’s a good one. The studies cards add a nice level of flexibility to your deck and the fact that they pay for themselves with the cost reduction makes them quite good. It works well with Pen Flinger, baby Zixxor, and Zombeasts. I’ve had this card in the deck since it launched and it continues to dodge cutting cause I feel like it continues to perform admirably. I could certainly see someone try weapon or secret tech in this slot.

2x (3) Saddlemaster

If there was one thing this deck was lacking before Saddlemaster came along, it was a solid turn 3 body (a Scavenger’s Springpaw is nice, but unreliable). Being a 3/4, he’s a healthy enough drop on-curve. As an added bonus, you can quickly start generating bonus cards with Springpaw and friends. The beast pool in wild is pretty on-curve with its quantity of cheap to expensive, so it’s really easy to keep the card generation rolling. He replaced Rapid Fire for me.

I was going to put together a guide, but to be completely honest, I am typing this up in the middle of the day and work is calling. I think with my descriptions above, most plays are pretty self-explanatory, but I’m happy to field any questions you may have.

This deck can climb ranked quickly and it’s been a personal favorite for a long while. Many games end with crazy shenanigans, and I’m sure wide eyes with players being run over by Carnassa and gang. I hope at least one or two people like it too.