Bomb Hunter Deck List Guide (Boommaster Flark) – Boomsday – August 2018

Bomb Hunter Overview & Strategy

First things first. Why doesn’t a BOMB Hunter deck run Goblin Bombs? That’s because I believe that the bombs themselves are bad as standalone cards. Cards that summon them are actually quite balanced, if Goblin Bomb was a great 1-drop then they would be completely broken. Like, let’s change the Goblin Bomb in text of Whirliglider, Bomb Toss etc. to a good 1-drop like Righteous Protector. Or even Dire Mole if we don’t want to go as far. Then the Explodinator would be a Neutral 4 mana 3/2 + 2x 1/3, which is almost like a pre-nerf Call to Arms. That’s the reason why I don’t believe Goblin Bomb is a good card to put into the deck – summoning it through those effects is just better.

Now, let’s talk about the ways to summon bombs in this deck. There are 4 different cards that do it, for a total of 12 Goblin Bombs throughout the game. Obviously, you will rarely reach as much, but you also don’t need to. The first way to summon it is Bomb Toss – you deal 2 damage for 2 mana (it’s important to note that the card CAN go face, which is important in an aggressive deck like that) and summon a Bomb. The card is really good, because it can serve as an early game board control tool, where you also start your early Bomb train. Next we have a Whirliglider, a 2 mana 2/1, which summons a Bomb. Its value is slightly lower than Bomb Toss’, but it’s a more proactive play – if you have nothing to hit in the early game, you prefer putting a 2/1 body instead of dealing 2 damage. Then, we have Explodinator – the first card, which summons more than one. While it has weak main body stats (2-drop’s stats for 4 mana), summoning two bombs means that in the worst case scenario your opponent needs to spend 4 extra damage and he takes 4 damage himself, but lots of the time they will give you a good Magnetic target later down the road. And finally, your ultimate Bomb summoner – Boommaster Flark. Summoning 4 Bombs in total is massive and opens so many possibilities the turn after. Again, the 5/5 body for 7 is weak, but you should be able to do some massive plays next turn.

But, Bombs wouldn’t be useful without a way to trigger them, would they? Let’s start with the cards that trigger Deathrattles. The deck runs two – Fireworks Tech and Terrorscale Stalker. The first one does a really good job triggering Bombs – not only it deals 2 damage immediately, but also buffs the bomb, allowing it to attack. Terrorscale Stalker, on the other hand, is not a great way to trigger Bombs – it’s there mainly to trigger other Deathrattles – Spider Bomb and Devilsaur Egg. Then, we have buffs – both regular (Fungalmancer, Defender of Argus) and Magnetic (Venomizer, Wargear). Buffs are one of the most important aspects of the deck. Since Goblinb Bombs should generally stick quite well to the board, they are great buff targets, allowing them to attack with the buffed stats immediately, and then still trigger their Deathrattle once they die. For example, a Goblin Bomb on the board makes your Wargear basically a 5/7 minion with Charge. However, the card I really want to highlight is Venomizer – not only it activates the Bomb, but also gives it Poisonous, which means that you can easily trade it up into anything your opponent might have on the board. Yet another interesting way to pop bombs, or your Deathrattles in general, is Goblin Prank. It’s a bit like a weakened version of Power Overwhelming – instead of 1 mana for +4/+4, you pay 2 mana for +3/+3. However, unlike PO, it also gives the minion Rush – which means that you can drop a Deathrattle minion, play Goblin Prank, immediately trade into something and the Deathrattle will trigger even if it doesn’t die. This means that your opponent can’t counter let’s say your Egg with Silence. On top of those, you can also trigger your Bombs with Void Ripper – it’s a solid tech card in a deck like that, sometimes you will be able to trigger multiple bombs at once.

The good thing about this deck is that you’re putting a lot of awkward targets – Bombs – onto the board. From your opponent’s perspective, on the one hand, he doesn’t want to spend resources on killing them, but on the other, if he doesn’t, you will end up with more value. So when playing against a slower deck, if he decides to remove all of your Bombs, he wastes a lot of time and resources that way, so you should be able to make a better push with actual minions. On the other hand, if he decides to ignore the Bombs, then you can punish him with buffs, most importantly with Magnetize minions.

Besides the Bombs, this deck runs a few more Deathrattle minions. Let’s start with the most important one – Devilsaur Egg. While it’s not as powerful as in the dedicated Egg deck, you’re still running Terrorscale Stalker, as well as multiple ways to buff it. It also gives you some nice anti-AoE protection, not to mention that lots of times your opponent will just kill it for you, resulting in a 3 mana 5/5 minion with Charge. Another Deathrattle card is a small Mech 1-drop – Mecharoo. I like it for two reasons. First – combo with Fireworks Tech. It might not look that impressive, but it’s actually a really high tempo move. On Turn 2, you can end up with a 2/2 (which Deathrattles into a 1/1), 2/1 and a 1/1 on the board. The second reason is that it’s pretty sticky, so it has a pretty solid mid game scaling, since you will be able to buff it with all of the Magnetic stuff. And then, there’s also Spider Bomb – another Bomb in the deck, and another very powerful card. By itself, it’s a Deadly Shot on a 2/2 body. It’s okay already, but it’s the fact that the effect is a Deathrattle AND that it can Magnetize into stuff makes it great. It’s another way to activate a Goblin Bomb (and like Venomizer, a way to trade it up into something big), but you can also use your Fireworks tech and/or Terrorscale Stalker to activate it on demand. Magnetizing Spider Bomb into a Goblin Bomb and then triggering the Deathrattle will be really powerful, as it will trigger both the Deadly Shot and the 2 damage.

Since the deck is built around doing as much damage as possible, in the mid/late game you will want to utilize your Hero Power too. Hunter’s Hero Power fits this kind of deck really well – between Hero Power, “Charge” from the buffed stats and all of the Bomb Deathrattles, you should be able to put quite a lot of pressure on the opponent. When the time finally comes, you can simply close out the game with Leeroy Jenkins, or maybe a well-timed Void Ripper, especially after Boommaster Flark.

Bomb Hunter Mulligan Guide

Since it’s just a theorycrafting and there are no statistics to back it up, I’ll just post some general guidelines for early playtesting rather than a full mulligan guide.

• Since you’re playing a rather aggressive deck, you definitely want to keep your 1-drops and 2-drops. When it comes to 1-drops, there’s not much choice, but Mecharoo is great against any deck, Candleshot is good only against Aggro.
• As for the 2-drops, Whirliglider and Bomb Toss are your best options. Whirliglider is generally better vs slow decks (as you might not have a target for T2 damage), and Bomb Toss is better vs Aggro. Venomizer is an okay keep, but it generally gets better in the mid/late game. Fireworks Tech is good keep only with Mecharoo on Turn 1.
• Keep your Devilsaur Egg. Even if you won’t be able to trigger it immediately, you should find a way relatively quickly. Comboing it early with Terrorscale Stalker, or even Goblin Prank, can buy you some necessary tempo.