Bunch of Bananas
This card is very comparable to Serpent Wig on its release before it was buffed to a +1/+2. While that doesn’t make the card seem strong, the activation of Wig was the big drawback that required it to be buffed to see play. Bunch of Bananas has a ceiling of three spells, but they’re guaranteed and require no further support. You can play a 1-drop on turn 1 and give it a 2/2 buff the next turn. This makes the card very flexible, allowing you to fill your curve in the early game efficiently.
Hunter appreciates early buffs and is all about playing a couple of minions and snowballing. The “Green Paladin” early game of Hunter has been very successful, so we can see multiple Hunter archetypes running Bananas. It also helps that Trinket Tracker is available, making a small tutor package look appealing.
Score: 3
Thornmantle Musician
This is a very good proactive 1-drop. The Finale ability is naturally always active on turn 1, so Musician should get a lot of value in the mulligan. Since Hunter usually has an efficient curve, Musician shouldn’t be hard to activate after turn 1 in any kind of aggressive deck. It’s important to note that it buffs the next ‘summoned’ beast, so beasts that are developed through spells will get buffed. This makes Musician very easy to utilize even in decks that don’t run a lot of beast minions. The only ‘drawback’ is that it cannot buff a minion on the same turn it’s played (unless you coin/1-mana beast), but we take 1 mana 1/3’s in Hunter that carry upside, especially in the form of early game snowballing.
Score: 3
Arrow Smith
We think this card is being slept on. It is very comparable to a 2/3 Kolkar Pack Runner, which was nerfed for being too good. It may not have the board development capabilities of Pack Runner, but it should be almost just as good at controlling the opponent’s board. The bonus is that it can push immediate face damage in case the opponent’s board is empty, basically turning it into a Raj Naj’zan. This card is particularly strong with Bananas. Face Hunter already has a Naga package from Sunken City. Might be time to revisit it.
Score: 3
Barrel of Monkeys
Much like Bunch of Bananas, Barrel of Monkeys has three charges, making it very flexible at filling the curve in the early game. 1/4 taunts for 2 mana are quite annoying to remove and make for very good buff targets, such as Bananas! Turn 1 Musician into Barrel of Monkeys develops a 2/5 taunt on turn 2.
This card is not just good offensively, it’s a very good defensive card for slower Hunter decks, offering you 12 health in taunts across three bodies. We think a wide variety of Hunter decks are going to be interested in the Monkeys and Bananas.
Score: 3
Big Dreams
Some of Hunter’s critical Big-Beast Hunter cards are rotating out and this doesn’t inspire too much confidence. Plenty of these effects have existed and failed to make it into constructed since the minion cheated out becomes active too late. A turn 5 Big Dreams means the minion is summoned on turn 7. Even if it has rush or taunt, that might be a bit too late. Compare this to Sigil of Reckoning in Demon Hunter, which allowed you to summon a Demon on turn 6 and ended up not seeing play. Big Dreams’ effect is more targeted and less restrictive in deckbuilding, so it has that going for it, but none of the big beasts in the format are particularly game winning.
This spell could get better in the future but currently looks significantly inferior to Aszharan Saber/Pet Collector.
Score: 1
Banjosaur
The ‘premier’ target for Big Dreams in the set. It’s important to note that this minion gets the buff from drawing a beast before it attacks (whenever). If you rush this minion into a 6/6, it should kill it and not die. The funny part about this card is that you don’t really know what stats it will develop, since beasts in your deck are naturally going to have a different set of stats, but this should develop into a very big threat in a Big-Beast Hunter deck.
Is that good enough? Kill a thing and make a big thing is okay, but Banjosaur actually gets worse in the late game if you run out of beasts to draw. It’s a decent target for Faithful Companion on turn 7, but also competes with it to a certain extent (since both cards look to pull beasts in your deck). It’s a bit strange we’re getting Big-Beast cards that don’t synergize that well together.
Score: 1
Harmonica Soloist
This card would be amazing without the restriction but looks completely unplayable with it. Hunter secrets are generally very aggressive in nature and quite limited defensively. A Hunter deck that doesn’t fight for board in the early game would normally not be interested in random secrets. A Hunter deck that plays proactive for the board can’t use this. This card reminds us of Arcane Keysmith in Mage, which saw competitive play but had no restriction. Mage secrets are much better defensively, so it was valued highly even as a 4 mana 2/2. In the case of Hunter, it’s unlikely to have the same impact.
Score: 1
Jungle Jammer
We have an unwritten rule: never underestimate a 4 mana 4/2 weapon in a class with a lot of potential for aggression. It hasn’t let us down so far. We’ve seen 4/2 weapons have smaller upsides than this that still saw play.
In Hunter, it is particularly valuable as any sort of consistent off-board damage makes the class very intimidating due to its natural snowballing capabilities. Jungle Jammer works particularly well with Monkeys and Bananas, but a Face Hunter deck has plenty of other spells it can use to upgrade the effect. Summoning a random 3-drop is already a very good deal for the effect, so this should be easy to translate into a game state advantage.
Score: 3
Mister Mukla
Mukla is back, scarier than ever. A 6 mana 10/10 rush is a huge threat and the ‘drawback’ is quite interesting, as it can provide an oppressive advantage in slower matchups. Many players will focus on Mukla denying the opponent a draw. That is true, as they’re guaranteed to burn a card with a full hand of Bananas; but what might be more important is that filling their hand means they’re also not allowed to draw any additional cards on their turn. At the very least, it becomes much more difficult to do and requires them to spend mana on cards first. This makes the effect more powerful than “burn a card, deny a draw”. It means that if they don’t have an answer for Mukla in hand, it’s harder for them to dig for one.
Obviously, this card is less powerful in faster matchups and can backfire if you’ve fallen behind and are faced with a wide board of threats. You might be able to kill one minion, but they can proceed to buff their board with bananas, ignore your Mukla and race you. However, if Mukla tilts the board to your advantage or pushes them out, it could win the game.
So, the card is ridiculously good in slower matchups against passive or defensive decks, while being situationally useful in faster games. We suspect that almost every Hunter deck will run it. The King is back.
Score: 4
Stranglethorn Heart
Revive Pet was a 3-mana spell that ended up falling out of favor in Big-Beast Hunter builds not too long ago and we can make a strong case that it is significantly better than this card.
Stranglethorn Heart has an impressive effect that can be very powerful after a long, drawn-out game. But that’s not Hunter’s thing. Even Big-Beast Hunter with Renathal, one of the slowest Hunter decks we’ve ever seen, could only accommodate a single 10-drop in its build in Sire Denathrius. It’s difficult to see Hunter having a 10-drop come online often enough after losing its primary stalling body (Mountain Bear). This spell doesn’t work well with Barbaric Sorceress either.
This effect can be potentially powerful with significantly more support, and it’s nice to see the card get the tradeable keyword so it doesn’t sit in our hand when we don’t need it. But, based on the current pool of cards, Big-Beast Hunter is not looking too hot from here.
Score: 1
Final Thoughts
Festival of Legends Set Rank: 7th
Overall Power Ranking: 6th
Wake up, babe. A new Face Hunter just dropped. This expansion brings us the very strong possibility that Face Hunter will return as a prominent contender in the format.
The archetype has received very powerful tools to do what it does best, snowballing the board and hitting your face. Bunch of Bananas is not the most efficient buff in the world, but its flexibility and redundancy means that any early game minion Hunter chooses to play becomes a must-kill target. One of them is Arrow Smith, which should work incredibly well with Bananas.
Barrel of Monkeys is another flexible spell that develops the beloved Silverback Patriarch. For 2-mana, 1/4 bodies are quite annoying to deal with and offer good banana targets as well as protection to your snowballing minions. Jungle Jammer gets boosted by Monkeys and Bananas and is a rare feature in the class. Watch out for the 4 mana 4/2 weapon in a class that loves hitting face.
There’s less enthusiasm when we discuss other archetypes. The Big-Beast support is cute, but we don’t think it can make up for the losses incurred in rotation. Pet Collector and Mountain Bear were extremely important in Hunter’s ability to stabilize and turn the corner. The strong late game is there, but survivability is a big question mark. Big Dreams is a slower card, and the defensive utility isn’t the same.
Furthermore, an archetype such as Spitter Hunter is losing Brann and Stormpike Battle-Ram, which hurts both its mid-game and its late game. Turn 5 Hydrolodons are no longer consistent, while the reach from hand isn’t the same. Arcane Hunter hasn’t received huge support in this set, so we have doubts on whether it can appear in the new format.
So, Hunter will likely go face hard. With Mister Mukla at its side, it might become the litmus test of the format. We’ll be surprised if there’s a Hunter deck out there that doesn’t opt to run this card. It’s just bananas.
thank you for the information