game 1 win vs mage
I go second.
I keep an opening hand of questing adventurer, scavenging hyena, spellbreaker, savanna highmane.
When do I use the coin? I decide against a first turn hyena,
Turn 2 he plays a sorcerer's apprentice, so I arcane shot it.
Turn 3 I play the questing adventurer in reply to his jungle panther. Will he trade off?
Turn 4 No, he hits me directly and plays 3/5 taunt.
I nearly run out of time considering my options. I play the coin, and sure enough my adventurer is boosted to 3/3. I play vulture and hyena for 4 mana, boosting the adventurer to 5/5 so he can kill "taz'dingo".
Turn 5 He plays a harvest golem. Apparently, he doesn't like the look of my beasts, since he trades his panther for my hyena, before fireblasting the vulture. My adventurer lives! But perhaps he has plans for it?
I play earthen ring farseer, healing the adventurer, now a mighty 6/6! I shoot him and swing in for 8 total damage.
Turn 6 Ah. He copies my adventurer with faceless manipulator. He also plays mana wyrm so the copy ends the turn 7/7.
My turn. I still have spellbreaker, so I use him to silence the cloned adventurer, reducing him to a paltry 2/2. My farseer kills the mana wyrm, and the adventurer swings in for 7.
Turn 8+9 He manages to trade the adventurer off the board with golem and fireball, and follows up with a secret. I kill his last two minions with multi-shot, but the secret turns out to be ice block, so he lives for another turn before my board overwhelms him.
Game 2 win vs paladin
I go first.
I keep an opening hand of hunter's mark, earthen ring farseer and arcane shot. I should be able to deal with any early threats...
Turn 1 I do nothing. He coins out faerie dragon. Ulp.
Turn 2 I play a hyena, perhaps he will trade off? No, he swings in for 3 and kills the hyena with... something. Maybe a charge murloc?
Turn 3 I play earthen ring farseer, and heal back to 30. He plays a harvest golem, I think? I take 3 more from the dragon.
Turn 4 Oh he has two creatures now? MULTI-SHOT.
He plays truesilver champion and uses it to kill my farseer. He swings in for 2
Turn 5 I play venture co. mercenary.
He plays lord of the arena, 6/5 taunt. Swings in for 2 with a damaged golem.
Turn 6 I hunter's mark the 6/5 and play unleash the hounds, getting two 1/1s. I trade one off for the taunt, and swing in for 8.
He plays a 5/4 taunt, and runs his damaged golem into my 7/6.
Turn 7 I'm happy to trade off the wounded venture co. merc for the 5/4 taunt, as I have other creatures burning a hole in my hand. I play a questing adventurer and houndmaster, boosting my last hound so it can swing in for 3, dropping him to 3. I now have two 3/3s and a 4/3.
His turn: bad things happen, and everybody dies. He starts with consecration, and some 1/1s trade my creatures off the board. Then he hits me with the truesilver champion. His life total is now at 5.
Turn 8 I do lethal damage with argent commander and my hero power.
Game 3 win vs mage
I go second.
Opening hand: earthen ring farseer, houndmaster, starving buzzard, multi-shot. I keep.
His early game: turn 2 crocodile, turn 3 worgen. I kill them with turn 4 multi-shot.
His mid-game, turn 4+5: he plays water elemental, then water elemental+young priestess, so an elemental gets buffed to 3/7.
I play the starving buzzard/unleash the hounds combo, netting me 3 cards - one hound kills the young priestess.
Turn 6: He kills the buzzard, but two hounds survive. The turn after, I get to play hyena, and trade the two hounds and a removal card for one elemental, creating a 6/4 monster.
Turn 7: He polymorphs the hyena.
I survive a HUGE mistake on turn 7. I've just been frozen by a water elemental, I have a hand full of creatures, but I choose to play gladiator's longbow... which I can't use because I'm frozen. Whoops. I deserve to lose this one, really.
Turn 8/9: He plays a bunch more creatures. Time for the mind control tech to shine: he steals argent squire - other possibilities were two mirror images, ravenholdt assassin and water elemental. I use explosive shot to kill assassin and a mirror image, I also damage the water elemental.
Turn 10+: He has few cards left in his hand, but I'm very low on life. I can easily get board control with my large advantage in cards - the only question remains is whether he can find direct damage to kill me, or area damage to wipe out my creatures. He draws neither, and my army does him 28 damage in a couple of turns to win.
Earthen ring farseer is MVP, effectively saving my life since I finish the game on 3 hp.
Trivia: He used three polymorphs during the game. One on the 6/4 hyena, one on fen creeper, and a third on a 6/4 jungle panther.
Game 4 loss vs rogue
I go first.
Opening hand: scavenging hyena, jungle panther, venture co. mercenary. I keep all.
Early game: Nothing happens turn one. I don't play a turn two hyena because I drew starving buzzard - potentially I want to play these two on turn four, so I just use the hero power on him. He plays an amani berserker on turn two.
Turn 3: I draw the 3/3 taunt bear so I play it over the jungle panther as it beats his berserker.
He plays dire wolf alpha, allowing him to trade the berserker for my bear. He uses the coin to play a loot hoarder.
Turn 4: I draw multi-shot and use it to kill both his creatures.
He plays a chillwind yeti.
Turn 5: I play venture co. mercenary.
He plays a stranglethorn tiger and swings in for 4.
Turn 6: I can't afford to play any significant creatures, so I use explosive shot to kill the yeti and drop the tiger to 5/3. *POTENTIAL MISTAKE* - way better in hindsight to kill the yeti with the merc (who needs to die when I have a hand full of creatures) and save explosive shot for later - this probably happened because it felt silly to not use my mana when I could drop his yeti with it.
He plays knife juggler and harvest golem. The juggler proc knocks my mercenary to 5 hp, so he trades off his tiger for it. Nice play.
Turn 7: I play spellbreaker, silencing his harvest golem. *POTENTIAL MISTAKE* I also play a swamp ooze, just destroying a 1/2 dagger - obviously not the best use of it, but I wanted to squeeze in every bit of board presence I could muster at this stage.
He plays an assassin's blade to make me feel bad about not holding on to the ooze, before killing the spellbreaker, and using some other removal card to take out the blob. He swings in for 5 with the knife juggler and golem.
Turn 8: I play starving buzzard, hyena, hyena, ironbeak owl (silencing the knife juggler). I gain 3 cards.
First he plays a 5/3 pirate, then he hits me once with his blade before casting shadowflame - this uses up his weapon to deal 3 damage to all my minions, wiping them out. He swings in for 5 again.
Turn 9: I play savanna highmane, and I use kill command to take out his 5/3 pirate.
He saps my highmane, returning it to my hand, swinging in for 5.
Turn 10: I replay the highmane, with a beastmaster, making it an 8/7 taunt. I'm hoping he doesn't have another sap.
He plays the 4/5 taunt divine shield. He's down to one card, I have about 3. He's on 17 life to my 5 (or thereabouts).
Turn 11: I arcane shot to remove the shield, and kill the taunt with my highmane, so it's down to 8/3. POTENTIAL MISTAKE AGAINST A ROGUE*: I play another houndmaster to boost my highmane up to 10/5. The first houndmaster kills the harvest golem.
My fears are realised: he plays a kidnapper, bouncing the highmane back to my hand, swinging in for 4 damage to put me at one life. He also plays fan of knives to take out my 4/1 houndmaster.
Turn 12: I can kill all his creatures or reduce him to 2 life, but crucially I don't have another taunt to stop him simply stabbing me for one damage, so he wins.
*Holding on to the houndmaster for it's potential to provide another taunt was the right move in hindsight. I thought buffing the highmane's toughness to 5 made sense to give it more survivability (he still had a silenced 3/2 knife juggler on the board). However, toughness wouldn't have mattered if he had an assassinate. I could have perhaps traded my houndmaster off for the knife juggler, as the silenced 2/3 golem could not kill the highmane on its own - so he might have been tempted to finish the highmane off with his hero power. If he couldn't win after killing my taunt (he did play the 2/5 charge stormwind knight on turn 12), I could make one of the deathrattle hyenas a 4/4 taunt, and perhaps have enough damage to win that turn or next.
Game 5 win vs Paladin
I go first
Opening hand: hunter's mark, ironfur grizzly, ogre mage. I keep it.
Turn 1: nothing happens
Turn 2: luckily I draw and play a 2 cost creature: a 2/2 scavenging hyena. I can always protect it with a 3/3 taunt next turn if my opponent can play something bigger.
He plays a loot hoarder.
Turn 3: I play the ironfur grizzly, and I hit for 2. My draw was a houndmaster.
He thinks a while, and decides to kill my bear. He plays a shattered sun cleric to buff his loot hoarder to 3/2, before running it into the bear, getting a favourable trade that nets him a card. However, the hyena grows to 4/3.
Turn 4: I play the houndmaster, buffing the hyena into a 6/5 taunt, before hitting him for 6.
He coins, playing truesilver champion and a southsea deckhand with charge. The cleric and pirate trade off for the hyena whilst the houndmaster tastes cold steel.
Turn 5: I play an acid blob to destroy his sword, and play the ironfur grizzly I just drew.
He plays a 4/6 twilight drake.
Turn 6: I play an ironbeak owl and silence his drake, dropping it to 4/1 - I then trade the acid blob for it before swinging in for 3 and playing out an ogre magi.
He plays sen'jin shieldmaster along with an argent protector to shield it.
Turn 7: I draw a spellbreaker, playing it to silence the divine shielded 3/5 taunt. I don't want the 3/5 killing my bear next turn, so I decide to use the hunter's mark on it, and trade it off for the owl. I do him 9 damage this turn, putting him at 8 life.
He plays truesilver champion. He can't stop 8+ damage coming in next turn so he concedes.