This guide is written by Matt, who is a Queen player, streamer, and YouTuber. He creates a lot of educational content.

I’ve had a lot of success with three Hunters while testing in Rook and Queen lobbies, and because of this, I’ll be focusing on (3) Hunters in this Guide. The same setup and logic should be applicable for (6) Hunters as well, of course with some lineup adjustments.

(Round 1-16)

This is when you should select your build according to early-mid game strength, availability (shop rolls), and absence of same build conflicts (i.e. other people aren’t going for the same units as you).

The goal in the early-mid game is to build a healthy economy via a winning streak if you are strong enough, or exchange life for gold by maintaining a losing streak. (Generally speaking, either of the two extremes tends to yield higher results on average)

The key in this stage is to upgrade potential units to 2★  for the win-stream and/or to save up gold with a more cost-efficient lineup for the loss streak!

Our build usually matures with (3) Hunters and decent tanks, having three or more 2★ units would be a good indicator.

We want to start saving at level 6 unless we’re riding a winning streak or we are maintaining a losing streak.

In the Early Game, the priorities are:

Winning Streak > Losing Streak > Potential of 2★ (or collecting pairs) > Staying on the correct level for unit rates (mainly for 1 and 2 cost unit upgrades) > HP

• Win Streak: Use leveling-up and re-rolling for 2★ to protect the streak
• Loss Streak: Compare your lineup with others, manually remove 1-2 units and play at 3/4 or 4/5 if you need to become weaker to ensure a loss. In bad starts, with hardly any 2★ or decent synergies, we would easily lose with 4/4 or 5/5 without the need to remove units. The key is to consistently keep losing, and saving up gold by only keeping our core units on the field and on the bench (this usually means top 4 hunters and 1-2 ideal tanks, ignore buying anything else for now).

Hunters available at this stage:

Drow, Beastmaster, Mirana, Windranger, Sniper, Medusa

Rating: Drow >= Beastmaster; Medusa > Windranger > Mirana > Sniper

(Note that all Hunter are compared on the same star level. It is a 1★ Medusa Vs 1 ★ Windranger in this example.)

Recommended Starting Synergies:

These are the synergies that synchronize well with the (3) Hunters synergy in the early game.

• (3) Warriors, (2) Undead, (2) Elementals, (3) Goblins, (2) Orcs, (3) Elves, (2) or (4) Knights

Based on the synergy, look for:

• Try to get one of the low-cost front-line tanks to 3★: - Tiny, Mars, Axe, Slardar or BM. Here Tiny is a top pick for his AOE stun, Elemental potential to counter melees with Razor and Enigma late game, and availability (not that many people pick Tiny)
• Try to adjust lineups according to the enemy composition, e.g. going Elementals to tank for enemy Warriors; or going 3+ Warriors for Assassins; or looking for Slardar + Medusa for enemy mid game Mage spikes.

Unit Positioning:

Corner or Side Position: always adjust to allow 2★ Hunters to survive and deal the most damage.

(Round 17-25)

This is the power spike phase for most players, where the top leaders want to maintain win streaks, and the losing streak players need to stop the HP bleed because the losses against mature lineups (Trolls, Mages, Warriors, Assassins, etc.) start to become very costly.

Three Key Factors:

• Matching Power Spikes: spending at round 17, 21, 26, 31 (Leveling up or re-rolling for key 2★ units). The key here is to roll to 30g/20g minimally to avoid bankrupting ourselves. Use HP as an indicator for all-in at < 30% HP.
• Lock and Roll Phase: at level 7/8 most builds experience a phase of HP > 50% and Gold > 50, this is the period that we can roll for our key 2★ purple, 3★ units and even luck into legendaries. 
• Try to aim at no more than 3 units to level to ★★★ and focus on 1-2 Cost units, due to the limited storage space and tax on our gold while expensive units sit on the bench. E.g. if you’re trying to upgrade a 4-cost unit to three stars, you can have up to 20 gold sitting on the bench providing neither interest nor fighting power on the board.

Spending and saving timings:

There are 4 Rounds between each PVE round. We should try to spend in the first 2 rounds after each PVE round, and save in the 2 rounds before the PVE round (unless we break the HP threshold of <30%)

E.g. Spend at round 21, 22, save at round 23, 24.

Positioning vs specific lineups:

Currently, there are Knights, Assassins, and Mages almost in every match.

• Use Hunter’s range advantage vs Knights and Mages. Do not face their lineup directly, position your units on the opposite corner if possible to buy time.
• Against Assassins, the key is having enough units to tank the back line while still having front line tanks. If there are 2+ Assassin players, it is key to adjust starting from round 17. If our back-line damage dealer dies in the first few seconds, it is likely we would be losing 15+ hp each round! (refer to Assassin positioning guide)

Lock and Roll:

• If there are multiple units that are not 2★, consider rolling for them starting at round 17 & 18. Roll until there is 30g/20g remaining.
• Ideal rolling level for Hunters is level 8, it allows for a higher chance at multiple purple units, and top roll for Tide and other legendary units.
• Having great late game control and damage, we can afford to roll deeper than most other builds, rolling down to 30g from 50g, or even to 20g is acceptable when our health is < 50% at round 21.
• The best ★★★ candidates are Drow, Beastmaster, and one low-cost front-line tank (for economic reasons).

Power curve:

• We should be level 7 by Round 17
• Usually, we should reach level 8 by round 21

Foresight:

• Plan for key items like Desolator, Assault Cuirass and Refresher by having components on units that we can afford to sell or all the pieces on one unit.
• Plan for top rolls: what units to replace and where to position the new unit. (e.g. replace Beastmaster with Tide, and have him between Kunkka and Tiny)
• Plan to deal with our weakest matchup in the lobby: for example: Mages = having two Nagas sooner rather than later; Trolls = position our units at maximum range from the Troll player lineup to avoid getting pulled into the Trolls at the beginning of the fight;

Units to look for:

• ★  Tide Hunter, Enigma, Techies and Lich
• 2★ Medusa, Kunkka, Doom and Disruptor
• 3★ LD

Ideal compositions:

• (3) Hunters + (3) Warrior + (2) Undead 
• (3) Hunters + (6) Elves (Depends on the number of 2-star and 3-star, LD could top roll with Elves)
• (6) Hunters + Tank(s)
• (3) Hunters + random strong 2★ frontline heroes

(Round 26+)

Most Builds Should be Level 8 at this stage in order to try to optimize and upgrade your lineup. On lvl 8 you have a higher chance to roll 4-cost units (Medusa), a chance of top roll 5-Cost Legendaries, and of course – more space for units on the board. The focus here is optimizing your lineup – optimal level, positioning, item, and unit choices.

Optimal Level:

Optimal Level for most Hunter Builds is lvl 8 or 9. For example, a familiar/popular build that needs level 9 to be optimal is 6 knights + 3 Dragons + 2 Undead, which means that with this lineup you need to try to reach lvl9 as a top priority (above e.g. searching for upgrades). The same applies for the various Hunter builds.

Item Choices for Late Game:

When you’re fighting for the top spot you’d know what lineups you are fighting against. This allows you to make situational adjustments.

• Hunter Vs Warriors/Knights

Corner Defensive, with Dusa positioned forward. She would have a hard time dealing 50 damage, it's better to take some damage from those non-bursty comps to let her cast her ult faster. Beware 3-star CK + Luna or 2-star Troll + Doom when they are positioned to snipe the Dusa.

Unit Choice: Enigma

Hunters deal predominantly physical damage, which means Enigma can help us deal crucial additional DPS which goes through the high armor of these comps.

• Hunter Vs Dragons/Mages

Try to stay on the opposite end of the board – it helps us make use of our range advantage. Be as far away as possible from the AoE damage of the Dragons and Mages!

Have (2) Nagas. Even a Dragons lineup is magic damage heavy with Puck and Viper. For example, with (2) Nagas, Viper’s Strike does not kill most 2-star unit. This means it would charge the mana of the unit and let it cast it’s ultimate before it dies, while without the Nagas the Strike would usually kill its target before it casts.

Unit Choice: Disruptor, Enigma

Dragon/Mage lineups like tight formations, which makes them vulnerable to the AoE of Disruptor and Enigma. Disruptor is especially valuable against Mages if he manages to get the silence off before the mages get their first round of ults off.

• Hunters Vs Hunters

Position units with disables like Kunkka, Tide, and Dusa forward, but allow units to tank evenly. Have units at the adjacent side of the control unit as “bodyguards”, avoid being focused fired, because the enemy Hunters can easily kill your control unit before it casts it’s ult. Try to abuse this mechanic yourself – position your hunters in front of the enemy control units to focus-fire them.

Hunters vs Hunters is a very fast matchup and if you manage to get your control off before the enemy with a Hunters lineup, this will buy your unit a lot of time to kill-off his units and practically win the round in a few seconds. Tide and Kunkka are extremely valuable because of this (their AoE stuns). Moreover, Hunter lineups love corner positioning, and all three units above punish it with their AoE.

• Hunters Vs Assassins

Refer to the Positioning Guide vs Assassins. Have some tanks in the backline. Surround key units like Dusa and three-star Drow to make sure they don’t get focused down at the beginning of the fight. Enabling your Medusa to cast her ult is game-breaking – Assassins are squishy and they will face your lineup, which means the Medusa is likely to turn all of them to stone if she casts the ult and to buy precious time for your damage-dealers to kill the Assassins before they are able to reach them.

Unit Choice: Kunkka, Dusa, Techies

AoE control (Kunkka and Dusa) is crucial against Assassins – you need to provide your damage-dealers with time.

Kunkka is usually superior to Tide (despite the smaller AoE) because it’s much easier to upgrade him to two-stars, which makes him a lot tankier – 10 base armor, high HP, potentially the (3) Warriors buff. A one-star Tide dies to crits to Assassins very easily, and it’s much harder to upgrade him to two-stars.

Techies is also great because of two main reasons:      

• Assassins tend to get on top of your lineup fast, which means that if the Bomb is planted, it’s very likely to hit the whole enemy lineup. Assassins are squishy, so the Bomb could be devastating.
• Techies is not contested in the late game unless there is a Goblins player, which means it’s realistic to get him to two stars, This makes him a great tank versus Assassins.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this guide useful and enjoyable.

If you did, you can also check out the Auto Chess Strategies Tier List we did together with Matt!