Lock and Load Control Hunter
- Last updated Nov 19, 2015 (Explorers)
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Wild
- 11 Minions
- 18 Spells
- 1 Weapon
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 6560
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 9/24/2015 (TGT Launch)
- DonnieMcKarlo
- Registered User
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- 9
- 39
- 56
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Battle Tag:
Donnie#2262
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
125
Hey there, Donnie here, self-proclaimed expert hunter pilot. I've been experimenting with this class the most and run it across all the possible archetypes imaginable, my goal always being, to create something unique and fun to play, for I believe, that the hunter class and it's inherent synergies between cards are very enjoyable.
So, cutting to the chase - I've been working on a control hunter for several months now and thanks to TGT it got a lot of really great tools. After a month of playtesting this is the version that got me to rank 5 and I'm also aiming to reach legend with it.
Massive thanks for the upvotes, glad you are enjoying the deck!
The deck has 3 main win conditions in addition to the hunters natural ability to pile on damage thanks to his hero power.
1) Outvalue the opponent
This entails excessive use of Eaglehorn Bow, your aoe's like Explosive Trap, Unleash the Hounds and Powershot and most of all landing big Lock and Load's.
2) Curve out your end curve
If you have kept the board under reasonable control, dropping Dr. Boom, Ragnaros the Firelord and King Krush on turns 7, 8 and 9 respectively can create unrecoverable pressure and lead to an instantaneous win or one shortly thereafter. This is a surprisingly consistent scenario thanks to King's Elekk and the fact that we only run 9 minions in our deck, thus pulling them more frequently.3) Control the board and push face damage with an upgraded Eaglehorn BowCaptain Greenskin is amazing with this weapon. The fact that you can replenish it's durability and repeatedly hit face for 4 in this patron devoid weapon removal absent meta is a win condition in itself. In addition to the 6 secrets we run, more can be fetched from Lock and Load as well as Nexus-Champion Saraad.
So there you have it, that's what I have observed from playing this deck.
Now, onto the card choices:
2x Hunter's Mark - Excellent for proccing L&L as well as generally a combo for a some aoe, though I rarely use it as a setup on the opponent's turn, often in fear of silence. There are times when it's correct to use this card as a 0-mana deal 1 damage.
1x Arcane Shot - Also one of the more easy spells to use with L&L but generally not used as such. Quite crucial as an early removal piece and has nice flexibility. Not rarely used to finish the opponent.
2x Tracking - This card is amazing and really rewards knowing the matchups you find yourself in. Quickly discovering which cards are dead weight in your deck in the current situation is key to using this card effectively. Not just based on the choice presented to you, but also the timing when you use this card. There are a lot of things to consider really. For example, if I'm holding an elekk, I might opt to wait on using tracking, as to not endanger myself of dropping my end curve from my deck. Or if I want to go for a captain greenskin combo and assemble the pieces in a timely fashion, I will agressively dig for a bow. Very tricky to use.
Bear Trap - Unconventionally, in this deck, you can very well consider your secrets 2 drops. As such, this card in particular, is basically a 2 mana 3/3 that arguably has stealth. Some intricacies to this card is, it's generally better used as early as possible. And while you often have options of dealing with some early drops from your opponent, it's a good idea to sometimes take some damage to get this guy summoned. All in all, the card is a necessity, since minions in the deck are scarce, yet it does not mess up our elekk rng.
2x Explosive Trap - This is purely a meta call in regards to the very agressive decks at large out there, mostly effective against paladin and hunter, it's consecration effect is not to be underestimated however. It can serve as a setup or finisher to your other aoes.
2x Freezing Trap - To be honest, I'm a little bit on the fence on this one, It's also a meta call I suppose - very useful against certain classes and borderline deadweight in some matchups. That being said, still pumps up your bow. I rank it just slightly higher than the other 3 hunter secrets not included in the list.
King's Elekk - A wonderful card, that has shaped the deckbuilding aspect of this list a great deal. The result being only 9 minions total, mostly with high mana costs. Counting your cards carefully can make elekk basically a high % chance of drawing this minion specifically which is very helpful if you evaluate your decision of playing it over other cards during specific turns. The body is decent and helps in trades. Overall very solid.
2x Lock and Load - This card is crazy. It really shines in the control matchups, but is not completely useless in the other ones. As I mentioned it's one of the possible win conditions of this deck - just milking crazy value out of this card. There are 44 hunter cards in total, so getting a specific one is about 2.27%. Worth noting is there is a 25% chance of getting a 5+ mana cost card and that there are 3 cards you generally don't want to see - namely Stable Master, Feign Death and Call Pet, which equates to a 6.81% chance to fizzle out. While not completely useless, these cards rarely get played and have almost zero impact. From my personal experiences, L&L is a game decider by itself, and although random, it does provide you with cards for just doing stuff and on average, those cards are meaningful. Turn 7 is usually the best turn to use this card on average, against control decks you can go really greedy and keep it till the utmost ends. If you have the coin, turn 4/5 is decent enough to play it. And while lock and loads do stack, I advise not using too many spells in that case, as you will force yourself into overdraw pretty quickly that way.
2x Quick Shot - Rare will be the times when you will draw a card with this, but spot removal is very important in a control deck, and the mana cost is adequate for usage with L&L. One of the key keeps against druid now with Darnassus Aspirant running amok.
Eaglehorn Bow - Your value machine and main tool to keep the board clear to pivot the way for your big threats. Also very handy to keep hitting face.
Illuminator - Perhaps a bit of a surprise for most, but I have grown to love this card in hunter extensively. It allows to liberally hit with your bow, and not be afraid of dipping to certain thresholds and boasts a passable body at 3 mana. Overall it's still a bit of a meta call, because right now, without healing you wouldnt be able to last. As an argument to why I choose Illuminator over the traditional control deck's card of choice - Antique Healbot - here's my reasoning. I can play the card earlier, which is huge, not being confined to spending 5 mana for an 8 point heal with a rather disappointing body is so crucial, especially for this deck, that spends mana very efficiently. In addition, the heal is repetitive, Illuminator forces silences/removal, which healbot doesnt, as such, even if I were only to heal once, It would still tank the additional 4 damage which the opponent spent to remove it equating to the same net health gain. But it's potential is much higher than healbots - I hope this convinces some people.
2x Powershot - Very decent aoe that I'm tossing in and out of the deck. Clearly it's very good against aggro, but when I'm not just facing that much of that it's very subpar compared to explosive trap and unleash.
2x Unleash the Hounds - This card switches a lot with powershot, but ultimately I went with my favorism for unleash, since it has wider possible synergies with L&L payouts.1x Captain Greenskin - A big fan of this on eaglehorn bow. In addition, there is also the chance of buffing an L&Led Gladiator's Longbow which is just silly. The body also challenges the other roster of 5 drops really well.
1x Emperor Thaurissan Smooths out the curve on the 6th mana and has a nice upside. Best used post L&L turns, but can also be used to set up a L&L as well as just making your hand less clunky.
1x Dr. Boom - No control deck would be complete without this guy I suppose. Helps Feign Death not be a completely worthless payout from L&L too.
1x Ragnaros the Firelord - Honestly, this guy has just been disappointing. My luck isn't very great, but I really can't bring myself to cut him out of the deck, based on his mana cost, and how well he rounds out the curve in addition to the obvious synergy with elekk.
1x King Krush - Or how I like to call him - reliable Ragnaros. Turns out that an 8/8 with charge is reaaaaaallly good when the opponent can't answer him and you drop it on the board uncontested.
Well, that's about the first round of inclusions. I'll do a rejects section soon, and post some more useful info, if I could just get some likes, please?! ^^
Hope you give the deck a shot, it sure is a change of pace from the usual hunter I imagine.
Update 27/09
-1 Arcane Shot
-1 Nexus-Champion Saraad
+1Powershot
+1 Emperor Thaurissan
The poweshot I realised is essentially 3 arcane shots in 1 card, that's why I found it more reasonable to sub 1 out for the other. Aggro still being strong as it is I deemed powershot more than necessary in this type of deck.
Sadly Saraad didn't quite deliver in the average games. And Thaurissan was deemed worthy for this deck. I had a lot of games where a turn 5 loatheb would lock me out of a complete turn due to the deck being comprised mainly of spells. Thaurissan helps alleviate that matter and his effect is truthfully helpful.
I will comment on seemingly staple hunter cards that aren't in the list.
The Bench
Mad Scientist - I get this question a lot - with 6 secrets, why would you not run this card?! Well, the answer is pretty simple, because I run 2 of each 3 different secrets, I don't run mad scientists. There's advantages to that - first off, you are casting those secrets, in turn - getting cards from L&L. Second - you don't want the wrong secret played at the wrong time, tempo doesn't matter for this deck, which is usually the reason you play the scientist. And third - it messes up your elekk rng. Already, it can happen that your elekk manages to snag the other elekk in the deck(12.5% chance), which rarely results in a joust win, adding in scientists makes elekk up to twice as unreliable as it is currently (winning 75% of my jousts).
Animal Companion - Although the beasts on average are worth for their cost, besides Misha, they don't really work in the deck. You will never have a swarmy board for Leokk to be effective and you will rarely be needing the extra 4 damage from Huffer. The 4/4 taunt, however, is very useful, but a 33% hit rate on the spell, doesn't justify running it.
Kill Command - Not that many beasts in the deck, 7 cards to be exact + any random additions from L&L. Not worth running it for the occasional +2damage buff.
Piloted Shredder - I guess it's weird to say this, but for this deck, you don't want sticky minions, you want to trade with your spells which get more effective the more stuff the opponent has on the board. Playing too much stuff just gives them a chance to trade theirs off and you'll have trouble placing your spells. Another reason is - you know how people try to play around big game hunter by not putting in any minions with 7+ attack. Well, this deck has pretty much 0 valuable silence targets the most notable being Illuminator. Therefore that is also part of the reasoning.
Savannah Highmane - Pretty much the same commentary as for the Shredder.
Update 30/9
Mulligan, tips and strategy.
Before I go on to the individual mulligans here are a couple rules of thumb. I will never mulligan away Illuminator(s), no matter the matchup and the rest of my hand composition. The risk of jousting her with elekk is very undesirable and she functions fine as a 3 drop if need be. Also, this deck plays quite passively, you will not be needing a fast start.
Also, If I can see my hand functioning fine until turns 4-5 I will generally do a full keep. It's generally better to focus on your own gameplan, as the deck works well in catching up using the board clears which simply get more effective the more tempo your opponent has amassed.
Some tips:
King's Elekk is not necessarily a 2 drop. Your big cards from the deck aren't going anywhere. It's ok for the elekk to sit in the hand in case you have other plays - drawing cards longer makes the jousts more predictable. Likewise, use Tracking smartly - either before or after elekk - depending on your desired result.
I like to play Eaglehorn Bow for tempo - ergo not attacking with it immediately, even at times when I have a secret down, or planning to play Captain Greenskin the next turn. Just because I like being flexible with when and what I attack without compromising the possible destruction of my weapon. There will be times when I would not attack a Knife Juggler in case it can fuel my aoe on a following turn.
Endure. It's often tempting to use your clears, when the opportunity presents itself. It's fine to do so. I do not do it when I don't have a plan for the following, or sometimes the 2 following turns. It's generally ok to sacrifice more health, to use your spells later, baiting a larger board to use them on, making them more effective and combo-able. Likewise, there are times when ineffective use might be called for - using Powershot just to kill a Shade of Naxrammas may be worth it. Assess and execute.
As I mentioned, there are various ways that this deck can end the game, the faster you discover this scenario, the more effective your play will be. Generally around turns 6-8 you should have your answer. Play towards that goal! These are the times where you drop King Krush and Dr. Boom from your tracking in favour of a more important card, etc. I can't really explain it, but in some point in the game there is a switch, where you go on towards an objective and it becomes very fast paced from there. Like a control priest, where you just exchanged hero powers until turn 7 and at turn 9 he is at 6 hp. Yes, that happened.
Mulligans: Note* As mentioned I always keep Illuminators and Eaglehorn Bow is always a top keep.
Druid
Top keep: Quick Shot - for use against that nasty, nasty Darnassus Aspirant
Other: Captain Greenskin, Tracking, Freezing Trap, King's Elekk, Bear Trap
For me this is the toughest matchup. It very easily goes bad after they drop an early shade or any innervate plays. If your answer is lackluster, you will be praying that you can stabilise at a reasonable health total. If that is not possible, the trick to gaining those last extra turns is reading when they will combo you and save Explosive Trap for specifically that moment. It's really hard, but I've won a few of my games this way. Depending on if their ramp is too aggressive, it may be worthwhile to hold on to your Illuminator.
Hunter:
Top Keep: Any traps - your main way of staving off damage early, so you have time to finish it late with your bombs
Other: Kings Elekk, Tracking(If you need to thin your deck or the hand otherwise is very lackluster), Arcane Shot(If going second), Powershot
It's hunter, there's not much depth to it. Some key things. It's only ok to play off curve if you are severely low on life. Likewise, I will never drop Illuminator if I'm not healing that turn, unless the hunter had a very slow start and I'm ahead in the life total. Using Explosive trap to set up another aoe(Haunted Creeper) or to kill a single minion(Knife Juggler, Huffer) is perfectly fine, some playing around flare is necessary. DO NOT RACE! Ragnaros and King Krush, as well as your bow will be sufficient to knock him down late game. Usually my goal is to aggressively dig for illuminator and secrets and stabilise in the late game while setting up a killing board. This may differ from game to game, but it's important to never YOLO it. I've won a game against face hunter that was 3hp to 30hp, keep your cool.
Mage:
Top Keep: Bear Trap, Quick Shot - no matter if it's mech mage or tempo - combat him early.
Other: Unleash the Hounds, Lock and Load, Tracking, Powershot, Freezing Trap.
If you can get a massive clear on him, you can generally feel safe. I like to save up on my elekk's and Illuminators, to trigger possible mirror entities. Setting up a big Lock and Load in this matchup goes a long way. Not much else to say. Look out for not dipping too low in health. Against freeze mage all you can basically do is dig for an early ragnaros/captain greenskin or pray for a flare from L&L.
Paladin:
Top Keep: Explosive Trap, Unleash the Hounds, Powershot (multiple copies of each is fine) - for dealing with the zerginess.
Other: Hunters mark(to deal with the impeding dr. 6), Bear Trap.
If you can cruise to late game(no matter what paladin it is), you can generally expect to win, based on the various removal options you have available. Just keep relentlessly removing anything he puts out and start pumping your threats if not threatened too much. Illuminator as a tempo card is fine, even Greenskin is in this matchup. If you haven't lost to a Dr. 6 push, you are very likely to win.
Priest:
Top Keep: Hunter's Mark, Captain Greenskin - If you can land this guy on your bow by turn 5, it becomes a ridiculously easy matchup.
Other: Freezing Trap, Lock and Load, Bear Trap.
Lay low, and don't give him ample opportunity to draw cards from northshire. Try to save as much combo pieces for L&L as possible and expend Hunters Mark only after a buff has been used. I usually take a lot of beating in this matchup, and end up stabilising anywhere between 5 and 9 health, it's a cinch from there. 4 damage Eaglehorn Bow is massive in this matchup and deals with Wyrmrest Agent, Dark Cultist, Azure Drake, Blackwing Corruptor and can assist in dealing with other priest staples.
Rogue:
Top Keeps: King's Elekk, Bear Trap - try finding your bombs at the most early to start pressuring the rogue.
Other: Tracking, Quick Shot.
It's unfortunate, but from my observations, you are essentially on his draw. If he gets Assassin's Blade and puts a few too many buffs on it - there isn't really anything you can do. Your pressure is limited, so try and get at least the 2 Blade Flurries out of his deck, so that you don't have to worry about a 22 damage burst combo from no where. Illuminator's usefulness is very limited here, because you die instantaneously, but lock and load can provide you with very useful traps like Misdirection and Snipe. A Thaurissan can help you pile up the pressure faster, which is key.
Shaman:
Top Keep: Freezing Trap, Unleash the Hounds, Powershot
Other: King's Elekk, Tracking, Quickshot.
The key is to identifying the shaman deck, since there are so few on ladder currently, but alas, fairly diverse. Your gameplan can thus switch from defense to aggressive digging for crucial pieces rapidly. Elekk is great because of this - since there's a chance, the jousted minion will reveal his strategy all the earlier to you. Against mech shaman you just want to not take the 8 damage from fel reaver. Look for that Hunter's Mark. Against totem shaman, just hoard those aoe's and wait for a good lock and load turn. Against malygos shaman, get that buffed bow, because the hex will always be there for your big guys.
Warlock:
Top Keeps: Unleash the Hounds, Hunter's Mark - these are the cards I feel most at ease having, no matter if it's handlock or zoo.
Other: Tracking, Lock and Load, Bear Trap.
If it's zoo, then it's probably the only matchup you want to be really agressive. Slam down that bow, chain your secrets, go face and never stop. Exaggerating a bit, but that's how it usually goes. You have so much aoe, that you can burst open eggs and spiders and still have left over to kill them. Put the pressure on them early, attack is the best defense. Handlock however I play veeeeeery slowly. I will even refuse to hero power if molten giants get too close to enabled. The key is to net as much removal cards from your L&L as possible and your big drops are just there to buy you time. The warlock will slowly run out of threats, his cards should become less effective, that's when you go in for the kill.
Warrior:
Top Keeps: Captain Greenskin, Lock and Load - It's the control matchup of the ages.
Other: Tracking, Hunter's Mark, Quick Shot.
A few important points. It's not necessary at all, to play bear traps and elekk's for early tempo. A very significant part of this matchup is making warrior stuck with no plays. It gets very tough if you allow his weapons to get value and curve out, thus you are mostly spending time keeping the board in check, stalling, and then barrage him in the late game. I try to bait a bit with my weapon, so I can Greenskin after Harrison. You have to be wary of damage in this matchup. If you don't give food to his weapons, they might just turn to your face. And combined they deal 28 damage, so in other words, in this matchup, healing up with Illuminator is almost mandatory. But there are those games where you just go second - have 2 elekk's and 2 tracking and manage to get Thaurissan, Dr. Boom, Ragnaros and King Krush in hand by turn 5. And you coin Thaurissan... The world is beautiful. I've done this quite a lot actually and only once my opponent didn't lose instantly by playing sylvanas, he still lost though, it's ALOT of pressure.
Changes after a lot more experimentation 19/11 Ulduman Wing LoE
-Elekk
-Eaglehorn
-Illuminator
-Greenskin
-Bear Trap
for
+Brann
+Kezan
+Loatheb
+Healbot
+Azure Drake
I made these changes mostly, to simply accomodate Brann. I believe the statline to be adequate and you have the ability to hold him, to better use your battlecries depending on the matchup. What the deck suffered mostly from, was big tempo swings and not having the correct cards in response. Most notably this happens against secret paladins, but also rarely against hunter and tempomage. Adding a larger midrange minion base helps with the range of answers you can propose to keep incoming damage at a minimum. Rather than going deeper into the inclusions, I will reason the cuts, because I think that point is more important. I think the necessity to remove the cards was more needed than adding in these specific ones, as that just suits my taste and meta sense - you can most likely find a better solution for yourself.
Elekk - I've been switching it between the 1 of and 2 of in this deck quite a bit. And as soon as you leave just 1 you immediately feel the need for card draw. Yet as you move in the second and have these moments where the joust pulls the other elekk, you feel incredibly sad. Mostly this is a problem, when you keep the card in your mulligan and it fails you, becomes a vanilla 3/2 and you have like 1 or 2 bad plays for the next turns + you draw into one of your end curve, which the elekk was supposed to prevent. Brann certainly helps this tremendously, and has been working nicely so far, so the 1 remaining elekk is a very welcome stay.
Eaglehorn - Abundance of traps and the additional weapons from lock and load often create a scenario, where you never need a 2nd weapon in the base deck. Keeping a 2nd copy for consistency reasons or more damage output doesn't seem to be worth it. Also, even with the amount of healing in the deck previously, you still weren't freely able to take hits at minions frequently enough, therefore I decided to stay with a one of this particular inclusion.
Bear Trap - This one got the cut, since I painfully found out, that it is proportionally weaker the later in the game it is drawn, and against a few decks, you can't even get it to trigger. For overall deck consistency, I felt with replacing it with a higher average powerlevel.
Illuminator - I believe brann bronzebeard accomplishes the feats of 1 missing illuminator as well as having an additional upside.
Captain Greenskin - simply cut, due to only one copy of eaglehorn remaining.
Hope you enjoy!
You mentioned with the addition of Reno that sometimes you just don't have the reach post Reno. I wondered what you think of Elise in the deck, it's low on 4 drops so a body is surely welcome, and maybe you just get to turn those poor valued L&L cards into legendary minions to give you that late game reach. Anyway, I like the idea of the deck, it's always refreshing to see hunter played creatively.
For now I'm going to play with -1 Kezan +1 Elise.
I'm not against elise, the matchup where she is really good is very specific though.
The deck after all has quite a bit of quality to it, so it just feels wrong to just random legendary it at some point, do tell how it works for you though.
I am revitalising the deck daily, but haven't given this version quite a go in a while. Maybe I should, as to see, how to optimise it currently.
The meta right now sadly is very unhealthy for this however, since LoE boosted the other classes quite a bit and left hunter a bit in the dumpster. If anything it even weakened this deck significantly, because Explorer's Hat, Dart Trap and Desert Camel are all terrible payouts from L&L in the context of this deck.
My immediate suggestion however would be to ditch Kezan in favour of any of these - Ironbeak Owl, King's Elekk, Illuminator.
I know this is an old topic but I was intrigued by this deck and want to give it a shot.
I replace Rags with Foe Reaper. same mana cost, avoids BGH and love the AoE attack.
Thanks for the shot.
Small notice from me - the deck has lost a lot of it's potency since the release of LoE. There's a multitude for reasons for that.
The biggest would be the introduction of reno jackson. The deck thrived on a meticulous grinding of the enemies health and lacks in sufficient burst, so you might find yourself too exhausted to finish off opponents post reno.
Another reason is that the other classes got great tools which are very troublesome for the deck to deal with. Mage got Conjurer, which gives them extra reach. Paladin got Keeper which is an extremely flexible card for them and can cause you all sorts of pains. And Tunnel Trogg enabled a shaman deck that is way too fast paced for you.
If anything, LoE even weakened lock and load significantly - since all of the new hunter additions are terrible payouts from lock and load in the context of this deck. Conversely though, when standard hits, this situation might improve - since gvg also greatly contributed to crappy payouts from lock and load, whereas the new expansion might provide more useful options.
So keep your eyes out and good luck!
Currently also playing with a slightly different list. Need a bigger sample size to figure out the current final list. But changes are -
-1 elekk
-1 eaglehorn
- Greenskin
- Dr. Boom
- Ragnaros
+2 Belcher
+2 Highmane
+ Sylvanas
Changes are mainly due to me not having enough defensive measures against aggressive decks. The belchers give a little bit more longevity, highmanes hit the board faster than rag and boom. And greenskin had to go, because I dropped the 1 bow, which I dropped since I can mostly sustain a single bow anyway.
The winrate of the deck hasn't changed much though, so more finetuning is necessary and I am still wanting to run cards like Greenskin or Saraad in the final product.
I like the concept, too bad it's not working against any common deck out there (aggro hunters, paladins, control decks)
First question: Does this deck really work? I've been looking for a control (and more recently Lock and Load) Hunter deck that works FOREVER.
Second question: I don't have King Krush or Captain Greenskin, and I hate to be the guy that has to change your decklist, but could you tell me what I could replace them with? Crafting them seems silly since they aren't exactly top-tier legends and as mostly f2p I have to be rather particular on what legends I craft. Do you think the deck can work with the replacements you suggest, or are these cards key players in the end?
The deck DOES work. The mulligan section contains a small writeup on the individual matchups and rank 4 has been attained with this list. I am strongly confident that it can achieve legend, not with this list in particular, but if someone smarter than me can make an effort and do more playtesting with this for fine-tuning, since I myself am really stubborn in that area.
I will say this though. A big part of this decks success is the opponent's ability to play against it - this isn't exactly a very widespread list, as such 80% of the time my opponents play suboptimal against me. The deck is very punishing, to yourself as well. I dare say it would take a minimum of 30 games to grasp how this deck truly works.
As for your second question. Yes, Captain Greenskin is very replacable - Loatheb, Sludge Belcher, Nexus-Champion Saraad will do. It's a particular choice of mine, that works, but in the end a good 5 drop is sufficient.
King Krush CAN be replaced, but bear some of this in mind. It CAN serve as a finisher very often. The way that this deck plays it CAN be very difficult to remove when played. It's a 9-drop which has a high elekk success rate. If you look for replacements that fit all these roles it might be tough to suggest anything. My suggestion is high value threats like Savannah Highmane, Alexstrasza, Sylvanas Windrunner, hell, even North Sea Kraken.
Level with me here. I was going to craft Justicar Trueheart next. I've been looking around and everyone says she is best in Flood Paladin and Control Warrior. While I was going to make her to play CW, I am now debating making King Krush just to play this deck. So the real question is, do you think this deck can be viable enough (and continue to evolve enough) to be worth postponing making Justicar Trueheart and crafting King Krush instead? I have enough dust to make 1 legendary right now and I'm really wanting to play Control (and more importantly Lock and Load) Hunter.
In your particular case I have a very simple suggestion. I would just play this deck, incomplete as is, and instead of King Krush use one of the aforementioned substitutions. By playing you should get a feeling of what it 'would be like' if you actually had the card. I think that way you could ascertain yourself if you would prefer it that, or another way.
I'm saying this because I would feel highly responsible if I postponed a really valuable legendary craft for you by about 2 weeks for my particular deck.
You seem like a very cool guy, and I will do just this. I'll keep ya updated and such. I'm a big fan of your decklist and very excited to try it. :)
Thanks for that wall of text. A few things.
I tried loatheb for a small bit, but felt more comfortable with greenskin. It just felt so hard to land a decent loatheb, that I preffered the slight upside to having greenskin. But that's preference, and I generally don't play that well with loatheb.
I never mulligan away illuminator, even if I have 2. For precisely the reasons you mentioned. It loses about 80% of the time when jousting and while not incredibly significant, can hurt you. That's why I always keep illuminators, even if just to play for tempo on turn 3, so as to not debilitate elekk rng.
I like the harisson pickup, but that's pure preference. For me the hardest matchup by far is druid - since my current list doesn't run flare, shades are often the death of me. Also any innervate plays can end up adding too much pressure and you can't stabilise at a decent life total. So in essence I'm saying, I wouldn't run harrison, because I feel 50/50 about the warrior matchup. In my experience, you just have to save your l&l till the 10th mana and just outvalue him. Though I have won games off the classic boom, rag, king krush play on turns 7-9.
Oh, and If you really, really want to you can probably sub in Black Knight for 1 Powershot, but I really wouldn't recommend it. It's clunky and situational, all the while taunts are not really an issue for this deck.
In regards to hero powering alot - you are doing it right, that's how it also ends up for me most of the time. However I wouldn't like giants just because of that. In comparison, the threats I'm currently running have more impact on the board. The constant hero powering was also a reason I liked Saraad, but he kinda made it out of the list in favour of thaurissan.
Thanks for giving it a shot!
Really wish I didn't DE my Captain Greenskin, this decks looks tons of fun!
Thanks for the compliment. That is probably this deck's most redeeming feature.
As for Greenskin - it's probably possible to swap him out for a similar value machine. Greenskin really shines in the control warrior and priest matchup, druid as well, it's decent in the other ones but his main point is to make the control matchups better.
Saraad has a similar role, if you can run him, what else... hmmm Sylvanas Windrunner is an option, as the deck provides ample tools to make sacrificing her easy as well as manipulating the board state for a controlled steal.
Hope you give it a try!
Snipe for Illuminator, Loatheb/Sludge Belcher for Captain Greenskin, Savannah Highmane for Dr. Boom
Thanks for the enthusiasm.
Captain Greenskin is kind of a tech choice of mine, The permanency effect is really important, compared to Spiteful Smith, if you are looking for a replacement in that slot Loatheb would do fine.
As for Nexus-Champion Saraad, I'm currently testing a bit with Emperor Thaurissan in his place. The absence of a 6 drop so far hurt my curve at times and he smoothens it out nicely. Really useful for psot L&L turns. As for Gadgetzan Auctioneer - the deck does fine without additional card draw than what it currently has.
Anything I could swap King Krush out for? Really want to try out this deck since I have everything but KK ^_^
Try Gahz'rilla anytime I get that card from an L&L it does quite well, I just don't have it myself so I haven't been able to try it with a real copy.
Other suitable replacements might be Nefarian, Savannah Highmane, Toshley, Sylvanas Windrunner, even good ol' Boulderfist Ogre is a viable option, since this deck isn't particulary weak to silence.
That being said, KK really helps out as a finisher, and the possible boom, rag, kk play is really strong.
I was looking for a little more food for this deck and I believe I found it. I build a L&L deck recently and its just a really really fun card. I don't like the class outside of this deck but it is a lot of fun. I like your synergy better than mine, makes more sense. I just build mine and will make some adjustments to see how it works. Thanks for posting, love the ideas and originality.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/337022-lock-and-load