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Sicknantos, my comment was actually a reply to a comment made by Dr_Scaphandre, but since the reply function kinda sucks on Hearthpwn it came off as something aggressive towards you, and for that I am sorry.

And onto your point, and perhaps the whole question of the thread, I think that hunter can become tier 1 and is actually on the verge of becoming it. However, I don't think that the power of the deck is going to be in the later game cards which you mentioned in the OP, instead to make hunter better even more early/midgame cards have to be released for him. Right now, DK Rexxar is almost all the late game the deck needs, and if Hunter gets a good 3 drop, because afaik the only ones are the Bow and Animal Companion, he will be the class to beat.

Quote from Nicholasjh >>

Quote from Skyryser >>

I would love it if Hunter and Rogue became viable classes again. By far my favourite duo.

 Rogue is already viable. Maybe not miracle. It has 2 extremely powerful tempo decks. Elemental pirate hybrid and pure pirate. 

i'm currently playing miracle rogue, evolve shaman and control mage on ladder and i'll have to say hunter feels like the hardest matchup to any of these decks. so my decks are either weak to hunters or hunter is really strong right now. it's definitely seen a lot of play recently. 13 of my last 30 games on ranks 6-4 were against hunter.

Quote from sicknantos >>

Quote from Slydie >>

To be tier 1, a deck has to do very unfair things. The OP mentions a lot of cards which are supposed to support a control play style for hunter. I am sorry, but control has never been the hunter's strong side, and even a very good DK does not make up for it. Plenty of other attempts have been made as well.

I think the problems are 2-fold:

-The hunter heropower is the complete opposite of control. The DK actually has pretty bad synergy with the class, as he requires you to completely change the gameplan when you play him.

-The core set has some very strong cards, Kill Command, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow and Savannah Highmane. The downside? They are all very strong midrange cards, which showed when Call of the Wild was the perfect finisher at the top of the curve, or when 2-mana Starving Buzzard let you draw every answer, or even when Undertaker started an almost unstoppable snowball. Those 4 classic cards played big parts in all of those decks. Making control hunter viable makes the class lose it's identity, and even stronger (broken?) control cards would have to be released, to make up for the anti-synergy of the heropower. That being said, it is still a very good class, Crackling Razormaw is an extremely strong card, but for now, the destiny is anti-control midrange or aggro.

 Good points! I have one question: do you think tier 1 decks have to be unfair to be tier 1? I figured that was what Tier S was for (like our recent druid overlords showed us). I know it's a level of deck build that is incredibly tight and powerful, but I'm not sure every tier 1 deck is unfair to face or Blizzard would get way more serious complaints about those decks that they'd have to address.

I mean, I loathe facing pirate warrior (as an example), but it can be beat by multiple classes if the counter can be met when facing them.

Quote from YogoWafelPL >>

Sicknantos, my comment was actually a reply to a comment made by Dr_Scaphandre, but since the reply function kinda sucks on Hearthpwn it came off as something aggressive towards you, and for that I am sorry.

And onto your point, and perhaps the whole question of the thread, I think that hunter can become tier 1 and is actually on the verge of becoming it. However, I don't think that the power of the deck is going to be in the later game cards which you mentioned in the OP, instead to make hunter better even more early/midgame cards have to be released for him. Right now, DK Rexxar is almost all the late game the deck needs, and if Hunter gets a good 3 drop, because afaik the only ones are the Bow and Animal Companion, he will be the class to beat.

Quote from Slydie >>

Quote from sicknantos >>

Quote from Slydie >>

To be tier 1, a deck has to do very unfair things. The OP mentions a lot of cards which are supposed to support a control play style for hunter. I am sorry, but control has never been the hunter's strong side, and even a very good DK does not make up for it. Plenty of other attempts have been made as well.

I think the problems are 2-fold:

-The hunter heropower is the complete opposite of control. The DK actually has pretty bad synergy with the class, as he requires you to completely change the gameplan when you play him.

-The core set has some very strong cards, Kill Command, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow and Savannah Highmane. The downside? They are all very strong midrange cards, which showed when Call of the Wild was the perfect finisher at the top of the curve, or when 2-mana Starving Buzzard let you draw every answer, or even when Undertaker started an almost unstoppable snowball. Those 4 classic cards played big parts in all of those decks. Making control hunter viable makes the class lose it's identity, and even stronger (broken?) control cards would have to be released, to make up for the anti-synergy of the heropower. That being said, it is still a very good class, Crackling Razormaw is an extremely strong card, but for now, the destiny is anti-control midrange or aggro.

 Good points! I have one question: do you think tier 1 decks have to be unfair to be tier 1? I figured that was what Tier S was for (like our recent druid overlords showed us). I know it's a level of deck build that is incredibly tight and powerful, but I'm not sure every tier 1 deck is unfair to face or Blizzard would get way more serious complaints about those decks that they'd have to address.

I mean, I loathe facing pirate warrior (as an example), but it can be beat by multiple classes if the counter can be met when facing them.

 This can probably be discussed forever, but yes, imo tier 1 decks should do unfair stuff, but only in good matchups or with good draws. The last tier 1 hunter deck, the CotW midrange, was a typical case. It specialized in killing between turn 7 and 9, countering the Reno, C'thun and N'Zoth decks of the day "unfairly." It got nerfed, but with aggrodecks killing between turn 5 and 6 being common with MSoG, that nerf was unnecessary imo, itbwas a victim of the meta, it was never that dominant on ladder, but the bonkers 2-8 curve in Wild got me my golden Hunter.

I am not even quite sure what it means to be tier 1, but I would say countering tier S decks gets you a long way. If there is no tier S, being a good "counter" is probably not enough, you need to be defining the meta, and have other decks tech against you.

 

Bumping this with the recent advancement of hunter to tier 1

What do you all think of how the meta is shaping out now that hunter (and rogue) are tier 1 vs Jade druid and Razakus priest (and token shaman)?

Quote from voltanis13 >>

This hunter deck which i made got me to rank 5 ( stopped playing there because im not the try hard type of guy ) before the nerfs with 65% win rate (analytical stats inside). I imagine that after the nerfs it will perform much better. 

[EASY RANK 5] 65% Win Rate (koft) Midrange Hunter Deck by user-19815266 - Aug 23, 2017 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (23) 1x The Black Knight 2x Rat Pack 1x Golakka Crawler 2x Savannah Highmane 2x Alleycat 1x Bearshark 1x Bonemare 2x Crackling Razormaw 2x Dire Wolf Alpha 2x Jeweled Macaw 1x Nesting Roc 2x Scavenging Hyena 2x Houndmaster 2x Tundra Rhino	Ability (5) 1x Unleash the Hounds 2x Animal Companion 2x Kill Command	Weapon (2) 2x Eaglehorn Bow
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Quote from voltanis13 >>

This hunter deck which i made got me to rank 5 ( stopped playing there because im not the try hard type of guy ) before the nerfs with 65% win rate (analytical stats inside). I imagine that after the nerfs it will perform much better. 

Quote from voltanis13 >>

Quote from TheDycer >>

Quote from voltanis13 >>

This hunter deck which i made got me to rank 5 ( stopped playing there because im not the try hard type of guy ) before the nerfs with 65% win rate (analytical stats inside). I imagine that after the nerfs it will perform much better. 

 I think it would do worse now. With the tempo rogues pretty well ironed out, you will be facing a deck that does what you want to do better and faster most games. The jade druid matchup barely changed and highlander/control priest has adjusted slightly to deal with more minions on board earlier. Hunter had a bit of time where everyone forgot about what it can do, and it surged for that reason. Hunter is in a weird state where if you can find the couple situations where you can succeed, you will do so in an insane fashion. There are just too many games were you stumble over yourself because turns 1-3 just end up being bad. 

 Ramp druid / idol druid barely changed for control. For aggro/midrange the 1 - 2 extra turns that you get from the nerfs are enough to make it matter. I havent met the new rogue yet but i imagine i would lose only when they get prince kelezeth  very early. 

Hunter is like tier 2 at best. Shaman hard counters it and is highly prevalent in ladder...

No Hunter is not Tier 1 and I doubt it will be. However it is sitting well in Tier 2 and can do really well against certain decks within the meta as will any other Aggressive deck.

Hunter isn't better than Evolve Shaman at what it does, and Evolve Shaman is pretty bad as is.

Quote from voltanis13 >>

Quote from TheDycer >>

Quote from voltanis13 >>

Quote from TheDycer >>

Quote from voltanis13 >>

This hunter deck which i made got me to rank 5 ( stopped playing there because im not the try hard type of guy ) before the nerfs with 65% win rate (analytical stats inside). I imagine that after the nerfs it will perform much better. 

 I think it would do worse now. With the tempo rogues pretty well ironed out, you will be facing a deck that does what you want to do better and faster most games. The jade druid matchup barely changed and highlander/control priest has adjusted slightly to deal with more minions on board earlier. Hunter had a bit of time where everyone forgot about what it can do, and it surged for that reason. Hunter is in a weird state where if you can find the couple situations where you can succeed, you will do so in an insane fashion. There are just too many games were you stumble over yourself because turns 1-3 just end up being bad. 

 Ramp druid / idol druid barely changed for control. For aggro/midrange the 1 - 2 extra turns that you get from the nerfs are enough to make it matter. I havent met the new rogue yet but i imagine i would lose only when they get prince kelezeth  very early. 

 You get 1 extra turn before Druid can block your damage and that is assuming no Doomsayer. That is a lot for shaman, but not as much for hunter. It is the same matchup which is split almost 50/50. And rogue doesn't always have to high roll into an early prince. They have enough board interaction and control to win the game vs hunter if hunter goes into top deck mode. Hunter is currently the knock off rogue until they have a way to snowball harder than they currently do with minions on board, or come back from a poor start.

 Feels like you underestimate hunter too much. If rogues had that good board control i wouldnt have 100% win rate against them (ranks 10-5, 7 games) . 

Hunter needs more explosive starts. a 1/3 1 mana beast would help.

I've taken hunter to rank 5 the last 2 seasons fairly easily. It has some bad bad matchups, but I wouldn't even call those unwinnable. Against tempo rogue if you draw crabs and they don't have backstab/si in opening you have a much better chance of winning. Secret mage can be rough if they have perfect opening, but most lists seems to be running burgly bully and antonidas which slows them done, they only run mirror/counterspell which are fairly easy you play around stupid assuming you hold back a 1 drop and tracking to trigger secrets. Jade druid can also be bad since they always have jade idol/blossom in opening to quickly scale their jades and get out their deathknight/UI several turns early. 

I'm currently running a more aggressive deck with stitched tracker, highmane and CotW for control but that hopes to have a strong opening vs tempo rogue/paladin.  I really love the deathknight, often keeping it in mulligan vs warrior, warlock and priest (if I don't have razormaw/bearshark/houndmaster opening).