This seems to stem from the early stages of the game. Midrange Hunter was absurdly strong from the start, through Naxx and up until League of Explorers. Even during the League of Explorers expansion, Face Hunter was absurdly strong. There is reasonably a major fear that the game will be dangerously skewed like that again and Hunter is clearly one of the reasons why.
I almost can't believe myself that I'm saying this and I probably shouldn't because I'm getting too tired but I start to believe that hunter will be at least tier 2 in the next meta. Hunter gets pretty good early game tools actually from this expansion even though you might not realize it at the first glanze. Hunter's weapon arsenal gets boosted by Candleshot which is actually pretty good early game board control card which also let's you play pirates if you include Eaglehorn's Bow in your deck (and you will, this is hunter after all). Dire Mole is another great early game buffable card which can be e.g. 4/3 on turn 2 if you happen to get Crackling Razormaw. Corridor Creeper can be played probably on turn 4 with 3-4 mana which is a nice tempo gain. This is possible because you have cards like Alleycat, Snake Trap (which is actually pretty good secret) and Unleash the Hounds. So my point is that Hunter will probably not be as bad as people think. It just won't go to the direction Blizzard promoted it to us.
Early game was never really the issue with Hunter. Mid to late game was & will remain the issue. A majority of my Hunter wins over the last few expansions were simply due to having a strong opening hand that I am able to snowball my opponent within the first 5 turns, then finish them off Kill Command + Hero Power. That became more difficult as Team 5 gave numerous classes ways to deal with early game aggro. Once your board was wiped out, it became very difficult to regain control of it. With the cards you mentioned along with Cave Hydra, Hunter will have an even better early game but the late game issues will continue to exist.
I almost can't believe myself that I'm saying this and I probably shouldn't because I'm getting too tired but I start to believe that hunter will be at least tier 2 in the next meta. Hunter gets pretty good early game tools actually from this expansion even though you might not realize it at the first glanze. Hunter's weapon arsenal gets boosted by Candleshot which is actually pretty good early game board control card which also let's you play pirates if you include Eaglehorn's Bow in your deck (and you will, this is hunter after all). Dire Mole is another great early game buffable card which can be e.g. 4/3 on turn 2 if you happen to get Crackling Razormaw. Corridor Creeper can be played probably on turn 4 with 3-4 mana which is a nice tempo gain. This is possible because you have cards like Alleycat, Snake Trap (which is actually pretty good secret) and Unleash the Hounds. So my point is that Hunter will probably not be as bad as people think. It just won't go to the direction Blizzard promoted it to us.
Early game was never really the issue with Hunter. Mid to late game was & will remain the issue. A majority of my Hunter wins over the last few expansions were simply due to having a strong opening hand that I am able to snowball my opponent within the first 5 turns, then finish them off Kill Command + Hero Power. That became more difficult as Team 5 gave numerous classes ways to deal with early game aggro. Once your board was wiped out, it became very difficult to regain control of it. With the cards you mentioned along with Cave Hydra, Hunter will have an even better early game but the late game issues will continue to exist.
Exactly right. It's easy to argue Hunter is the most reliant on drawing on curve currently in Hearthstone.
Other classes weaknesses/deficiencies have been addressed. Gone wide against druid? No problem, Spreading Plague. Priest? Pint-Size Potion, Potion of Madness, Mass Dispel (to an extent) etc. The point is most classes have some way to to regain control of the board or stall out enough to try and regain tempo.
Hunter doesn't have this at all. It's neat to see them try and push hunter in a different direction. I don't think the necessary changes were made obviously. Hunter still has mediocre card draw at best with Flare (which is useless most of the time and a loss of tempo even on turn 2). and Tracking. Tracking is almost a liability in this deck type if you're looking for an answer and find it, but have to discard a win condition which appears to be Deathstalker Rexxar.
New deck archetypes require a lot of support to make them work. With the lack of neutral spells and card draw a "control hunter" will be quite difficult. To My Side! has received a lot of flack for good reason. It's an epic, with a VERY specific condition, that provides no more value than the card it represents ( Animal Companion ). I would have rather seen it something like "Deal 3 damage, Summon an Animal Companion, Draw a Card." Or Deal 3, Summon a 3/3 Bear with taunt, draw a card. 3 damage = 3 mana, as with the 3/3 taunt, and the card draw would be worthy of the epic nature. It would also make this card not suck in arena. I hope Blizzard doesn't allow this card to show up in Arena because it's even more worthless there.
It's even more frustrating when thinking about hunter legendaries. Professor Putricide could have been so many things. Play a secret draw a card etc.
With most of these cards hunter is going to be in a very similar spot. Tempo/midrange that is heavily reliant on drawing on curve. Get a lousy starting hand? How are you supposed to come back?
I don't think Hunter will be as bad as people think. The point is that it won't be nearly as good as the other classes. As people that play the game, we should be voting with our wallet. With the amount of money Blizzard has why can't every single expansion introduce awesome cards for every single class consistently? Why does it take them so long to make adjustments to a digital game when one of the main strengths is supposed to be the ease and speed of making said changes?
This seems to stem from the early stages of the game. Midrange Hunter was absurdly strong from the start, through Naxx and up until League of Explorers. Even during the League of Explorers expansion, Face Hunter was absurdly strong. There is reasonably a major fear that the game will be dangerously skewed like that again and Hunter is clearly one of the reasons why.
Get nae nae'd!