Hearthpwn

Alright in response to anyone hating on Jaraxxus, I'm enjoying seeing yall in my rearview as I storm up that ladder. 3 wins in a row now thanks to that card. Two freeze mages who had lethal denied due to the extra turn Jaraxxus bought by buffing me back to 15 hp. Also beat a control warrior after he went face after alex. Simply traded a giant into jarax, laughed as he lost his gorehowl going face, then played Jarax. I mean I'm 10-1 this morning so obviously its working.

the new midrange hunter roaming around is owning handlocks of every kind. no kidding.

Quote from Ro1vas »

Giant mages are pretty much impossible to beat.

Are you talking about Freeze Mage with giants? That's a pretty easy matchup since they don't have any other minions to spend your removal on, so you'll always have the answers for their big guys. You can also deploy giants much faster than they can.

Save your Earthen Rings and Siphon Souls for after they Alexstraza you down to 15 health. You can easily kill through an Ice Block by turn 10 with a good hand, too.

Speaking of the devil, I've been thinking of adding Alextrasza in place of a Mortal Coil to secure my control matchups. I know it's an odd replacement since Mortal Coil and Alextrasza do completely different things, but I've always felt that 1 MC is enough. It doesn't perform like it used to in the one meta matchup were it really shined, Zoo, because 1 hp young priestesses are gone and it's worse than useless against the new Nerubian Egg. 

Unless he is a terrible player, you will just lose to hunter. Sorry to say but we can't beat everyone ;). For me, at rank 14 and 13 I am still seeing tons of zoo, shockadins, and some priests and ofc ramp druids. All of these classes are difficult matchups but not impossible. I do get a little frustrated that handlock seems to be more dependent on things going well early to have a chance vs ramp and zoo which almost always have a good starting hand.

EDIT: Don't forget on freeze mages, they can fireball+frostbolt+ice lance+ice lance for 14 dmg. I was against a mage and had just played Jaraxxus and thought I was safe at 13 hp after killing a 2 hp minion, and was dropped after that nasty combo.

i switched hunter in rank 11 to 8. my handlock just can't get through so many hunters on that rank. im on na btw. now im back playing handlock and we'll see how it goes from here on.

Yeah, Hunter is everywhere right now. I recommend Miracle or Druid until that dies down in a week or two.

what kind of druid is good against hunter?

Quote from Superband »

what kind of druid is good against hunter?

A dead one.

Watcher Druid feels good against Hunter, and taunt Druid with Ancient of War isn't bad if you can force the Hunter to burn a Hunter's Mark early.

There's not so many hunters on the ladder that I feel uncomfortable queuing as Handlock, but maybe i'm luckier than some. Playing Handlock at the start of a season is generally a smart idea  because of the flood of Zoo mathchups, where we are favored. Winning against Zoo players say, 75% of the time and losing to Hunters, worst case scenario, 100% of the time still results in a net gain of ranks because there are much more Zoo players than Hunters; against everyone else, we range from a coin toss to mildly favored.