Man I've been playing a lot of midrange hunter lately and you were right about the whole Marked Shot situation. It sucks, and it's better to not try to replace it with baited arrow, it's not good either.
Same, i'm currently training with the 3 decks and i haven't found marked shot or baited arrow were necessary in the deck, i'm doing well without them. The stats are probably right about how bad is marked shot.
In the recent noproshere's specialist meta report, moluk explained how he played with his decks.
I must admit that Tertiary deck was something i copied from another Qualifier. My main strategy was “let’s hope i will get matched with Warriors” since over 50% of decklists are Warriors or Rogues. Midrange Hunter is terrible against Tempo Rogue and this is the main reason we are not seeing him as much on ladder right now. When i saw Wing Blast and Grizzly in 3rd deck i thought it’s teched for Rogues, so i had to tech Secondary Deck for Warriors. It was very simple (this might not be optimal since you still can switch 2 cards). I wanted to play second Highmane, Rhino and Dire Frenzy, because we need to have more threats than they have answers. With Master’s Call we can draw better than Warriors (3 mana draw 3 cards is insane refill tool), so at some point they run out of cards in hand.
I ended up playing against 2 Hunters (1 Mech, 1 Midrange), 2 Rogues (3 if you count round 8), 1 Paladin and 5 Warriors if i am counting it correctly. Even though i thought Tertiary Deck was suited for Rouges, I didn’t have enough confidence to play it, so i sticked with Primary one (i should have tested 3rd deck, or teched it myself against Rouges, that was my mistake). So in all matchups i either sticked with primary deck(it was better in mirror match, better vs Paladin, better vs Mech Hunter), or switched to Secondary one when i faced Warriors.
It was easy to outvalue Warriors. There is no much to say. You play your cards (you have to be restrained with Tracking sometimes), try to get Dire Frenzy on something great like Huffer, Rhino or Highmane. Also renember that Zul’jin is going to give you another copy of Unleash the Beast (because of Twinspell mechanic), so count your cards in hand or you might end up burning/wasting something.
Vs Rogues you just have to be lucky. I won’t lie to you. I got very lucky (for example i got Deadly Shot from Shimmerfly in the same game my opp made huge Edwin). It’s very hard to win, so sometimes you have to make very risky plays and hope they don’t have something
His third deck wasn't played at all. Hs replay stats show that grizzly, wing blast and lifedrinkers are really bad card. He made the right decision not playing the deck.
So he won the tournament thx to his 1st and 2nd deck. 2nd deck was teched against warriors and worked pretty well, he met 5 warriors and won all the games. 2 highmane + 2 rhino + 2 dire frenzy are enough to beat them.
1st deck wasn't teched against rogue and he still managed to win without cards able to deal with an early edwin.
My secondary deck works perfectly vs warrior, i have a very good matchup. Same with the tertiary deck vs druid, revenge of the wild is great played with springpaw, hogsteed, unleash the hounds, the deck does have a lot of rush minions so this card is almost never dead in hand. Revenge of the wild is too good i want to put it in the primary deck.
Primary deck improves the match up vs rogue. With a classic midrange deck i get wrecked everytime. Rat trap/freezing trap/owl do the job vs edwin and any early threat.
There were few druid, teching against them was not necessary.
I won vs 1 midrange hunter (2-0), 1 bomb hunter (2-0), 2 control warriors (2-0) and 1 bomb warrior (2-1). I lost vs 1 rogue (1-2), 1 bomb warrior (0-2) and 1 khadgar mage (1-2).
Midrange hunter has an edge over control warrior, with the elekk (it's a beast), it was super easy. I just had to wait and dire frenzy twice my rhino or huffer and it was gg. on turn 10 elekk+animal companion(huffer)+dire frenzy = game over for the warrior Bomb warrior is harder since they are far more agressive, we can't be passive here. Vicious scalehide was helpful.
Teching the ooze in the first list is a great idea, master's call draws me 3 beast or tutors the ooze. Not bad at all. I lost vs the rogue because in the third match, she drew the nuts. But the list feels great vs them. Rat trap + dire frenzy on vicious scalehide is our winning condition vs rogue, if i have that turn 2 and turn 6 it's an easy victory. I don't feel helpless like with the hs replay list (30% winrate vs rogue).
I struggled a lot vs the mage. When they tech against aggro decks, it's almost impossible to connect to their face, we have to clean their board or they can khadgar + conjurer and it's game over. I have to find the right techs to counter them.
Yep at first you don't want to pollute your master's call but vs rogue it feels so great to be sure to draw an ooze. Rogues know that vs midrange hunter they can poison their waggle pick and go crazy with an 6 atk weapon. Having the oozes save you from losing 8 hp or more. But vs the other matchup, it's feels bad to draw 1 card from master's call. I have 8 beasts and 1 ooze. So i often manage to draw 3 beasts.
I was unlucky there were a majority of rogue in this qualifier but i only met 1. So my primary deck was mostly a burden than an advantage.
The second list vs warrior is a free win. I took the inspiration from another player. The idea of putting elekk in the side deck vs warrior is a genious idea. It's a beast so it can be drawn by master's call and synergzes with dire frenzy allowing us to have more big threats and delay fatigue. It's a better elysiana for hunter. haha
Same, i'm currently training with the 3 decks and i haven't found marked shot or baited arrow were necessary in the deck, i'm doing well without them. The stats are probably right about how bad is marked shot.
In the recent noproshere's specialist meta report, moluk explained how he played with his decks.
https://noproshere.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/team-noproshere-specialist-meta-report-6/
Moluk’s Midrange Hunter
His third deck wasn't played at all. Hs replay stats show that grizzly, wing blast and lifedrinkers are really bad card. He made the right decision not playing the deck.
So he won the tournament thx to his 1st and 2nd deck.
2nd deck was teched against warriors and worked pretty well, he met 5 warriors and won all the games.
2 highmane + 2 rhino + 2 dire frenzy are enough to beat them.
1st deck wasn't teched against rogue and he still managed to win without cards able to deal with an early edwin.
My secondary deck works perfectly vs warrior, i have a very good matchup. Same with the tertiary deck vs druid, revenge of the wild is great played with springpaw, hogsteed, unleash the hounds, the deck does have a lot of rush minions so this card is almost never dead in hand. Revenge of the wild is too good i want to put it in the primary deck.
Primary deck improves the match up vs rogue. With a classic midrange deck i get wrecked everytime. Rat trap/freezing trap/owl do the job vs edwin and any early threat.
I'm struggling vs bomb hunter though.
I just did a las vegas qualifier and finished with 5-3 score during the swiss round.
That's an ok score i think for a first time.
Here's my decklists : https://www.yaytears.com/battlefy/5c5b7944f075df03265b58d3
Click on my name, i'm rank 25 to see my decks
First one targets rogue
Second warrior
Third mage
There were few druid, teching against them was not necessary.
I won vs 1 midrange hunter (2-0), 1 bomb hunter (2-0), 2 control warriors (2-0) and 1 bomb warrior (2-1).
I lost vs 1 rogue (1-2), 1 bomb warrior (0-2) and 1 khadgar mage (1-2).
Midrange hunter has an edge over control warrior, with the elekk (it's a beast), it was super easy. I just had to wait and dire frenzy twice my rhino or huffer and it was gg.
on turn 10 elekk+animal companion(huffer)+dire frenzy = game over for the warrior
Bomb warrior is harder since they are far more agressive, we can't be passive here. Vicious scalehide was helpful.
Teching the ooze in the first list is a great idea, master's call draws me 3 beast or tutors the ooze. Not bad at all.
I lost vs the rogue because in the third match, she drew the nuts. But the list feels great vs them. Rat trap + dire frenzy on vicious scalehide is our winning condition vs rogue, if i have that turn 2 and turn 6 it's an easy victory.
I don't feel helpless like with the hs replay list (30% winrate vs rogue).
I struggled a lot vs the mage. When they tech against aggro decks, it's almost impossible to connect to their face, we have to clean their board or they can khadgar + conjurer and it's game over. I have to find the right techs to counter them.
Congrats man, that's pretty good. Really interesting choices regarding ooze and elekk
Yep at first you don't want to pollute your master's call but vs rogue it feels so great to be sure to draw an ooze. Rogues know that vs midrange hunter they can poison their waggle pick and go crazy with an 6 atk weapon.
Having the oozes save you from losing 8 hp or more.
But vs the other matchup, it's feels bad to draw 1 card from master's call. I have 8 beasts and 1 ooze. So i often manage to draw 3 beasts.
I was unlucky there were a majority of rogue in this qualifier but i only met 1. So my primary deck was mostly a burden than an advantage.
The second list vs warrior is a free win. I took the inspiration from another player. The idea of putting elekk in the side deck vs warrior is a genious idea. It's a beast so it can be drawn by master's call and synergzes with dire frenzy allowing us to have more big threats and delay fatigue. It's a better elysiana for hunter. haha