I must admit I'd be impressed if what's you're saying is true about your rank 5 with CH. I'd like to see your stats - not that I'm telling that you made it all up, but it just seems so unrealistic. I also had experimented with a similar list for quite some time. And while I got outpaced by aggro most of the time, the Charged Devilsaur/King Krush combo was usually too little to seal the game when finally pulled off.
Though Kathrena Winterwisp and the recruit battlecry may be just what it was needed to add an extra bit of explosiveness to the late game.
Anyway, cheers to you for trying an alternative way!
it feels like there's quite a few synergies here that rely heavily on being played in very specific orders. bowman is useless until a beast dies, but there are only 3 beasts. nzoth needs dead minions but there are only 5 deathrattles (and only 3 high-impact late game ones). yes, stitched tracker helps create duplicates of some of these high priority minions, but it still all seems a bit conditional. if your midgame relies on terrorscaling mistresses (or using trackers to find your mistresses), that seems pretty weak - even razakus might crush you on board alone. basically i wonder how useful it is going all-in on bowman, if krush/devilsaur is enough of a wincon, and if this might benefit with a few more beasts/deathrattles. i think at the least, a pair of loot hoarders is pretty much mandatory, given the lack of draw and the reliance on combos.
but i could well be wrong! i like the inclusion of valanar, and i agree that candleshot is going to be very strong (especially with hunters mark)
Control hunter has always been my favorite deck as well, so I like what you are saying. I've been playing prince in mine as well, and it has been great so far. I ended up moving to a heavy tech, heavy draw DK hunter which included prince to a great success (except of course always lost to razakus so never really got higher than 7 on ladder), but I consider that a successful non-aggro hunter deck in my mind.
That being said, with this new legendary, we finally have a better toy to play with. After thinking through all of it, there are a few issues/praises I have with your deck.
1. I think your particular deck is too top heavy. The problem with control hunter is your hero power does nothing at all to influence the board, so you can't really get away with hero powering the first 10 turns at all.
2. Thank you for not adding the new copy a deathrattle in this deck, it doesn't fit with all the high mana cost you have going on. That being said, I think n'zoth doesn't fit well here. Especially with running the greedier Harrison, you will run into hands where you can't play anything more often than not, and run into the same problem of having to hero power early.
3. Deathstalker rexaar imo, after playing many decks revolving around him, does not fit in a deck that has any card with a mana cost higher than him. If you want to play deathstalker, I would make a deck with heavy draw, and heavy tech because after you play him, you want to hero power for your cards, not have a king crush stuck in your hand. Playing BaB cards mean you aren't playing your other cards, so you will sooner or later get overloaded with your hand.
4. I love candleshot, one of the best cards for control hunter imo. 2 is possible too much, but maybe not if you get rid of some secrets for your bow (see number 6)
5. Play dead is just greedy. A low mana card that you won't play unless bowman is on the field, essentially making this another card you can draw early that you won't play until turn 8.
6. I really don't like explosive trap at all, but that could just be me. I would much rather make them lose tempo with freezing trap, or just take it out altogether, and just run the one secret.
7. Not enough beasts imo. You currently have 3 (which are great choices, yay for finally adding king crush), and then whatever you make from BaB (which I explained I think should be taken out). I ran into this same problem, and the solution I came up with is bloodworm. This gives you 5 beasts total, which should be enough, but doesn't kill you if you draw a couple. Another option I thought of is adding cave hydras, bloodworms, and then bonemares, but that's too heavy again with legendary and 3 top beasts.
8. You lack some card draw. You are putting some heavy weight on Harrison (which I think should be taken out anyway) to draw through your deck. I do love stitched tracker for this reason, but it looks like you will be wanting to find bowman/kathrena with this, so that doesn't actually help your hand on turn 3 when you are struggling.
So here is is what I would would do with this deck:
Take out: nzoth, Harrison, explosive trap, play dead, and deathstalker. This gives you 7 cards to work with.
Put in: 2 bloodworm (for 5 beasts total), 2 flare (stick with me on this, 2 mana draw a card is not the worst thing ever, especially if you have none. Plus it gives good counters to heavily played cards /imgonnagethateforthisone), 2 loot hoarder (you really need draw), and then For the last card, leave it to tech. If you see weapons all over the place, put either an ooze or Harrison back in. If the darkness actually happens to help again razakus, throw that in. If pirates come back, throw a Crawler in. I typically like to leave more than one spot open for tech, but I like the way you made the deck, so I'm cool with this.
dfg
I must admit I'd be impressed if what's you're saying is true about your rank 5 with CH. I'd like to see your stats - not that I'm telling that you made it all up, but it just seems so unrealistic. I also had experimented with a similar list for quite some time. And while I got outpaced by aggro most of the time, the Charged Devilsaur/King Krush combo was usually too little to seal the game when finally pulled off.
Though Kathrena Winterwisp and the recruit battlecry may be just what it was needed to add an extra bit of explosiveness to the late game.
Anyway, cheers to you for trying an alternative way!
it feels like there's quite a few synergies here that rely heavily on being played in very specific orders. bowman is useless until a beast dies, but there are only 3 beasts. nzoth needs dead minions but there are only 5 deathrattles (and only 3 high-impact late game ones). yes, stitched tracker helps create duplicates of some of these high priority minions, but it still all seems a bit conditional. if your midgame relies on terrorscaling mistresses (or using trackers to find your mistresses), that seems pretty weak - even razakus might crush you on board alone. basically i wonder how useful it is going all-in on bowman, if krush/devilsaur is enough of a wincon, and if this might benefit with a few more beasts/deathrattles. i think at the least, a pair of loot hoarders is pretty much mandatory, given the lack of draw and the reliance on combos.
but i could well be wrong! i like the inclusion of valanar, and i agree that candleshot is going to be very strong (especially with hunters mark)
Get rid of Bowman.
Control hunter has always been my favorite deck as well, so I like what you are saying. I've been playing prince in mine as well, and it has been great so far. I ended up moving to a heavy tech, heavy draw DK hunter which included prince to a great success (except of course always lost to razakus so never really got higher than 7 on ladder), but I consider that a successful non-aggro hunter deck in my mind.
That being said, with this new legendary, we finally have a better toy to play with. After thinking through all of it, there are a few issues/praises I have with your deck.
1. I think your particular deck is too top heavy. The problem with control hunter is your hero power does nothing at all to influence the board, so you can't really get away with hero powering the first 10 turns at all.
2. Thank you for not adding the new copy a deathrattle in this deck, it doesn't fit with all the high mana cost you have going on. That being said, I think n'zoth doesn't fit well here. Especially with running the greedier Harrison, you will run into hands where you can't play anything more often than not, and run into the same problem of having to hero power early.
3. Deathstalker rexaar imo, after playing many decks revolving around him, does not fit in a deck that has any card with a mana cost higher than him. If you want to play deathstalker, I would make a deck with heavy draw, and heavy tech because after you play him, you want to hero power for your cards, not have a king crush stuck in your hand. Playing BaB cards mean you aren't playing your other cards, so you will sooner or later get overloaded with your hand.
4. I love candleshot, one of the best cards for control hunter imo. 2 is possible too much, but maybe not if you get rid of some secrets for your bow (see number 6)
5. Play dead is just greedy. A low mana card that you won't play unless bowman is on the field, essentially making this another card you can draw early that you won't play until turn 8.
6. I really don't like explosive trap at all, but that could just be me. I would much rather make them lose tempo with freezing trap, or just take it out altogether, and just run the one secret.
7. Not enough beasts imo. You currently have 3 (which are great choices, yay for finally adding king crush), and then whatever you make from BaB (which I explained I think should be taken out). I ran into this same problem, and the solution I came up with is bloodworm. This gives you 5 beasts total, which should be enough, but doesn't kill you if you draw a couple. Another option I thought of is adding cave hydras, bloodworms, and then bonemares, but that's too heavy again with legendary and 3 top beasts.
8. You lack some card draw. You are putting some heavy weight on Harrison (which I think should be taken out anyway) to draw through your deck. I do love stitched tracker for this reason, but it looks like you will be wanting to find bowman/kathrena with this, so that doesn't actually help your hand on turn 3 when you are struggling.
So here is is what I would would do with this deck:
Take out: nzoth, Harrison, explosive trap, play dead, and deathstalker. This gives you 7 cards to work with.
Put in: 2 bloodworm (for 5 beasts total), 2 flare (stick with me on this, 2 mana draw a card is not the worst thing ever, especially if you have none. Plus it gives good counters to heavily played cards /imgonnagethateforthisone), 2 loot hoarder (you really need draw), and then For the last card, leave it to tech. If you see weapons all over the place, put either an ooze or Harrison back in. If the darkness actually happens to help again razakus, throw that in. If pirates come back, throw a Crawler in. I typically like to leave more than one spot open for tech, but I like the way you made the deck, so I'm cool with this.
dfg
If you really managed to hit r5 with control hunter only, then congratulations man, that's some legit shit right there.