Hearthpwn

Currently also playing with a slightly different list. Need a bigger sample size to figure out the current final list. But changes are -

-1 elekk
-1 eaglehorn
- Greenskin
- Dr. Boom
- Ragnaros
+2 Belcher
+2 Highmane
+ Sylvanas

Changes are mainly due to me not having enough defensive measures against aggressive decks. The belchers give a little bit more longevity, highmanes hit the board faster than rag and boom. And greenskin had to go, because I dropped the 1 bow, which I dropped since I can mostly sustain a single bow anyway.

The winrate of the deck hasn't changed much though, so more finetuning is necessary and I am still wanting to run cards like Greenskin or Saraad in the final product. 

Change too drastic as was pointed out by many, but I sincerely believe in the dev staff and their stats and that the agreement they came upon is the best for current and future play in tournaments as well as on ladder.

This just means my patron priest might receive some love. I'll also be glad to try out the new warsong, but hopefully it does receive a slight buff to her statline, as the new effect isn't really fit for a 3 mana 2/3.

Control Rogue, Ramp Druid with mechs, Control Hunter with Lock and Load and Freeze mage for me.

In your particular case I have a very simple suggestion. I would just play this deck, incomplete as is, and instead of King Krush use one of the aforementioned substitutions. By playing you should get a feeling of what it 'would be like' if you actually had the card. I think that way you could ascertain yourself if you would prefer it that, or another way.

I'm saying this because I would feel highly responsible if I postponed a really valuable legendary craft for you by about 2 weeks for my particular deck.

I'm missing the sisters for my ramp mech druid deck. I agree that priest has a very appealing 1-mana spell base, but I figured that the ramp properties in a druid deck can milk value more consistently.

The deck DOES work. The mulligan section contains a small writeup on the individual matchups and rank 4 has been attained with this list. I am strongly confident that it can achieve legend, not with this list in particular, but if someone smarter than me can make an effort and do more playtesting with this for fine-tuning, since I myself am really stubborn in that area.

I will say this though. A big part of this decks success is the opponent's ability to play against it - this isn't exactly a very widespread list, as such 80% of the time my opponents play suboptimal against me. The deck is very punishing, to yourself as well. I dare say it would take a minimum of 30 games to grasp how this deck truly works.

As for your second question. Yes, Captain Greenskin is very replacable - Loatheb, Sludge Belcher, Nexus-Champion Saraad will do. It's a particular choice of mine, that works, but in the end a good 5 drop is sufficient.

King Krush CAN be replaced, but bear some of this in mind. It CAN serve as a finisher very often. The way that this deck plays it CAN be very difficult to remove when played. It's a 9-drop which has a high elekk success rate. If you look for replacements that fit all these roles it might be tough to suggest anything. My suggestion is high value threats like Savannah Highmane, Alexstrasza, Sylvanas Windrunner, hell, even North Sea Kraken.

Thanks for that wall of text. A few things.

I tried loatheb for a small bit, but felt more comfortable with greenskin. It just felt so hard to land a decent loatheb, that I preffered the slight upside to having greenskin. But that's preference, and I generally don't play that well with loatheb.

I never mulligan away illuminator, even if I have 2. For precisely the reasons you mentioned. It loses about 80% of the time when jousting and while not incredibly significant, can hurt you. That's why I always keep illuminators, even if just to play for tempo on turn 3, so as to not debilitate elekk rng.

I like the harisson pickup, but that's pure preference. For me the hardest matchup by far is druid - since my current list doesn't run flare, shades are often the death of me. Also any innervate plays can end up adding too much pressure and you can't stabilise at a decent life total. So in essence I'm saying, I wouldn't run harrison, because I feel 50/50 about the warrior matchup. In my experience, you just have to save your l&l till the 10th mana and just outvalue him. Though I have won games off the classic boom, rag, king krush play on turns 7-9.

Oh, and If you really, really want to you can probably sub in Black Knight for 1 Powershot, but I really wouldn't recommend it. It's clunky and situational, all the while taunts are not really an issue for this deck.

In regards to hero powering alot - you are doing it right, that's how it also ends up for me most of the time. However I wouldn't like giants just because of that. In comparison, the threats I'm currently running have more impact on the board. The constant hero powering was also a reason I liked Saraad, but he kinda made it out of the list in favour of thaurissan.

Thanks for giving it a shot!

Thanks for the compliment. That is probably this deck's most redeeming feature.

As for Greenskin - it's probably possible to swap him out for a similar value machine. Greenskin really shines in the control warrior and priest matchup, druid as well, it's decent in the other ones but his main point is to make the control matchups better.

Saraad has a similar role, if you can run him, what else... hmmm Sylvanas Windrunner is an option, as the deck provides ample tools to make sacrificing her easy as well as manipulating the board state for a controlled steal.

Hope you give it a try!

Snipe for Illuminator, Loatheb/Sludge Belcher for Captain Greenskin, Savannah Highmane for Dr. Boom

Generally Hybrid runs freezing trap over explosive. Considering your massive early game, I think it's best swapping those out, even though the explosive trap is massive against secret paladin. I'd also like to see harvests swapped for either arcane golem or argent horserider - maybe a one of each. Harvest golem just seems too passive to me.

That's about it, sorry, I don't play any hybrid hunter, but I'm just evaluating the deck on a whole keeping the cards powerlevels in mind. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the enthusiasm.

Captain Greenskin is kind of a tech choice of mine, The permanency effect is really important, compared to Spiteful Smith, if you are looking for a replacement in that slot Loatheb would do fine.

As for Nexus-Champion Saraad, I'm currently testing a bit with Emperor Thaurissan in his place. The absence of a 6 drop so far hurt my curve at times and he smoothens it out nicely. Really useful for psot L&L turns. As for Gadgetzan Auctioneer - the deck does fine without additional card draw than what it currently has.

Try Gahz'rilla anytime I get that card from an L&L it does quite well, I just don't have it myself so I haven't been able to try it with a real copy.

Other suitable replacements might be Nefarian, Savannah Highmane, Toshley, Sylvanas Windrunner, even good ol' Boulderfist Ogre is a viable option, since this deck isn't particulary weak to silence.

That being said, KK really helps out as a finisher, and the possible boom, rag, kk play is really strong.

I looked at it and I have to say I'm a little envious that you could fit the loatheb in there, as that is something I'm struggling to implement in my list.

I wasn't a fan of deadly shot. Much preffered to waste an extra card along with hunters mark for more reliability.

Also, I don't like mad scientists when the deck contains a lot of secrets, since not knowing what you get might screw you over and I believe this to be especially true for hunter where even the order in which secrets are deployed matters.

I will add a section to the writeup why I left alone certain seemingly staple cards from the deck.

I don't think your approach is completely wrong anyways.

Atleast in the deck I made, the worst payouts are Stablemaster, Call Pet and Feign Death. That's a ~6.8% chance to fizzle. Anything else, I'm not particulary sad to see. 

The problem is - you usually have to have a board to use this. Or clear theirs entirely and even then, the following turn you will have to manage to catch up tempo again.

I can from experience vouch, that even just playing l&l with 2 spells following up, CAN be worth it, just because you were going to use those cards anyway and you get stuff in return.

That's unreasonable - a combo deck is geared towards a specific goal. Lock and Load is a card that generates value, but it can't really win the game by itself, since the results of your payouts will vary greatly.