Hearthpwn

I made a Thunderbringer deck for Wild.  With Flark's Boom-Zooka, Charged Devilsaurs, Dire Frenzy, Stranglethorn Heart and Zul'jin.  For memerific fun.  Here's the code:

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Hunter has to play aggressive, because 13 nerfs to 12 different cards (not counting neutrals) have killed hunter's midrange and combo archetypes.

Also, it's taken three expansions worth of arcane spell support to finally make Eversong Portal playable, and it will rotate to Wild in another five months, and may not even be played past the next few weeks.

Let hunter keep one competitive archetype, for Misha's sake.  And if you don't want hunters to play an aggressive face-type deck, don't nerf all their midrange cards.

I think I'm done climbing with this deck, this month; facing too many of the same druid and miracle rogue opponents at this rank, and while I can still win those match-ups, I'd need to change the deck quite a bit to do so more consistently.

If anyone's interested, I'll throw up some gameplay video.  By the way, this deck can be pretty easily modified into a more meme-y, but potentially more spectactular, Gahz'rilla combo.  (If you have that card, and want to have some fun.  Let me know if you want me to post my list.)

I'm also playing with a "One-Punch Monke" deck that buffs the ever living daylights out of just Knuckles.  There are so many ways to build the deck, I never run out of things to try.

Quote from Ophion-EU >>

Spell damage only affects spells that deal damage.

 Not exactly; see Eversong Portal, Unexpected Results, and Cram Session.

I'd like to see Quiver improved by spell damage; the card might see meta play in that case.  However, it's still occasionally useful in decks with a limited number of spells, of which you really want to tutor.

Never, but never, play a spell that Mark gives you with Lorewalker Cho.  +1 for Gahz'rilla combo. :-)

Thanks for the note!  I make a lot of bad decks, so it's a treat when someone has success with one. :-D

This may not see a lot of play.  It's not like it's +1/+1, and hunter already has plenty of damage.  Could be interesting for menagerie decks and AaBJ combos; but those aren't really things in the current meta.

Team 5 might know that if they knew anything about deck construction in Wild. Or had bothered to do more playtesting than none. Harumph.

Oh, they know about deck construction in Wild; they've told us in multiple interviews that they don't care. They've actually gone as far as to try to convince us that the current state of Wild is a good one, that they actually like it like this.

"Let Wild be wild" is the functional equivalent of "let Wild be a $hit-show."  And that's depressing.

Blizzard is not going to fix Wild's chronic problems.  They've pretty much said so.  Time to get off the copium.  It's Twist, or nothing, so let's hope they don't mess up Twist.

Intended.  "Shuffle" key word means "rearrange all the cards in your deck."  Not: "put the card(s) into random positions in your currently ordered deck."

There are times you can take advantage of this when it's your turn, too.

Quote from uluth >>

Quote from Gnorf >>

Quote from Tarious >>

"Hound isn't a problem, Gargon, that no one plays, is the problem."

Hunter cleave is not a problem, correct.  No one plays Gargon *right now*, but if Hound is nerfed, don't be surprised if they do.  Hunters have cleave for the 8 months at least.  It's a skill-check for hunters' opponents: learn to play around it.

Or, QQ some more.

I’m willing to do a bet right now that even though hollow hound was nerfed to 3/4, it will still see more play than Gargon. The reason being that even though it has less health, it can get buffed to the point where it doesn’t matter. It will still hit once and heal you for 15+. Gargon cannot do that. you keep insinuating that cleave is the hot topic here but it’s not. If it was, all warriors would be running that one new mech that magnetized with cleave. But it’s so irrelevant that I forgot the name of the card. 

My prediction about Gargon was predicated on Blizzard nerfing Hound "into unplayability" (you may have missed that quote).  They didn't.  Blizzard apparently agrees with my assesment of hunter: it's fine, if a bit strong relative to the current meta.  Hence the very light nerfs.  You're right that no Hound Hunter will drop Hound for Gargon with this nerf.  Because Hound is still very, very playable.

If Hound didn't cleave, it'd just be a worse Zilliax. Warriors don't have Always a Bigger Jormungar: Hunter cleave is hot, warrior cleave is not.

My other prediction is that we'll continue to see whining about hunter, Hound and Singer.

Quote from Tarious >>

People play Hound cause it's cleave AND lifesteal. 9+ healing and 9+ damage, so does 18 health worth of effects minimum. No one's going to play Gargon even if they removed hound from the game. It requires too much of a setup for easy to remove board control.

They'll play Gargon with AaBJ.  Lifesteal doesn't matter if you're just dead.  And "too much setup"?  Are you kidding?  When hunters are playing Zombees, Worms, wild seeds, etc.?

You know what would keep Gargon out of hunters' decks?  People learning to play around cleave.

Quote from Tarious >>

"Hound isn't a problem, Gargon, that no one plays, is the problem."

Hunter cleave is not a problem, correct.  No one plays Gargon *right now*, but if Hound is nerfed, don't be surprised if they do.  Hunters have cleave for the 8 months at least.  It's a skill-check for hunters' opponents: learn to play around it.

Or, QQ some more.

You’re missing the point of what makes Hollow Hound an issue in hunter.

I didn't miss the point, I just disagree.  The deck  is so strong because it runs 30 or 40 good, efficient cards (and an excellent finisher if it survives to turn 10 and gets lucky).  Why does hunter get so many efficient cards?  Because it doesn't cheat outrageous amounts of mana; to be competitive, hunter needs efficient cards and good tempo.

Hound gets a lot of the hate right now, and it is a good card, but it's not the whole reason hunter is so strong, and even if Hound is nerfed into unplayability, hunter will still be strong.  You dismiss Gargon,  but you shouldn't.  Infusing it is not difficult, and because it's cheaper, the combo damage potential is even greater.  Fail to play around cleave at your peril.

Edit: Should hunter have strong lifesteal available to it?  I think it's fine, especially if the design team wants hunter to be able to play to a late game win condition.  Other aggro-y classes have lifesteal or health gain options... at this point "class identity" isn't a good enough reason to deny hunter good recoverability and survivability.  Doing so would keep hunter in a "face" deck ghetto (ugh).

Quote from DatMageDoe >>

Hot take: Hollow Hound will dodge the next nerf. The main reason for this is because it's also a Death Knight card, where the Hound is substantially more fair, and it doesn't make sense for the DK decks struggling to maintain relevance get nerfed for the sins of Hunter.

I've got a hotter take: hunter is fine.  Yes, it's strong relative to the current meta -- I get frustrated when I lose to it, too -- but nothing it does seems unfair.  Hound gets most of the complaints, and my guess is that it's the card that'll get nerfed, but hunter also has Gargon, which is 2 mana cheaper... so learn to play around cleave (yes, it can be done).  As for the Krush finisher: that's turn 10, and gets stopped by a 2 mana taunt; compared to mage and shaman killing you over the top, from hand, on turn 7... that's very reasonable.

Hunter is fine.  Hunter gameplay is what hearthstone should be.  Buff the under-performing classes.