Hearthpwn

We have been hearing that every expansion.People saying "be patient" and "we have not seen all the cards yet" yet everytime the hype dies down after the optimists try out the deck and find how much it sucks. I don't want to get negative about all the hopes, I personally am hoping for the best like every past expansion, but at some point you should face reality.

It is true that devilsaur is generally better than sandworm but Swamp king dred changes your turn 8. The opponent is forced to use resources on it else they get hit in the face for 9 dmg. If dred is impactful enough that the enemy's board is empty by turn 8, Sandworm will be better than devilsaur, whose charge would be wasted.

With the release of small raptor, the quest is in a better shape and the game plan can fit into midrange hunter. Looks like you don't necessarily need to do the gimmicky spam of 1-drops to finish the quest. You will only need to include 2xFire Fly, 2xsmall raptor, another 1 drop, along with the quest to be able to use it. Tol'vir Warden looks way better, and guarantees that at some point you get to draw all pieces.

The game plan will not be to force finish the quest asap, rather, to play like a standard midrange which is way more consistent, together with those 1-drops, until the quest is finished. At this point, by turn 8,9,10, you get to top deck mode as hunter lacks card draw, and the amount of raptors will not affect your draw consistency that much, since as hunter you will have a lot of unused mana each turn, and will be able to spend 1 mana by cycling those raptors. Looks more like a late-game asset than an early game rush for value.

Is it case-sensitive though? Abomination

Abomination

Edit: No it's not. That's great.

The number of turns are subjective. I remember people whining about  pre-nerf cotw, calling midrange hunter a face deck. At that time, everyone was playing greedy decks like c'thuun druid and warrior, n'zoth rogue.

Nowadays we are dealing with turn 4 lethal.

I don't think aggro decks should be defined by the average number of turns per game, rather, by the decision making induced to the opponent. Aggro decks should prevent them from making greedy setups while putting them on the clock. It should give them the choice, and be able to punish them for the greedy one. Pirate warrior is a problem because the opponent does not even have that choice. It is defend over and over again and hoping they don't have good draws.

It is a gimmick deck and forces you to include a lot of 1-drops in your deck. I don't see why people think it is meta-defining.

It is awful in every deck that is not the gimmicky 1-drop vomit deck. Even the 1-drop vomit deck is bad in both the viability and the fun aspects. Viability because you don't have much other choice than to spam 1-cost cards, which may not have much effect on the board if you are behind (it will be similar to murloc decks; one well-timed AoE and you pretty much lose). About the fun aspect? It is bland for the player to vomit 1-drops all game long. And it is unfun for the opponent to see the hunter play a sub-optimal, bad 1-drops just to complete the quest. Very little decision making until quest completion, where, again, you just spam 1-drops again.

Also i hoped for a quest that gives incentive to play cards like explosive shot, dred, longbow, all those interesting high-mana cards that prolly won't see much play in a 1-drop vomit deck.

It's only the PTSD from last year's secret paladin and the general hunter hate that causes the hate for this card.

It is a lot different now that there is eater of secrets, and that this card does not play secrets from the deck. If you were to get rid of paladin's secrets, said paladin would still have a hand of cards to play.

The hunter will have to have an almost perfect turn 3 with this card and loads of secrets to be the threat everyone is whining about. Even then it is too risky a play. It is similar to a rogue building a deck of very low-cost cards so as to buff edwin van cleef.

Another counterargument is that hunter has no synergies with secrets, except for the bow. Although hunter secrets are generally very strong stand-alone cards, they are not good enough to get ahead, let alone win the game; simply because of the way secrets work; secrets are reactive cards, thus, give no options for hunters to abuse the advantage on the board.

More like illdan the forsaken. Battlecry: backstab this minion. At the end of your turn cast entomb on this minion.

If in standard, probaby LoE. If in wild, definitely naxxramas

You do realise this thread is from 2014 right?

I agree that secret pally is op because it has no weak plays at all. But even they complain about entomb stealing their cards. Blizzard balanced hunter around highmane, which was admittedly too good a card. Now hunter is overreliant on highmane to win games and lacks other high end cards. This makes midrange hunter suffer even more than secret pally against entomb. As soon as the priest gets to know that it is midrange hunter he will keep the entomb for highmane. Dr boom gets BGH'ed or SW:deathed easily, so hunter is left out of offensive options.

Against renolock it is a gamble; Many times i have had highmane on the board but still lost because after the heal, you lack card draw, which secret pally does not need because of the sheer value of its minions as compensation. Also MC is a pseudo card draw anyway.

Against midrange druid even with highmane you have a hard time to finish the opponent off before they draw their op combo, because of their taunts and AoL heal.

It is undeniable that highmane has a lot of value. I am unsure whether or not another good hunter card would make it op like secret pally, but blizzard sure made hunter relatively weaker compared to other classes by balancing it around highmane. So yeah I think blizzard should be less fearful of highmane, and give hunter another powerful card, not as op as highmane, but still not as bad as those from the recent expansions.

It was definitely too strong a few months ago, still is, but it is considered fine since, as you said, it is essential for any non-face hunter deck. And yeah, this is probably why blizzard is reluctant in releasing awesome hunter cards. But now highmane is either removed too easily or simply gets played around.

No bias here, I hate facing this card, but I don't see hunter competing with other decks without another decent card. So no, blizzard should not hold back on releasing a good hunter card just because of highmane.

Midrange hunter is actually awful against renolock. My version of midrange hunter is the deathlord one, so i have double hunter's mark and deathlords. These help to take down those high hp taunts and sometimes to summon an azure drake or a reno out of their deck, so that version may be better.

You may win by prioritizing board control. When you have flooded your board enough with good threats like shredders and highmanes, you can burst him down with double KC. It may seem obvious but i am still going to say it: don't waste your burn spells if you don't have lethal.

If he gets to play reno your chance of winning is very low. you lack card draw to be able to keep up with his late game threats and you have to pray that he doesn't have jaraxxus.

I'd say there are no specific mulligans, maybe keep your highmanes and shredders and look for a great curve.

You can try noninfidel's deathlord hunter, it works against most aggro decks. But it backfires easily against priest and warrior, which are the worst matchups

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/3x4x20/legend_with_deathlord_hunter_guide_and_thoughts/

Hate me but I don't think this card is as effective as people think. Although it may feel rewarding when RNGsus smiles as you, it lacks so much consistency its ridiculous. Besides, to get value off of it you will want to use it along low cost cards like hunter's mark and arcane shot, which will most likely be spent in the early game, or to pick down high hp targets.