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Quote from voltanis13 >>

This hunter deck which i made got me to rank 5 ( stopped playing there because im not the try hard type of guy ) before the nerfs with 65% win rate (analytical stats inside). I imagine that after the nerfs it will perform much better. 

[EASY RANK 5] 65% Win Rate (koft) Midrange Hunter Deck by user-19815266 - Aug 23, 2017 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (23) 1x The Black Knight 2x Rat Pack 1x Golakka Crawler 2x Savannah Highmane 2x Alleycat 1x Bearshark 1x Bonemare 2x Crackling Razormaw 2x Dire Wolf Alpha 2x Jeweled Macaw 1x Nesting Roc 2x Scavenging Hyena 2x Houndmaster 2x Tundra Rhino	Ability (5) 1x Unleash the Hounds 2x Animal Companion 2x Kill Command	Weapon (2) 2x Eaglehorn Bow
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Bumping this with the recent advancement of hunter to tier 1

What do you all think of how the meta is shaping out now that hunter (and rogue) are tier 1 vs Jade druid and Razakus priest (and token shaman)?

Quote from Slydie >>

Quote from sicknantos >>

Quote from Slydie >>

To be tier 1, a deck has to do very unfair things. The OP mentions a lot of cards which are supposed to support a control play style for hunter. I am sorry, but control has never been the hunter's strong side, and even a very good DK does not make up for it. Plenty of other attempts have been made as well.

I think the problems are 2-fold:

-The hunter heropower is the complete opposite of control. The DK actually has pretty bad synergy with the class, as he requires you to completely change the gameplan when you play him.

-The core set has some very strong cards, Kill Command, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow and Savannah Highmane. The downside? They are all very strong midrange cards, which showed when Call of the Wild was the perfect finisher at the top of the curve, or when 2-mana Starving Buzzard let you draw every answer, or even when Undertaker started an almost unstoppable snowball. Those 4 classic cards played big parts in all of those decks. Making control hunter viable makes the class lose it's identity, and even stronger (broken?) control cards would have to be released, to make up for the anti-synergy of the heropower. That being said, it is still a very good class, Crackling Razormaw is an extremely strong card, but for now, the destiny is anti-control midrange or aggro.

 Good points! I have one question: do you think tier 1 decks have to be unfair to be tier 1? I figured that was what Tier S was for (like our recent druid overlords showed us). I know it's a level of deck build that is incredibly tight and powerful, but I'm not sure every tier 1 deck is unfair to face or Blizzard would get way more serious complaints about those decks that they'd have to address.

I mean, I loathe facing pirate warrior (as an example), but it can be beat by multiple classes if the counter can be met when facing them.

 This can probably be discussed forever, but yes, imo tier 1 decks should do unfair stuff, but only in good matchups or with good draws. The last tier 1 hunter deck, the CotW midrange, was a typical case. It specialized in killing between turn 7 and 9, countering the Reno, C'thun and N'Zoth decks of the day "unfairly." It got nerfed, but with aggrodecks killing between turn 5 and 6 being common with MSoG, that nerf was unnecessary imo, itbwas a victim of the meta, it was never that dominant on ladder, but the bonkers 2-8 curve in Wild got me my golden Hunter.

I am not even quite sure what it means to be tier 1, but I would say countering tier S decks gets you a long way. If there is no tier S, being a good "counter" is probably not enough, you need to be defining the meta, and have other decks tech against you.

 

Quote from YogoWafelPL >>

Sicknantos, my comment was actually a reply to a comment made by Dr_Scaphandre, but since the reply function kinda sucks on Hearthpwn it came off as something aggressive towards you, and for that I am sorry.

And onto your point, and perhaps the whole question of the thread, I think that hunter can become tier 1 and is actually on the verge of becoming it. However, I don't think that the power of the deck is going to be in the later game cards which you mentioned in the OP, instead to make hunter better even more early/midgame cards have to be released for him. Right now, DK Rexxar is almost all the late game the deck needs, and if Hunter gets a good 3 drop, because afaik the only ones are the Bow and Animal Companion, he will be the class to beat.

Quote from Slydie >>

To be tier 1, a deck has to do very unfair things. The OP mentions a lot of cards which are supposed to support a control play style for hunter. I am sorry, but control has never been the hunter's strong side, and even a very good DK does not make up for it. Plenty of other attempts have been made as well.

I think the problems are 2-fold:

-The hunter heropower is the complete opposite of control. The DK actually has pretty bad synergy with the class, as he requires you to completely change the gameplan when you play him.

-The core set has some very strong cards, Kill Command, Animal Companion, Eaglehorn Bow and Savannah Highmane. The downside? They are all very strong midrange cards, which showed when Call of the Wild was the perfect finisher at the top of the curve, or when 2-mana Starving Buzzard let you draw every answer, or even when Undertaker started an almost unstoppable snowball. Those 4 classic cards played big parts in all of those decks. Making control hunter viable makes the class lose it's identity, and even stronger (broken?) control cards would have to be released, to make up for the anti-synergy of the heropower. That being said, it is still a very good class, Crackling Razormaw is an extremely strong card, but for now, the destiny is anti-control midrange or aggro.

Quote from YogoWafelPL >>

So, you want hunter to become the same thing as shaman last year? Because that's exactly what's going to happen. Classes NEED some sort of a weakness so they don't get degenerate and toxic,

Quote from raponZ6 >>

To be honest Giand Sand Worm is potentially the slowest cards from all that you reguested. I play hs since august last year and back then i got excited by old gods and also by the Sandworm becouse of its effect that could attack again. It has a good potential to control the board by a 9 mana combo with Bestial Wrath. I tried a couple of times to make it work but to waste you mana for an 8 8 in a single turn seemed pretty worthless and sometimes he either didnt survived or my opponent's board was empty. In the current meta it wont work even tho it is slightly a slower meta than the Un Goro meta. IMO Swamp King Dread is an improved version of sandworm (since the effect are quite simmilar) that can assure the board controll when he is played, 1mana less and +1/+1 in stats are so valuable.

atm i am wondering to craft Keleseth for completing my quest hunter, i ll do it in about 2 weeks or less bcs i am quite busy atm. Let me know of you got some interesting ideas with the sand worm or other hunter cards. Have a nice day!

Well it's interactive for the priest, and sure you can argue anything done in the game is technically interaction, but when your opponent feels nothing they do matters in the face of an inevitable gamestate such as the razakus priest end game, I can't say I was interacting with anything, because even their removals and Silence spells were only to facilitate continued turnover of the DK hero power, not to actively counter the moves I was making on-board. 

Interaction generally doesn't feel helpless or pointless. It's more so just "action" on the priest's part.

It's perfectly fine to keep. Just build out more aggressive murloc decks, maybe built for bursts. And if you're running Paladin, you can still health buff with Coldlight Seer and even Sunkeeper Tarim.

btw: imo the nerf is a good thing, it's just very poorly timed. We still need aggro counters and board pressure vs jade druid and highlander priest to keep them from hitting Tier S.

Quote from raponZ6 >>

First of all let my explain your desired cards to be played. 

1.Abominable Bowman is really good actually. Most of the people pretend it to summon a 1/1 body or a Macaw.WRONG. It is nuts in a slower deathrattle hunter with few beasts that are good to summon such as Corpse Widdow, Savannah Highmane the 5/5 Devilsaur from the Devilsaur's Egg or Arfus and afterall a 2/2 Hyena isn't that bad even it has a low chance. An other type of deck is simply Big Hunter where i use Swamp King Dread, Arfus, Highmane, the Bowman and play dead as the key targets. (see the screenshot)

2.Swamp King Dread is also not the worst pick in a midrange deck to help you in the late game while you to keep the board control or to make it. Most of the people don't know how to play around him and just play battlecries just forgetting about his effect.

3.Toxic Arrow This card isn't bad either. There is a type of deck that runs a few 3+healthed minions such as Defender of Argus, Meat Wagon, Stonehill Defender and even Abomination.

4.Giant Sand Worm will rotate as well so i see no point on evaluing him.

Afterall, hunter is my favourite class and i managed to build some cool decks with him. I am really confident in getting a new weapon with deathrattle in the next expansion and some good tools to get him out of the trash place.

 

TL;DR - Can/should hunter define the meta? Why or why not?

I know we still have to see the last expansion of this year before we go making final decisions, but with the recent nerfs and noted bump up in Hunter usage recently, could it be that hunter has the tools to become a meta definer once again? And do you think Hunter could ever define a healthy meta?

With so many great tools that don't fit into the aggro and midrange builds currently going around right now, I just question if it could happen. Abominable Bowman is a fascinating card, but it's unwieldy in Hunter. Swamp King Dred is a great card, but in Hunter it feels too big and tends to eat up a slot that could offer more early game and burst options, or more sticking power. Poison Arrow seems to be a spell totally lost in hunter at the moment; there aren't enough 3-health minions that could truly justify an Arcane Shot that give the target Poisonous that hunter could reasonably use in place of the smaller and more effective minions, and the bigger ones rarely need Poisonous to clear by the time they're on the board (they're usually jamming face and applying pressure). Giant Sand Worm seems to have become a meme card, generated by Free From Amber and Jeweled Macaw, not a reliable tool for hunter's current fast and sticky boards. These are all cards I'd love to see find a home in ladder matches outside of Trolden highlight reels. They each have fantastic abilities and could easily outvalue other decks if only they had the support for a slower (dare I say control-oriented?) hunter. And yes, I'm aware of the difficulties in designing around face hunter, since any reliable card draw or removal/burn spells could easily be abused for a return to turn 4 losses to "me go face" SMOrc barrages. This is part of why I wonder if it's possible for a hunter-influenced meta to happen.

I ask because I know there are many players with deeper insights to the game than I have. I've only been playing since a few months before Old Gods was announced, and I'm still learning to see my lines in matches, and still learning how to build my own decks without relying on net decking all the time.

So, do you think Hunter can and will have a part in defining the meta?

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UPDATE: Looks like Hunter has hit tier 1, albeit without those cards I love so dearly and see so rarely! But that's ok, because I love mid-range hunter.

Now the question is, "Is this a healthy hunter to have with tier 1 power?" Often I see hunter builds that run obvious face structure but throw Highmanes and a Hydra or two in and claim "mid-range" (though they lack any true slower gameplay to legitimize that claim). And is it good to encourage these face hunter builds? I'm tempted to say NO given face hunter's history as a cancer and oppressive deck, but I also don't believe in limiting an archetype in a class to always being bad for the game; we need aggro as much as we need mid-range and control to keep the game balanced and fun.

I mean, it's great for a single play, but for players like me who want to experiment with the brawl parameters, this deck blows so hard when you face it (and yes, even standard/wild ranked and casual).

Turn 8+ for 75% of those matches is me watching the most boring, predictable face combo possible for 1-2 turns until I die.

Not saying it doesn't have it's place in the game, it just #feelsbadman when they hit that Raza / DK in perfect time while just stalling and removing everything you play. Super non-interactive.

I just listen to the podcast version. Rarely do they discuss anything that requires visuals alongside their commentary.

Still not meta-defining, but this card has proven itself very useful for hunter, especially in the hands of competent players. Good tool to have with the impending loss of Kindly Grandmother next rotation.

Golden animations in this game are 9 out fo 10 times very cool.

But does druid really need anything right now? They did just get Ultimate Infestation, Malfurion the Pestilent, and Spreading Plague in a single expansion...