Hearthpwn

Nerf them to the ground.

I didn't know this nerf was even needed. I mainly play Warrior and Warlock decks, and my key strategy against hunters has always been a systematic removal of their minions while maintaining a smaller, buffed board presence in order to minimize the damage potential of UTH. That or I will bait both copies out of less experienced hunters, knowing I can establish board control afterward. I just thought that was how one dealt with hunters.

I can totally see Blizzard's logic here.  Hunter was one of the few characters a new player could field competitively without needing a bunch of epic and legendary cards to make work.  If Blizzard wants to make money off these people, they need a way to force everyone to get a Leeroy to be able to compete.  I built my hunter rush deck specifically to go up against miracle rogues and zoolocks and I feel like Blizzard just totally screwed over my ability to maintain dominance over these top tier classes.  I've been beaten tons of times by various manipulations of the Leeroy card without even having the option to defend against it, so it seems silly for them to go after a character card basically equivalent to a weak board wipe that exist in most other decks.  Nobody is dealing 24+ damage with a summon the hounds.  If blizzard really felt that fielding minions was the best part of their game they shouldn't encourage classes to win by casting spells instead.  Now it's much safer than ever to play a deck with virtually no minions and just spell spam your way to victory.  IMO the most disappointing and anticlimactic way to lose is to get hit for virtually your entire health by spells or Leeroy ploys at the end of the game.  Blizzard should start looking at cards to help repair the existing mechanics to make the game fun for someone without a ton of dust to spend on a novelty deck.  Perhaps a minion anyone can use that destroys secrets?  Perhaps a minion that reduces an opponents spell damage?  These are elements that are way overplayed because there is no way to play against them in the current build unless you play a Hunter deck.

I can totally see Blizzard's logic here.  Hunter was one of the few characters a new player could field competitively without needing a bunch of epic and legendary cards to make work.  If Blizzard wants to make money off these people, they need a way to force everyone to get a Leeroy to be able to compete.  I built my hunter rush deck specifically to go up against miracle rogues and zoolocks and I feel like Blizzard just totally screwed over my ability to maintain dominance over these top tier classes.  I've been beaten tons of times by various manipulations of the Leeroy card without even having the option to defend against it, so it seems silly for them to go after a character card basically equivalent to a weak board wipe that exist in most other decks.  Nobody is dealing 24+ damage with a summon the hounds.  If blizzard really felt that fielding minions was the best part of their game they shouldn't encourage classes to win by casting spells instead of risking minions.  Now it's much safer than ever to play a deck with virtually no minions and just spell spam your way to victory.  IMO the most disappointing and anticlimactic way to lose is to get hit for virtually your entire health by spells or Leeroy ploys at the end of the game.  Blizzard should start looking at cards to help repair the existing mechanics to make the game fun for someone without a ton of dust to spend on a novelty deck.  Perhaps a minion anyone can use that destroys secrets?  Perhaps a minion that reduces an opponents spell damage?  These are elements that are way overplayed because there is no way to play against them in the current build unless you play a Hunter deck.

Control Nerfs: nerfed tinkmaster and pagle to oblivion

Aggro Nerfs: 1 of the cards you play now wins you the game 1 turn later sometimes.

The best way to balance UTH is to have the card cost be equivalent to the number of minions the enemy has in play. Does anyone else agree?

Great idea!!! No more "ohhh i wait 5 turns till my enemy got 5 mobs and i double unleash dounds + wolf and feel preety", great! Even though i did not faced that many hunter uth its still good decission :)

Congratulations Blizzard. You managed to NOT solve a problem with Face-bashing Hunter, and at the same time make the ladder explode with Zoo Warlock decks. Dear lord... Arena for the next few months it is.

As a player who uses hunter from time to time, I don't really mind the nerf. 

Woo! I just opened two extra in a pack last night, which I have not yet disenchanted. Hooray for bonus dust!

LoL, Zoo just get buff and will rise in popularity. Problem was not in hounds, but in OP draw power.

I am glad that threads about nurfing Unleash the Hounds will now decrease and hopefully vanish completely

And I don't, as someone who plays Hunter from time to time, mind the change.

This nerf only limits the amount of rush hard hunters that are out there on the ladder. Which am I going to complain about that, not really but what I feel we will see is more mid range hunters which are a slower pace more in line with the UTH's increased mana cost. Mid range hunters use UTH to buff the Hyena or clear the board. It only in the later half of the game like turn 7 do you see the UTH combo that we see from the rush hunter.

So will this nerf hurt the hunter, no it will only slow the rush versions of the class down and increase the mid range variations of the class. Meaning control decks may be back with a force (maybe).

Not bad. It'll make it a little harder to play more cards when after playing with Starving Buzzard - Going from 6 mana to 5 mana remaining is a big deal.  Still enough to play a Kill Command though. The Scavenging Hyena combo will now require 5 mana as well making it harder to get our early. It doesn't seem like an earth shattering change to me though. 

The strong part about UTH ist the combo potential. with buzzard and wolf you mostly refill your hand by drawing shitloads of cards AND wipe the board/do heavy dmg to your opponent. i think there are two ways to handle this. set the amount of dogs summoned by UTH to 2 or 3 AND rework the buzzard:

1. only draw one card per summon/spell (killing highmane and summoning the 2 hyena or UTH draws ONE card)

or

2. give the buzzard 3 life and cost 3 mana an for every summon/card draw losing 1 life or dealing 1 dmg to the summoned minion (UTH in this case would become a card-draw OR a wipe-the-board spell and not both as it is right now)

Well, seeing this change there might be one important thing:

Blizzard knows which cards Naxxramas will bring - and we do not!

I guess this "softnerf" fits well with those new cards. Damn, I wish today would be "Soon" :-)

With my midrange hunter deck I've won many games not even playing UTH at all!  Sure it's a sweet combo when you can play it (assuming they have more than one creature out), but it's not the only thing that lets that deck do well.  The threat that it exists alone is enough to freak out most people into not playing many minions, LOL.  This 1 mana cost increase really does little to nerf hunters, not that they needed it given the power of miracle rogue and zoo lock. 

Hunter decks are basically a "cheap budget" competitive deck, costing almost nothing to construct.  But, it's probably in blizzard's best interests to have most competitive decks cost a lot more so people have to buy more packs to build them.  So, I'm not surprised they did something to hunters.

The Pyroblast & Mind Control nerf did a lot, because it grants 2 turns extra for an aggro and midrange deck to kill. 2 turns difference is huge.

You really underestimate the difference it makes.
No more buzz + hounds on turn 4, allowing for Zoo to become stronger (defender of argus = 4 mana)

This automatically nerves the buzzard too.
At whatever turn you'd combine buzzard with hounds, you'd draw one card less. One less wolf/boar you can through in.

And it nerves the dmg of hounds too, because the change you can drop a wolf (or extra wolf) is reduced.

A bigger nerve would break the hunter. I think Blizzard did a fine job!