Hybrid Hunter Feedback

[zemanjaski]

Played this to 8-1 tonight and rank 13.

[deck]Hybrid Hunter[/deck]
Class (14)
2 Freezing Trap
2 Glaivezooka
2 Quick Shot
2 Animal Companion
1 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Kill Command
1 Unleash the Hounds
2 Savannah Highmane

Neutral (16)
2 Abusive Sergeant
2 Leper Gnome
2 Haunted Creeper
2 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist
1 Wolf Rider
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Loatheb
[/deck]

All the little details you guys mentioned came up, so thanks for the feedback, was very helpful. I'm considering a Houndmaster in place of the Wolf Rider (both for curve and for power level), but the extra reach was nice.

This list with -1 Glaivezooka, +1 Eaglehorn Bow has been the best for me so far.

Your flex slots are the second Owl, the second Quickshot and the Wolfrider. You've got an enormous amount of freedom to tune for specific matchups, eg: Paladin Aggro, -1 Quickshot, -1 Wolfrider, +1 Unleash the Hounds, +1 Harrison Jones etc.

If you want help, let me know!

[zemanjaski]

Trying out 2 Worgen Infiltrator, 2 Dark Iron Dwarf right now, plays interestingly.

[zemanjaski]

Went 5-2 in my brief testing tonight, will report back with more data asap.

[zemanjaski]

Looking into 1 Freezing Trap, 1 Snake Trap in this meta.

[LP, of the Fires]

I've tried Dwarf before to mixed results. Seemed great in theory, ended up mediocre.

Infiltrator however was good from time to time in meta's where you really want to lead off with a 1-drop. The presence of it in your deck also throws your opponents off with regards to traps and highmane since the auto-assume face hunter.

[zemanjaski]

Cut dwarf and went back to Wolfrider. Infiltrator has been good but maybe I should just play Abusive and not mulligan them in my opener; maybe that's the lesson.

[Jack]

Sounds like you'd rather just be playing midrange hunter

[Jack]

I mean, moving to infiltrator makes your deck more aggro, but if you were throwing back sergeants then it seems your play style is more suited to midrange

[zemanjaski]

Yeah that's fair. I just hate a lot of the cards in midrange and like the tempo draws that hybrid gets; it's the most suited to me (over face and midrange), I'm just forever tinkering with my decks!

[Jack]

Yeah that's fair. I just hate a lot of the cards in midrange and like the tempo draws that hybrid gets; it's the most suited to me (over face and midrange), I'm just forever tinkering with my decks!

I built mid today and that was something I couldn't get over as well. It's not that I miss the aggro cards, it's just that I really don't feel like I'm doing anything that's all that powerful by playing hound master or webspinner

[Jack]

Basically, I like the shared "core" between the two decks, a and the unique cards of each archetype can be hit or miss

[Jack]

There's too much fucking paladin at rank 7 for me to play hunter anyway

[Jack]

At least I'm getting good against those decks. Before, the blowouts just felt like bs and now I'm consistently losing by 2-3 points of damage

[zemanjaski]

Yeah it's tough, would you run a second Unleash?

I learned that I was trying too hard to control their board and losing too much damage in the process which resulted in coming up short on the race; you can't usually let 4-5 power creatures be swatting 1/1s, too much damage is wasted.

[Jack]

I think I might. I doubt there's as much pally in legend so it's not worth it for you, but that card is basically our only hope against pally. I narrowly lost one game because I threw it back in my opener before looking at their class (showing how tilted I was).
My dream deck would play zero leper gnomes, zero wolf riders, zero hound masters, zero Web spinners, 4 Shredders and 4 creepers, but oh well

[zemanjaski]

Yeah I know those feels.

Here's my midrange list, you may like some ideas there.

[deck]Midrange Hunter[/deck]
Class (16)
2 Webspinner
1 Glaivezooka
2 Freezing Trap
1 Quickshot
2 Animal Companion
2 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Kill Command
1 Unleash the Hounds
1 Houndmaster
2 Savannah Highmane

[/b]Neutral (14)[/b]
2 Haunted Creeper
2 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Loatheb
2 Sludge Belcher
1 Dr Boom
[/deck]

For your specific meta, i'd go down to 1 Owl and +1 Unleash the Hounds to really solidify your aggro matchups. If you don't like Webspinner, you can run Abusive Sergeants instead, a la Amaz at Dreamhack, so that's totally viable too!

[zemanjaski]

If you want to beat up on Control / Midrange, you can cut the Quickshot for Ragnaros too.

[Jack]

Tbh I think I'll just switch to shaman mid and handlock for now. They're better for the meta and I'm not exactly married to hunter any more.

[LP, of the Fires]

I actually feel compelled to play hunter cause I'm somehow rank 60 with ~440 wins so gold isn't far off(Undertaker, unleash the hounds and buzzard used to all be broken as shit at one point I guess).

With Hybrid Hunter, you should always keep your 1-drops on the play in opener and just raw dog them, but on the draw, I like aggressively mulling for 2-drops.

As far as Board control, vs. rush, it's all matchup dependant which is part of the strength of hybrid hunter. You share something like 75% of the cards with face hunter and it's usually correct to approach the game as such which make the freezing trap better because it masks them as explosive's but on the mull decisions, you can aggressively mull for shredders and highmanes when you know you have to fight battles of attrition.

With midrange hunter, you're firmly a board control deck, but you get the bone of having more powerful cards overall and retaining all the burst damage. I've lost to midrange hunter where I was at 30 life, but bogged down by freezing trap and been burst down to 5 before succumbing to the onslaught. And when you do "get" midrange hunter, houndmaster IS that good.

My Mid Hunter list:

[deck]2 Webspinner
2 Haunted Creeper
2 Mad Scientist
2 Knife Juggler
1 Iron Beak Owl
2 Freezing Trap
1 Snake Trap(Flex slot with Quick Shot, Owl, and Explosive Trap)
1 Quick Shot
2 Kill Command
2 Animal Companion
2 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Unleash The Hounds
1 Piloted Shredder
2 Houndmaster
1 Loatheb
1 Sludge Belcher(Flex slot with Harrison Jones and Shredder)
2 Savannah Highmane
1 Dr. Boom[/deck]

Mid Hunter is definitely the more powerful list and in face finished last month as #1 and #2 Legend on NA with the number one list being mostly the same as mine above and the number 2 list(which was number one for several weeks which is absurd if you know how ladder and MMR work) Was more aggressive with sergeant/gnome over webspinner/houndmaster, but had double belcher and explosive while neglecting quick shot and boom for a more even mana distribution.

[TubeHunter]

[cards]One Mana
2 Leper Gnome
1 Abusive Seargent

Two Mana
1 Glaivezooka
2 Freezing Trap
1 Quick Shot
2 Haunted Creeper
1 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist

Three Mana
2 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Animal Companion
2 Kill Command
1 Unleash the Hounds
2 Wolfrider

Four+ Mana
2 Piloted Shredder
2 Fel Reaver
1 Loatheb
2 Savannah Highmane[/cards]

what Ive took from rank 17 to rank 10 this season. (haven't played much constructed beyond that this month though.)

From my games fel reaver has been a house.

[zemanjaski]

Update list (top 250 legend).

[deck]Midrange Hunter[/deck]
Class(16)
2 Webspinner
1 Glaivezooka
2 Freezing Trap
1 Quickshot
2 Animal Companion
2 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Kill Command
1 Unleash the Hounds
1 Houndmaster
2 Savannah Highmane

Neautral(14)
2 Haunted Creeper
1 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Loatheb
2 Sludge Belcher
1 Dr. Boom
1 Ragnaros the Firelord
[/deck]

Don't change the split of 1 Glaivezooka, 1 Quickshot (ie: don't run two copies of either), they're clunky in multiples. You can cut either of those singletons for a Snake Trap if you so desire.

I don't like two Unleash in the current legends meta, but if you're seeing a lot more small aggressive decks feel welcome to cut the Ragnaros (much worse in that environment) - Ragnaros is a control killer basically.

You can also switch out Webspinner for Abusive Sergeant or Leper Gnome if that's your preference, but I feel that makes Houndmaster unviable (I suppose that can also be switched out for a Snake Trap, a second Owl, a second Unleash or the first Hunter's Mark).

[zemanjaski]

[deck]Hybrid Hunter[/deck]

[zemanjaski]

Started the season 15-4, made rank 8 in my first session tonight.

[deck]Hybrid Hunter[/deck]
Class (12)
1 Freezing Trap
2 Glaivezooka
1 Snake Trap
2 Quick Shot
2 Animal Companion
1 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Kill Command
1 Unleash the Hounds

Neutral (18)
2 Abusive Sergeant
2 Leper Gnome
2 Worgen Infiltrator
2 Haunted Creeper
1 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist
2 Arcane Golem
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Loatheb
[/deck]

Strong reccomend. I beat SilentStorm tonight too!

[jsilv]

Deck is gas. Only change I've made after 20 games was I swapped Owl with Dire Wolf bc of the low end meta. Not a lot of taunts, lots of times I have dumb 1/1's sitting around wanting to trade.

[zemanjaski]

Nice. I'm on the cusp of legend so back to midrange to beat all the control decks.

[zemanjaski]

[deck]Midrange Hunter[/deck]
Class (19)
1 Hunter's Mark
2 Webspinner
2 Freezing Trap
1 Glaivezooka
1 Quick Shot
2 Animal Companion
2 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Kill Command
2 Unleash the Hounds
2 Houndmaster
2 Savannah Highmane

Neutral (13)
2 Haunted Creeper
1 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Loatheb
1 Dr. Boom
[/deck]

Trying out two Unleash and two Houndmaster, not liking it tbh.

[zemanjaski]

[deck]Midrange Hunter[/deck]
Class (17)
1 Hunter's Mark
2 Webspinner
2 Freezing Trap
1 Glaivezooka
1 Quick Shot
2 Animal Companion
2 Eaglehorn Bow
2 Kill Command
2 Unleash the Hounds
2 Savannah Highmane

Neutral (13)
2 Haunted Creeper
1 Ironbeak Owl
2 Knife Juggler
2 Mad Scientist
2 Piloted Shredder
1 Loatheb
2 Sludge Belcher
1 Dr. Boom
[/deck]

Much better.

[zemanjaski]

With all the fast paladin decks about, I am here:

[deck]Hybrid Hunter[/deck]