I’m actually betting the spell is gonna get nerfed too. It’s 1 mana deal up to 11 with a single King Mukla.
It has big sinful brand vibes, while being a great deal more flexible.
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I’ve had 4 games in a row this morning against Hound Hunter, 4 games in a row where Hollow Hound completely flipped the game back to them.
And now Hollow Hound will get Trample.
Something’s gotta give. That combo is way too obvious and will be way too strong. A Reno effect that clears your board and leaves a giant minion in play, that will now also burst your face.
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One thing I will point out is that people tend to highly overestimate how strong healing is in the game.
Blood DK has way, way more healing potential than hound hunter, and can increase their max life on top of that whole clearing boards…
And the deck is still pretty bad because doing those things doesn’t win the game.
Hound is in that same boat. It’s helping hunter survive to do actual game winning plays.
At least until AaBJ shows up anyway… Then yeah, hound is also winning the game. AaBJ is going to make a lot of hunter things look broken though…
Healing for 18 is several turns’ worth of damage from most opponents. It’s the same as Unleash Fel, you can spend your entire early game not really caring about the opponent’s board because later on you can just full heal. In that sense, healing strongly helps.
Blood DK doesn’t have double Krush lethal. That’s why their stall strategy doesn’t lead to wins.
Hollow Hound absolutely enables Hound Hunter on their path to double-Krushing you for 32+ damage. But now they’ll be able to just kill you with the Hollow Hound thanks to AabJ.
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This is the actual limiting factor for the effectiveness of any combo deck. The better their tools to get to their win condition, the better the deck.
I don’t understand why you think attacking the combo is more important than limiting the sustain. The sustain is what gives the combo deck a wider range of favorable match ups, not the finishers.
This, but it’s not supposed to.
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I don’t understand the fervent defense of a card that pushed this deck over the top. I mean if
You look at it rationally and don’t try to be “big brained” about it, the card is obviously why the deck is so powerful. I dont feel like people are honest because they think it will keep a deck from getting nerfed. Kind of like favoritism.
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Oh fir sure it needs a nerf. This decks is already very easy to play and in it’s current form feels balanced. In it’s current form. I wish this could get a prenerf
Hunter isn’t a combo deck though… There’s no “combo” going on… They got to turn 10, here’s 16+ damage.
“Win conditions” shouldn’t be binary to the point where just surviving to them is game winning. That’s just a badly designed card game.
If a combo is only “ok” because you can’t survive to play it, the combo probably isn’t fine, and is just statistically bad because the games don’t go that long.
The late game of hearthstone should be way more interesting than “I played X game winning card you can’t respond to”
Decks should be able to easily build to reach the late game. It’s on blizzard to make sure the late game is interesting.
Games shouldn’t be arbitrarily capped to turn X by weakening sustain tools so people don’t have to die to badly designed combo plays.
… that’s the definition of a combo, my man.
That’s literally the entire point of a combo deck, though.
This is literally why combo destroys control decks more than it does aggro decks - it can’t survive the early pressure to get to the combo. The problem with hound is it gives enough sustain to survive the decks that should have better match ups into it.
You mean like fatigue?
The meta is supposed to go aggro>combo>control>aggro.
At some point you need to own that you don’t like combo decks rather than twisting around like a pretzel to avoid the obvious.
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No, that’s the effect of a single 10 mana card.
That’s really the opposite of a combo.
Yes, and the fact that there’s no way to balance them beyond “don’t give them the tools to play it often” is why they don’t work well in hearthstone.
Sustain is rarely ever the problem. Aggro decks can often push through it, late game decks can outlast it, and combo decks don’t care that you do it.
Combo decks with immediate game ending results are bad design in hearthstone due to no ability to act during your opponents turn.
This is why they invariably get nerfed or deleted whenever they work well. No one enjoys playing against a deck where you lose if the game goes for X turns.
That’s damning of the combo, not the sustain tools. There are many more interesting ways to beat fatigue decks than cards that just kill them from 30+ in one burst.
Liking combo decks that win like that is basically saying that hearthstone should never go past turn 10.
Do you guys remember when apotheosis was nerfed because apotheosis + samuro in naga priest on turn 7 was considered too much healing? Well now we have turn 7 hound hunter doing the same thing, but for just a little extra mana and with a lorethemar theorin buff and a couple banannas you can make a 10+ attack cleave trample rush lifesteal monstrosity that lifesteals off all the minions hit AND the face damage it does. It’s a three headed reno jackson that you can play twice in a game.
I’ve said many times before at reveal season and I’ll say it again. Hunter always gets the best stuff. Always.
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Only twice? Those are rookie numbers. You’ve gotta bump those numbers up.
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That apoth combo also hit the whole board, not just 3 or 2 things, and was at a different time with a generally much less lethal hearthstone environment across the board.
As decks keep shifting toward stronger early game aggression, healing/removal tools need to keep up.
Says the control player.
Dude, this is all you having a bias and missing the forest for your favorite tree.
You look like a clown here, bud.
I do, it was too much, and this is just as bad.
All the end game in the world is superfluous if you don’t live long enough, and this hound makes them live long enough against most things.
It doesn’t matter what you think here, because they have been part of this game since the beginning and they are good for the overall meta because they keep control decks honest.
We know, you hate them. I am not a big fan of them most of the time either, but when it comes down this late, only crybabies should be complaining.
Eh, there are lots of ways to keep control decks honest without cards that just end the game on the spot existing.
Control decks usually start to get greedier with late game high value plays the slower a meta gets.
The only thing that short circuits that are either:
A. Infinite value cards like hero cards that make them need to run fewer threats. Or
B. Combos that end the game on the spot. Why run multiple threats when this one wins?
Combo decks usually ARE the successful control deck, they aren’t “keeping control in check”, they replace them, because they can’t themselves be controlled, and the combo itself opens up more room for control tools over less reliable threats.
Largely more of a midrange player, although blizz kind of deleted that as an archetype once “I win” combos started being common at around turn 7 in the united in stormwind era.
That’s not what happened though.
Warlock quest and priest quest set hard cap on game, ending value strategies for the most part. There was howling from the rooftops that the legendary greed priest (whatever that is) was dead because of quests.
The turn seven decks were hard aggro decks that could overcome midrange board presence. Pirate warrior being the most offensive with infinite aggro value and charge.
You can define it this way if you want, I don’t, but if you want them to be a subset you can do this. The reality is they are supposed to lose to aggro and not have as much sustain as typical control because they are looking to end the game more than they are looking to stall it out longer.
Hunter, a class not known for healing, much like Rogue and Mage is not known for taunt minions, now has the beast Heal in the game surpassing even healing classes. And Hunter also has the best Rez in the game as well.
Hunter. Best healing. Best Rez.
I can’t wait to play my charging beast Priest deck in the future.
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Yep, the combo deck made decks not able to go late.
Quests killed every late game strategy, not just the one people hated from barrens.
Eventually, after the combo decks got nerfed to happen on turn 8. Pirate warrior took quite a while to take off. It didn’t even have charge until the mini set.
In general I don’t mind when that stuff flip flops around here and there. It’s still not the best at healing (blood DK leaves it in the dust), not best at board clears (priest is far better as well as blood DK), but yeah, it has the best rez right now.
And it was a wonderful time to play hearthstone! I loved that aspect of the meta.
The quests were not turn 8. I never actually saw anyone complete the priest quest. There’s no world where it was done on turn 8.
I think you’re exaggerating hard here, my man.