That does just get it removed from decks in favor of like… Zilliax, whom isn’t even really good enough to run at 5 now.
The cleave IS going to be a problem for always a bigger jormungar.
It’s not for the base card.
Well needing the infuse was a pretty big downside on that card that kept it from being played I’d say. But it was never a bad card really. Hollow Hound not having the infuse requirement is a big difference, as is the existence of bunch of bananas, which has allowed really good spot buffing.
Like sure, in theory some minions are out of range to die, but they’re still taking a fair bit of damage, and cleave means it’s very easy to value trade with Hollow Hound in a lot of situations.
Well it’s a game winning play, it’s just not immediate. I can’t speak for other people, and this is hard to articulate, but the fact that it cleaves makes it easier to value trade it, it forces the opponent to either not play minions
Really, what unleash fel and hollow hound do in a big way is punish the opponent for playing minions. That’s the play around, is just don’t play minions. Which against a high tempo deck is… not a way to win.
Clearing stuff and healing at the same time is just so powerful. Stick it on a minion and you’re getting tempo too. Just doesn’t work IMO. At least not at the power level of Hollow Hound. They could also reduce his stats a bit I guess. 5 mana 1/6 so it’s completely dependent on being buffed. Or 6 mana 2/6.
That’s a lot weaker, though. It sits in a really weird spot.
Eh, Zilliax is making a bit of a comeback with so many tempo/aggro decks.
And this is where your entire arguement falls apart: WE CHANGE OUR DECKS ONCE WE GET TO TOP LEGEND.
You think I’m playing the same deck in Legend that I climbed with? I don’t care what info your 3rd party website feeds you, this is an outright lie.
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Yes, because they don’t work the same, both because people are playing better and that changes what proportion of decks you are seeing.
The decks at top legend right now aren’t different, only the proportions are. There aren’t any brand new decks up there in the current meta.
You might not, some do.
It also doesn’t matter what you personally do. Overall the meta at top legend is made of the same decks as diamond, just in different proportions (because there are several reasons to change which deck you are using up there… Like boredom, skill based matchup changes, and overall different decks being a larger portion of your opponents). Which ones each good player is using is irrelevant to the fact that they are the same decks.
I’m not saying that you you (or any other top legend player) stick to the same deck the whole time… Doing so isn’t important when it comes to these trends anyway.
Everyone at top legend could change decks after every game and it wouldn’t change anything about what happens to hound hunter there.
Zilliax is trash and nobody runs it. 5 mana 3/2 with lufesteal isn’t particularly great play by today’s standards.
But I do think the deck will eventually get nerfed. It’s just too easy to play for the power lvl it has.
Even just putting companions to a beast that costs 8 or less would basically kill the deck.
Until AaBJ makes anything with rush basically have charge, and cleave minions like a charge windfury minion
The complaints about hound won’t even be really because you lifesteal at that point, but more that you lose a third or more of your health because you had minions on board after Lor’themar gets played.
You are a troll who doesn’t even play. You specifically come here to crap on people all day and act bigbrained. Why don’t you take your own advice and get out rather than keep trying to impress everyone with your blather and trolling.
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If I was to measure skill, I would need you to keep playing the same thing all the way through and watch what happens to you.
Which makes all the difference. A deck that eats deck Y doesn’t win much if deck Y isn’t played.
This is false and reflects complete ignorance of how metas work.
I have them on ignore for this very reason.
No, it makes some of the difference.
Yep, but hunter eats almost everything in diamond, and fewer things in top 1k.
That’s literally WHY less things it eats are being played.
They aren’t new decks appearing that hunter doesn’t eat. It’s existing decks that stop being food.
Only if you make the assumption that skill isn’t transferrable from deck to deck. And that only measures the skill of one person, which isn’t relevant to the larger meta.
It’s a safe assumption that the people at top legend are the highest skilled players currently playing the game, generally with the best set of decks available.
This.
And how much of a difference is different for each and every deck in the meta.
This is not correct.
You’re assuming everyone who plays every deck play it equally well, allowing you to ignore individual variances in skills. This is flatly false. You are measuring the deck only, not the skill of any player or group of players unless you track individuals doing the same thing against different competition.
This isn’t even open to debate. You are taking an approximation, and a rough one, and trying to give it the weight of causal inference, which just can’t be done.
Further more, the most recent VS report literally tells you to play hound hunter to legend and then switch to enrage warrior… because the meta changes!
Nope, I’m assuming that those in top legend are playing their decks well enough to be in that range, which is a safe assumption to make. If they aren’t they drop out of top 1000…
So the average performance of a deck for each matchup in top 1k largely is the best performance that deck will see due to higher skill play.
And also because as people play better, several individual matchups in hunter get worse, which make it less of a good idea to use because more decks are around that are no longer good matchups.
The meta changes aren’t inflation of existing bad matchups for hunter. It is brand new ones from decks hunter used to feed on.
Here’s what they ACTUALLY say:
Looking for a strong legend climb? Play Hound Hunter. It’s the most well-rounded deck in the format. Looking for the best performing decks at higher levels of play? Enrage Warrior and Outcast DH will serve you well.
Now my advice would be to simply play Enrage Warrior. It’s the actual best deck in the format. Yeah, it takes just a smidge more skill to outperform Hound Hunter, but even Diamond 4-1 players are almost there, and the sooner you start learning the sooner you’ll get there yourself. Hound Hunter is a close second, but it’s not the strongest deck.
If you think this card is annoying in Standard you should see what it is doing to Arena. I figured i would play out my last free ticket for two loses. Built a decent big druid deck.
Went 7-0 and then i hit my first hunter. Game was going about same with early pressure to me then i stabilize with Beetlemancy and Tambourines. He drops a Hound and gets the health no biggie and it dies. I reload and he drops another one clearing the board. We play a round or so more and another hound goes down. This went on for 2 more rounds and two more hounds. From what i can tell he had five in his deck.
Oh well that guy high rolled no biggie i move on and get another hunter. Game plays out almost the same and this guy drops 4 hounds during the match but with bananas in hand. I just quit out.
It wasn’t even the health that bothered me it was how efficient in Arena he just cleaned up a board with 5 to 6 health on minions. The card should probably be a rare at minimum and not a common. 
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Arena balance is a different story, where you can just draft like 5 of them, and efficient clears are way, WAY more potent.
I imagine hound is probably way more problematic in that format as a common.
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Right, but that assumes that the decks they are playing, which isn’t hunter anymore, is what they’re best at… and I’m telling you that the match ups left aren’t the same players.
You have people telling you that they switch decks as soon as they cross into legend, but you want to ignore this. It’s very, very relevant.
Um, yes, yes in fact is flat is.
Their even and worse match ups go up in rate of play, their best match ups are played less.
If they swapped off of hunter, and are playing other decks, which they aren’t best at, that would mean the fact that the matchup gets worse for hunter is actually being mitigated.
In order for deck swaps to things that players are worse at to help your argument that hunter is just weaker because of the meta, people would have to be swapping TO hunter and being bad at it.
Swapping away from hunter, being bad at those decks, but those decks gaining win rate against hunter (which they are) means that hunter is even worse…
And those matchups (individual matchups, not proportions) don’t even exist in enough numbers in diamond to create an unfavorable meta for hunter.
You literally HAVE TO create new bad matchups to drop hunter’s win rate as much as it did. They literally don’t exist in diamond to play more of.
Almost all of the bad and neutral matchups hunter has in top legend, it’s favored against in diamond. That’s why it’s not just “the meta.”
There aren’t enough bad matchups to weight heavily to drop hunter. Everything you’d trade away from its “good matchups” going down, would be for more good matchups, because with how people play in diamond, there aren’t bad matchups to replace them with.
In the highest brackets, there are enough decks with bad matchups to create a less favorable meta.
In diamond, there are not.
The new bad matchups for hunter in the top brackets aren’t new decks though, they are the same decks in diamond, just being played better.
So, when the higher skilled players (on average) are able to beat hunter with more decks than diamond players can, and those decks are required to create a notably worse meta for hunter, then it’s really the skill differences that created a worse environment for hunter.
You basically can’t drop hunter’s win rates that much with how these decks perform in diamond, regardless of the meta there.
You don’t understand any of this, my man. You’ve not got a clue how any of this works.
I’m sorry, I am done trying to explain this to you.
I’m sorry you don’t understand that rearranging a bunch of decks with 55% or better win rates or better for hunter won’t drop it’s win rate enough to explain it’s top legend performance.
I really don’t like this phrase. Metas change and evolve all the time, the witchwood meta is way weaker than the Gadgetzan meta. Zilliax is great versus board heavy decks that don’t have clear from hand. He heals you for 6, he stops an attack. Zilliax mainly struggles vs. wide boards if you fall behind but he’s pretty useful otherwise.
Zilliax isn’t like he used to be, where you could just play greedy for 4 turns and then throw him down and catch up on board I guess.
Yeah he’s a lot worse than Hollow Hound. But Hollow Hound is kinda ludicrous.
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