I threw together a Feign Death Hunter and it's pretty fun when it works.

Mostly the deck is:

Webspinner x2
Loot Hoarder x2
Mad Scientist x2
Harvest Golem x2
Piloted Shredder x2
Feugen
Stalagg
Piloted Sky Golem x2
Savannah Highmane x2
Sylvanas
Sneed's Old Shredder

Other cards:

Feign Death x2
Flare
Freezing Trap x2
Snipe
Multi-Shot
Mechanical Yeti x2
Explosive Shot

The Yetis are filling up 4 slots because I felt like I needed some meat in the middle of the deck. Snipe could probably be subbed out for something else. I like the Flare because of all the Mages.

I would prob run animal companions/kill commands. I think those cards are just too high value to pass up

I have missed Kill Command. I went back and forth on Companion. I think I'd probably want it as a 4/4 Taunt usually, since Huffer isn't really fitting with the idea of the deck, which is to get strong mid-game minions out and run feign death on Shredders/Golems/Sylvanas. But without companion, I don't think I would have enough beasts around to rely on Kill Command having one on board as an activator.

I ended up putting Belchers in for Feugen and Stalagg. That helped a lot. It's getting away from the underutilized theme, but those guys usually got ignored, and by the time I got to do anything with them I was just running them in to things to stave off lethal for 1 turn. I also think there's a valid argument to take the Yetis out and put in your tech stuff like MCT or Harrison, even Loatheb.

Yeah, I've been noticing that not having a chugger/barber/zapomatic is seeming like a bigger deal than I thought initially. I'm definitely curious how a more control build will work. I think I like the idea on first read. A lot of your changes sound pretty similar to the changes I made without the highmanes/boom.

Metaltooth Leaper Part II

It's a short sample size but we knocked out 31 games with the initial list and I think we accomplished what we wanted to with it. We didn't need to get everything perfect, we just wanted to know if Leaper had potential and if mech hunter seemed viable. There are a handful of issues we've come across, but first let's break down the games (all of which were on ladder).


Total Games: 31
Record: 15-16

Record Breakdown:

Mech Mage: 4-6
Mech Shaman: 3-2
Face Hunter: 1-2

Ramp Druid: 4-1
Priest: 0-1
Pally: 1-1
Warrior: 1-0

Zoo: 0-1
Rogue: 1-2



The first thing that jumps out is the record against the common aggro decks in this meta. 8-10 is certainly not good, but I think it's a good sign that we were able to be competitive with those decks right now. They are streamlined pretty hard and we're a collection of cards thrown together. Mech mage, mech shaman, and face hunter are the 3 decks I really want to focus on how we do against during this process as the goal is going to be having the good matchups they do except being able to beat them as well. The control matchups felt good so I feel ok with where we're at right now.


The positives of the deck so far:

1. Leaper seems really, really good. Even something as simple as turn 2 annoy-o-tron turn 3 Leaper on the play provides a good amount of pressure. Then there's the potential of some really busted starts with Mechwarper and Leaper. Multiple games were won on the back of turn 2 warper/gnome, turn 3 annoy/leaper and those games were not remotely close. It's good to see we keep the free win potential the other mech decks have. As a side note, we'll have to keep an eye on the number of times the Leaper is the difference in a free win vs a normal mech start.

2. Glaivezooka has been incredible in the mech shell. It's boosting an early mech that's going face and clearing up a minion the majority of the time we get it in our opening hand. I don't think that's any breaking news or anything, but it is worth noting how good it is since it's a card other mech classes don't have.

3. The mech strategy in general is obviously strong. We're getting a good amount of spare parts as well, and the leaper has been quite good with the time rewinder as well as giving some small extra value to the reversing switch and stealth ones.



So on to those handful of issues:

1. The current build made it pretty difficult to fire in hero powers a lot of turns. We usually weren't consistently hero powering until turn 6ish (as turn 5 we were usually able to play two spells) and by that point we'd lost a bit of the positives of the pressure the HP provides. I think the 3 slot is just too dense right now, so we'll look at that when we make our first tweaks and see if that enables us to HP a bit more often.

2.The unleash wasn't that great. We don't have a lot of the pieces that help make unleash so good (leok rolls, timberwolf, cult master, 1 mark) so it definitely hurts it some.

3. A real lack of card draw hurts. I'd like to have some way to reload after the early barrage.



Time to make our first tweaks. The MCT was bad and needs to go. I think with the logjam at the 3 slot and the large number of mechs we currently have we can cut the harvest golems. They aren't bad but I think we can find better. The mech synergy will still be strong. Finally the owls can go. I initially wanted them to get through some taunts, but we're not rushing to the face as much as I imagined and just clearing things up as been fine. Plus, we have another way to deal with things that we can add.

The first thing to look for was something to make unleash better and draw cards, so let's try a cult master. I think that's a better plan than Jeeves, as it's one sided and our hand does get cluttered up with some spare parts more often than you'd realize. With taking out the owls I'd like another method to get through these giant taunters, so hunter's mark #2 seems solid. Also improves the unleash a bit. With slowing the deck down a little, I feel good about putting a loatheb in at the top end. A lot of games could have been different with one more turn, the effect is good, and the size is fine. I want to try one enhance-o as another mech, as windfury with buffed creatures seems like it can be good. It's also a mech. I'm hesitant on this one but want to try it out. Finally, with the few additions we've made already, unleash does seem like it can be better, so let's try a second one here. If this doesn't work out then we can safely get rid of that package I think.

So here's what I came up with on version 1.1

- 2x harvest golem
- 1x MCT
- 2x Ironbeak Owl


+ 1x Cult master
+ 1x Hunter's mark
+ 1x Loatheb
+ 1x Enhance-o
+ 1x unleash



That leaves us with Leaper 1.1





We were going to try a secret package, but I want to try this iteration out first.



I took it to the ladder for a little bit this afternoon and liked the early results.

Total Games: 15
Record: 11-4

Record Breakdown:

Mech Mage: 5-2
Mech Shaman: 1-0
Mech Druid: 0-1

Ramp Druid: 1-0
Pally: 2-0
Handlock: 0-1

Zoo: 1-0
Rogue: 1-0




I want to first start with the knowledge that this is a super small sample size still. It's way too early to start drawing real conclusions yet, but I think there are some positives we can see already.

The tweaks have made the deck feel more consistent. The unleash package has been much better this go around and the loatheb has been great. The loss of the golems hasn't hurt our starts much, the leaper is still fantastic, and we've been able to sneak through a hero power or two more per game than we were. I'm not sure how I feel about the tracking: sometimes I wish I had another and others I wish I had anything else.


It's still far from perfect but I feel like we've made some ok progress already. I'll play some more tonight and want to get to around 50 games in with this iteration before I tweak it again. I'm still pretty optimistic.

problem with the mech shell on a hunter is the spare parts aren't synergistic with anything - antonidas blends so perfectly as a late game win condition.

Yeah, that's one of a handful of problems I'm noticing through ~20 more games tonight. Time rewinder can be cute but the rest basically don't have much value.

been working fine for me

time rewinder is a massive tempo loss too. it works in mech mage bc, again, blastmage, or pulling antonidas for a free fireball etc.

i think a good idea (hell if im trying hunter tho, gl to you!) is removing the clockworks and yetis - to hell with the spare parts.

halpert makes good posts

very much enjoying these

Time Rewinder is definitely the worst spare part by a wide margin. Getting multiples of it as a mech mage is a huge huge downside.

How does the enhance-o perform in that deck? Do you get a big enough board to stick that it's worth anything? and wouldn't those boards win anyway?

That's the card that really sticks out to me when I look at the list.

to responses. Definitely considering that bobbo and pretty good pry (I'm gonna post a longer post momentarily with it more in depth, but would rather respond on its own post rather than burying it in a wall of text). It's not BUSTED or anything, but it's been providing value at theworst and being explosive at its best.

Leaper Part III


I took the Leaper 1.1 deck to the ladder and played 50 games with it. What I'm going to do tonight is go through how the matchups felt, how individual cards performed, and the main issues I've found that we need to tackle. There won't be a new version of the deck here, as I want to sleep on it and play around with it tomorrow a bit.


First thing I want to do is reiterate the same thing I've been saying this whole time: The sample sizes we're running with are super small. This isn't perfect by any stretch and a lot of what we're doing during this process is going to be on assumptions/in-game feelings. As the process continues and the sample size gets larger we can start taking more things into account, but if we waited for it to be large enough before we started tweaking things we would be here forever. So as I go through this and say things like "X is a good matchup" know it's less based on the record and more about how the games felt while being played out.


The record breakdown is as follows:

Total Games: 50
Record: 28-22

Record Breakdown:

Aggro: 13-12
Mech Mage: 8-8
Mech Shaman: 3-1
Face Hunter: 1-0
Mech Druid: 0-2
Zoo: 1-1

Control: 12-9
Ramp Druid: 4-2
Priest: 1-1
Pally: 3-0
Control Warrior: 2-2
Handlock: 0-3
Echo Mage: 1-1
Freeze Mage: 1-0

In it's own category
Rogue: 3-1




We had a slight winning percentage which was nice. Even though it really doesn't matter too much this early in the process it's nice to have some feeling of competitiveness with these decks that have been staples for a while. We went 13-12 vs aggro decks and 12-9 vs control decks. I'll go through each matchup and jot down how I felt during them. It's not an exact science, but at least it's good to have an idea of where we are standing.


Aggro

Mech Mage: The aggro matches went alright I thought I need to keep better category notes, as the mech mage differences have started to get pretty wide. We actually performed quite well against your standard mech mage decks. The leaper and the HP were the difference most of the time. The issues arose when we started running into a more midrange mechmage. The first two times it played flamestrike on me it was a massive blowout, and a third time we just couldn't do anything against it anyways. The fourth loss to this version came when a secret ended up being a counterspell, which negated a lethal unleash and shocked me. We seemed to struggle a lot agaisnt this version. If this is how the deck is shifting (also ran unstable portals) then we may have to adjust differently than I initially anticipated.

Mech shaman: seems favored for us as the only real issue came in a game where our juggler whiffed on a fire elemental multiple times and he topdecked a removal spell on his last turn. The other 3 games were blowout victories. They just have so many cards that aren't great against us and all of our cards are good against them.

Mech druid: seemed really rough and neither of those games were close. Savage roar and swipe play a huge part in that. I have a soft spot for the old ebola druid decks (took it to 1 game away from legend ) and it played out pretty similar. Will have to keep an eye on this deck if it becomes more popular.

Facehunter and Zoo: had a couple games but they were pretty back and forth and I have no strong feelings one way or another. Would need more games to feel more strongly.



Control
Ramp Druid: seems like a great matchup. It's one of those situations where we can't really stop their nut draws if they have it, but they need it to be competitive. Our two losses involved a start of wrath/swipe/swipe/ramp into something huge that stuck and drawing back to back AoL's to heal with 0 cards and 1 life while our 4 wins were blowouts. We also had a great feeling against them in the first iteration of the deck. We're just too explosive and the hero power cleans up well. If this continues then we'll love using this deck as we near legend as it seems ramp druid is common at the higher ranks.

Priest seemed pretty bad. They have a lot of mass removal, early removal with holy smite and pain, and cabal is super rough on us when it takes annoyotrons. Definitely feel like we ran good in our win.

Pally: seemed like our best matchup and the games weren't close. They just had no real answers to our starts and when they did get an army out unleash was fantastic.

Warrior: was another one like the ramp druid. There are some starts they have where I don't think we can possibly win but I think we have enough pressure that it requires a draw like that for them to win. The hunter hero power and the leaper really shined in this matchup turning what I think is a favored matchup for the warrior against mech mage into a bad one vs mech hunter.

Handlock: was absolutely godawful. Never were remotely in those games. Healbot has been elite against us, they have so much removal and card draw and lifegain that we just can't ever apply enough pressure or get through their giant taunts. It's a small sample of course, but I felt more helpless in those games than in any I've played on ladder since GvG came out.

Echo Mage: was also quite terrible. We snuck out one game because our opponent screwed up and I can't envision many other ways we can win lol.

Freeze Mage: seemed fine because of a timely loatheb before he could FS and then the HP prevented the armor secret from triggering. Without the loatheb I'm less sure, but I'm thinking it's fine still.

Rogue: seemed good. We apply so much pressure early that they have to spend a ton of their resources to stabilizing. They only have a finite amount of damage to deal and the hunter hero power was fantastic to help counter it.






I realize now I've got a ****load more words, so I'll break it into another post.

My main theory heading in to this was that the mech hunter deck would be more explosive than the other mech variants (leaper + HP) while also being more consistent (mainly due to the HP being able to consistently apply pressure). The deck certainly has a level of explosiveness that the mage and shaman lists don't have. Even without Zap-o-matic, the hunter version is capable of effectively ending games on turn 3 on the draw with a mech opening into metaltooth leaper. The deck certainly has free wins in it, which was to be expected but is always nice to confirm. Meanwhile the consistency is good, but not great. The spare parts are pretty meh for us overall but the largest issue for consistency is the unleash package. Sometimes you get a hand with mechwarper, unleash, and hunter's mark and it's just clunky. Most of the things you have work well with each other, but not all.


Individual card thoughts:

Metaltooth Leaper
The namesake of the deck has proven to be even better than I anticipated. It's a game ender a significant portion of the time and is still valuable the times it isn't. Sometimes it's just a small value of turning on a cogmaster or boosting a turn 2 mech to apply pressure, and sometimes it puts 9 power on the board on turn 3 en route to a blowout win. It is very, very good.

Clockwork Gnome + Mech Yeti
The cards themselves haven't been terrible, but it's hard to find much use for the spare parts.

Enhance-o Mechano
It's performed surprisingly well. We don't go ridiculously wide that often, but when we do it's obviously great there. The surprise has been the value it's gotten from smaller uses. Mech Warper and Annoy-o-Tron in play? Going Leaper into Enhance on turn 5 has been quite solid. Windfury gives a ton of damage while shield has let us eat some higher costed minions. As with anything that's so RNG heavy, it's sometimes a bust, but it's been good a lot more than it's been bad. The fact that it's a mech and can turn on late cogmasters/tinkertowns with a small bonus or get buffed itself by a Leaper has been valuable a lot. I don't think I want two, but I want to keep the first one in for now I think to get a better feel for it.

Loatheb
Has worked out great, love the addition.

Cult master/Unleash
They do make the deck a bit clunky. Unleash has been ok and we've had a few games live the master/unleash dream, but overall it just hasn't really had an impact that I'd like. Each spot needs to provide some value and master has just been relatively dead far too often. I think the unleashes will probably have to stay with the marks for now, but without ways to really abuse it unleash just hasn't been as good as it normally is.

Glaivezooka
Is remarkable. It's the 2nd best card in the deck performance wise behind Leaper.

Tracking
Just not really that good either. We need to figure out a card draw solution.



Deck Problems
These are my main issues from the first 80 games with the deck. These are the things we're going to need to fix if we're going to turn this from a goofy 55% off the wall deck to a real contenter in the meta.

1. Card draw. We need it. We currently haven't found a consistent way to reload as the game gets longer while other decks are ancient of lore-ing/antonidas+fireball looping/auctioneering/tapping/etc. It's turned a few matchups into situations where we end up trying to face rush them, and if we wanted to do that we should just play facehunter. Tracking isn't cutting it (and doesn't even really net us a card) and the cult master is too clunky.

2. spare parts. Time rewinder is actually good for us with Leaper (many games have been won on the back of that) but we have no real uses for the rest of them as we've played more. Mechmage has Antonidas but we got nothing. I've been contemplating a Gazlow to try and solve both problems, but eh. The real solution may be to cut some of the part givers, though we'd also need to keep an eye on our mech count.

3. Removal light. We basically just have a pair of hunters marks right now to deal with larger threats. I'd like to be able to find something elsse so we can consistently deal with these large taunters. Though again improving card draw could fix that issue.












ending thoughts
I'm gonna play around with it tomorrow and come up with the next list. Tweaks need to be made but I've got to be careful on what I do with the mechs and the unleash package. I'll probably hold off from posting anything remotely this long or sort-of-in-depth for the next few iterations unless something drastically changes. Overall I still think the deck has potential, but it's not there yet. I do suggest trying it out for yourself though, the deck has gotten some pretty fun games in it (including an enhanco that hit for 25 and a leaper that ended a game vs control warrior on his turn 3).

Jeeves?

Yeah it kinda sounds like jeeves would fit. Might try it out myself

This isn't working out as well as id hoped. Anyone got any suggestions?

I'm thinking if I drop the spare part givers some and get rid of the unleash package then I can fit Jeeves in (it gets additional value with leaper too I guess), but only if I do that. Otherwise my hand is more clogged up than you would think. I might try a secret package over the unleash package and then do Jeeves. Still contemplating, but seems like an ok place to start

Update: Jeeves is bad. It just sits in your hand most of the time and doesn't really help to apply any pressure. You also have spare part issues with it even with cutting the mech yeti's.

I think I'm ready to hang the deck up. Mech mage has shifted to the flamestrike version and we're just not good enough to combat that. Considering mech mage is making up such a high percentage of the meta right now, it's just not worth it to keep running this out there. Especially since it appears facehunter is pretty good against it now that they've slowed down a bit.

It was a fun little experiment and I hope at least the posts were interesting even if the idea didn't work out. It's definitely something I'm going to put in my back pocket for when the meta shifts again.

Yeah I tried running Jeeves in Mech Mage on the asian server since I have very few cards there, and it is definitely anti-synergy in mech decks a lot of the time due to spare parts.

yeah only really found him useful in aggro mech rogue

Jeeves has been fine on my cancer hunter list. It does some work, usually drawing two cards.

One thing that makes face hunter superior the the mech hunter is the kill command imo. 5dmg for 3 mana is just so god damn huge.

Feign Death Hunter

I tossed a recombobulator into my voidcaller deck. Jaraxxus got pulled out who I then recombobbed into that 2/1 leper gnome spawner and got the auto win