idiggory the Fussy wrote:
Jesus Christ.
I mean, I'd put UtH in the top echelon of OP cards as it is... The deck also has a Timber Wolf, giving you a 2/1 hoard. 2x starving buzzards, giving you massive card draw potential with that combo. And then a scavenging Hyena, which pretty much ensures you have a massively powerful minion right away.
Think about it. Your opponent has, say, 4 minions out and you're on your 7 mana turn (or 6 with your mana card). Toss out a Timber Wolf (1), Starving Buzzard (2), Scav. Hyena (2), and then UtH (2). You go from having no minions, to a full field. And for each of the 2/1 hounds you toss against the enemy, you get to draw a card and your Scav Hyena gets 2/1.
And if they're powerful minions (say, a /4, a /3, and a /5 and a /3), you can forgo the Buzzard, and instead drop a SECOND batch of hounds and wipe the field with that batch, so your Scav. gets an additional +8 (total of +16 that round). So if your opponent doesn't have a something to nuke him, he's pretty much screwed.
[EDIT]
I feel like this is a decent enough place to say that my Hunter's low-budget beast deck has a stupidly high win rate, but I still don't like it. I don't like the lack of control.
Edited, May 4th 2014 8:24am by idiggory
You could try something like
Kolento's deck, or
Sunshine Hunter (adjustments for the two legendaries are needed in that one, if you don't have them).
Kolento's is basically a midrange Hunter deck with no weapons or secrets, but you run a couple Houndmasters, Kill Command, and a Deadly Shot, which give you enough control in most cases. Animal Companion, Savannah Highmane, Scavenging Hyena (after some UtH sacrifices), Stampeding Kodo all give you decent bodies to Houndmaster. Hunter's Mark and whatever that 1/1 Charge boar is make for a 1-mana, 2-card removal which is alright. It also only costs 880 dust if you have to craft everything.
Sunshine is somewhat similar, but it runs 2x Eaglehorn Bow, 2x Explosive Trap, and a Freezing Trap, plus King Mukla and Leeroy.
I played in Arena against a Hunter, and he played an opener that I hadn't seen, but makes a decent amount of sense. I had no turn 1 play, so he coined out Buzzard. I had no direct damage for that, plus no minions on the board, so UtH wouldn't really hurt. Threw out some 2-mana 2/3 or some ****. He tosses out a Hyena for the single card draw, and sac's the Buzzard, leaving a 4/3 Hyena on the board on turn 3. Not a bad start, really. Prior to this, I had always held onto Buzzard for UtH later in the game, or maybe combo with some cheap beasts to fish for UtH. I'd never really seen it effectively used so early on. Obviously, if I had some sort of early removal (even an Ironbeak Owl for Silence), it could have been a huge waste of an important card, but I'll have to remember it anyway.