I Am Not Prepared: The Diary of My Race to 1000 Demon Hunter Wins (Week 8)

This week: why you should RTFM, an unreciprocated flirtation with Highlander Demon Hunter, why you shouldn’t cut Skull of Gul’dan and some day one ladder impressions.

CLIMB LOG

• Introduction – 0/1000
• Week 1 – 118/1000
• Week 2 – 147/1000
• Week 3 – 208/1000
• Week 4 – 280/1000
• Week 5 – 388/1000
• Week 6 – 421/1000
• Week 7 – 529/1000
• Week 8 – 597/1000
• Week 9 – 640/1000
• Week 10 – 672/1000
• Week 11 – 704/1000
• Week 12 – 752/1000
• Finale – 1000/1000

Hearthstone Esports: RTFM edition

Remember when I said last week that I’d try to clinch a top 200 spot? Well, may this serve as a lesson to read the damn manual in every situation. No longer does a top 200 ladder finish get you an invite to a special Masters Tour qualifier: instead, the top 16 get in directly. Hovering around 250, my plan was to have one last high-focus play session on Sunday afternoon – that was when I read the announcement of the Montreal event and went back to check the existing rules. Oops! With just a few hours to go, top 16 was out of sight even with a 100% winrate. No promises I’ll make such a deep run in June!

As such, I had to settle with a peek into the day 1 madness across both the Standard and Wild ladders. I was especially curious about the state of the evergreen format at this stage of the season: will I find ultra-tryhards and monster decks across the ranks? It could be due to my low MMR (finished around 5000 last season and never really played the format before) but I still encountered my fair share of homebrews as I rose through the ranks. Aided by a generous winstreak, a few hours of play got me to Diamond 10. If not for my writing commitments, I likely would have hit Legend in a single day.

As for Standard… well, let’s just say there’s a reason I focused on Wild instead today.

There’s also not much to report on the innovation front when it comes to Tempo Demon Hunter, though I will say my initial disgust of the post-nerf Crimson Sigil Runner may very well have been unwarranted. There are still a few flex spots and one-offs, but unlike a few weeks ago, they don’t meaningfully alter the amount of pressure you can exert on any given turn, only having small impact on the consistency of your curve instead. With Priestess of Fury no longer a desirable curve-topper, the archetype is a lot weaker in games that go long, which is likely a good thing in terms of the overall metagame but makes VENGEANCE a whole lot more difficult to achieve.

There can be only one (Demon Hunter archetype)

When it comes to deckbuilding innovations, it’s important to find the sacred cows that feel like auto-includes when you’re trying to free up a slot or two. My time in Wild with Odd Demon Hunter made me think about the possibility of a build focused even more on all-out aggression, especially after a chain of encounters with Druids in high Legend – which turned out to be an odd anomaly. As such, I decided to counter their passivity by reintroducing my old pal Questing Adventurer but also adding Frenzied Felwings to capitalize on my early advantages even further. It crushed Druids alright (7-0) but I couldn’t get a win against Warriors to save my life. To complete the experiment, I swapped out Skull of Gul'dan for Spectral Sight, theorizing that if I empty my hand this fast, it could actually serve me better in the mid-game. It wasn’t an entirely insane idea, but it couldn’t bring the deck to a point where it got me out of the top 250 purgatory. However, keep this in mind when the new set lands: there could be room for an ultra-aggressive Demon Hunter deck the likes of which we have never seen. This meta though? You get wiped way too easily if you rely on 2-Health minions to deal the initial damage.

Yellorambo

Luci Kelemen is an avid strategy gamer and writer who has been following Hearthstone ever since its inception. His content has previously appeared on HearthstonePlayers and Tempo/Storm's site.

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