Hearthstone

[The Black Sword]

It's hard to say what the good matchups for the deck are, because I don't know what the matchups are! I expect Pirate Warrior and Elemental Shaman to be top tier decks but beyond that I'm not really too sure. Without knowing what the meta is going to be, I've just tried to put in strong cards consistent with the strategy and I can tech against things as I see what's popular. I would guess that the deck has a slightly weak early game but hopefully a strong mid game once the quest is complete. Given the lack of comeback mechanics, that would make it weak to early game decks like Pirate Warrior and Zoo like you say. Hopefully it can have a good matchup against some midrangey decks like the Shaman.

[Ichabod]

So, how's the deck doing?

[The Black Sword]

The deck didn't work very well. The main problem is (as expected) that playing a quest deck sets you behind to start and Hunter isn't good at playing from behind. The quest is not a big enough reward to make up for this, at least in the version I posted.

The only 'win-more' card I played to synergise with the quest was stampede which turned out a lot worse than I expected. It can generate quite a few cards for 1 mana but they all tend to be big inefficient balls of stats. You don't have time to play them.

Blazecaller was also cut pretty quickly, because you can easily run out of cards around turns 4-6 and you don't want a 7 mana card making it worse. Thunder Lizard was also a bit underwhelming, even when activated.

I switched to trying out some other decks(Elemental Mage has worked the best for me) but I want to come back and give it another shot soon. I'm thinking you need to make the raptors work for you for the quest to be worth playing so maybe Tundra Rhino is the way to go and Cult Master for draw. That might give you a good matchup vs Taunt Warrior(which seems to be the most popular deck) but it doesn't solve the problem of being beaten off the board by tempo decks.

[Ichabod]

I'm having a blast with Arena in Ungoro. The game really slowed down with all the avaiable taunts and in a lot of games you actually experience some thoughtful plays and possibilities of comebacks. More spells is also pretty nice.

In constructed, I have very few cards, so building cool decks is pretty hard. I think I'll focus on Paladin cards, because I like playing Paladin. There's some Murloc lists going around and I'd be willing to try the quest. It's a pity everything is so expensive.

[The Black Sword]

I'm not too big into Arena, but the new setup with higher spell density sounds a lot more fun to play.

For a cheap and strong constructed deck, mid-range hunter is really good IMO and I only have 1 epic in the list, a rat pack that is not too important. Of course, strong and cool are not always the same thing.

Paladin lists seem to be quite Legendary heavy unfortunately, but they have some nice options.

[The Black Sword]

Got myself into this position with a Unite the Murloc Paladin. He can't do anything without killing himself, I can't play anything or he can kill stuff off and make room for Rag. The game stalled until I dropped Finja, and a combination of the corrupted seer and a pulled bluegill stole me the win. 

[Nystul]

Today I hit legend for the first time.  I also beat Toast while he was streaming, so I guess I'm famous now. :P  The deck I climbed with was a tweaked version of the ramp druid.  I started playing the extreme ramp because my quest druid ideas got smashed by the crystal rogues.  I wasn't too serious about it until I won like 15 games in a row and pushed to rank 4.  Unfortunately, the deck has not done so well against the recent surge of paladins.  They made the last few wins very hard to come by.

For what it's worth, my list looks something like this:

Innervate x2
Earthen Scales x1
Wild Growth x2
Wrath x2
Barnes
Bright-Eyed Scout x2
Mire Keeper x2
Swipe x2
Nourish x2
Dark Arakkoa x2
Moonglade Portal x2
Bog Creeper x1
Giant Anaconda x2
The Curator
Primordial Drake x2
Ysera
Deathwing
Deathwing, Dragonlord
Y'shaarg, Rage Unbound

I guess the cards that I value more than the experts in this deck are bright-eyed scout and dark arakkoa.  When you hero power and pass in the mid-game as a druid, you usually lose.  If you play the scout on curve, even drawing a 5 mana mire keeper or 5 mana swipe might be a very welcome sight.  If I wanted to add feral rage or possibly a silence, I don't think I would cut from these cards.

[The Black Sword]

Nice job, that's a pretty cool deck to hit legend with.

I guess wrath/innervate/growth worked as enough early game for you? I was messing around with some ramp-like druid and I was trying to find something else to play there, thinking about stuff like tar creeper to fill the empty 3 slot. Just accepting you have no good cards there and getting more power from the scout is good idea though.

[Nystul]

Nice job, that's a pretty cool deck to hit legend with.

I guess wrath/innervate/growth worked as enough early game for you? I was messing around with some ramp-like druid and I was trying to find something else to play there, thinking about stuff like tar creeper to fill the empty 3 slot. Just accepting you have no good cards there and getting more power from the scout is good idea though.

Tar creeper sounds reasonable if there are a lot of aggro decks.  I ran one jade blossom for quite a while.  Feral rage is decent.

I feel like I can get away with skipping 3 drops because my intended innervate targets are mire keeper or nourish for mana.  Barnes and swipe can be strong cards to coin out when there is no ramp play.  The deck doesn't get beat on value very often, so there should be room to tinker with early game options.

[Jowy]

I was one win away from Legend, twice. Feels bad. I don't want to play more Hearthstone, but I also don't want to not hit Legend even one time in my life. This weekend is going to suck.