I just wanted to share this:
1) I started this game late January.
2) In that first month, I finished at rank 14, with my goal being rank 15.
3) In February, I set rank 10 as a goal for myself. I hit rank 7, but topped out there with my ghetto Zoolock (no Boom, Mal'Ganis, or Void Terror).
4) In March, I hit rank 5 one week ago from today. It took me just 7 days to accomplish the goal, and I did it with a Hybrid Hunter deck. I could have done it in less time, but I lost 2-3 ranks experimenting with different cards in the deck before finding the perfect mixture (note: Explorer's Hat is 100% garbage).
I almost hit rank 4, but I actually got dunked back down to rank 6. Regardless, I'm confident that I could hit Legendary with this deck by the end of the month with a bit of luck. If any of you are feeling despair about a lack of progress, or are new to the game, just know that it took me about 2 months to hit rank 5 in ranked, and my deck has only one legendary: Loatheb. The entire deck is craftable for just a bit above 1000 dust, as I recall.
I have a 75% win rate against Secret Paladin decks, as well. Unleash the Hounds is easily the best card in the whole deck. It has won me countless games by being a top pull and wiping a board, including one time where I played double Juggler into UTH, and all 8 of the daggers it summoned hit face for lethal, and the time I only got Juggler + Leper Gnome and it killed a 5/1 Doomguard off a full board, leading to a victory. I don't think Hybrid Hunter is a tier 1 deck, but I think it can be argued as middle of tier 2. I play it over Aggro Hunter because unlike Aggro Hunter, I can SOMETIMES win against Control Warriors and Priests. Maybe 40% of the time, which is still better than the 0% Aggro Hunter has in my experience.
The only $ I spent on the game was to get all of Naxx for Mad Scientists, which are essential in this meta for Hunters. Mad Scientist has led to turn 6 kills on more than one occasion - endless love for this card.
