Hearthpwn

First time reaching legend with a free to play Demon Hunter deck.

Proof:


Imgur Link

Background/History

I started at Diamond Rank 5 right before the release of the latest expansion and wanted to try the free Demon Hunter deck (only basic/classic cards) that you get when you complete the prologue. Since I was at a rank floor I decided it would be OK to lose some games but I started with a 6 game win streak without any changes to the free deck.

After a couple losses, I decided to optimize the deck a bit so I removed some cards like Nethrandamus (he is way too slow) and Command the Illidari(also too slow). I replaced them with other one drops like Crimson Sigil Runner since it is a one-mana cycle which is insane. It's also a common card so it's very cheap to get. I also dropped Wrathscale Naga eventually since it ended up being a dead card for many of my games. The one card you absolutely need two of for this deck is Skull of Gul'dan. I can't emphasize enough that this card will win you a lot of games. I fully expect to see it nerfed in the future but it's a cheap card to buy with dust so it really helps for budget conscious players.

The other notable addition is two copies of Questing Adventurer. I decided these were a much better fit than Coordinated Strike after I saw another Demon Hunter on ladder kill me with it. These are an amazing inclusion for a budget deck because they can completely cheese some games when other people aren't expecting it. You have so many low cost cards in this deck and sometimes you can use Skull of Gul'dan to make all your cards even cheaper. 

After making these changes to the deck, I ended up 28-11 on the path from Diamond 5 to Legend (there were a couple other games I lost as a Rogue).

Notable exclusions:
Kayn Sunfury
Spectral Sight
Metamorphosis
I didn't want to buy any of these cards because two of them are legendaries and I don't have the dust. Spectral Sight is just a bit too slow for my liking and it's totally eclipsed by Skull of Gul'dan anyway. 

Tips:
This deck is all about tempo and chip damage. You really want to get your cheap minions out and hitting face as much as possible. Sacrifice your health in the early game to save as many of your minions and keep them hitting face. Many games will end because you had just enough damage left with your minions or the extra four damage from Glaivebound Adept.

Also, try to play greedy with your Questing Adventurer. You have two of them in the deck but it is a win condition that not everyone is expecting right now (I've only seen one other person on ladder try it). Most of your opponent's will waste their removal on your other minions so you can save your Questing Adventurer for a big turn where you can play a lot of cheap minions/spells that you get from Skull of Gul'dan.

Mulligan:
For slower matchups, I like to keep Skull of Gul'dan because it's fairly easy to work it over to the left-side of your hand. Once turn 5 or 6 hits, just play it for free tempo and an easy win. 

For faster matchups, always keep your one-drop minions. Sometimes, if you have Twin Slice in your hand, you can also keep Satyr Overseer. It's a good turn 3 play and it tends to waste your opponent's removal. If they don't remove the Overseer, they will typically get swarmed too quickly and lose anyway.

As much as it's a win condition, never keep Questing Adventurer. You definitely want to draw it later in the game with Skull of Gul'dan so you can play it for free along with a bunch of other cards.

Matchups:
Right now is a perfect time to be playing this deck. It's optimized enough to beat out the sub-optimal decks currently on ladder. In the 39 games I played with this deck, I faced 20 Demon Hunters (50% matchup) and had a 100% win rate against every other deck except for one Highlander Mage deck that high-rolled. Yes there are a lot of Demon Hunters right now but it's typically a coin-flip with them. Somehow I managed to beat every other deck so if you don't see a Demon Hunter on the other side, it's a free win. 

I think that says more about the new class than anything, there are a lot of really powerful cards in this deck and it makes the climb to legend quite trivial.