Hearthpwn

Tsaf,

I really enjoy playing your deck, great job! Now, I've just got to get good at using it =D. I hope you continue to provide us with deck updates in the future!

Hi Stelrad,

Thanks for the kind words, glad to hear you're enjoying the deck :). I think I will update the guide a little over the next day or 2 with some more meta choices and specifics on how and why I use some cards like Abusive Sergeant.

The meta feels pretty volatile atm and I constantly change cards around, almost everyday and come back to this skeleton if I go too far or need to feel things out. Though with the current burst of Druids/Mid Range Hunter at ranks 5+ I feel quite comfortable playing with the following changes: -Yeti, -SSC, -Ysera, +Sunwalker, +The Black Knight, +Earthen Ring Farseer(still not 100% on this one could be better as BGH).

Tsaf,

Thanks for the response! I'll be taking your advice and have followed you for future updates! Keep on keeping on!

Thanks for the feedback man, Glad to hear you're having fun with the deck!

Cairne is not too vital but hard to simply replace, I would probably use Sunwalker.

Rag on the other hand is one of our few 'Finishers' and anything you replace him with needs to help end the game quicker. Do you have any other big legendaries? Onyxia is probably one of your best bets off the top of my head, great synergy with Cenarius. It's hard without seeing your collection but whatever you think your best "big threat" is, an ogre might do and has some decent synergy with taunt givers.

Yeah she's not great, I wouldn't craft her. But you need that finisher, if you can onyxia>cenarius and they have no aoe it's almost certainly game. also leaves you with 14 damage on board if they cant do anything.

Overall, not a great legendary but there arn't too many other options for a finisher if you dont have rag :P. You could also try Starfire.

Hi I don't come up against Handlocks all that often(5th most common archetype, 16/173 matches). But as far as dealing with them goes, not too well is probably the answer :P(currently 6-10).

The only threat Handlock really has vs this deck is the giants though, and if they don't get taunted I usually have a more threatening board and the Warlock is forced to atk my minons with his first giant or 2, allowing me to clean them up with wrath/charge DotC/Abusive on smaller minions. Try not to allow them the hp/mana required to drop 2 giants+taunt(Leave him on 14hp instead of atk'n with everything in the hope to lethal next turn with a DoTC+Abusive+board for eg.)

Also be wary of Hellfire and Shadowflame, I would argue that a good Shadowflame is far more problematic in this matchup than the giants. Sylvanas is also really strong in this matchup.

From memory most of my wins against handlock came from strong turns 1-4, forcing my opponent to drop taunts/heals early(I usually find my opponent using 1-2 earthen+a  siphon before dropping moltens), and finding lethal after 1-2 giants(often not drawing enough taunts after using 1-2 argus/sunfury early).

I realise this doesn't reflect the winrate posted in the guide I will update now(only had about 6 games vs handlock at the time of posting).
I Hope this was helpful in someway, but tbh if i found myself coming against alot of handlocks I would probably change decks :P.

I was enraged by losing 3 straight on my shaman, followed by 4 on my control warrior so I gave this deck a try.  I must say it's very good.  It's not seen in the meta so it kind of catches people off guard.  My only issues are shaman and rogue have faster tempo with cheap removal so they can steamroll out of control this deck doesn't have many ways to catch up.  Also handlock is fucking brutal.  I think I was around 60% last night but only 1-5 against handlocks.  I threw in 2 BGH, black knight and starfall to help with them.  The starfall because I found myself getting them around 10 with something on the board but couldn't do the last 3-7 damage to finish them off before siphon soul, alex and jaraxxus came to the party.  

Any advice on the shaman/rogue match ups?  While they didn't stomp me I couldn't really keep tempo with them and there aren't many ways in the deck to get ahead. 

Hi, I'm happy to hear you've had some success with the deck :).
Shaman and Handlocks are definately 2 of the tougher matchups for this deck, I'm currently 40% WR against both of those. Looks like you made some good changes if you're vs'n lots of Handlocks, I've been using BGH a bit lately too.

As for Shaman, after browsing over my notes(although I only have a 10 game sample), it seems as though, being a hard matchup to begin with, any small or subtle mistakes will almost certainly cost you the game. The timing of your big drops is important but I think more often than not though you just need to draw more threats/big taunts than he does appropriate removal, be careful with innervating(although sometimes innervate ancient on turn 5 pulls some removal allowing you to drop a safer, cairne/sylv on 6 > 2nd Ancient 7).

I havn't vs'd many rogues(5 miracle, 3 tempo). Vs miracle though I was able to keep up enough pressure to force them into using spells before dropping gadget/Conceal, try and bait saps with innervate on DoTC taunt so you can drop it again on 5/6+(when it matters). Consider how many cards are in there hand and how much damage it could equate too, Lore's heal could save the game. Don't leave them with a coldblood target you can't manage but otherwise be aggressive. The more spells they have to use on you the less chance they'll see a miracle.
Tempo rogue is more about effective trading and consideration of the rogues instant damage. It might seem foolish to throw your 4/4 taunt at a 3/3 Agent, but if they combo into an eviscerate this will leave them with significant board advantage, and a free shot at any other minions that were hiding behind your taunt. You must consider the game state, particularly what cards your opponent has already played when making these decisions though. Sometimes you can just out tempo the rogue, do 10-12 damage in a few turns then follow up with an argus for security > Win.

With all that said, Bad matchups are what they are, can't beat em all :P.
Good Luck.

Can't believe someone would ever think about not playing swipes in a druid deck :D

People used to say that about actually playing Shieldbearer in any deck ;)

Okay so I gave it a go but all I did was bash face and it did well, is that what its supposed to do? :) lol

Haha with some draws in some matchups yeah. Glad to hear it went well so far.

My Greetings! Seems a nice solid deck! Well Done

What can be swapped for Ysera? TBK maybe? or something else?

Hi and Thanks!
I have found Ysera to be a fairly flexible slot also and have swapped her out in aggro heavy meta's for Abom. In general though I don't think you can afford to lose the late game threat Ysera is.
TBK could be decent and would probably push the mirror WR up, slightly too situational for my taste in this deck though. I would go for Alexstrazsa if you have her, if not perhaps even a 2nd Ancient of War.

Alex can also be a bit situational but she can help you close out a game you've been unable to get ahead and do much damage in, or buy you the extra turn or 2 you need to drop some taunts and stabilize vs aggro. Both situations I think pop up more frequently than being stuck on a taunt(although this does still happen occasionaly so I think TBK is still fine if you want to run him).

thank you! I will sub TBK until I craft one of Ysera or Alex

I went 7/1 ranking a few days ago. I can verify this deck works well.