Hearthpwn

The big problem with Midrange Shaman is that it has no weak matchups (outside Freeze Mage, which is pretty bad against everything else). Traditionnally, aggro decks lose against control, and midrange decks lose against aggro. The thing is, with extremely aggressive starts (Tunnel Trogg, Totem Golem), efficient removal and board control (Spirit Claws, Maelstrom Portal, Thing from Below) and value plays (Thunder Bluff Valiant, Feral Spirit, Fire Elemental), Shaman has it all. It's a Midrange deck (inherently good against Control) that does not lose to Aggro, and has enough early pressure to aggro out other Midrange decks, thus pushing everything out of the meta.

Come rotation, unless they're replaced, the powerful early starts, and the best value card, will be gone, turning the deck into a more traditional Midrange controllish build, a la old school Midrange Paladin. For now, it is hard to choose what to target - should we cut down on the efficient answers, making the deck vulnerable to Aggro, but possibly hurting the class in the long term (since those are all cards that will remain post rotation)? Should we destroy the late game plan, forcing the deck to play aggressively? Should we axe the early plays, possibly making the deck vulnerable to other tempo / midrange strategies? Choices, choices, choices... 

Spreading Madness ;)

Quote from Boldelar >>

Freeze mage requires skill for both players. That's the reason CW wins against them and zoos get rekted.

The real problem with Midrange Shaman... Is that the only deck with a favorable matchup againsy it is fucking Freeze Mage. Which means more and more people play Freeze Mage. Which, really, means I won't play in Ranked for at least a few weeks. Stupid uninteractive piece of shit deck that makes you lose SO MUCH time (seriously, roping to cast Arcane Intellect and pass?) and sucks the fun out of the game EVEN WHEN YOU WIN.

Well Shaman will still have Thing from Below and the Evolve style cards, so it might lose its aggressive starts, but could still have some potential, no matter what the next set brings.

Warrior, Mage, Hunter, Druid and Warlock all have a strong enough Classic set that Blizzard would have to work really hard to make them bottom tier.

Rogue will always have some kind of Miracle deck, so I doubt they'll drop too far. N'zoth will still be in standard as well, and they have an okay-ish deathrattle curve.

This leaves Paladin and Priest, whose Classic sets basically have the same problems - weak early game. Although I wish Priest would be rescued from the scrap heap, I honestly think the rotation hurts them more than it hurts Paladin. Unless Blizzard actually pushes the class heavily, I'm going to bet on Priest still being the worst class, until at least another adventure boosts them, on top of the rotation.

What WaffleMonster said. Commanding Shout works by preventing damage once your creature is at 1 health - thus no Acolyte of Pain, Dragon Egg or Patron Warrior proc. I haven't played with this before WotOG, so it might have worked at one point, but it's been this way, at the very least, for a while.

Quote from ambershee >>

Vicious Syndicate's current deck rankings, using high volumes of collected data (over 50,000 games).

They list Spell / Yogg Druid as tier 1, but if you look at those actual scores, Shaman is way out in front and Druid is tier 2. Tempo Mage, Beast Druid and Secret Hunter are just about playable, everything else is more or less a bust.

This is the least healthy the game has ever been, including pre-nerf Undertaker Hunter.

Well it still does the same thing it did - (sometimes) turn a sure loss around. It can even hit the same power peak, with some luck (double Flamestrike the opponent's board into Call of the Wild into Sprint). The fact that it stops when it leaves doesn't change much, although it makes the most powerful Yoggs less frequent - but hey, it's not like the card was run for its reliability.

They probably should just have banned it from tournament play if they felt it was a problem there, but that would have set a precedent they were not comfortable with.

For the record, although it does sometimes feel very bad for the receiving player, I don't think it's a problem card. The top players still rise to the top, and as Kibler aptly put it a few days before the nerfs, if you look closely, most matches where Yogg is played are still won by the player who led before. It steals games (but not as many as you'd think), but so do a lucky spell from Babbling Book, or a drawn-at-the-perfect moment Call of the Wild or C'thun. It is natural that costly cards severely impact the game, Yogg just does it unreliably, in a flashy manner, which creates frustration and perception problems.

Quote from bitsnack >>

ive played 6 games: black won them all? is this pure luck or faith? (im 5-1)

Quote from FranzLimit >>

People who get 80-90% winrate without lying or sabotaging the result (with way to small sample size or intentionally only playing in low ranks) usually make a perfect meta call. After a new expansion hits this happens quite often. (I also went with 80% winrate from rank 20 to 5 with zoolock, the day Dark Councilman was released for example) Good deckbuilders can even adapt between 2 expansions fast enough to the meta and build "perfect" counter decks. The thing is that after about 2 months more or less all counters have been discovered and the meta falls in a stalemate. -> it becomes harder and harder to build the perfect counter deck.

Anyway, those super high win rate decks are possible but they are more or less impossible to netdeck because when more people use this deck it will imiedeately be countered too.

As allready mentioned in other comments everything above 50% is good enough for legend if you have enough time. Tier 1 net-decks are usually slightly below 55% win rate, as far as I know.

If you aren't a great deckbuilder you can still dramatically increase your winrate with the right tech-choices. Just look which decks your opponents play most of the time and try to swap 1-2 cards to make those match ups a bit better. Looking at tempostorm for example also helps a lot because these are usually the decks which at least 50% of the people on ladder are playing.

Quote from Infirc >>

Entomb, Hex or Polymorph one Warleader.

Quote from Infirc >>

Entomb, Hex or Polymorph one Warleader.

Along with echoing the Control Warrior versus Freeze Mage, I'd like to add pre-WotoG Anyfin Paladin versus Control Warrior, which also had around 80-90 percent winrate.

Foe Reaper in Wild does the same thing as the Magnataur and might actually survive. It's also become a nice combo clear card along with Wild Pyromancer and Commanding Shout - I could see Patron opting to play one.

Best - Charge and Tuskarr Totemic.

May OTK decks disappear forever, and may Shamans actually play their games out rather than roll a die to see if they win.

Worst - Rockbiter Weapon and Yogg-Saron.

Rockbiter was one of the few decent cards in the Shaman Classic set, and while this does slightly nerf the class now, it leaves it worse off post rotation, making its basic tools even weaker.

Yogg-Saron might have been a problem for tournaments (although it was more problem of perception, as Kibler put it) but this change lessens its "wow" factor (making him undesirable for the casual player), makes it even more unreliable (making him undesirable for competition), while keeping the same power ceiling (aka the actual problem). If the ceiling was too high, they should have changed it some other way, and if the credibilty of HS as an e-sport was in play, they should just have banned it from tournaments so the non-pro players could still have fun with it.

 Casting Wrath for 1 damage + draw to kill a weak minion (say a 3/1) when you could have used the druid hero power. Now I know sometimes you really need to draw action, but honestly I don't see how dumping a removal spell (that could have killed something else on a later turn) is a good idea. Sure, you saved 2-3 health, but removing a 3-4 health threat later would have saved you at least as much, on top of being able to target minions hiding behind taunts and / or getting value from Fandral...