Hearthpwn

Shaman is useless and has absolutely no chance vs aggro DH. If you play against bad players any deck seems really strong. Shaman though loses like 80% of the time vs a good aggro DH running a proper list. Try playing that hot garbage at high legend. You are dead on turn 5. You can get lucky with evolves, specifically getting taunt and lifesteal. The challenge is shaman struggles in the early game and so when it gets to the mid game to start evolving it really needs stuff to happen. You're really screwed when you don't draw your weapon too.

It feels really good when things get going though of course.

You can run a different dragon instead of kalecgos though. You can play an azure dragon, that's a pretty decent dragon that can get you another dragon when played (and so you can play it on curve comfortably and can get you kalecgos or another alexstraza). There isn't any replacement for the prime though.

I am pretty sure you can make any deck viable with DH if you have the core cards in there. Adept is such a strong card and is literally a better version than anything that does something similar so I would consider that a mandatory inclusion. Maybe you can drop something for it (say one copy of warglaives?)

DH is only so low since these retards are putting vulpera scoundrel in the non-highlander list and other stupid crap (even at 500 - 2k legend). The deck is far more powerful than the data would indicate because the lists are stupid. Most people arn't using the list VS recommends but stupid crap that wins anyway since the core cards of skill of guldan, warskill of azzinoth, skillboundadept, skilltyr overseer and skillbeam are still there. If you have those plus altruis it doesn't matter what other garbage you stick in the deck (obviously you need skillfiend and skillslice too).

I have faced some criticism about my play here. This was top 1k legend game and I was playing nohandsgamer. I watched the stream after the game and he said my play was objectively worse (than the alternate play) I am a bit confused about this (I did make a big mistake early on in the game because I was tired and not focusing, but he was referring to my play here).

Here is the board state:

Obviously at this point we are going to play Zixor Prime as it is our only way to not die. To be clear this is the board state after playing zixor prime:

Each 4/4 has rush. My play was to trade two of the 4/4s into the 2/2s with taunt. I now have two 4/4s with rush and a 6/2. I then play guardian augmerchant from my hand onto one of my 4/4s to give it divine shield and trade it into my opponent's 4/4. The last 4/4 I trade into my opponents 4/4 then I trade my 6/2 into his 5/5. The board state afterwards was as follows:

If I screwed up I still don't know what I did wrong. I could have used the merchant on the 6/2 but then it would die next turn from a hero power. All my minions were at least 2 hp. I can trade a 4/5 using the merchant as one damage in combination with a 4/4 but that would kill my 4/4 and leave a gnoll alive. I could have used all my mana but hero powering and not keeping a 4/3 on the board but trading it off (maybe better if he had poof but if he had poof he would have used it by now for sure since he was under significant pressure earlier). So I can't understand what he was talking about when he said this was an objectively worse play from me.

Quote from saibur_ >>

Couldn't agree more. I remember the times when playing around your opponent's two Flamestrikes was a thing. That's the one thing they got right about Demon Hunter, no random card generation there.

 There is no RNG in DH since they just draw their whole deck and consistently kill you though lol. There is some merit in having a chance to win!

Skill box though is pretty bad. I mean everyone hates skill of guldan but at least you know what they are going to draw. The trouble with skill box is that all you know is it's coming and it's just a gamble. It's an absurd mechanic.

Quote from SlipperyBum >>

Quote from Ravza >>

Quote from OverholtNA >>

Quote from Ravza >>

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What's everybody's beef with Witch's Brew?

 You get no tempo with it so it doesn't help you win the game. Compare this to amber watcher or libram of hope which heals you and develops your board. How do you play witch's brew vs aggressive decks to stop dying? You can't since you must develop your board.

Well I certainly wouldn't put it in a tempo deck. It's a control tool and the flexibility of the card is what makes it viable. You can send five of them to face late in a fatigue game. You can work one in instead of a totem when you have nothing to play against aggressive decks. You can weave a few in after a Hex or Hagatha's Scheme. It's a death knell for any deck trying to beat you with damage from hand. You can even use it to top off minions.

It's a solid card. The issue is more that control Shaman doesn't have a win condition right now, so it doesn't fit into an archetype.

 Healing for four though isn't enough to keep you alive. I mean you just need to look at a gala rogue deck to understand just how weak shaman is and the issue with witch's brew. Rogue doesn't even have healing (aside five armour from galakrond and maybe kronx late game for five) and yet its unbelievably strong vs many decks, including very aggressive decks. A gala rogue deck played well exerts so much pressure and tempo and it never runs out of gas. Because it is able to do this, it doesn't really need healing. This is also the case for highlander hunter and tempo DH decks. Shaman doesn't really put enough boots on the ground. The trouble with board clears is they don't help you win the game when they are expensive and hit your minions too. This is why plague is dropped in many gala priest lists. It doesn't assist in the actual winning of the game. What wins games is putting numbers on the board. Evolve shaman when it draws its weapon and the hare is very very strong (assuming it's not dead on turn 5 to a tempo DH or murloc paladin) because it puts numbers on the board. More numbers = more wins.

 I don't know man, every single time I use this my hunter opponent insta concedes. It's pretty sweet.

 Maybe face hunter but I mean legend highlander hunters who arn't in the dumpster ranks probably arn't conceding just because shaman gets a witch's brew off. That deck just plays for tempo and so it enables them to develop their board. Often what can happen is that HL hunter may have a weak turn and that enables shaman to heal up. After that though HL hunter gets a stronger turn the next turn and develops a board. You have to clear it now with hagatha or earthquake, using substantial mana. Then HL hunter just keeps coming, wave after wave maintaining tempo and dealing chip damage until you just run out of stuff (you need to deal with their initial push for lethal, often with king krush on turn 7, the next push for lethal with normal minions/dragons, the alextstraza turn, the zixor turn and sometimes depending on the deck the nagrand slam turn meanwhile staying out of lethal range which is hard since HL hunter has a very large reach with zephyrs, another lethal threat. They also get one discover a dragon where they can find a second alexstraza reasonably often, or a deathwing for one last final push in fatique). I mean sure you can win in fatigue on a control shaman but HL hunter has so many threats in the deck it's not easy to get there without dying. There is far more damage in the HL hunter deck then shaman can heal through so you have to usually kill them somehow which means obtaining tempo. You will never kill them if they have tempo unless you play some spell shaman that has a lot of reach. Therein lies the problem. Shaman runs out of stuff and has no late game threats except 2/1s with rush.

Face hunter though just loses if they don't kill you fast enough since too many taunts and healing.

Every time I play DH it surprises me on how broken it is (the nerfs were kind of meaningless). I mean down to the fact that warglaives of azzinoth lets you attack again even after the weapon has been destroyed. It should be that you can attack with the weapon again, not with your hero. You get five attacks instead of four. I am just constantly surprised how much better each of their cards are than everyone elses lol.

I played highlander hunter to legend. It has a bad matchup vs tempo DH but it has a good matchup vs priest. While I hate tempo DH, it's important to me to have a decent matchup vs priest since I absolutely despite playing decks where you have auto concede matchups. I like control warrior and there are some lists that do well and I went to legend with it last season, but having to concede vs every priest is dumb. In some cases I could see priest up to 4 games in a row and it was just a sure loss after 20 mins and so pointless to play. Highlander hunter has winnable matchups against everyone, even if the tempo DH matchup is a 40 - 43% matchup.

The galakrond priest though is a bit more beatable with a bomb warrior deck than other priest decks. The trouble with bomb warrior is without the lackeys the matchup vs tempo DH is very bad (although it enjoys overwhelmingly good matchups vs mage and rogue).

Paladin and shaman decks are so bad vs priest though. They just have no end game value. Even if shaman plays archivist it has no win conditions in the end game to compete with priest getting a free card from galakrond every turn. At least enrage warrior has a chance to kill the priest (and if they wanted to make the matchup better they can tech in alex to reduce the priest hp to 15 a turn before they combo them, at the expense of having a worse matchup vs tempo DH).

Quote from 3nnu1 >>

I am really glad that I already got legend this month before blizzard changed the playing field again. Hopefully the dust settles quickly and the new meta does not require too many expensive crafts to reach max rewards next month. 

 The meta will be very similiar. Rogue might consider playing the stealth list though. DH will probably just drop the priestess and swap to a more aggro list which is what they already do anyway quite often. The aggro list is arguably better for laddering anyway and the deck will still be completely overpowered. The nerf to priestess was by popular demand. The nerf to crimson doesn't really matter. Everything that allows DH to kill you by turn 5 is still there in full force and it will be pretty unstoppable. The only deck that will still be able to beat it is warrior. The only way to stop DH from winning 60% of all games (which they will still do, now just faster) is to increase their mana costs.