Legend Spell Hunter w/ Barnes & Y’shaarj

I found that Cubelock was the most difficult matchup for this deck. Any variation of Warlock that ran Voidlord paired with Bloodreaver Gul’dan was a nightmare. It was extremely hard to get through the minions with the tools I had. Even when high rolling Barnes you aren’t guaranteed to win due to their absurd amounts of healing through Mistress of mixtures, Dark pact, Amethyst spellstone, Bloodreaver Gul’dan and some more pseudo healing from Plated beetle. With Siphon soul being available on turn 6, it can make quick work of your Y’shaarj. Try to deal as much damage to them as early as possible, try bait out Hellfire before playing Emerald spellstone and try to save Hunter’s mark, Freezing trap, Deadly shot for Voidlord pray to god they draw badly.

I was fairly surprised to not see much Tempo Rogue. As usual, you are looking for Barnes or Tracking into it. Even if the opponent has Coin-Vilespine or Backstab-Vilespine, you won’t be in a bad spot with a 3/4 on board. Try to upgrade and activate your Emerald spellstones since Tempo Rogue has no aoe clear. Clear their minions with Eaglehorn bow and generate tempo with your secrets and Flanking strike.

Against Secret Tempo Mage, you want to mulligan for the same cards plus Flare. Barnes should instantly win you the game as most decks don’t run Polymorph. Same game plan, clear with bow and generate tempo with secrets and Flanking strike. Becareful to not be greedy with flare because counterspell is a card. This deck plays well into Secret Mage as this deck doesn’t really play minions which makes Explosive Runes amost useless until you decide to play your deathknight.

Combo

Playing against combo decks are very straight forward. Some that I faces would include Highlander Priest and Mill Rogue. You are mostly looking for Barnes, Tracking and possibly Cat Trick for tempo and try to run them over as quickly as possible (similar to the control matchup). You don’t have to play around Dragonfire potion/Psychic scream as cautiously as they only run 1 copy of each unless they use Shadow visions. Also look out for Vanish against Mill Rogue.

Conclusion

Spell hunter is a very reactive deck and doesn’t make many proactive plays part from the Barnes combo. I feel like the deck does fairly well against a combo orientated deck such as Highlander Priest, decently against aggro decks such as Aggro Paladin, Aggro Druid, Face Hunter and Zoolock. But has a harder time against control matchups such as Big Priest, Dragon Priest and Cubelock. In my opinion, I think the Barnes variant is better as the high roll is worth the risk and also with so many Priests running around on ladder, Psychic scream will make Rhok’delar dead anyways.