it has been foreshadowed that Demandred will lead the shadow's forces. And it seems very obvious that the shadow will initially be winning and causing a lot of damage but loosing in the happy end. I follow the majority who believes that Mat will eventually outsmart Demandred on the battle field (i don't care who will kill Demandred in the end).

The key question for me is how well will this be written? Will the initial plan of Demandred make a lot of sense with surprise elements that have not been predicted by readers? Will we read battle scenes with PoVs of Mat and Demandred how they alternately realise that the opponent set a clever counter-trap in response to their own trap just to find a new clever response? I am really worried about this challenge. As it stands some of the most enjoyable chapters (for me) in the last two books involve Ituralde and how he outsmarted stronger opponents. While I thought that was extremely well done I have problems imagining that Mat against Demandred battles can be written in way that sounds even smarter...
I would hate a Mat-outsmarts-Demandred story on the intellectual level of Egwene-outsmarts-tower sisters.