Hearthpwn

Patron – Good Matchup - 60% – With the Patron Warrior, there are a couple of problematic cards in our deck that you need to pay attention to and to not play as their turn 7 or 8 comes where their deck truly shines. Those cards are Deathlord and the Acolyte of Pain. As all of them work for the patron, be careful when you take them out. But as long as you have setup a solid start with the taunts, play the shadow madness when he takes something out that you can use properly, like use SM on a patron and kill a patron, or optimally, use a Lightbomb (which I would advise you even save in the starting hand if you get it) when he takes out the combo, it’s pretty much GG, but you will most likely go into fatigue where you will be able to setup your wombo combo.

Key cards: Lightbomb, Shadow Madness, Cabal Shadow Priest.


Control (Normal or Dragon) – Average Matchup – 50% - This is a tough one, but can also be easy at the same time, even more than patron. The Dragon Warrior will probably have a steady start where he will take out the Alexstrasza’s Champion or the Sparring Partner. This is where Deathlord can be really good, and really bad at the same time, if he gets out something strong from it. From my experience it was mostly good. After you see him use both executes and doesn’t have enough armor, it’s Prophet Velen time on turn 7. As long as Velen survives one turn, it should be easy from then on. Save Lightbombs for when he takes Varian Wrynn out, then demolish his board.

Key cards: Lightbomb, Vol'jin, Shadow Word: Death.

Midrange Zoo – Good Matchup – 70% - Midrange Zoo can be a very problem for any deck with a good hand, but they usually have few responses for taunts, so our taunts are important here. They can mostly only use the Power Overwhelming, and that’s a good thing for us as they can’t burst us down later with the Doomguards that easily. Shadow Madness has to be played smartly here, using it on a Flame Imp is amazing, as it doesn’t need that much to die when you take it, and it deals 3 damage. If you can see that they are not that aggressive, you can use the Shadowform at will.

Key cards: Deathlord, Holy Nova, Shadowform.

Handlock – Average Matchup – 50% - The fact that the Handlocks aren’t basically doing anything until turn 4, that works out well for us, as we can manage to set out a solid board and at the same time use Shadowform and start burning him down. In this match-up, if there are a lot of Handlocks around, saving one Shadow Word: Death can be really good to use on that early Mountain Giant or later when he gets the big boys out. BE VERY PATIENT WITH THE LIGHTBOMB. See if you can save it after he gets out both Molten Giants. If you manage to pull that off, you won the game. There will be more than enough time to setup the Velen combo.

Key cards: Shadow Word: Death, Lightbomb, Shadowform.

Midrange/Control without Secrets – Good Matchup – 70% -  I usually never had problems with midrange paladins. As long as you hide properly behind your taunts, they are going to have a hard time with you. You can save the Holy Nova at the beginning and be patient with it, use it after the muster, but be aware that he can buff the 1/1 dudes with Quartermaster on turn 8 already. Besides that, early Shadowform is key.

Key cards: Holy Nova, Wild Pyromancer, Deathlord.


Secret (Ebola) – Average Matchup/??? – 40% - The face paladin might present a problem for this deck as the only cure against them is getting either a Wild Pyromancer + Power Word: Shield or a Holy nova that will get a lot of value. If facing a lot of them, another Nova instead of the Lightbomb might be better. As with every Paladin, taunts are very important here as they don’t have how to deal with them. If you let’s say get out a Sen'jin Shieldmasta and buff it once with the PWS, that should give you a couple of turns for you to get out the Shadowform for example and start removing things.

Key cards: Wild Pyromancer, Holy Nova/s, Deathlord.

Midrange – Good Matchup – 65% - There is quite a bit of different midrange hunter decks now, as the meta didn’t really settle yet for them as there are a lot more minions in play than midrange hunters are used to. Shadow Priest shouldn’t have a hard time against them, or any hunters really. The board presence is key here, but be careful of what the secret is, try not to freeze your taunt if you don’t have a strong play next turn. Our removals are perfect here, and you can even steal his 2 or 3 attack minion if you pop his Freezing Trap with it after using Shadow Madness. Holy nova has to be used properly, as after one of them he will most likely throw out his hand, believing he is safe to go.

Key Cards: Holy Nova, Wild Pyromancer, Flash Heal.

Face/Hybrid – Very Good Matchup – 80% - Rush decks like this one will not or shouldn’t be a problem for this deck as it has quite a bit of taunts and heals in it. Track his mana, try to call his plays, and consider the maximum damage he can get out of it (e.g. turn 6, Animal Companion into Huffer, and a Kill Command = 9 damage.) and try to work around it. A shadowform is double-sided sword here, it can help you but can also destroy you even more. The Wild Pyromancer + Power Word: Shield should more or less decide the game in your favour early on already.

Key Cards: Wild Pyromancer, Deathlord, Holy Nova.

Burst/Oil – Bad Matchup 30% - If you don’t manage to get out some decent taunts and to recover after they hit you for like 8 damage or something like that you will lose for sure. A very hard matchup for this deck, but not unwinnable for sure. Remove their minions, remove the Azure Drake especially. They might seem benevolent, and that’s because a lot of people forget about that Spell Damage +1. Also, minions are supposed to be removed or else you will get wrecked by Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil. Rogues are cancer for priests in general because of their lack of high attack minions.  

Key Cards: Deathlord, Sen'jin Shieldmasta, Shadowform, Lightbomb.

Mech – Very Good Matchup – 80% - The mech shamans are relying solely on board overwhelming and then ravaging you with a Flametongue Totem and the Fel Reaver. The removals as for every aggro deck are key here and will get you to an easy victory. Try to use as many cards as you can before you Shadow Word: Death the Fel Reaver. Besides that, a good Shadow Madness will win you the game, and the Holy nova too. Try to steal either the Air Totem with the Cabal if you can’t steal anything better or the Taunt totem if you need to stop one minion. They don’t usually run Lightning Storms, so you can build your board without worries of aoe removal. 

Key Cards: Key cards: Shadow Word: Death, Holy Nova, Shadow Madness.

Totem – Good Matchup/??? – 60%/??? - Besides the fact that Priests usually don’t have that many problems against midrange shamans because of the amazing aoe removals, the new shaman might present a problem if he manages to make a good board with the Tuskarr Totemics and the Totem Golems before you manage to put up a taunt. Save the Shadow Word: Deaths for the Fire Elementals, Holy Nova for when the board is full, and steal a Flametongue Totem or a Mana one and you should be good to go.

Key cards: Shadow Word: Death, Holy Nova, Shadow Madness.

Dragon – Very Bad Matchup/??? – 25%/??? – I haven’t tried it out as I said in the note above, but I can’t see how can this matchup go in your favour as they focus on getting a lot of high HP minions out during the entire game and that will be a problem for any kind of removals. If facing a lot of them I guess shadow Word: Pains might actually be much better than the SW:Ds as they run a lot of minions with 2 or 3 attack but which have a crapload of HP. Lightbomb does absolutely nothing against them, and the taunts that you take out can even be taken if they are running the Shrinkmeister + Cabal combo. The only good thing that can happen is to be able to take out Ysera easily if you manage to pull of a Vol'jin on her and to remove her with something like a Wild Pyromancer for example.

Token/Ramp – Average Matchup – 55% - The problem here is them getting out strong minions before you manage to get good board presence, but if you manage to get out strong turn 4s then you should be good to go. Don’t forget to count how much damage they have with the combo and remove minions if they do have enough damage. Try to use Vol'jin on that sweet sweet Ancient of Warr and just try to imagine the druid crying in his chair.

Key Cards: Vol'jin, Shadow Word: Death, Lightbomb.

Flamewaker – Bad-Average Matchup – 40% - Flamewaker is going to crush you if he gets even slightly a solid hand, as you need to manage to assemble a steady board that won’t be that easy for him to remove with the Flamewaker + spell combo. Holy Nova is what matters here in order to stop them. Stealing a Flamewaker with the Cabal Shadow Priest is the dream.

Key Cards: Holy Nova, Wild Pyromancer, Lightbomb.

Freeze/Echo – Very Good Matchup – 85% - Very simple matchup. He uses Alexstrasza, you use all of your heals. You shouldn’t have a problem with them. Your Shadow Hero Power will be a very big problem for them as you can constantly deal damage to him, so his Ice Block will be easily triggered after half a dozen turns.

Key Cards: Flash Heal, Holy Fire, Shadowform.

The Mulligan is quite simple with this deck and they can easily be divided in Slow and Fast decks and Coin and no Coin, unlike some other decks like the Demonhand where it ranges from class to class exactly. A vague Mulligan for this deck is fine.  

NOTE: Keeping two copies of anything that costs TWO or less mana is fine. Don’t keep two 3 mana drops ever if no coin, if you have the coin two Deathlords can be fine for ultra quick classes (Hunter and Paladin right now). Ditch otherwise.


Slow decks (Control Warrior, Control Paladin, Dragon Priest, Totem Shaman, Handlock, Malygos Warlock, Combo Druid, Freeze Mage, Midrange Zoo, Midrange Hunter, Oil Rogue, even Grim Patron):

With Coin: Deathlord, Shadowform, Acolyte of Pain, Lightbomb (see exceptions beneath).

Without Coin: Wild Pyromancer, Deathlord, Acolyte of Pain, Shadowform.

Fast decks (Secret Paladin, Face Hunter, Hybrid Hunter, Tempo Mage, Mech Shaman, Zoo Warlock, Mech mage, or anything mech):

With Coin: Holy Smite, Deathlord, Wild Pyromancer, Acolyte of Pain, Holy Nova, Power Word: Shield (see exceptions beneath).

Without Coin: Holy Smite, Deathlord, Wild Pyromancer, Acolyte of Pain, Power Word: Shield.

Exceptions explanation:

Lightbomb (vs Control)  – I keep it only when I face Warriors.  

Holy Nova (vs. Aggro) -  Keep only against Hunters & Paladins.

Power Word: Shield – Keep only if already have Wild Pyromancer in the starting hand. If you have the coin, don’t coin out the wild Pyro on turn one, Coin them both out on turn 2. If you don’t have the coin, play pyro turn 2 and then turn 3 PWS him, and heal him afterwards.

The strategy will be divided into two parts, one covering the chronological aspects of the deck being the Early, Mid and Late game, and other one covering the dynamic strategy aspects of the deck, in this case being the Padawan’s Patience, Heal thy Shadow!, and Not. Shadowy. Enough.

The Early game starts off with trying to use the low mana minions and trying to get as much value out of them as in every deck. Against Aggro, you want to try to make smart trades as that’s where the smart trading wins the game, while with control/midrange decks that comes later. You basically want to get that Deathlord out as soon as possible and turn on Shadowform whilst hiding behind your precious taunt, because that’s how priests roll. Yeah, we are cowards on close-up combat, but we will smite your face into oblivion from afar. Try to also use up your Wild Pyromancer as much as you can, preferably with a Power Word: Shield but any spells trigger his effect so using a Holy Smite also helps if you are facing a minion with three HP for example.

Optimal play against aggro would be: Turn 1 Skip, Turn 2 Wild Pyromancer + Coin + Power Word: Shield, Turn 3 Deathlord, Turn 4 Holy Smite + Shadowform.

Optimal play against slow decks would be: Turn 1 Skip, Turn 2 Wild Pyromancer, Turn 3 Shadowform, Turn 4 Sen'jin Shieldmasta, Turn 5 Vol'jin /Hero Power + Deathlord, Turn 6 Emperor Thaurissan.

The midrange is probably the hardest time for the Shadow Priest as you mostly rely on taunts to be able to establish the Shadowform quickly, while your opponent will probably be getting out Piloted Shredders or Murloc Knights. In the mid game you would preferably want to already have your primary Shadowform up, without taking any crazy risks where you will get hit for 15 damage. From this point on you need to start bursting down your opponent, while keeping the board in front of you clean. Use any way you can to remove what you can, but be patient with your big aoe removal spells like Lightbomb, sometimes it’s even good to wait for one more turn and to make your opponent think you don’t have it, and then BAM, you clear 6 minions of his. Try to set it up if he has some opponents with more HP than attack with your hero power. Since your hero power will be damaging at this point, you want to have those healing spells at bay to use at any point.

The Late game is the time when, after your continuous effort to clear the board, you start setting up your combo with Mr. Draenor himself – Prophet Velen. The dream is to get out Emperor Thaurissan while you have Velen and one Mind Blast in your hand, which would make them 6 mana and 1 mana, which means that if you get another Mind Blast you can take them all out on turn 10 for instant 20 damage to face. Using Alexstrasza on your opponent’s face previously is also a part of that dream, and to hope that he doesn’t heal for 8+ HP so that you can burn him down with the 20 damage you will get from the combo. Big removals come into the game especially here if not so far, including the Shadow Word: Deaths. The mid/late game is where Vol'jin also shines, just make sure that you can remove what you stole the HP from on the same turn or he might die.

OTK Combo after Thaurissan = Prophet Velen (6) + Mind Blast (1) + Mind Blast (1) + Holy Smite (0) + Hero Power (2) = 10 + 10 + 4 + 6 = 30 = OTK

Patience, my young padawan, said Obi Wan Kenobi once. Or more times. This is where you need that patience as well. You need to know that if you decided to take this noble path of Shadow (well, maybe not that noble as it’s piercing your opponent’s mind with spells) while staying away from playing cancer decks you need to be prepared to wait. Wait for what you ask? To use the Shadowform. Shadowform is something to be feared as much as it’s to look forward to. If you are facing a quick deck, it can only help you reach your doom faster. So know when to use it, you need to somehow get the feeling for it. If you know that the next turn isn’t usually a strong one for your opponent, let’s say turn 3 for Paladins, where one usually expects a Muster for Battle, or turn 4 for Warriors, where you usually expect a Death’s Bite, that’s usually when you are good to use your Shadowform. That is turn 3 when you face Handlocks for example.

Besides that, patience is a virtue in this game, and this is where it truly shows. Wait for that second mind blast, wait for some more minions for a Lightbomb if you can, even save your heals for a bit later if you want and play with that, because people usually go stupid if your health is getting low, they stop thinking about the good trades they can make and their brain goes into SMorc mode.

I have put in quite a bit of healing spells in this deck as after a while you tend to run out of HP as you can’t heal yourself, especially if your taunts don’t come and you can’t get anything proper out, while he is trashing your face like a motherfucker. With some practise you will learn what you can expect from certain classes (like 14 instant damage from a combo druid on turn 9) and with that you will get enough awareness if when you should actually use your healing spells. Some of the ones I put in the deck are very cheap so they can be played at any time. Teasing your opponent into trashing your face when he can be making good trades with you will always be to your advantage.

Going into deeper Shadowform is a happy moment for any Shadow Priest. Especially if you do it on turn 7. Why you ask?

Question. It’s turn 7 for you and you are up. You have one Shadowform already up, in your hand are Flash Heal, Shadowform, Sen'jin Shieldmasta. You have an Emperor Thaurissan on the board and he has a Dragonkin Sorcerer on the board. What do you do?

Answer:

I do believe that the Power Word: Shields, Mind Blasts, Shadow Word: Deaths, Lightbomb, Cabal Shadow Priests, Wild Pyromancers, Deathlords, Emperor Thaurissan, Shadow Madness, are more or less self-explanatory so I will not explain them, I will rather pay attention to the “unorthodox” cards in this deck which might confuse some.

Holy Smite – Helps you in Early game removal and a key spell to OTK. Also, used pretty well with Vol'jin if you don't have enough mana to remove with your hero power.              
 

Holy Fire – The Tech card of the deck. If you feel like you aren’t getting enough usage out of it, swap it for something else, like an Abomination or Confessor Paletress.

Alexstrasza – The She Who Is Life. The Life Binder, the Mother of the Red Dragons. I decided to put her in to make the OTK at the end of the turn more viable, and she can even be used in defensive purposes, to get your opponent to 15 HP and ready to be blasted and to heal when rushed down by a face hunter.

Flash Heal - Might be the new healing toy for the Shadowpriest, if used properly. 5 HP for 1 mana, as opposed to 8 HP for 5 mana, with a 3/3 on board. I don’t know about that. I tried out the Flash and it worked out a lot better than the healbot, simply because I could play a lot more cards while healing myself for "only" three less. Keep in mind that it heals you for 10 with Velen out. 

Garrison Commander - This card is in this deck for two reasons: 1. It can actually help you quite a bit in early game if you face a lot of early game aggro and 2. 6 damage for 4 mana with Shadowform #2? OP. Might even put two in after I test it. 

Why no Auchenai Soulpriests? Even though they make your healing spells deal damage, I believe you have more than enough from the hero power and you can use the Flash heals for your own good, and that is to heal yourself.


Why no 2x Lightbomb? I believe 2x is a bit too much, 1x is just perfect to save if you are losing a board, or to single-hanedly remove the entire board and even put you ahead if you have a minion that has more HP than attack.

Why no 2x Antique Healbot? With the release of TGT, priest got some pretty awesome new toys, as I wanted to try out Flash heal, which is so much cheaper than an Antique Healbot and the body that the Healbot leaves behind is just plain meh.

I will not name any non-adventure rare cards and lower, the rest I will try to cover, even though you have to be aware that you really shouldn’t expect the same results as I had if you change a lot of the cards from the original setup.

Shadowform  – > Not replacable. Sorry. If I had to replace one though, I would probably put in a Big Game Hunter.

Vol'jin –> Sylvanas Windrunner/Holy Fire

Lightbomb – > Mind Control

Cabal Shadow Priest - > Sylvanas Windrunner/Piloted Sky Golem

Emperor Thaurissan – > Not replacable.

Prophet Velen - > Malygos/Dr. Boom

Deathlord - > Annoy-o-Tron

Alexstrasza -> Mind Control.