Hearthpwn

Edits have been made to the original deck and this description has been updated, see bottom of post for information regarding card swaps.

This priest deck focuses on early to mid-game. With heavy early card draw from the 2x Northshire Cleric which benefit  heavily from your passive, aoe heals and your Lightwell, your hand should be stacked up enough and you and your minions should be kept topped off from the heals.  Playing a Lightwell early allows you to spend early mana on minions and board control over self healing. You should use the low costing minions and priest spells to maintain board control until you can hit a combo and apply pressure. There are a few ways to do this which we will discuss throughout this guide.  

The pay off with this deck comes one of two ways, either getting a Blood Knight out when you or your opponent has multiple divine shields on the board. Or through the use of the ‘Divine Spirit / Inner Fire combo on the likes of your Mogu'shan Warden. Tip: Don’t throw out your Divine Spirit / Inner Fire combo on a turn where you can’t attack with that minion. The chances are your opponent will have a neutralising spell (hex/polly/silence).

Early Game:

Focus on maintaining board control through the use of spells and low cost minions. Try to keep your card draw minions (Northshire Cleric) and Lightwell on the board for as long as possible resulting in a beefy hand. Also if you can get an early Lightwarden out it will most certainly benefit from the Lightwell healing effects resulting in a strong early game minion. 

Mid Game:

You should have a decent sized hand with allot of useful minions, if you haven’t managed to draw many big gun spells or minions yet (Inner Fire / Divine Spirit or Blood Knight), maintain board control with your strong trade off minions (Harvest Golem/Lightwarden) and spells (Holy Nova/Shadow Words). Usually by this point you will have a combo of some sorts as your deck has heavy card draw and multiple combo possibilities. By turn 7-9 you should really be looking to get a minion out, preferably a Sunwalker or Mogu'shan Warden so the next turn you can buff it up for a one shot. A Mogu'shan Warden can easily be beefed up to 28/28 for 5 mana. This is the time you should use your silence and other minions to clear any minions and proc any secrets. Then finish him off with the Mogu'shan Warden.

Another mid game big play is to throw out an  Argent Squire or two followed by a Blood Knight resulting in a strong 6/6 or 9/9 on the board. This will trade very well for 4-5 mana cost and will usually wipe out a number of enemy minions before it dies or chunk at the enemys HP. Another strong card for mid game stall is the Sunwalker this card can trade very well for a reasonable mana cost. If it goes unkilled it can be healed up and buffed up to a huge 20/20 for only a couple of mana. 

Late Game:

It is very unlikely the game will last too long considering your card draw and low-mid cost cards but if it has reached late game the chances are your opponent is low on cards (he would have to be having knocked back all of the strong minions you have) and your hero power and healing spells will be pulling you along so you are in a strong HealthPoint advantage. If it does reach late game and you still have a number of cards in your hand, play some board control minions and wait for the pay-off (Blood Knight or Inner Fire / Divine Spirit combo), with the amount of kill potential and stall in this deck the only way you are going to loose is to poor card draw luck and/or a well played rush. Remember you also have your Mind Control for late game to take advantage of any huge enemy minions, use it well!

Match Ups

Currently I have a 80%+ win rate only troubling decks I've ran into so far are well played rush 'enrage warrior' decks or rush decks who get early board control (and you get a bit unlucky and have a poor draw). However every encounter has been winnable and all have being clear wins or close cut, so far at least! 

Tips:

1) Healing your  Northshire Cleric's to increase card draw is usually much more beneficial than healing yourself early game. You can take someone from 30-0 in one turn if you have the cards. Don’t worry about taking 1-4 damage a turn early on if it means drawing extra cards. But, saying that, if you are losing board control, trade minions for that control.

2) Using a mini combo on the likes of an Lightwell can soon make it an automatic taunt for the enemy, using one or two Power Word: Shield on one will allow you to increase card draw dramatically and usually trade an enemy hex/polly or silence for that minion resulting in a safer mid game for your ‘big gun’ minions.

3) Getting a  Lightwarden out on turn one or two can be the difference between winning and loosing. If you don't have a Lightwarden or a Northshire Cleric in your first hand swap them in to be traded, they are fundamental to your early game.

4) There are games that will go back and forth to the point you have both played most of your cards, if this is the case use your  Mind Control wisely, if you are running low on health and are likely to die in a turn or two because your opponent has a measly 4/4 minion out that's chipping you down you will more than likely be better of using Mind Control on them to prolong your life and stop them throwing out a buff on that minion to kill you. Controlling the enemy's strongest minion on the field is better than not controlling it. 

Edits:

I have made some changes to this deck due to allot of testing and believe the deck to be in a much more balanced state now where it is strong but not too reliant on the stars aligning. A strong early game is very helpful but due to the changes and additions of other minions you can survive and still win without having a cleric out on turn 1.  

Changes/swaps from the original deck:

Mountain Giant  ->  Lightwell

Blood Knight   -> +1 Mind Control

2x Scarlet Crusader -> 2x Lightwarden

2x Holy Smite ->  2x Harvest Golem

2x Acolyte of Pain -> +1 Shadow Word: Death + 1 Holy Nova

Explanation of changes:

I have found this deck effective against the majority of classes however improvements can be made, I think losing two Scarlet Crusader minions -> 2x Lightwardens can help your early game allot, Lightwardens work very well with this deck and can easily be buffed up within a few turns to a strong minion on the board these cards can help your early game significantly. 

Additionally for this reason I choose to replace the Mountain Giant  with a Lightwell, again synergising well with the Lightwarden & Northshire Clerics as well as keeping your hero’s health topped off throughout the early stages if the game. Your Lightwell can even be buffed through Power Word: Shield to create an annoying target that has to be silenced or killed. If it isn't silenced or killed by turn 4-5 and you can play a Inner Fire onto it to make a 7/7, 9/9 it can create massive pressure in the early stages yet still allow you to hold onto your wombo combo we spoke about earlier.

Also I decided to swap out 1x Blood Knight  for 1x Mind Control taking some of the pressure of getting specific draws and allowing you assurance in your late game. This also allows you to play early board clear with your Shadow word spells.

Because of the previous change to blood knight and the addition of other minions such as Harvest Golem and Lightwarden, I choose to replace 2x Acolyte of Pain with +1 Shadow Word: Death and 1x Holy Nova, resulting in your ability to play aggressive board clear spells early giving you control. Not only that but have 2x Holy Nova in your deck means you can be more reliant on drawing it for board clear not to mention it synergies well with your early game minions (Lightwarden & Northshire Clerics)

My final changes to the deck where the addition of 2x Harvest Golem in place of 2x Holy Smite. Harvest Golem are a nice addition to keep board control via minions early on as apose to relying on spell damage cards, it also allows you to maintain minion presence forcing your opponent to use some sort of board clear minions/spells, thus improving your later game.

Possible Card Swaps/Additions

Depending on your preferences there are a number of changes you can make bellow are a number of cards that can be added to the deck:

• Faceless Manipulator
• Twilight Drake
• Another Lightwell
• Spellbreaker
• Another Silence
• And a number of legendaries would fit this deck also. 

These cards could be swapped in for a number of cards such as:

• Shadow Word: Pain
• Shadow Word: Death
• Argent Squire
• Blood Knight 

This deck has flexibility, as noted you can remove the Argent Squires and Blood Knights if you prefer a less specific combo, these can be traded for a Faceless Manipulator another Lightwell and a Stranglethorn Tiger for example which could add similar buffing options but are less reliant on the divine shield combos. 

I'd like to say a massive thanks to MattSparks3.0 he made a great video on this deck and I'd like to include it here to show just how good this deck can be at a solid rank:

Massive thanks again to Matt for spotlighting this deck, it makes me absolutely honoured that someone would go to the lengths as to not only play the deck but upload a video and give me a shout out, so thanks again to Matt.

I must stress, this deck is a working progress and is only a guideline to what I find to be an exciting play style. I will continue to edit and improve this guide whenever I see improvements

 For more hearthstone posts, guides and discussion check out my blog, facebook and twitter:

www.afreshcupofgeek.co.uk  

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Thanks!