Velen's Miracle [OTK Rez Priest]
- Last updated Nov 24, 2018 (Boomsday)
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Wild
- 12 Minions
- 18 Spells
- Deck Type: None
- Deck Archetype: OTK Priest
- Crafting Cost: 9000
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 10/10/2016 (Yogg Nerf)
- RavenSunHP
- Registered User
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- 11
- 36
- 204
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
302
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Disclaimer:
I restored the list to its old concept, with adjustments up to Un'Goro. This was meant to be a fancy Priest in the era of Unicorn Priest, when the class seemed to have no efficient archetype in the meta.
I repeat, this list is OBSOLETE.
OLD Description (keeping for nostalgia)
- Resurrect Priest is a good Midrange deck, its flaw probably being consistency.
- Priest generally lacks burst, while classic OTK Priest lacks early and midgame.
- Prophet Velen feels underwhelming as classic class legendary.
This deck aims at fixing all 3 points above, by adding good midgame and excellent cycling through resurrection, which in turn allows for a reliable combo burst through Velen.
The final combo with Prophet Velen + spells can do 10, 20, 24, 28 face damage, depending on how many cards you manage to include in the combo.
Add Bloodmage Thalnos and it's OTK.
Full OTK is hard to pull, but a much more likely 20 damage for 3 cards is often enough to suddenly finish off your opponent, who will be utterly surprised by such a burst from a Priest (since Velen is quite unused and underestimated these days).
General Mulligan tips
ALWAYS keep:
- Loot Hoarder, Injured Blademaster, Shadow Word: Pain, Holy Smite. Also Acolyte of Pain is a good keeper.
- Resurrect if you already have one of the minions above.
- if you expect aggro/zoo, also keep 1x Excavated Evil / 1x Holy Nova (NOT both).
NEVER keep high cost cards, plus:
- Power Word: Shield and Mind Blast. These are low cost cards, but are needed later.
Strategy
- The minimum objective is to stall early and midgame. You have removals, aoe, and sticky minions through resurrection mechanics (Injured Blademaster above all).
- Try to spare Holy Smite for combo (2x with Velen equals 8 damage), but use them to clear if necessary.
- Cycle with Loot Hoarder, Acolyte of Pain and Polluted Hoarders and Resurrect them for both board presence and more cycling.
Pay attention not to mill yourself! - Try to enchain Resurrect, Onyx Bishop, Barnes with best possible chances to get what you need most.
THIS POINT IS CRUCIAL (see below). - Drop Emperor Thaurissan ONLY if you have in hand Prophet Velen and/or Mind Blast too.
- COMBO Prophet Velen + Mind Blast + Mind Blast equals 20 damage to face in one turn. 28 with +2x Holy Smite.
Sometimes all you need is just a mind blast alone, sometimes you need the full combo.
Most of the times the 20 damage combo is more than enough.
NEVER drop Velen without lethal combo.
Resurrection Guidelines
It is FUNDAMENTAL to enchain minion summoning and Resurrection at best, in order to maximise chances of obtaining what is best for you.
- Resurrect and Onyx Bishop work on your pool of dead minions. A resurrected minion that dies again, appears MULTIPLE TIMES in the Resurrection pool.
In other words, it has a higher chance to be resurrected AGAIN later.
Resurrection is kind of a chain, be careful on what you play, what dies and WHEN. - Barnes will NOT summon a copy of something which is already in your hand.
- Resurrection works on dead copies summoned by Barnes: summoning a useless copy (Onyx Bishop) will more likely ruin the resurrection chain.
EXAMPLES:
- Injured Blademaster dies. You Resurrect it. It dies again, together with a Loot Hoarder: your resurrection pool now effectively contains TWO blademasters, even if it was the same that died twice.
This means that in a further resurrection, blademaster has 66% to come back, against 33% of the hoarder. Even if you played just 2 minions, total amount of deaths is 3 and that's what counts. - You use Barnes while you have both your Onyx Bishops in your deck, you have chances to evoke their copy. The copy dies and it becomes a target for Resurrection. It is a decent body, but a bad target for your strategy (see also case 1).
- You use Barnes while Onyx Bishops have already been used or are in your hand. The summoned copy will correspond to another minion in your deck, which in turn will be a better Resurrection target (sylvanas, blademaster, cycle cards).
Options
Depending on your meta, switching 1x Holy Nova for an additional 1x Holy Fire might help countering single target, if you are facing a small number of zoo/flood decks.
Shadow Madness is also a good option, but that might trample over your resurrection chain.
- Arcane Giant: the deck contains enough spells to make them a good option. Possibly in place of Loot Hoarder if you find the latter is inefficient in Resurrect chains.
- Yogg-Saron, Hope's End: with 18 spells, Yogg can be a desperate last stand button even after the nerf.
- N'Zoth, the Corruptor: counting resurrections, this deck contains quite a good number of deathrattles.
Gameplay
Here's some gameplay, kindly provided by Fur0:
There, I hope both deck and guide are useful to you. Thanks to those who will give it a +1!
Sadly, I have no test to report. :-/
In all my 30 packs I could get nothing useful for this deck, and I don't have enough dust to invest here, so far.
I'll write up in the main guide as soon as I can say anything for sure.
In the meanwhile any test of the community is much appreciated.
What would you swap Rag for? Got everything but him. N'zoth?
Sylvanas Windrunner is good. More defensive than Rag tho, she can hardly contribute to lethal.
N'zoth is decent here, but the main problem of this deck is survival. N'zoth does not help that.
Overall, if you have no big impactful legendary, i'd suggest you to go with sylvanas, or just good taunt cards.
Even Doomsayer could be a thing (at the very least he buys you either one turn or 7 hp), although you must be VERY careful with Resurrect then (eg only with empty board or irrelevant minions on your side).
How about a Medivh? Seems like with all those 5&6 cost spells, Medivh might be a nice choice.
Also, how do you feel about the new Potion of Madness? I really love it against enemy loothoarders & AoPs. Kill their minion and we get the card draw. Sometimes you can kill TWO of their minions AND get a card draw. All for 1 mana.
Also, one thing I don't quite get: what is the best barnes target here? I'm not quite getting that. Without a Ragnaros (only legendary I don't have) it seems like there's not a great target to be found.
Barnes is there to give you either more card draw (hoarder tokens) or huge tempo gains through resurrection (resurrect a blademaster token equals to summonin 4/7 for 2 mana). However, he's definitely replaceable for more reliable stuff. He's basically an rng-based midgame stabiliser.
Madness is definitely good to buy you time in the first turns. A bit unreliable tho, it depends a lot on the opponent, and its condition is quite strict.
Medivh is excellent if you can survive up to turn 8. But chances are you are already dead or kicking by then, making him more like a winmore card for Priest. Also, the turn you play him you are extremely vulnerable, cause you can't do anything else.
TLDR; I made a few changes to the deck but went 3-0 at ~R17 Vs. a jade/arcanegiant/fandral druid, a control paladin with tirion and light rag, and a dragon priest.
I dropped one Polluted Loot Hoarder and threw in an Azure Drake and would consider putting in a second but spell damage from resurrect or a Barnes wouldn't be as helpful as resurrecting for another cycle to the combo.
Overall not bad! Velen was the kick to the dick I needed to finish each game and 2/3 were without discounting any of the combo pieces.
I play a similar deck, i would like to know how will you tune it with the new cards. Dragonfire Potion is a big addition to this deck.
Well I gave it a shot, went 0-5 with this Resurrection/OTK deck in Classic (not on ladder). I think elvishak's 'Summoner Priest' is much more consistent, though it lacks the OTK features. Interesting deck idea at any rate. :)
Your write-up made me really wish I had Prophet Velen to the point that I almost crafted him over Sylvanas and Bloodmage Thalnos. To my surprise, I opened a Prophet Velen the other day and came back to this decklist and guide. I appreciate how you tried to address several problems with Priest as a class, and I think you laid the foundation for all Priest aficionados; you also format all your deck guides with cool art. I've been having a lot of fun playing this deck. Thank you for sharing!
I made the following changes with the idea that it increases more chances at getting the combo in hand for the Emperor Thaurissan discount; Flash Heal can also buy you 1 or 2 turns to stay alive waiting for the draw into the last combo piece:
I've considered replacing Holy Smite for Priest of the Feast.
I am really happy that my attempt at Velen Priest is so appreciated, thank you.
I will check this deck again after MSG is released (many new tools for survival).
I am quite sure at least one Priest of the Feast fits this deck.
This deck is so good and fun to play, thank you!
Best priest deck ive played after wotog. Very nice with few changes
Well, I'll definitely try to update this deck or a variation of it, once MSG is fully revealed.
Independently of how effective this specific implementation is, I think I proved once more that Prophet Velen in combo with Mind Blast can be very effective, and a 3-card combo for 20 damage is a good deal, provided enough card draw and/or survivability in the deck.
Stay tuned. B|
I like the idea and the execution, but as of now it feels unreliable. Out of 7 games i managed to get the combo only once (and i won only 3 of 9 games, of which one for extra early concede). The impression i have is that is hard to get a good hand because you need both removals and creatures to hold the board; it is too slow for aggro and can't deal with control. I tried putting Shadowform for control, Priest of the Feast for sustain, but I just can't make it work. :P
Extremely fun deck to play!!! I think my opponent was shocked when he got 28 face dmg from empty board, that was enough to win:D
Anyfin Can Happen in Hearthstone.
You can even get Prophet Velen three times without actually drawing him: https://hsreplay.net/replay/RNXgaV4J7BwvdMcEoj7fE5
Can i replace Barnes with anything?
pretty much so.
Barnes is there to try and fix unlucky mulligans and/or generate value, but it could also lead to sub-optimal Rez chains.
So yes, feel free to replace him with anything you feel is more reliable.
I just realised i don't have the Bishop either. Is this deck still viable without Bishop or Barnes? And what would you swap for them?
That's a bad loss, because rez generates tempo and/or card draw (in this deck).
So you need cards that make for that: card draw and tempo plays.
I'd suggest stuff like Acolyte of Pain, azure drake, sylvanas windrunner. Or anything else that makes for the lost power.
Many here also suggested priest of the feast, but i guess you don't have Karazhan at all.