Hearthpwn

Hi,

I am Dinlanne, a casual player and here to share a wild deck that i got to legend in wild for this season. 

I had played this deck exclusively from Rank 20 to Legend 76 in 7 days. Proof of legend:

http://imgur.com/a/Zu0nV

The reason i chose to play N'zoth Priest in Wild is due to:

1. There are quality deathrattle minions: Unstable Ghoul, Deathlord, Sludge, Pilot Shredder and etc. These cards helps to stabilize the early game while building towards your quest and eventually a huge N'zoth.

2. The combination of Reno and Amara means that the amount of heal can be obscene.

3. Premium board clear: Excavated Evil and Light Bomb.

I would like to caveat that there are many versions of Reno Priest floating around and i do not claim that mine is the best. I like this version due to its effectiveness for me.

General Strategy 

The idea of priest is generally reactive and making your board more resilient through your minions' effects and of course, the hero's heal. This deck is tuned to be slightly anti aggro with options for late games

Match Up with Aggro

The current meta's aggro decks are mainly: (1) Pirate Warrior, (2) Aggro Shaman & (3) Token Druids, be it eggs or otherwise.

The key to handling these decks is to clear their board as quickly as possible while maintaining a respectable level of health. Basically, the aim is to survive till you big minions and taunts and heals come into play. In this scenario, i leverage on the following tools:

a. Potion of madness - Controlling one of their minion to trade against another means that I get rid of 2 minions at one go. 

b. Deathlord - The 8 health taunt is incredibly resilient and can buy a turn or 2. No doubt that it will spawn an enemy minion upon death, most aggro's minions carry a battlecry effect and by playing them out of their deck, this effect is negated. Furthermore, most of their minions are relatively small so they can be cleared easily in turn 4, 5 or 6 where you have the AOE spells. [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

c. Unstable Ghoul - The taunt effect usually means it will save you one hit and the resulting explosion means that some small minions such as pirates are easily cleared. [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

d. Doomsayer - In the first turn or 2, aggro usually would not be able to answer the 7 health. Even if they can answer, it also means that this little bugger has soaked up 7 damage for you.

e. Gluttonous Ooze - Most Aggro (Except Druid) runs a weapon or 2. I prefer Gluttonous over Acid Ooze is because for an additional mana, it can grant you additional armor whose precious points can be life saving. This tech for priest is not a problem because the of the ability where you can heal to delay one more turn. Imagine this, by breaking an arcanite reaper, not only do u negate 5 potential damage, but also gain 5 armor. That's 10 life in total.

f. Mistress of Mixture - A cheap minion for me to trade of the aggro minions early on. Some might say zombie chow is better due to the 3 health. But i felt that the additional advantage of mistress is that it heals you too and that increases your survival. Though it may heal the opponent, but whats 4 heal when u have absolute board control later on? [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

g. Mind Control Tech - Its all about tempo swing at turn 3. Plus you get an additional body.

Midrange

Nothing special here. The idea is to curve out smoothly. Pilot Shredder will help as it can spawn an additional minion to contest the board. All your 4 drops here are respectable. A key to note is that when given the choice to play either Pilot or Shifting Shade, play pilot first as it maintains board. [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

If I can play Raza at turn 5, i will usually do so as the 0 mana heal will go a long way in helping to cement the board, be it healing your minions or healing yourself and at the same time having enough mana to throw down minions.

Control

The key to control is value play. Do not be hasty in expending your AOE spells. As a priest, we can heal and sustain for abit more so that more can be cleared when the opponent commits more.

It might be better to combine bran with kazakus for 2 spells instead of 1. Usually you will also go for 10 mana spells. As in which effects do you choose, it really depends on  the situation. Generally, its useful to choose effects that summons your minions so as to bait the opponent's AOE or to simply swarm them. if your hand is low and you are expecting N'zoth in the upcoming draws, you can choose a card draw effect.

One notable point is that should you choose the summon minion effect and you also have N'zoth in hand, you will generally play N'zoth first. This play will cause headaches for the opponent and it can bait out 2 AOE spells. Why 2 and not 1? Cos the minions in this deck has high heath and good death rattle effects. However, the most important point is: Good players can make a clever guess if the N'Zoth is in your hand and will try to Dirty Rat it. So if you play Nzoth before they can do it, the subsequent Kazakus Summon will be more powerful as the AOEs are already used up for the N'zoth onslaught.

As for the usage of N'zoth, you might not need to wait for all your deathrattle minions to be played first. The deck consist of 12 death rattle minions. You cannot wait for all. The key is to play N'Zoth to pressurize the opponents. Sometimes, N'zoth on a turn earlier can mean alot of difference as the opponent will struggle with the board before his AOEs are drawn.

Debatable Card

The following cards can be substituted according to your liking. There is not hard and fast rule. I will explain why i use them:

1. Crystalline Oracle - Its a 1 mana that can help me to get opponents tools. [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

2. Thought Steal - More for refilling your hand or when you have nothing better to do. It gives you additional options.

3. Bran - Frankly, there isn't much battlecry effect here. I am including it due to the immense value it can generate with Kazakus and MCT.

4. Loot Hoarder - Some will prefer Harvest Golem. But at Loot fills in the 2 mana slots and gives you one additional card draw, a draw which might means an earlier Reno. [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

5. Totellan Shell Raiser - A Taunt which also increases the resilience of your other minions for you to trade futher. [Also Helps in fulfilling your quest]

Conclusion

As with all Renodecks, each carries different win conditions. This deck carries 3 win conditions:

1. Resilience with Amara and Reno

2. Kazakus Spells

3. N'Zoth 

Again, I caveat that I do not proclaim my deck to be the best. Its about sharing in the spirit of collective fun.

Thank You

Update 1.1:

I have taken out Thought Steal to experiment with Elise Trailblazer instead. The rationale is that at the late game, when both my deck and the opponent's decks are thin, Thought Steal would not steal much value for me. Rather, a 5/5 body with 5 additional cards might just provide me the extra gas to power over the finishing line. Just remember that do not combine Elise with Bran unless you have used your Reno Jackson as the double packs would affect Reno's effects

Mulligan

There has been requests for mulligans. The beauty about the Quest and deathrattle minions is that we will try to keep low drop minions so that we can 1) contest against aggro, 2) exert pressure on control and 3) buildup our quest smoothly and quickly. 

Perhaps some notable cards would be:

1. Shadow Word Death: Against Shamans, Warriors and Warlock, you can consider keeping this card. As we do not have early removal for big minions, SWD would be the neatest option.the above 3 classes are mentioned due to Shaman (4 mana 7/7 - Faceless), Warrior (Pumped up Frothing or Bloodsail due to weapons) and Warlock (cheap Mountain Giant - 8/8).

2. Doomsayer: Keep only if its suspected aggro. Otherwise, it would be waste of hand space

3. 4-Drops: Keep only if you have the coin and have respectable 1 to 2 drops.