i have a small fix for barnes: battlecry should be changed to: at the start of your next turn, if barnes is still alive, summon a 1/1 copy of a random minion in your deck BOOM PROBLEM SOLVED
I’d say a real fix for Barnes would be to restrict his effect to minions that cost 4 or less. The effect would still be strong, but would be much less polarizing. You could even make it “Discover a 1/1 copy of a minion in your deck that costs 4 or less and summon it” and I think it would still be balanced.
However, I still stand by my point that Eternal Servitude is the real issue with the deck, in the early and the late game. Delaying their power spike by two turns does not reduce their ability to get to that turn 6.
There are plenty of counters and tech cards for big priest. I've been playing Reno priest in wild lately and teched in a lot of ways to deal with big threats and a potion of madness to deal with Barnes on turn 4 and haven't lost against one since.
Let’s go through some of the “counters” and “tech cards” for Big Priest, shall we?
1. Hard removal. The only class with enough hard removal to comfortably deal with every single one of Big Priest’s major threats is Rogue, and that’s provided the Rogue specs every Assassinate, Walk the Plank, Vilespine Slayer, and Spellstone available to them, as well as draws them all in time. Other than that, most other classes have mostly soft removal, and good luck trying to find, and draw, enough soft removal to deal with 4 Y’Shaarj in a row.
2. Gravelsnout Knight/Saronite Taskmaster/Hungry Dragon/ any minion that summons another minion for your opponent. Nullified by Eternal Servitude’s Discover mechanic, unless you run as many as possible and hope to god they fill that Discover panel.
3. Polymorph/Devolve/Hex/Potion of Polymorph/ any transform effect. Nullified by Eternal Servitude’s Discover mechanic.
4. Potion of Madness/ Cabal Shadow Priest/ any minion steal effect. This is literally the only viable counter, and even then, they have more big wincon minions in their deck unless you stuff yours with answers. Noticing a pattern here?
Alright, so one class has an effective/viable answer, and it’s the problem class in the first place. A single class in the entire roster can viably deal with Big Priest’s game plan. You don’t consider that a problem?
There are classes with tech against big priest - warlock - multiple ways, warrior summon tokens on their side, Druid poison seeds and there are 9-10 neutral cards that summon tokens for your opponent and Priest can steal their minions
And there are 9-10 neutral cards that will summon tokens for your opponent from 1-6 mana cost as tech v big priest
I am not a big fan of big priest, never played it but I don’t think we can say there is no tech. however the high rolling big priest is a tough opponent
Only issue with big priest is the insane winrate spike with Barnes, hit that, and its a genuinely fair deck.
Other archetypes in wild are rocking over 65% winrate while big priest sits at about ~62 ish.So big priest isn't a "Big" (hehe) problem. Let me give you an example:
In HSReplay, go to any big priest deck, and tell me what card has the highest mulligan winrate, drawn winrate and played winrate. That's right, it's Barnes Mulligan is the most horrifying, sitting at about 80% winrate if drawn. The card in itself is like Keleseth, as it boosts winrate by an insane amount if drawn early.
So in short, no big priest is not a serious problem, but barnes is. Simply hit barnes a tiny bit and the deck would be incredibly fair.
So if you're facing a lot of priests these are worth considering, some of these are even staples, and some are just good even if they don't directly complement your deck.
OP, Barnes is the key card for Big Priest. I've mained that deck for at least two months now. Eternal Servitude is not an issue. The issue is dishing out big minions of turn 4 or 3, with coin, and then resurrecting it.
Don't believe me?
Try playing a Big Priest without Barnes and you will see how slow the deck is. A lot of people have already made this discussion before and all concluded that the resurrect mechanic is not the issue, as that is part of Priest identity, but the ability to dish out big minion via Barnes early is the issue. Hence, the core issue is Barnes.
If any nerfs is needed for Big Priest, I feel a simple mana nerf is enough. Just make Barnes cost 6 mana, instead of 4 mana because this will make it in line with Shadow Essence. Both cards summon a copy of a minion from deck. From my experience on playing Big Priest, half of the matches is me using Shadow Essence to get my deck rolling. Within those matches, my opponent usually have a board ready and have the time to counter me at least.
This my thoughts and experiences with using and fighting Big Priest.
Edit: Also, the nerfs you proposed to "balance" Big Priest only serves to destroy the deck.
"I’d say a real fix for Barnes would be to restrict his effect to minions that cost 4 or less." - This only destroy the design of the card and its Legendary power level into an Epic power level.
Start with small changes first. Like how Blizzard did a small mana change to Possessed Lackey from 5 to 6 mana and Dark Pact from 8 hp to 4 hp gained. That put Cubelock in a more balanced position. Before the nerfs, a lot of people cited ridiculous changes for Doomguard, in the end the above nerfs were enough.
Lastly, be open-minded to the discussion if you that's your intention at all.
"However, I still stand by my point that Eternal Servitude is the real issue with the deck, in the early and the late game."
I'm sorry but this discussion on Big Priest have been going on for over year before you even made this thread. The core issue is indeed Barnes.
Nerfing Barnes’ effect won’t “destroy” Big Priest, they just won’t include the card anymore, and it will retool the archetype for exactly what it should be: a greedy late-game control deck. It still has the ability to cheat the mana curve on turn 6. Changing Barnes’ effect will do nothing to harm its utter dominance over similar control decks.
I’m plenty open-minded to ideas surrounding changes or nerfs to Big Priest, it just seems as though you aren’t, considering you’re utterly convinced Barnes is the main problem. There’s plenty of problems with Big Priest. The only other archetype that cheats the mana curve as hard as it does would probably either be Evolve Shaman or Ramp Druid, and neither have the consistency that Big Priest has *even without* Barnes. The entire archetype is flawed and needs some serious retooling. Plenty of problem cards, and I will reiterate that I include Barnes on that list.
Personally, his mana cost isn’t the problem, it’s his actual effect and the insanity surrounding it. Nerfing him to 5 does nothing but delay the same egregiously one-sided gameplay by a single turn. That’s absolutely nothing. Either the effect needs to be targeted or other aspects of the Big Priest need to be considered.
Maybe enough change would be updating the game mechanics that minions summoned with Barnes are true 1/1 minions that will remain 1/1 after silence, cost 1 and will be resurrected as 1/1 minions.
So if you're facing a lot of priests these are worth considering, some of these are even staples, and some are just good even if they don't directly complement your deck.
I have to agree with you. I am playing a sort control priest (not reno). I just need 1 potion of madness, 1 entomb. Those 2 are the only cards I need for it. Sometimes I pick marsh drake from netherspite historian.
The only problem is if they barnes into y shaarj into ragnaros firelord. But that is just Lucky RNG. The same as when an aggro player has a good starting hand.
My experience is that the jades ramping to 5/5+ become impossible to deal with after a certain point when they are being spit out 3 a pop per turn. That's how they kill all the resurrections: with giant Jades. It really comes down to who draws the nuts first. If they are ramping out Jades super early, refill with UI, repeat, etc. and you don't have the clears or resurrects then you're done. However, if you get the early Barnes/Essence on something like Ragnaros, then yeah it's just ez game. Thing is that doesn't always happen when you need it to.
My whole point though was that Big Priest is very beatable in the meta.
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Nature is the Day. Man is the Sun. Woman is the Moon. The Stone is the Sky. The Art is the Way.
My experience is that the jades ramping to 5/5+ become impossible to deal with after a certain point when they are being spit out 3 a pop per turn. That's how they kill all the resurrections: with giant Jades. It really comes down to who draws the nuts first. If they are ramping out Jades super early, refill with UI, repeat, etc. and you don't have the clears or resurrects then you're done. However, if you get the early Barnes/Essence on something like Ragnaros, then yeah it's just ez game. Thing is that doesn't always happen when you need it to.
My whole point though was that Big Priest is very beatable in the meta.
No, you are just saying now that Big Priest is beatable only thanks to RNG (which is 100% true for most decks out there), but this comes from the same person who also said "Lots of decisions to make with board clears, one must know the opponent's deck very well to ensure wins" when talking about this deck in this same thread. How the hell does that make any sense? :/
It’s not a matter of winrate in this case. Big priest acts like Naga Sea Witch, that deck only had a high 40 low 50% winrate yet on turn 5 it spawned a full board of giants. The fact that you can cheat on 10/10’s or Rags on turn 4-5 is ridiculous because of one card which is barnes. Sure even shaman is really really strong in wild, but it can’t cheat out rags/lich kings by turn 4.
i have a small fix for barnes: battlecry should be changed to: at the start of your next turn, if barnes is still alive, summon a 1/1 copy of a random minion in your deck BOOM PROBLEM SOLVED
I’d say a real fix for Barnes would be to restrict his effect to minions that cost 4 or less. The effect would still be strong, but would be much less polarizing. You could even make it “Discover a 1/1 copy of a minion in your deck that costs 4 or less and summon it” and I think it would still be balanced.
However, I still stand by my point that Eternal Servitude is the real issue with the deck, in the early and the late game. Delaying their power spike by two turns does not reduce their ability to get to that turn 6.
Let’s go through some of the “counters” and “tech cards” for Big Priest, shall we?
1. Hard removal. The only class with enough hard removal to comfortably deal with every single one of Big Priest’s major threats is Rogue, and that’s provided the Rogue specs every Assassinate, Walk the Plank, Vilespine Slayer, and Spellstone available to them, as well as draws them all in time. Other than that, most other classes have mostly soft removal, and good luck trying to find, and draw, enough soft removal to deal with 4 Y’Shaarj in a row.
2. Gravelsnout Knight/Saronite Taskmaster/Hungry Dragon/ any minion that summons another minion for your opponent. Nullified by Eternal Servitude’s Discover mechanic, unless you run as many as possible and hope to god they fill that Discover panel.
3. Polymorph/Devolve/Hex/Potion of Polymorph/ any transform effect. Nullified by Eternal Servitude’s Discover mechanic.
4. Potion of Madness/ Cabal Shadow Priest/ any minion steal effect. This is literally the only viable counter, and even then, they have more big wincon minions in their deck unless you stuff yours with answers. Noticing a pattern here?
Alright, so one class has an effective/viable answer, and it’s the problem class in the first place. A single class in the entire roster can viably deal with Big Priest’s game plan. You don’t consider that a problem?
#NERF BARNES!
One guy on an older thread posted a solution for barnes
sth like. summon a 1/1 role-player who gets the effect on a random minion
don't quote me on that, I can't find the post, but I liked it... after that they can res a vanilla 1/1
Play Reno Mage if you want a near free win against Big Priest as a control deck (see sig for details).
You're welcome.
There are classes with tech against big priest - warlock - multiple ways, warrior summon tokens on their side, Druid poison seeds and there are 9-10 neutral cards that summon tokens for your opponent and Priest can steal their minions
And there are 9-10 neutral cards that will summon tokens for your opponent from 1-6 mana cost as tech v big priest
I am not a big fan of big priest, never played it but I don’t think we can say there is no tech. however the high rolling big priest is a tough opponent
Only issue with big priest is the insane winrate spike with Barnes, hit that, and its a genuinely fair deck.
Other archetypes in wild are rocking over 65% winrate while big priest sits at about ~62 ish.So big priest isn't a "Big" (hehe) problem. Let me give you an example:
In HSReplay, go to any big priest deck, and tell me what card has the highest mulligan winrate, drawn winrate and played winrate. That's right, it's Barnes Mulligan is the most horrifying, sitting at about 80% winrate if drawn. The card in itself is like Keleseth, as it boosts winrate by an insane amount if drawn early.
So in short, no big priest is not a serious problem, but barnes is. Simply hit barnes a tiny bit and the deck would be incredibly fair.
Why u hav to be mad? is only card gaem.
Also as some pointed out, there are a fair number of tech cards to fight off big priests:\
Cornered Sentry Gravelsnout Knight Saronite Taskmaster Marsh Drake Hungry Dragon Leeroy Jenkins Muck Hunter Hungry Ettin and even The Beast are good examples of enemy summoning cards
there's also transformation cards Polymorph Polymorph: Boar Potion of Polymorph Devolve Hex and Tinkmaster Overspark.
So if you're facing a lot of priests these are worth considering, some of these are even staples, and some are just good even if they don't directly complement your deck.
Why u hav to be mad? is only card gaem.
OP, Barnes is the key card for Big Priest. I've mained that deck for at least two months now. Eternal Servitude is not an issue. The issue is dishing out big minions of turn 4 or 3, with coin, and then resurrecting it.
Don't believe me?
Try playing a Big Priest without Barnes and you will see how slow the deck is. A lot of people have already made this discussion before and all concluded that the resurrect mechanic is not the issue, as that is part of Priest identity, but the ability to dish out big minion via Barnes early is the issue. Hence, the core issue is Barnes.
If any nerfs is needed for Big Priest, I feel a simple mana nerf is enough. Just make Barnes cost 6 mana, instead of 4 mana because this will make it in line with Shadow Essence. Both cards summon a copy of a minion from deck. From my experience on playing Big Priest, half of the matches is me using Shadow Essence to get my deck rolling. Within those matches, my opponent usually have a board ready and have the time to counter me at least.
This my thoughts and experiences with using and fighting Big Priest.
Edit: Also, the nerfs you proposed to "balance" Big Priest only serves to destroy the deck.
"I’d say a real fix for Barnes would be to restrict his effect to minions that cost 4 or less." - This only destroy the design of the card and its Legendary power level into an Epic power level.
Start with small changes first. Like how Blizzard did a small mana change to Possessed Lackey from 5 to 6 mana and Dark Pact from 8 hp to 4 hp gained. That put Cubelock in a more balanced position. Before the nerfs, a lot of people cited ridiculous changes for Doomguard, in the end the above nerfs were enough.
Lastly, be open-minded to the discussion if you that's your intention at all.
"However, I still stand by my point that Eternal Servitude is the real issue with the deck, in the early and the late game."
I'm sorry but this discussion on Big Priest have been going on for over year before you even made this thread. The core issue is indeed Barnes.
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I'd say bump Barnes cost by 1, to 5, first. Smallest change first.
I hope the brain cells of those playing BP are shrinking and dying so in some time there will be nobody playing this kind of "deck".
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Nerfing Barnes’ effect won’t “destroy” Big Priest, they just won’t include the card anymore, and it will retool the archetype for exactly what it should be: a greedy late-game control deck. It still has the ability to cheat the mana curve on turn 6. Changing Barnes’ effect will do nothing to harm its utter dominance over similar control decks.
I’m plenty open-minded to ideas surrounding changes or nerfs to Big Priest, it just seems as though you aren’t, considering you’re utterly convinced Barnes is the main problem. There’s plenty of problems with Big Priest. The only other archetype that cheats the mana curve as hard as it does would probably either be Evolve Shaman or Ramp Druid, and neither have the consistency that Big Priest has *even without* Barnes. The entire archetype is flawed and needs some serious retooling. Plenty of problem cards, and I will reiterate that I include Barnes on that list.
Personally, his mana cost isn’t the problem, it’s his actual effect and the insanity surrounding it. Nerfing him to 5 does nothing but delay the same egregiously one-sided gameplay by a single turn. That’s absolutely nothing. Either the effect needs to be targeted or other aspects of the Big Priest need to be considered.
Maybe enough change would be updating the game mechanics that minions summoned with Barnes are true 1/1 minions that will remain 1/1 after silence, cost 1 and will be resurrected as 1/1 minions.
--Alfi--
I have to agree with you. I am playing a sort control priest (not reno). I just need 1 potion of madness, 1 entomb. Those 2 are the only cards I need for it. Sometimes I pick marsh drake from netherspite historian.
The only problem is if they barnes into y shaarj into ragnaros firelord. But that is just Lucky RNG. The same as when an aggro player has a good starting hand.
My experience is that the jades ramping to 5/5+ become impossible to deal with after a certain point when they are being spit out 3 a pop per turn. That's how they kill all the resurrections: with giant Jades. It really comes down to who draws the nuts first. If they are ramping out Jades super early, refill with UI, repeat, etc. and you don't have the clears or resurrects then you're done. However, if you get the early Barnes/Essence on something like Ragnaros, then yeah it's just ez game. Thing is that doesn't always happen when you need it to.
My whole point though was that Big Priest is very beatable in the meta.
Nature is the Day.
Man is the Sun.
Woman is the Moon.
The Stone is the Sky.
The Art is the Way.
No, you are just saying now that Big Priest is beatable only thanks to RNG (which is 100% true for most decks out there), but this comes from the same person who also said "Lots of decisions to make with board clears, one must know the opponent's deck very well to ensure wins" when talking about this deck in this same thread. How the hell does that make any sense? :/
Yeah big priest is the problem..not the even shaman with a 70% winrate.
It’s not a matter of winrate in this case. Big priest acts like Naga Sea Witch, that deck only had a high 40 low 50% winrate yet on turn 5 it spawned a full board of giants. The fact that you can cheat on 10/10’s or Rags on turn 4-5 is ridiculous because of one card which is barnes. Sure even shaman is really really strong in wild, but it can’t cheat out rags/lich kings by turn 4.
Dirty rat/gnomefuratu are your friends just saying