Hearthpwn

Our antlered friends come in two archetypes: aggro and jade, both of which are tough matchups for Spiteful Priest. Druids can be tricky to mulligan against because the two archetypes are polar opposites of one another. Aggro plays fast and basically dies if it doesn’t win by turn six or seven and jade starts slow but gets stronger and stronger as the game goes on.

The best thing to do is mulligan as if you’re playing against aggro druid every time. If you do end up playing against aggro you’ll have the best chance to respond and if you’re playing against jade you’ll be able to bully them early. DO NOT make the mistake of mulliganing as if you’re playing against jade because aggro Druid will simply steamroll you. Prioritize Tar Creeper and Duskbreaker but you may need to hold onto Drakonid Operative in order ensure dragon synergy if you’re not offered a lower cost dragon in your first three cards.

Against aggro Druid you just need to survive as, unlike aggro/Murloc Paladin, aggro Druid has no real recovery mechanism. Try to save your Duskbreakers until after turn 5 if at all possible as you need to be prepared for Living Mana. That being said, you can’t afford to let Druids have more than two or three minions on the board at any time due to the risk of Power of the Wild and Mark of the Lotus.

Against jade your best bet is to dominate the board with a few big minions and try to go face as much as possible. This will force your opponent to burn their removal sooner than they would like while also playing around Spreading Plague.

Hunter is an endangered species in the current meta. While these bow lovers are not quite completely dead like Warrior and Shaman, you will almost never see someone playing Hunter in ranked. The problem is that Steady Shot forces Hunter to be an aggressive class but Paladin and Druid are currently much better at playing aggro than Hunter is.

If you do see some misguided fool playing Hunter you know with 100% that they’re playing aggro. As with aggro Druid, Tar Creeper and Duskbreaker will be your best friends here. Again, you just need to survive until turn six or so, Hunter has no consistent card draw or recovery mechanism. Sometimes it even makes sense to drop Shadow Ascendant on an empty board as it will force your opponent to trade, prevent face damage and drag the game out for longer.

My final piece of advice is to try and avoid triggering secrets for as long as possible. The two most common Hunter secrets are Wandering Monster and Cat Trick, the latter of which is almost completely useless against Spiteful Priest. Preventing spells from triggering not only stops Hunter from getting additional “free” minions, it also denies them power ups for their Eaglehorn Bow and Lesser Emerald Spellstone.

Mage was one of my hardest matchups and the class I struggled the most to consistently win against, mostly due to the dominance of Quest Mage. Mages come in three different archetypes: Big Spell Mage, Secrets/Burn Mage and Quest/Exodia Mage.

Big Spell Mage will try to repeatedly clear your board with spells like Blizzard, Flamestrike and Dragon’s Fury, draw more spells withRaven Familiar and Arconologist and finish you off with Pyroblast, Archmage Antonidas and Dragoncaller Alanna. Big Spell Mage is the only Mage archetype that you’re favored against. You don’t have many small minions for their board clears to wipe out and you’ll deny them card draw from Raven Familiar 90% of the time.

Secrets/Burn Mage is the Mage equivalent of an aggro deck. These guys rely on a lot of cheap secrets, particularly Explosive Runes, to deal damage and open the way for even more face damage from the likes of Kabal Crystal Runner and Medivh's Valet. Aluneth is a staple here and will give your opponents access to a constant flow of burn until one of you dies.

My advice is to try and play as aggressively as possible. Burn Mage runs fewer board clears than other Mages and you need to try and force them to use spells like Firelands Portal on your minions rather than your face in order to survive.

Quest/Exodia Mage was the single toughest archetype for me during my legend climb. This archetype consists of a lot of stalling/board clearing mechanisms e.g. Ice Block and Doomsayer + Frost Nova to buy time until your opponent can complete their quest and assemble all of their combo pieces: Sorcerer's Apprentice, Simulacrum, Molten Reflection and Archmage Antonidas.

The challenge here is that if you play too aggressively you’ll get punished by board clear and if you play too passively you’ll be punished by combo. Once your opponent has completed their quest and assembled their combo the game is over as they can literally do an infinite amount of damage to your face via free Fireballs with nothing on the board. The best you can do is to try to pressure them via a few big minions into burning some of their combo pieces or hope that they get unlucky and don’t draw into their combo. Good luck with this one, you’ll need it!

Paladin players are guaranteed to be running one of two versions of what’s basically the same aggro archetype: “standard” aggro Paladin, which runs a lot of high value cheap minions like Argent Squire and Southsea Deckhand, and Murloc Paladin, which relies on Murloc synergy. Their strategies are the same: to rush you down with a whole bunch of low cost minions that can be easily buffed with Gentle Megasaur, Blessing of Kings, Spikeridged Steed, etc. Sunkeeper Tarim provides a strong tempo play and is often a game finisher.

What makes aggro Paladin different from other aggro decks, and arguably the most powerful current archetype, is it’s recovery mechanisms. Whereas aggro Hunter and Druid lack consistent card draw and are guaranteed to eventually run out of steam, Paladin isn’t. Call to Arms allows Paladins to drop in three minions at a time from their deck for only four mana and Divine Favor draws them cards and essentially punishes you for playing well and conserving resources.

Your game plan is generally the same as against any other aggro matchup with Tar Creeper and Duskbreaker again being joint MVP. The key difference here is in when you use your resources. Against aggro Druid I mentioned that you ideally want to hold onto your Duskbreakers until at least turn five in order to deal with Living Mana.

Against Paladin you want to get Duskbreaker (and every other card) on the board as fast as possible in order to counter Divine Favor. This will also help you contest the board as effectively as possible, which is important because a Paladin can turn even one or two small minions into serious threats with their buffs. Keep your hand empty and as few enemy minions on the board as possible, even if it means using your resources less efficiently than you’d prefer.

Possibly the most hated class in Hearthstone right now, Priest comes in four flavors: Spiteful Priests like us, Dragon/OTK Priest, Big Priest and (the soon to be nerfed) Raza/Highlander Priest. The one nice thing about playing against other Priests is that you can generally conserve your resources during the first few turns of the game. There is no such thing as an “aggro Priest” and Priests don’t start to have powerful board clears until at least turn four.

The Spiteful Priest mirror matchup is obviously a 50-50 that comes down to draws and the minions you get out of your Spiteful Summoners. There is obviously a huge difference between getting Tortollan Primalist and Deathwing, Dragonlord and, sadly, that, rather than smart plays, is often what decides the match.

You can afford to be a little more aggressive with throwing out cards like Netherspite Historian and Shadow Ascendant but try to conserve your Duskbreakers until you can get a more efficient board clear. It can often be worth it to hold on to a Spiteful Summoner during mulligan, especially if you’re playing second, because it can provide such a powerful swing factor and you’re not forced to make plays right away.

With Dragon/OTK Priest your opponent’s goal is to get out a bunch of high health minions like Northshire Cleric, Netherspite Historian and Twilight Drake, or steal one of yours via Potion of Madness, and buff them into a huge minion that can kill you in one turn via Divine Spirit and Inner Fire. You need to be careful about playing those cards against this type of opponent, particularly in the latter stages of the game. Board control is much more important in this matchup than against other Priests as having no low cost minions on the board protects you from the OTK combo.

Big Priest is one of the most ridiculous RNG fiestas out there. Did Shadow Essence pull Barnes? You probably win. Did Shadow Essence pull Y'Shaarj into another Y'Shaarj? You probably lose. The best you can do is to try and put as much early pressure on the board as possible and force your opponent to play suboptimally. Big Priest by definition doesn’t run many small minions and it lacks consistent board clear with the exception of the Pint-Size Potion plus Shadow Word: Horror combo.

Even though it’s about to be nerfed, I think it’s worth discussing Raza Priest because it’s an archetype that has been so dominant in Hearthstone in the past four months. Like Big Priest, Raza Priest is a heavily RNG-focused matchup, even by Hearthstone standards. If your opponent gets Kazakus on turn four, Raza on turn five and Anduin on turn eight the game is over almost no matter what.

Raza Priest is a deck that can consistently do 50+ damage to your face in one turn with nothing on the board. Your goal is to deny your opponent card draw as much as possible. You can basically ignore the board; Raza Priest doesn’t need a board to be successful and you’ll just be wasting time by attacking minions. The exceptions to this are Bloodmage Thalnos, Radiant Elemental and Prophet Velen.

Early aggression is key here as your opponent won’t have great ways to deal with it but be aware of Dragonfire Potion on turn six, Psychic Scream on seven and Anduin on eight. Again, given the upcoming balance changes and rotation, we’re about to see the end of Raza Priest in Standard and probably Wild as well.

There is only one archetype of Rogue that you’ll see consistently during your climb to legend: Tempo Rogue. Yes, yes, I know that you’re favorite streamer is probably showing off their Kingsbane or Quest Rogue deck but those decks are just too inconsistent to be good for anyone not named Kolento.

I hope that the Patches nerf/rotation makes Tempo Rogue more consistent in one way or another because right now it’s just too RNG dependent. Your opponent can either get some crazy Shadowstep plus Prince Keleseth opening or draw Patches and be completely screwed. That being said, Tempo Rogue is essentially an aggro deck so mulligan like it’s one with a focus on Duskbreaker and Tar Creeper.

In some ways the Tempo Rogue matchup is the opposite of the Jade Druid matchup. Whereas Jade Druid encourages you to focus on a few big minions, the risk of Vilespine Slayer makes “putting all your eggs in one basket” dangerous against Tempo Rogue. The ideal board state for you is to have a number of smaller minions that don’t make especially tempting targets individually. Tempo Rogue has essentially no board clears, giving you another incentive to flood the board.

Shaman is currently extinct in Standard ranked matches. I played countless matches during my climb to legend and never encountered a single one. I doubt you will either.

Like Druid, Warlock comes in two varieties that are diametric opposites of one another: Zoolock and Control/Cube Warlock. Same drill as before, you have to mulligan as if you’re facing aggro. This will hopefully prevent you from being steamrolled by zoo and and allow you to be more aggressive against Control Warlock.

Playing against zoo is much like playing against aggro Paladin, the opponent will try to swarm the board with a bunch of small minions and kill you within the first few turns of the game. The difference here is that zoo has a bit more consistent burst in the form of Doomguard and (formerly) Patches where Paladin has no charge except (maybe) Leeroy Jenkins. Another card worth mentioning is the five mana Despicable Dreadlord, which will wipe out your one health minions. However, in my opinion, aggro Paladin is still much more consistently powerful than Zoolock by not relying on drawing Keleseth and and having access to powerful ways to refill the board and draw more cards.

Control Warlock is one of the most popular archetypes in the current meta and, fortunately for you, one of the easiest matchups for Spiteful Priest to win. Control Warlock has many more slight variations than most other archetypes you’ll see. For example, some players run double Twisting Nether and some run double Mountain Giant, some versions of the deck feature N'Zoth, the Corruptor but not all of them. That being said, all versions of Control Warlock revolve around cheating out big minions via Skull of the Man’ari and Possessed Lackey plus Dark Pact.

You need to remember that Control Warlock has access to much earlier board clears than other control classes. Defile comes online on turn two and Hellfire on turn four. However, as a Spiteful Priest you have the ability to crush the poor Warlock’s hopes and dreams by using their own deck against them.

Using Twilight Acolyte on Mountain Giant essentially nullifies a big threat while giving one of your minions a huge buff. Leveraging Drakonid Operative to get a Voidlord or Faceless Manipulator delivers a powerful tempo swing that your opponent will struggle to deal with. Best of all, if you’re able to use Mind Control to pick off even one Voidlord the results are absolutely devastating for your opponent. Not only is it a huge tempo swing but it denies your opponent a big minion to Cube or revive with Bloodreaver Gul'dan or N’Zoth.

Apparently there once was a class in this game called Warrior. Hushed rumors of seeing one can occasionally be heard in isolated taverns but I think these people must have meant to say “Warlock.”

• Don’t hate the player, hate the game
• One of the most common themes I see on HearthPwn forums is people complaining about one archetype or another. These gripes inevitably turn into personal attacks on the people playing those archetypes. Back in the day it was all about those “idiot” Face Hunters, now it’s all about the “no skill” Priests. While there’s a debate to be had about using netdecks in Casual, there is no debate about Ranked. The goal of Ranked is to win, simple as that. Any deck is as “legitimate” as any other. If you have a problem with a particular archetype you should be complaining to Blizzard, not attacking your fellow players.
• Grind, grind, grind
• Skill is not the most important factor in advancing to legend. Grinding is. Yes, you need to understand the deck you’re running and the archetypes that you’re likely to encounter but, as others have pointed out, if you can pilot a deck to rank five you have a good shot at making it to legend. You just have to be willing and able to put in the time.
• HearthPwn for analysis, Disguised Toast or HSReplay for deck lists
• Counterintuitive as this might seem for someone posting a deck list on HearthPwn, I don’t think this is the best site to find viable lists. If you want to find a list that will help you climb to legend in the current meta your best list is to check disguisedtoast.com and hsreplay.com. These sites are regularly updated with the best decks to use in a constantly shifting meta and give you valuable information about the decks that you’re most likely to face. HearthPwn, on the other hand, is a great site on which to find in-depth guides on how to play the hottest decks and discuss strategy and other Hearthstone matters with your fellow players.
• Skill and randomness
• Some people seem to forget this but Hearthstone is a card game. All card games, it doesn’t matter if it’s Hearthstone, Magic: The Gathering or Solitaire are by definition random. A large part of any individual game is determined purely by luck e.g. what cards you draw and in what order. That’s especially true of Hearthstone. I can’t tell you how many matches I’ve played that have been determined by whether my Spiteful Summoner gives me Tortollan Primalist or Deathwing Dragonlord. At some level, that’s what makes the game fun, fresh and accessible. But that also means that you can only determine a players true skill over the course of many games. Honestly, I think the HCT is kind of a joke, there simply aren’t enough games played to determine who the genuinely better player is.