Easy Legend Keleseth Priest - Nightknight
- Last updated Mar 5, 2018 (Patches Nerf)
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Wild
- 26 Minions
- 4 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Spiteful Priest
- Crafting Cost: 7400
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 2/27/2018 (Patches Nerf)
- hdmfh123
- Registered User
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- 4
- 10
- 24
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Battle Tag:
NightKnight#124756
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
202
Introduction
Hi, I'm a mobile player and usually do not play more than several games a day during commute hours. Normally I just play for fun as I cannot come up with more than 200 games a month. However, this unique deck created by me was doing tremendously well in this meta. I reached legend starting from rank 18 this month. On the way to legend, I hit a win streak from rank 10 to rank 5 without losing a single game. I only ran into a bit of trouble on rank 1, losing to Paladins multiple times. In the end, I queued into several Warlocks/Priests in a row and hit legend.
This deck deals particularly well with Cubelock, Control lock, Secret mage and all variants of Priests. Its only weakness is vs Paladin and needs to tech differently in a Paladin heavy meta. The unique inclusion of Prince Keleseth and Stoneskin Basilisk in a Spiteful Priest deck often wows the opponent when played.
Mulligan
This is highly dependent on the matchup, but you always keep Prince Keleseth in your starting hand for obvious reasons. In general you would want to mulligan for your win condition vs control and board clear vs aggro.
Warlock (Control/Cube)
You need:
- Prince Keleseth - What can I say?
- Spellbreaker - You need just 1 copy before turn 5 to silence their Possessed Lackey. or to silence the Voidlord or Rin, the First Disciple and push face damage before turn 10.
Situational:
- Harrison Jones - Only keep it with Spellbreaker. If the meta has more Skull of the Man'ari, I may even keep without Spellbreaker in hand.
- Cabal Shadow Priest - Only keep it with coin and without Spellbreaker. This provides a third card in deck to remove Possessed Lackey
- Spiteful Summoner - Only keep it with Spellbreaker. Makes big threat and pushes face damage.
- Northshire Cleric - Only keep it with Spellbreaker. Counters Kobold Librarian in early turns.
- Drakonid Operative - Only keep it with Spellbreaker. Strong turn 5 threat that must be dealt with soon. Aim to steal Twisting Nether or Defile to clear the board by N'Zoth, the Corruptor or Bloodreaver Gul'dan. Otherwise Voidlord is a good steal too.
- Medivh, the Guardian - Only keep it with Spellbreaker and Spiteful Summoner. Continue to make big threats and push face damage.
Priest (Spiteful, Big Priest, Dragon Control, Combo)
You need:
- Prince Keleseth - This enables superior trade for you vs their minions.
- Spiteful Summoner - Strongest turn 5 with coin or turn 6 play. You want to play this as soon as possible.
- Drakonid Operative - Strong turn 5 play to steal Spiteful Summoner or Drakonid Operative.
Situational:
- Medivh, the Guardian - Only keep it with Spiteful Summoner. Enables strong tempo play for next 3 turns.
- Harrison Jones - Only keep it with Spiteful Summoner in hand. Occasionally Priest may steal your Medivh or have their own.
- Stoneskin Basilisk - Only keep it with Spiteful Summoner. A comeback card if the opponent drops Drakonid Operative or Spiteful Summoner before you.
Mage (Tempo, Secret)
You need:
- Prince Keleseth - What can I say?
- Duskbreaker - Clears 3 health minions they tempo out in first few turns.
- Harrison Jones - Eliminates Secret Mage's win condition Aluneth on turn 5.
- Tar Creeper - Blocks small minions and buys you time into later turns.
- Northshire Cleric - Weakens turn 1 Mana Wyrm and draws a card on turn 2.
Situational:
- Spellbreaker - Only keep it with Duskbreaker. Silences Mana Wyrm if it gets out of control.
- Stoneskin Basilisk - Only keep it with Duskbreaker. Slows down mage so he cannot drop Kirin Tor Mage on turn 3.
- Kabal Talonpriest - Only keep it with the coin. Prepare to coin out a 3 and follow up with Kabal Talonpriest.
Druid (Jade, Big Spell)
You need:
- Prince Keleseth - What can I say?
- Spiteful Summoner - Strong tempo play to push face damage vs Jade Druid.
- Northshire Cleric - Prevents Jade Druid's early Jade plays such as Jade Idol and Jade Blossom.
- Stoneskin Basilisk - This slows down Druid's early ramp and buys you time into turn 6 Spiteful Summoner.
Situational:
- Kabal Talonpriest - Only keep it with the coin. Prepare to coin out a 3 and follow up with Kabal Talonpriest.
Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Hunter, Warrior
You need:
- Prince Keleseth - What can I say?
- Duskbreaker - Must keep to clear the initial board on turn 4.
- Tar Creeper - Blocks small minions and buys you time into later turns.
- Northshire Cleric - This removes 1 attack minions and draws a card on turn 2.
Situational:
- Kabal Talonpriest - Only keep it with the coin. Prepare to coin out a 3 and follow up with Kabal Talonpriest.
- Harrison Jones - Only keep it if you have the Duskbreaker and Tar Creeper vs weapon class.
Card Choices
The core of the deck is still Spiteful Priest. I started to play Spiteful Priest this season as I just crafted Grand Archivist. But I was not satisfied with the weak early turns and started to make tweaks to it. Both Shadow Ascendant and Netherspite Historian are low impact cards on turn 2 by themselves. So I removed them altogether and replaced with Prince Keleseth instead. With 3 extra slots in the deck, I'm free to put in some additional impactful cards.
With no 2 mana cards other than Prince Keleseth, this requires a strong turn 3 to prevent it being overrun by aggro. So I included 2x Tar Creeper and 2x Stonehill Defender to slow down the aggression with taunts in early to mid game.
As I ranked up, I found myself reluctant to waste damage on Voidlord midgame. Stoneskin Basilisk was included for removal. As I played more, I discovered that Stoneskin Basilisk into Kabal Talonpriest is a monstrous start for any aggro or control deck to deal with.
I intend to optimize this deck to win almost all games vs Priests and Warlocks. Aggro Paladins are impossible to beat if they have a insane starting hand. Rather than tech heavily to increase the odds slightly vs Aggro Paladins, I prefer to focus tech cards on increasing the winning odds from 60% to 90% in control matchups.
Tech Cards
- Spellbreaker - Should always be included unless Control Warlock vanishes from the meta.
- Harrison Jones - is tech against Mage. There were many secret mages from rank 10-5. The card usually seals the deal on turn 5 if it is triggered. Sometimes Warlock plays Skull of the Man'ari on turn 5 too. Gluttonous Ooze is a good replacement if you do not have the card.
- Stoneskin Basilisk - Serves as removal for big minions vs control and slows down opponent vs tempo.
- Cabal Shadow Priest - I found that I was not able to consistently draw the Spellbreaker before turn 5, even though I included 2 copies in this deck. This provides a third way to remove the Possessed Lackey without triggering its deathrattle.
- Medivh, the Guardian - This is a win condition vs all control decks, especially control warlock. Control warlock can have up to 2 copies of Twisting Nether and 2 copies of Siphon Soul. It ensures that we are constantly making threats that the opponent has to remove.
Other Possible Tech Cards
- Twilight Acolyte - Stoneskin Basilisk serves the same purpose and does the job better removing big threats. In addition, Twilight Acolyte is not a dragon itself and requires a trigger.
- Psychic Scream - I tested it for a while and felt it was only useful sometimes to remove the full board by Paladin or Warlock. However, I really hated the idea of shuffling cards back to Warlock's deck.
- Dragonfire Potion - Same as Psychic Screen. It's too late to play it vs Aggro decks. And it's not as impactful vs Priests as they have all the dragons.
- Ysera - Even though the deck cuts 2 x Netherspite Historian. Dragon synergy still can be reliably triggered. It does not need another Dragon in the deck. Medivh already provides the late game value and it does not need any more value from Ysera
- Curious Glimmerroot - This card is not impactful on turn 3. I would rather play Tar Creeper to stop the aggression on turn 3. The card draw may steal you a Drakonid Operative sometimes. However, the extra value is not needed in this deck.
- Grand Archivist - It lacks the consistency that I desire. Often when I want to Mind Control a Voidlord, it casts a Free From Amber instead. It occasionally wastes the FFA by picking an inferior minion like C'Thun or Bonemare. After it's played, Spiteful Summoner becomes weaker as there may be no more spells left in the deck.
Card Substitutes
- Harrison Jones - Gluttonous Ooze or Corrosive Sludge.
- Medivh, the Guardian - This card's effect is unique and substituting it will decrease the power level of the deck quite a bit. However, if you have to, you can replace it with Grand Archivist, The Lich King, Ysera or Bonemare.
- Prince Keleseth - Hmm. Not really.
Matchup Tips
In general you should aim to cheat tempo by playing a Spiteful Summoner as early as possible vs control. You have a lot of value in the deck so do not ever worry about running out of resources. vs aggro you should protect your face at all costs. Once you can stabilize with Duskbreaker or taunts, you should have the game in the bag.
Warlock
Warlock is usually Control lock, Cubelock or Zoolock. Similar Strategies are adopted against the first two. Given many mid-size taunts and 2 x Duskbreaker in the deck, Zoolock is easy to deal with so I will not cover here.
You have two chances of beating a Control lock. The first is during the midgame as you continue to make big threats from turn 5/6 to turn 9. Do not overextend the board as they are likely to have Defile, Hellfire and Twisting Nether. Silence the Possessed Lackey at all costs. If they have a Voidlord out, try to kill it ASAP to prevent it being copied or cubed. Your primary goal here is to prevent them from summoning and killing Voidlord and push as much face damage as possible.
Approaching turn 10, Control lock may resurrect the Voidlord with N'Zoth, the Corruptor and Bloodreaver Gul'dan. Save your 2 Mind Control and take their Voidlord as soon as they are resurrected. Save your Duskbreaker to clear full board of Voidwalker. Steal one or two Twisting Nether to assist your board clears. Exhaust their removals by putting one big threat on the board each time. Your primary goal here to hold on until they run out of cards.
Priest
Priest has many variants. Spiteful Priest and Dragon Control Priest are most popular. Traditionally whoever gets Spiteful Summoner first with good RNG wins the match in the mirror. However, due to the inclusion of Stoneskin Basilisk, you have a chance to neutralize their big minion and come back even if you do not draw your Spiteful Summoner early. With additional value from Medivh, you are heavily favored in this matchup.
Some Priests run OTK combos. Just focus on clearing their board every turn to stop them making big minions. Be mindful dropping high health minions unless you have taunts in the way. It should be easy to deal with as you have much more value than them.
Mage
Secret mage is the mainstream. They typically have some ways of cheating tempo and playing secrets. It's a easy matchup as long as you have a good Duskbreaker clear. You also have multiple taunts to stop their aggression if you did not draw the Duskbreaker. Save the Harrison Jones on mulligan for the Aluneth. You wins the game by exhausting all their cards in hand.
Paladin
This is a tough matchup vs either Murlock Paladin or Dude Paladin. You should have a chance if they do not have an insane start. Duskbreaker and taunts are main ways to stop their aggression. Attempt to clear the board always until they run out of steam. You win by building a big board.
Pro tips:
- Prefer to drop multiple minions over a single big minion. Buff the taunts to force them trade multiple minions into it.
- Save your Harrison Jones for Vinecleaver.
- Take their Righteous Protector with your Cabal Shadow Priest to avoid double trading into it.
- They normally do not have Equality or Consecration. So it is safe for you to extend.
- Paladin has Divine Favors to reload so you actually do not want to discover a card from Drakonid Operative.
If you still have a hard time with Paladins, Replaced 2x Stoneskin Basilisk with 2x Lone Champion. In this case I will intentionally not play Northshire Cleric on turn 1 with Lone Champion in hand.
Druid
Jade Druid is fairly weak in first few turns. Try to slow down their ramp with Stoneskin Basilisk. Once you have a good Spiteful Summoner or Medivh turn, pushes as much face damage as you can. You can close out pretty fast without the aid from Skulking Geist.
Rogue
Miracle Rogue can cheat tempo in first few turns. Again Tar Creeper and Duskbreaker are your best friends. Once you survive and stabilize, it should be smooth sailing from there.
vs Kingsbane Rogue, you need control the early game and avoid trading at all. Once they buffed the blade up to 5+ attack with life leech, it's difficult to rush them down.
Hunter
The only viable archetype is Spell Hunter. Save the Duskbreaker for the Lesser Emerald Spellstone. Feel free to extend the board as they have a hard time clearing multiple minions.
Shaman
I've seem mostly Jade evolve Shaman. Make good trades and prevent them from having a good evolve. It should be easy matchup for you.
Warrior
Is this a class? Maybe in the secret cow level?
Video
Kudos to kiwiinbacon for making a video showcasing the deck below. It contains 4 games vs Mage, Paladin, Priest, Druid. Please check out his channel for other deck showcase videos.
Rank 5 to Legend Strategies
Climbing from rank 5 to legend efficiently requires you to read the meta and react to it. Yes you can climb with any good meta deck but the overall win rate would only hover around 50%-60% if you do not react to the meta. It would take many games to grind through even with a fast deck.
There are usually mini meta pockets within the ranks. The meta is vastly different within the pocket. Tech and react quickly within the pocket secures a consistently high win rate for you. In general, from rank 5 to rank 4 there is usually a meta pocket. And another meta pocket occurs from rank 1 to legend. Swapping 1-2 tech cards in your deck often drastically changes your win rate against a certain class.
Understand that our deck is primarily targeting Warlock and Priest. It's a greedy control deck that outvalues everything else. Its only weakness is the early game as we sacrifice the 2 drops. We do not have a lot of removals in the deck due to big spells. If the meta consists of fast decks, we can counter them with more mid-size taunt or tempo swing on turn 3 or turn 4. With only 2 board clears in the deck, try to save it for a bigger clear unless you have to. It's usually preferred to play taunts to delay their aggression rather than the Duskbreaker at first chance.
For example, if you enter a meta pocket flooded with Paladins, try to cut 2x Stoneskin Basilisk and add 2x Lone Champion. It takes several hits to take down the Lone Champion on turn 3 and it can serve as a mini-board clear. Other taunts or temp swings such as Saronite Chain Gang can be considered as well if the meta is even faster.
The tech cards slots are Stoneskin Basilisk, Harrison Jones, Spellbreaker, and Cabal Shadow Priest. Read the meta and swap cards in/out accordingly ensures you a fast climb experience.
Sometimes meta can become extremely hostile. I ran into 8 Dude/Murloc Paladins in a row when playing this deck at rank 1. I lost to all of them and my rank dropped to rank 3. Rather than tech more against Paladins, I picked Murloc Paladin to counter the Dude Paladin in the meta. With another win streak, I quickly got back to rank 1. Then the meta is hostile to Paladin again and I swapped back to this Keleseth Priest deck which got me to legend eventually.
Playing a control deck requires a lot of skills allocating your resources. It is not as easy to pilot as an aggro deck. Have some patience and good luck with your legend climb!
Legend Rank
Meta in legend was quite chaotic. Some of the uncommon decks started to show up at bottom of ladder. Meta shifted frequently and I often ran into a different meta on a second day. It's a game of a rock paper scissors and you always want to stay ahead of the crowd. If you would like to enter high legend, I would recommend to attempt in a single setting to maximize your success. I was personally unable to devote that much time so I only played casually at the bottom half of the legend ranks.
Here are some of my observations:
- Secret mage dropped in popularity significantly. So I cut Harrison Jones for Saronite Chain Gang. Sometimes when I needed weapon destruction again, I included Gluttonous Ooze instead.
- To my surprise, I did not encounter a lot of Paladins in the last few days of ladder. Maybe people focused less on ladder climbing but more on fun in legend ranks.
- Kingsbane Rogue was much more prevalent than in non-legend ranks, though it was still not mainstream. I started to mulligan very aggressively against them for better results.
- At one point I replaced 2x Stoneskin Basilisk with 2x Lone Champion or 2x Saronite Chain Gang. Think Lone Champion is better vs Murlocdin and Saronite Chain Gang is better vs Dudedin.
- In the end I put back Stoneskin Basilisk in the deck as it was quite powerful in a lot of matchups. I ended up swapping Spellbreaker with defensive cards depending on Paladin/Warlock population.
Next Steps
Try it out yourself and I would be glad to hear any feedback or suggestions. Thank you all for your support! Your support is my motivation!
with 10 likes i will post mulligan guide(Done)with 20 likes i will post tech choices and reason behind card choices.(Done)With 40 likes I will add matchup strategies.(Done)With 60 likes I will add tips that I used to boost my winrate from rank 5 to legend.(Done)With 100 likes I will add my latest adjustments to the deck dealing with the meta in legend ranks.(Done)
Below is the screenshot on my phone against a control Warlock just before I reached legend.
Thank you all again for your support. I would love to see you succeed with this deck!
In low ranks this deck is fucking horse shit, counters nothing, everyone has perfect answers all the time and you just lose no matter what you play or do. What is the win condition? get lucky off spiteful, how often does that work, not fucking enough.
I took out the talon priests and a couple other cards. Just to make the deck flow a bit better. The talon priest felt clunky and a little unwieldy most of the time. Now even if I don't draw keleseth I don't really notice. in fact I could remove keleseth and the deck would run just as smoothly. I feel keleseth is just there to give my opponent a little extra stress to worry about. Otherwise I feel this deck counters a lot of decks well.
While it doesn't have a lot of IMMEDIATE counters off the bat. It does have efficient ways of dealing with big threats and then EXPLODING out of no where once you medivh and start casting Ambers and mind Controls! Thanks for the deck!
Shit tier deck, blown out by aggro
This deck shits on aggro! Duskbreaker on turn 4 or 5 will slow aggro down to a point they can't recover.
Until they Call to Arms, then divine favor and draw 3-5 cards.
I use 5500 to 600 Legend wtih this deck. It is my first time getting high Legend. Thank you very much for deck. My luck was that there werent many Paladin decks at this rank. Deck is so good against all other classes.
Yup, this deck got me to legend :D Did not change a thing, it worked great as it is. You can easily beat warlock with good mulligan and figuring out his hand. With agro decks I needed a lot of luck to beat it (murloc paladin was easier to beat than dude paladin) but it was not impossible. Thanks!
Paladins are nightmares to priest
Same for me here.
9 times out of 10 I simply cant draw Keleseth. Not even during the whole game lol
Sorry, this deck sucks.
Spiteful priest has enough trouble mulliganing well and this deck just makes it even harder. You will often sit there through the first 3 turns not being able to play a damn thing.
If you have the patience to not tilt suffering through that crap, then go for it.
0-3 so far with this. I even had Keleseth all 3 games on turn 2 (even coining him turn 1 twice)... I played against Kingsbane Rogue, Zoo Warlock and then some random Buff Rogue BS and lost to all 3. Almost stabilized against the last idiot, but he played Leeroy Jenkins with +6 attack buff and 12-shot me for the win. Either unbelievably bad luck or this deck isn't working anymore.
Yeah I think its too late in the Rank 5 to legend climb for this deck. Too many paladins.
You are probably in a Paladin meta pocket. I'm at rank 2 atm and barely see any Paladins. If you run into one Paladin after another, I suggest you to switch deck temporarily. Last season I was running Murlocdin to counter Dudedin when I am in a Paladin meta pocket and had some success. Control lock is also another Paladin counter as well. I dont think I can achieve the same win rate no matter how I optimize this deck against aggro.
Get a gold hero?
Why is this deck so highly rated. It loses to warlock and agro paladin most of the time. 30% of the time you will only be able to play something at mana 4/5 losing instantly to mage and paladin in the current meta. Spiteful means nothing if you get 4/4 and a 5/7 vs a flooded dudepaladin board
FIrst, I want to congratulate you on hitting legend. The following are my criticism and can be ignore if it sounds harsh but it's meant to be helpful with deck building. I'm a 24+ time legend player and the below are my thoughts from experience.
Priest without two drops and consistent 1 drops is auto death against any type of aggro. Board clear is even more limited to only two duskbreaker without additional help from netherspite historian for additional clears. The deck is another version of spiteful dragon priest. It beats control but that's what all mid range decks do. No need for two spell breakers as one is more than enough. this deck isn't fast enough to spellbreaker through taunts to lethal your opponent. spellbreaker is useless against aggro decks and tempo decks like secret mage. You might think it's useful against control warlock (esp against possessed lackey) but you already have two mind controls for his voidlords or cubes. This deck is already favor against control warlock without spell breaker so just teching in cards for the purpose of teching ruins other synergies and makes the deck less consistent. It's great that your creativity came up with this deck and congrats on hitting legend. Be mindful that when you tech in cards, you want cards to help you in your bad match ups. Tech cards to even further your favorable match ups are a waste. Another is Harrison Jones, subbing in swamp ooze would be fine and better against pally. (just realize swamp ooze is a two drop and doesn't work in this deck). I would just take harrison out.
Thank you for taking the time. It's impressive that you can consistently reach legend every season. I appreciate that this is leading to the general philosophy of deck building.
The main goal for me is to reach legend. As I cannot play more than 200 games a month, I need to achieve at least 70% win rate overall to have a reasonable shot at it. I am not looking to build a deck that beats all archetypes in the meta. Rather, I'm building a deck to maximize my overall win rate against the meta. It's ok to lost a game to paladin if i can win more in other matchups. And for favorable matchups, I am not satisfied settling upon just favorable win rate of 50%-60%. I am looking for highly favorable win rate in order to ensure fast climb.
Looking at the past meta on vicioussyndicate, Paladin consists of only 20% of the decks. The majority of the other decks are Warlocks, Priests, and Mages. A slight win rate drop in Paladin is tolerable if the other matchups are highly favorable. Looking at the data of this deck and standard spiteful deck from hsreplay, this deck is performing slightly worse (4%) vs paladin by cutting 2x Netherspite Historian and 2x Shadow Ascendant. However, the warlock win rate increased 6% which more than made up for it. With a warlock centric meta, it's doing better than the standard deck.
If I run into an aggro meta pocket, I would actually switch deck rather than trying to optimize the spiteful summoner deck for climb efficiency. The core of the deck is still Spiteful Priest which traditionally does worse vs Paladin. It is extremely difficult to optimize the matchup win rate from 30-40% to a favorable matchup by swapping a few tech cards.
Thanks for all the information! This deck actually makes me want to play Priest again. For the longest time it seemed like cancer. Now, I'm going to know what I'm doing. Serious value for once :)
turn 4 +turn 5 still no Duskbreaker = game over instantly vs aggro, well i tried 3:7 so far those 3 wins are all vs cubelock Oo
I get destroyed by Kingsbane Rogue and Aluneth Mage. Any suggestions on what to swap out?