Theo's #1 Legend Mind Blast Priest Guide
- Last updated Apr 27, 2018 (Witchwood)
- Edit
- |
Wild
- 15 Minions
- 14 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Control Priest
- Crafting Cost: 8180
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/17/2018 (Witchwood)
- Theo
- Pro Player
-
Country:
-
Tournament Decks:
8
-
Ladder Decks:
30
-
Submitted By:
Hey Hearthpwn, it is Theo here once again with a guide!
I recently hit #1 Legend on EU and #3 Legend on NA with this deck, so I’m here to share my guide on it. It’s gotten quite popular these past few days, so I hope I can help you with this guide as this deck can be quite difficult to navigate in a lot of matchups. It’s a really fun deck to play as you always have a lot of decisions and almost every matchup plays out differently. You can follow me on my Twitch channel if you want to see me play this and other decks!
Proof and decklist: https://twitter.com/TheoHS_/status/985231946988040192
Stats (almost only top 100 EU/NA): https://imgur.com/8SuaJ8g
VoD of getting #1 on EU and #3 on NA: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/250344906
General Strategy:
Since decks are changing often and the meta hasn’t quite settled yet, I’ll start with some general strategy and after that how you want to approach some of the most common matchups on ladder. I’m only highlighting the three decks I’ve had the most experience against, as I feel I can give the best advice for those matchups. Don’t hesitate though if you have any questions about other matchups. Also you want to adapt depending on your opponent’s deck and don’t tunnel vision on one strategy.
Often people see this as a combo deck where you need Alexstrasza their face and then kill them with multiple Mind Blasts/hero powers, but this is only needed in a small amount of games and matchups. This deck has multiple ways to win and during the game you have to evaluate every turn how you are going to win. Often you want to think first about your opponent’s win condition. Is it through lategame value, board or through face damage? If you face an aggressive deck like secret mage or odd hunter, you want to reduce their damage through board as much as possible and since they don’t have strong minions you can often push a lot of damage with your minions while also healing up to not die to their burst.
If you are facing a more board focused, midrange deck like spiteful druid or odd paladin, you don’t mind taking some damage early and you only really have to take care of the board by turn 5/6 when they get their strong turns with Spiteful Summoner / Level Up. You do have to keep the lategame of your opponent in mind in these kinds of matchups. Whereas a more aggressive deck like paladin can’t really outvalue you or outheal your damage from Shadowreaper Anduin, Spiteful druid can do both things so you have to go on the offense at some point in that matchup.
If you are in a control matchup where you know you won’t beat their lategame, you want to be the beatdown and start pressuring your opponent. Matchups like shaman and any kind of control warrior come to mind. In these matchups you have to be aggressive and set up a plan to kill them as they eventually either kill or outheal you. Use your cards to push the most damage you can, so for example you often want to save your mass dispel to push through some taunts instead of denying a deathrattle.
Mulligan:
Versus aggro: Northshire Cleric, Wild Pyromancer if it’s deck with a lot of low HP minions, Power Word: Shield if you already kept Northshire or Pyromancer, Duskbreaker and a dragon if you have Duskbreaker.
Versus midrange: Northshire Cleric, Power Word: Shield with Northshire, Duskbreaker, Twilight Drake, Scaleworm if you expect to have some good value trades, and Shadowreaper Anduin.
Versus control: Northshire Cleric, Power Word: Shield with Northshire, Twilight Drake, and Shadowreaper Anduin
Matchups:
Cubelock
Mulligan: Northshire Cleric, Shadow Word: Death, Mass Dispel, Shadowreaper Anduin and either Acidic Swamp Ooze or Harrison Jones
This is matchup is a very interesting one and I believe pretty favored when played correctly. What you want to do in the early/midgame is just not let them have any big minions on board. Giants, lackeys and skull are the way they get threats on board and you have multiple ways of dealing with each. What you often want to do is push a lot of face damage early and using for example mass dispel on just a voidlord is fine if you can push 6+ damage. Use psychic scream on 2+ threats and the warlock will have a lot of bad turns where you can either push damage with minions or Anduin. Because warlock has only limited healing now, you often want to get 2 pings with Anduin every turn. Only use Alexstrasza if they have a high health total so if you can put them under 20 with just pings it’s often better to save it until after a Dark Pact. It’s often important to set up lethal so they are forced to use their healing in inefficient ways, allowing you to build a board that can push damage. The way you lose this matchup is by taking too much damage from Mountain Giants or Doomguards, so try to remove them immediately, or by getting outhealed so always try to maximize damage.
Aggro Hunter
Mulligan: Northshire Cleric, Wild Pyromancer, Divine Hymn, Duskbreaker
Against aggro hunter you really don’t want to take too much damage early as their hero power + all their direct/charge damage is very hard to prevent due to not having any taunts until turn 8. This means you need Pyromancer and Duskbreaker to clear the board early and then you need divine hymn to survive until turn 8/9. If you don’t expect to die the next turn, it’s often better to save divine hymn as long as possible to get an extra hero power in. Outhealing them is not the only way to win though as you can surprisingly often kill them quickly with your midgame minions as they never trade (who knew), especially if you save your divine hymn for a while. Hitting them in the face a few times and having a mind blast or 2 can quickly win the game, so always keep an eye out for that as eventually you won’t be able to outheal them.
Even/odd Paladin
Mulligan: Northshire Cleric, Wild Pyromancer, Duskbreaker
This matchup is very favored. You have too many board clears and fortunately these decks don’t snowball that hard early like murloc paladin used to, so you take a lot less damage early on and don’t just die due to a perfect curve. Make sure to remember their power turns (t4 CtA / t5 level up / t6 Tarim) and play with that in mind when deciding when to clear the board. For example you often don’t need to clear an odd paladin board on turn 3 because there isn’t really a buff you have to be afraid of, so it’s often better to wait a turn and deny them their power turn. Lategame just try to keep clearing their board and always imagine them having their best cards and try to keep your answers for those.
If you have questions about other matchups you can ask them in the comments and I’ll try my best to help you.
Flexible cards
If you want to add some different cards to the deck, I’d
- Mind Control – I put this in mainly because I faced a lot of warlock and mind controlling a void lord often buys a lot of time.
- Harrison/Ooze – Kind of depends on the meta whether you want to play one or two weapon removals. Acidic Swamp Ooze, Gluttonous Ooze and Harrison are all viable.
- 2nd Shadow Word: Death – In case you are mostly facing aggro decks, mostly needed for the Cubelock and Spiteful Druid deck
Tech cards
The following cards are probably the best options to change the deck a bit, although there might be some other cards I’m overlooking.
- Skulking Geist - Great if you are facing a lot of Taunt Druids - allows you to Mind Control their Hadronox since they can't Naturalize it immediately.
- Acolyte of Pain - Great at drawing cards to give you a better chance to find key cards such as Shadowreaper Anduin.
- Binding Heal – Great versus face decks and can cycle versus control decks
- Doomsayer – great versus aggressive decks to buy some time early game
- Chameleos – Fun card and great to provide information, but that’s often the only thing it does
- Tar Creeper / Stonehill Defender – To have an extra early play and nice versus more aggressive decks.
Thanks for reading! If you have questions left or want tips for certain matchups you can leave them below in the comments! I hope you’ll enjoy this deck as much as I did! If you want to see more of my decks you can follow me on both Twitter and Twitch!
Videos:
My vod of getting to #1 Legend:
Kiwiinbacon Deck Showcase:
Any tips in the secret mage match up?
Is Mind Control really needed?
It is not really needed, but helps in control matchups, versus taunt druid and of course versus warlock.
I feel like the dragon count of this deck is kind of low. I have been having issues with dragon cards not activating. Maybe Nightmare Amalgam could be good?
Also Chameleos is very worth it IMO. Not necessarily worth a craft but it is very strong and its really fun in control matchups. Knowing whats in your opponents hand makes for some thoughtful plays
Chameleos vs Agro: u don’t keep it at the start coz u want to have efficient answers or u dead.
Vs cubes and control u rather want Oozes , MD, words, geist.
And it’s dead draw 1/1 in the middle of the game.
So it’s just fun card.
Deck can have a lot of bad matchups at the higher ranks due to diverse amount of decks that you will be running into. This deck excels as a counter meta deck at high legend where your pool of players are smaller.
Really great guide and deck my man +1. I had a close game with a Spiteful Druid but still managed to push through all that armour and win, made a video if anyone is interested, thanks.
How this deck playing against Control Warrior and Taunt Druid? Usually they have a lot of armor...
Personally I feel like control warrior is fine. They barely run any removal so often you can keep a board that can hit their face while clearing the stuff they play. Taunt Druid is a lot more difficult and if you are regularly facing them I'd suggest Skulking Geist as that makes the matchup slightly favored. If you don't run it, you have to get a lot of damage in through the board since they have too much armor to just burst them down, so focus on getting board control and keeping it until you know you can just go for the all face plan.
These cards require far too much setup and only deal slightly more damage (20) than the normal combo of 3x ping + 2x MB = 16, so they are just not worth it since most of the time they are just far worse and there is no other synergy at all with them in the deck.
And Geist is good in the deck, i've been running it when I was facing a lot of druids/warlocks.
Went 0-4 at rank 3 with this deck. All games were a joke (even paladin, ctrl mage, combo shaman and cube warlock). No board presence, enemy has no weapons hence Ooze/Harrison are useless, duskbreaker cant clear the board, same for primordial, enemy just heals after alexstrasza, no good target for mind control, same for divine hymn, same for pws, same for shadow visions, pyromancer i guess is there to counter pallies, sadly he's useless against everyone else, mind blast was never needed because enemy always has 25+ hp, psychic scream had to be used poorly because rest of the deck was useless.
I'm 5 times legend but still can't tell what this deck is trying to achieve :/
I didn't have a 2nd Pyschic Scream so I used Holy Nova. It's worked great for aggro and has drawed some cards.
Shadow Visions has been good for getting more Mind Blasts.
Great deck! Thanks.
I have been wanting to try this deck all week long and I am sad I didn't try it earlier because this shit is bomb! Not only does it blasts the competition but it does it so consistently. I feel like a 10 mana 2 card 16 damage combo brings us back to the good old combo druid, but in this case, it ignores taunt completely :D
I made a sweet video showcasing the deck, I really hope you all enjoy!
Hey , I was thinking if Nightscale Matriarch can fit in this deck in any way?
Maybe shadowform as well
They don't fit in the deck, just too slow and basically unplayable once you get Shadowreaper Anduin.
True they are indeed , thanks for the feedback.
Also , I dont got Harison so I replaced him with Corrosive Sludge to keep the 5-drop and a 2nd weapon removal. Do you got anything better to propose?
I'd run Geist, or another Ooze if you really want to keep the weapon removal.
is alex really worth crafting? Like couldnt you just get him to 10-15 with ur minions?