[23-5] Super fun Benedictus/Steal priest deck
- Last updated May 2, 2018 (Witchwood)
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Wild
- 22 Minions
- 8 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Dragon Priest
- Crafting Cost: 10720
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/30/2018 (Witchwood)
- Sekro
- Registered User
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- 3
- 20
- 40
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
103
UPDATE:
The new season has just started and I was back to rank 7 (2 stars) as I finished last season rank 3 (2 stars). Thanks to this deck, I am now back to rank 5 (2 stars), losing only twice to quest rogue (which is our worst matchup). Won every other games, beating Baku Rogues, destroying Warlocks and over-valuing Spiteful Druids. It's been a super easy climb (maybe the easiest I've had so far). This deck is not for beginners and requires a good knowledge of the meta and what your opponents will try to do (so you can mulligan accordingly and save the right cards for the right time).
Also, I have set up HSReplay and will now be able to share games against different matchups with you. I started posting some below:
- Versus Baku Rogue: https://hsreplay.net/replay/go49uvec6cRihg9Twq8vYD
- Versus Control Mage: https://hsreplay.net/replay/pQv7tBFCGrDNci9Rs6Z55V
- Versus Cube Warlock: https://hsreplay.net/replay/uj5wKxSMJiRXXxqb4BoVsk
- Versus Spiteful Druid: https://hsreplay.net/replay/VEjxwnBLvmQeN6xc9Bi4fW
- Versus Even Paladin: https://hsreplay.net/replay/JCVheVZcm3oUw6qV2tZLTj
INTRODUCTION:
Guys, I've been having so much fun with this deck that I couldn't resist sharing it. I am currently winning 23-5 and it's only the beginning :) Anyway, here is the story of this deck:
Couple of hours ago, I was getting tired of the current meta (full of Warlocks, Spiteful/Taunt druids, even Palis and Mages). I decided to see if I could come up with an effective "Steal" priest deck (similar to the one I used to play before the new expansion). Yeah I know, I just love the priest class...
Anyway, I spent some time thinking about the deck and the different cards to include in order to make it fun and effective at the same time. I came up with this list and decided to give it a try on the ladder (I was back to rank 5 after testing a bunch of lower tier decks). Surprisingly, the deck ended up being super strong and able to beat almost all my opponents (23-5 so far).
ABOUT THE DECK:
Stealing Minions:
Basically, the key idea of this deck is to be able to steal valuable minions from your opponents. To do this, the deck includes:
- 2 Twilight Acolyte and 2 Cabal Shadow Priest (these cards combo very well together)
- 2 Mind Control + 1 Shadow Visions (that can give you one more Mind Control)
- 1 Shadow Madness (that can be used to steal cards like Hadronox or even Voidlord).
- 2 Mind Control Tech
Out-valuing your opponents:
On top of all these steal cards, your deck also includes strong minions such as:
- 2 Twilight Drake : Solid early game minion that helps with the dragon synergy.
- 2 Primordial Drake : Solid taunt minion that also deals damage to other minions.
- 1 The Lich King : For even more value.
- 1 Alexstrasza : Helps to lower the health of your opponent (or increase yours)
- 1 Ysera : A great card that creates a lot of value, above all when played at the right time.
Reaching fatigue:
In most of your matchups, your opponent will reach fatigue before you (taunt druids, Warlocks, etc...). However, the deck includes Archbishop Benedictus which you can use to make sure you won't lose to fatigue. It has been a super valuable card to me when facing Control Mages or Taunt Druids.
Board control:
I know that in most matchups, controlling the board is important. To do this, I have included:
- 2 Duskbreaker : Great when playing against paladins or tempo mages.
- 1 Mass Dispel : Make sure to use it at the right time.
- 1 Gluttonous Ooze : To destroy weapons
- 1 Shadow Word: Death : To deal with big minions (like when a giant is played turn 4, or when a druid plays its Spiteful Summoner).
- Taunt minions: 2 Stonehill Defender (awesome card that also creates value) and 1 Tar Creeper
- All the other cards mentioned earlier (Mind Control Tech, Twilight Acolyte, Cabal, etc...)
Healing:
I understand that some matchups can be tough, this is why I have included:
- 2 Divine Hymn : This card combo very well with Northshire Cleric and heals you (and your minions) for 6.
CONCLUSION:
This deck is super fun to play and definitely strong. However, the most important thing is to understand your opponent strategy, mulligan well and save your key cards for the right time.
If you guys are interested in a more detailed `matchups` guide, make sure to vote for the deck and I'll add it ;)
MATCHUPS GUIDE:
Hadronox druid:
Ok guys, so I like to see things in a pragmatic way (this is how I usually define my game plans and strategies). In this matchup, the strategy of your opponent is composed of 4 steps/phases:
Step 1: Playing as many taunts as possible before being able to play Hadronox
Step 2: Play Hadronox and kill it
Step 3: Play Witching Hour, summon back Hadronox and Cube it
Step 4: Play Witching Hour, summon back Hadronox and Cube it
(which is a total of 7 Hadronox, if you were wondering).
So as your opponent is using 4 steps, let’s use 4 steps too that will focus on countering his.
Step 1: How do we counter his step 1? Well, we can’t stop him from playing taunts. However, we can do two things:
- Putting pressure on him by playing our minions and controlling the board. As we start playing bigger and bigger minions, he might be forced to use his Naturalize to remove threats (which is a great thing as he won’t be able to use it to kill Hadronox).
- Making sure that we steal his Lich King. Why? Because this is a key card in his strategy as he wants to be able to bring back as many of them as he can and play Anti-Magic Shell to boost his board and kill us. So no Lich King to bring back = no board boosted = less things to worry about.
Step 2: If he plays Hadronox and can’t kill it, then steal it and you basically won the game. However, if he plays it and kills it, keep controlling the board and play your 2 Mind Control Tech to steal 2 of his minions. This will put pressure on him and he will be forced to play Witching Hour, which takes us to step 3.
Step 3: After your opponent plays Witching Hour, he will definitely cube his Hadronox to fill his board. This will be the perfect timing for you to steal his cube (with Mind Control) which will give you 2 Hadronox. From here, your opponent might have reached fatigue (or be really close to it). Keep controlling the board and play Alexstrasza to lower his health to 15 (he might still have a lot of armor but this will scare him).
Step 4: When he plays his last Witching Hour, you can steal his Hadronox (if he doesn’t have cubes left) or repeat step 3 he cubes it.
Guides for other matchups will be added soon (as I need time to write them).
Awesome deck however I sometimes have no idea what to do on certain turns... A general guide would be amazing (you don't have to make one but it would be good)
Fun deck, after playing a lot of mindblast priest. Guess Im having some bad luck though, but spiteful druids wreck me, I have no steals or anything to stop the turn 6 tyrantus etc. Locks are usually OK. Mindblast priest wrecks this deck, nothing to steals. But thats ok, only 2% or so of them. Havent met rogues yet, guess theyre pretty tough. Even palas get wrecked, odd palas usually get wrecked, regular palas are 50/50 I guess, depends on draws, they can easily wreck through with silences, call to arms and equality before any big plays are made. Doesnt help to steal a dude. :)
Edit: Scratch that about even palas. After more games played, they usually have the upper hand. I swapped in two tar creepers cos of all the agro, but basically need to pull both duskbreakers with a dragon in hand to stand a chance. So very RNG, so far.
This deck is fun, but don't be misleading. It is absolutely not 100% against either taunt or spiteful druid. So far, in my experience, it isn't even favored -- both can massively outlast you if they know how to pilot the deck.
Not sure how you can lose versus taunt druids (unless you are really really unlucky with your draw or don't understand how the deck works). I faced a bunch of them and never lost once. This deck is just too good against them (as long as you know how to play it and what cards to save, etc... - see my strat versus taunt druids that I added at the bottom of the description).
Against Spiteful druids, it is a lil bit harder. Sometimes games tend to be pretty tight but I have never lost to one so far. Again, as long as you understand the deck and the tools it gives you, you should be fine. You have to play around their Mind Control Tech, keep Shadow Word Death (or Twilight Acolyte) to handle the minion they will summon turn 5-6, etc... So basically, if you keep an answer to everything they will be trying to do, you will definitely out-value them.
This deck is not an easy one to master as it requires a really good understanding of your opponent strategy and saving the right cards for the right time (even if you really want to play them earlier).
I am now back to rank 5, losing only twice to quest rogues (started this new season at rank 7 - 2 stars). It's been one of the easiest climb I've had so far.
I've played a couple games against taunt druids now, and I'm convinced that the ones you faced had no idea what they were doing.
The ones that have a decent curve have a lot of pressure against you. There's no way to outvalue them, because they can hadronox->naturalize for a guaranteed refill, and witching hour->cube for a 2nd and 3rd. This deck has no way to deal with those boards.
Even if you keep even the whole time, they will still come out ahead in the late game almost always.
Sounds like you don't understand how this deck works or you just play it wrong. I've been playing that deck up to rank 3 and against several legend players too (so they do know how to play taunt druid). I also shared my strategy against taunt druids at the bottom of the deck description. It has been working every single time. Not sure what you are doing wrong. Steal their Lich King. Steal/silence their cube. Then you basically win.
First of all, to steal Lich King you have to be lucky. Either you have to have drawn both dragon + cabal when they play it and they haven't ramped, or they haven't played it by t10.
As I said, the cube doesn't matter. They can refill the board three times with 2x witching/cube.
What it sounds like is you got incredibly lucky. On average, this deck has a lot of trouble against taunt druid. So far, it seems to be best performing against cubelock, which is nice, but against most other meta decks you have to draw incredibly well or you just lose.
Just faced another one few seconds ago. Wasn't even in front of the screen to mulligan and still ended up winning easily... He did everything right: played a bunch of taunts, played Hadronox, killed it with Naturalize, used Witching Hour to summon it back, cube the Hadronox, etc... Still super easy to win when you know what cards to save and when to play them. I think the reason why you don't manage to win is because you use key cards either too early/too late and you don't mulligan properly.
Here is a screenshot I just took: https://imgur.com/a/tQFOTZt
You can be lucky once or twice but not every single time, sorry. Again, it seems to me that you do not understand how to play the deck and all the tools it actually gives you. You do not need to be "lucky" to be able to steal his Lich King you can either:
- Use the combo Cabal + Twilight Acolyte (requires 9 manas but you have 2 of both cards, so it is pretty easy to get at least one of them by turn 9).
- Use Twilight Acolyte + Shadow Madness (attack his Lich King first to lower its health, then use the combo and use the Lich king on one of his minions so the Lich King will die on your side).
- If you have the coin, then keep it and use it turn 9 with a Mind Control.
So don't tell me you need to be lucky please...
Also, even if his Lich King dies on his side, it is still an easy matchup. When he kills his first Hadronox, simply use your two Mind Control Tech to steal 2 taunt minions out of his board. Then you'll simply have to steal his cube to get 2 Hadronox. Get one killed to fill your board back with a lot of taunts (the ones you stole from him, Lich King, Drakes...). By then he would have reached fatigue. Play Alexstrasza on him and he will concede. Works 100% of the time, you just need to know when/where/how to play the right cards.
Nightscales are good and will combo well with Divine Hymn. Psychich scream is good too though I never really needed one in my 28 games. Not sure about Lady in White as it's basically a dead card if drawn late.
Curious to see how well it will perform. Keep me posted!
Hey Sekro, how does this deck fare against quest rogue? Doesn't seem to have a clear win condition against them. It's probably okay if that matchup is a losing one, I just want to know your opinion.
+1, gonna try it once I get funky enough as a ftp to craft benedictus and the dragons :)
Hey TBonicus, rogue quest is our worst matchup. I faced only two so far but lost twice to them. The deck is just too slow to kill them before they complete their quest. Other tough matchups are aggro decks like paladin or baku rogue. I have 100% winrate versus baku rogues but lost twice to even paladin (thought it is a winnable matchup).
This deck is super fun but requires a good understanding of the current meta and what your opponents will try to do. People who don't have that kind of understanding will keep losing with the deck as they won't mulligan well and won't save the right cards for the right time. However, if you do have a good grasp of your opponent strategy, then you will be doing super well with the deck :)
Could you post a mulligan guide?
First time I have every single card for a deck that costs more than 10 000 dust, will try it out at once, seems like a lot of fun :)
How does it perform against quest rouge and taunt druid (win %) ?
It seems too slow against quest rouge :/ One might defeat druid when you can steal Hadronox.
Another question would be odd paladin which is quite fast, and 2 board clear does not seem enough.
Hey nbalazs,
- Versus taunt Druids: 100% winrate. This deck simply destroys them.
- Versus aggro (Baku) Rogues: 100% winrate (but I only faced 2 so far).
- Versus quest Rogue: 0% winrate (faced only 2 quest rogues but as you said, the deck is too slow to kill them before they complete their quest).
- Versus even paladins: 70% winrate.
- Versus odd paladin: no idea. Haven't faced any with this deck so far.
I shared some videos that you can check. There is one against baku rogue and one against even paladin.
The deck has a lot more tools to control the board than 2 board clears. Yes it includes 2 duskbreaker but you also have Mind Control Tech (that works super well versus paladin - see my video), Shadow Madness, taunt minions, etc...
Thank you for the details! :)
Great deck! :)) I needed to craft Ysera, but it is a classic card I wanted for long, anyway... My initial stats are 5-2 :) One loss might have been won without misplay, so it would be even better. I only did not have a chance against spiteful druid, when I had no removal in hand and he got 8/8 on turn 6 (I had awful hand all along).
Yeah, Spiteful druid is a tough matchup but I haven't lost to one yet, even when they play Keleseth turn 2.
The key in this matchup is to mulligan well and playing around their Mind Control Tech (they have two). Usually, the best mulligan for this matchup is to have Duskbreaker (1 or 2), Mind Control Tech, Nothshire Cleric/cheap taunt minions, and a way to deal with what their spiteful summoner will summon turn 6 (or 5 if they have the coin).
Their deck has nothing to clear your board or minions, so if you can survive past turn 6, then it should be GG. Their key cards are their 2 Spiteful Summoners and their 2 Fungalmancer.
Also I usually use Cabal Shadow Priest to steal their Crypt Lord.
Thanks AegisTitan, you've nailed it. That deck is super strong as long as you have a good knowledge of the current meta and what your opponents will be trying to do. If you do, then you will have a lot of fun. If you don't, then the deck will just not work for you.
You need to swap some of your big minions for Witchwood Grizzly. Remove maybe Ysera and Alex or one Mind Control...
I'm personally using Elise in place of Ysera...Added Anduin in my version too.