Zerek's Back, Back Again
- Last updated Aug 24, 2018 (Boomsday)
- Edit
- |
Wild
- 4 Minions
- 25 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Big Priest
- Crafting Cost: 9060
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 8/7/2018 (Boomsday)
- Echo_
- Registered User
-
- 7
- 38
- 117
-
Battle Tag:
Echo#11883
-
Region:
US
-
Total Deck Rating
274
And again, and again, and again, and again. He never really leaves to be honest.
By utilizing a Big Priest shell, Zerek, Master Cloner is able to show how much he cares about you by never leaving your side.
How to Play
For those of you who normally play Wild, you are probably already familiar with Big Priest. For those who aren't, try your best to get to turn 6 through utilizing removal such as the Shadow Words and Spirit Lash. Once you get to turn 6, play Shadow Essence or Zerek, Master Cloner (doesn't really matter if he dies, you can always get him back later). Afterwards, use all the revive effects to bring back Zerek or Obsidian Statue and just overwhelm the opponent with either a swarm of 5/5s or 4/8 lifesteal taunts. If your swarm of undying 5/5s aren't able to finish off your opponent, Shadowreaper Anduin is there to help not only clean up the board but then also provide the last bit of damage with the help of all the cheap buffs.
Don't worry about throwing away buffs on Obsidian Statue or your Free From Amber minion because there is probably too much buffs and I should find a way to reduce that and get better early game.
Match ups
As you can probably tell, this deck struggles against aggressive decks, not really a surprise. That being said, this deck has a real easy time pulling wins out of it's ass after turn 6-7 so any slow deck is often an easy match up as they just can't deal with endless storm of Zereks and Obsidian Statue.
Mulligan Guide
Since I still don't really know what the defining archetypes for each deck is (and I don't think they are all decided yet, still day 2 of the expansion) so I'll just say what you want to mulligan for depending on the match up.
For aggro decks, try to find Shadow Word: Pain and Spirit Lash. These two cards are easily the safest ticket out of the early game.
For combo and control decks, pretty much hard mulligan for Zerek, Master Cloner or Shadow Essence. Shadow Visions are fine too since it lets you try finding said Shadow Essence.
Substitutes
Shadowreaper Anduin is mostly just icing on an already late game powerhouse. If you don't have him and don't want to make him, he can just be replaced by more removal such as Shadow Word: Death. If silence becomes a big thing (which I still don't think it will), Mass Dispel could also be a good replacement. Finally, if you want to be real greedy, Extra Arms is also pretty decent at being able to help keep Zerek alive for longer.
Vivid Nightmare is absurdly good in the deck, but it's still replaceable. Another copy of Extra Arms is good and Divine Spirit is also pretty decent.
Obsidian Statue is a card that is incredibly important just because it's strong in so many match ups, but if you don't have it, The Lich King, Deranged Doctor both do a decent job, albeit not as good of a job.
Psychic Scream is pretty good for securing wins against aggro, but originally I had a second copy of Power Word Shield. This does not do the same job whatsoever, but there isn't really another card that does what the scream does.
Shadow Visions and Zerek, Master Cloner are the only two non-common and rare cards you actually need for the deck. Shadow Visions simply provides way too much consistency for the deck that is very much needed and Zerek, Master Cloner is literally the reason why this deck exists, so no cuts for either of them, sorry.
Final Verdict
Here's where I normally say how good a deck is and how I feel it compares against most the meta. However, the meta hasn't really stabilized yet so I'll just talk about how it feels at the current rank I'm at (played it from 15-9 so far). The deck punishes the daylights out of control decks. To the point where I don't think I've actually lost a match to a control deck. As for combo decks, it typically depends on how fast they are able to pop off. Unfortunately, there is no way for priest to really interact with these types of decks. The one way we can interact is by getting Nozdormu off of Free From Amber, which is not a reliable way to win at all. I've still beaten combo decks by just rushing them down (and the aforementioned Nozdormu play), but it feels like a mixed matchup. Aggro match ups are easily the worst but atleast for me, I haven't been seeing that many aggressive ones. Odd Paladins are not that bad if you can get Spirit Lash but Odd rogues are literally the worst thing for the deck. This deck just flat out cannot beat a turn 3 Hench-Clan Thug because it becomes a 4/4 immediately, then by the first time we can properly deal with it, it has already dealt too much damage. That being said though, I still think this deck is pretty decent. I've mostly gone against slower decks and this deck excels at beating those. Not only that, but nobody knows how to deal with Zerek, Master Cloner and I find that hysterical. Overall, I'd recommend this deck in a heartbeat. It is without a doubt the most fun I've had in this game for ages. With all the zoo and other aggressive decks running amok, this deck hasn't really been doing that well unfortunately, so as of right now I'm working on making a deck that still utilizes Zerek to the extremes, but is more board focused.
So I made a list that is more focused on the board and is a midrange deck, here's a link to it.
I just want to thank everyone for all the attention this deck has received. Going to be honest, I thought this deck was just going to end up like my mill druid from Witchwood, not being ignored but never really taken off either. This deck blew that out of the water, reaching the front pages of not only the priest decks (which at the moment it's at the top of that) but then also making it on the front page for a bit (like 3 hours or so until it fell off, but still). It means a lot to me knowing that people would spend the time to try out a deck I made. Thanks for all the support!
Oh there is a ton of cards to add in wild. Not only would we get better removal, but we also get access to Barnes, who although I don't like the card a lot, he's too good not to include. First, I think you should take out pretty much all the removal, because Excavated Evil is significantly better Holy Nova, same thing with Dragonfire Potion and Lightbomb being better (Most the time) to Psychic Scream. We also get access to the possibility of Pint sized + SW Horror, which I'm not sure if it's still good in the current wild meta since I haven't really played it that much. Anyway, for changes, I'd go with these choices.
-2 Holy Nova
-2 Unidentified Elixir
-2 Psychic Scream
-1 Twilight's Call
+2 Resurrect
+2 Excavated Evil
+2 Dragonfire Potion/Lightbomb
+1 Barnes
Also if there happens to be a lot of aggro, you can also use a Potion of Madness because even though it dilutes Resurrect, the card is still incredibly strong in my opinion and can turn games around. Glad you are enjoying the deck though!
Wow, I didn't even consider some of those. Thanks a lot! I'll try it with some of those changes and see how it works. However, do we want to keep any of the Unidentified Elixirs on the off chance we get the "summon a 1/1 copy" or do we have enough Zerek triggers? The 1/1 copy is insanely good, but it doesn't happen every time, so I'm not sure.
The 1/1 is really strong as it also has the Zerek buff on it, but it's not consistent enough, kinda clunky in hand, and Vivid Nightmare, Extra Arms, and Power Word: Shield all do a better job than it. If you don't have any of the other substitute cards, by all means keep it in the deck, it's just the weakest link in terms of buff spells. Also, quick thing, now that I have 2 Psychic Screams in the deck, you can sub them out for another dragonfire potion or lightbomb again.
So this is gonna sound really weird but I've actually been running Herald Volazj as just a fun little extra which, spoilers, is not very good 60% - 70% of the time, but the other 30 - 40, he puts in work. But with these changes, the wild version is working nicely, and is WAY too fun to play. Thanks again, mate!
Hmmm. On my first try with this deckon turn 8 and Ihadn'tt draw any of the three cards needed to play, so a non-creature Hunter just killed me without any resistance. That's really weak on this deck.
Second try and in turn 5 I have been heavily defeated by a zoo Paladin. Again I wasn't able to play any card. Really, there is no joy playing this deck.
Sorry to hear that the deck didn't work out well. The paladin match makes a bit of sense since the deck struggles with aggro and there's not much we can really do about it without changing the core of the deck. The hunter match doesn't really make much sense though, was it just a poor mulligan and you couldn't find anything to help? Spell hunter tends to be slow enough to where unless they get a turn 5 fully charged spellstone, you aren't typically in any danger. Getting to turn 8 without getting Zerek, Shadow Essence, Shadowreaper, Free from Amber, Psychic Scream or a shadow visions to find 4/6 of these cards is pretty unfortunate, especially seeing as how 9 cards could have easily turned the game around for you. Sorry again that the matches weren't fun.
its a fresh deck
have my upvote
This deck is super fun! I picked it up out of debate but I came to want a fun priest deck that I had the parts for and I built it. It has a struggle to the late game against aggro, but I have gotten there before and it just dominates from there. Honestly, I think that this deck has a fine chance to get to turn 6 without dying and I do it constantly, so the haters probably just can't play a control shell :P.
Against control it can just out grind the grind matches because your minions are so recursive. It's a great and fun deck that can win games and the haters just need to shut up and learn to play control better.
Does it work? Can I climb with this deck atleast rank5? If not, which decks you guys think are the best for climbing?
If you are looking to climb, I'd stay away from this deck for now, it's not strong in the current meta at all. If you wanted to rank up, I'd go with some form of zoo lock, even warlock, odd pally, or some druid deck.
I must say this deck looks like a lot of fun, so I made it, only missing 1 vivid nightmare, but replace it with power word: shield. It seems like I never get to play zerek because i'm already dead at turn 6, it's not that your deck is not fun overall, but it's not even fun in casual now. People play ONLY zoolock, tempo mage and odd palladin in my casual games, so yea, can't really review the deck, because I haven't been able to do the main thing in 8 games.
I'm sorry that most of your games are flooded by aggro decks so you can't use the deck. I tried to make a more midrange version and it works well, but unfortunately it doesn't really get to play as much with Zerek as this deck does, but it should work better against the types of decks you are facing. Here's a link to it if you'd want to try it out.
Overall, I'd recommend this deck in a heartbeat. It is without a doubt the most fun I've had in this game for ages.
That quote of yours caused me to make the deck and the accuracy of the quote necessitated that I make my first comment ever. Yes, it is extremely dependent upon RNG but there is nothing wrong with playing a deck for fun, that is what games are supposed to be about anyways.
I sure wish I could have seen the look on the other people's faces for the first few games I played, I could tell they didn't know how to handle it. I know I surely wouldn't have.
Thanks, and keep it up!
I'm glad you liked it!
Not sure why the comments are so negative. Is it gonna take you to legend? Probably not. But, I've been having a blast playing with it and I even win quite a few games on ladder. Thanks for the recipe!
Glad you enjoy it and are seeing some good results with it! As for the negative comments, maybe I made it sound like it was an absurdly good deck in the write up? I dunno. Anyway I like your little review things you do, makes me want to do the same thing next expansion that comes out.
This deck is a joke right?
Why do you think its a joke? I understand that a lot of the decks I post are gags, but this one genuinely works well. I understand the whole "no minions until turn 6" argument, but there is plenty of decks that are just as slow. The deck might not work well right now because of Zoo being a decent part of the meta game, but the deck was made day 1 when everybody plays incredibly greedy lists, and this deck sid a good job punishing all those players. If the meta shifts back over to a control meta, then the deck can become good again, but just because the meta is fast does not mean the the deck is just a joke.
If you understand the argument what is else to say?
It's like asking someone to tie up one of their legs and run marathon cause maybe there will be ppl with no legs participating.
This deck does not beat any control decks, is excruciatingly bad against any tempo, aggro or combo decks.
What exactly is the preferred match for it?