Hearthpwn

Update: When this deck what first created it was a very fast Priest built to shine in mid-game, with the focus of buffing and healing your minions. The meta has changed and gotten much faster over the past week. The build is sound, and if played efficiently works well, but can not be as competitive as it once was. If the meta does slow back down in the next few weeks, it might be viable again. Thank you all who played it at the start and had fun. If your interested, I recommend reading the guide and giving it a try. 

 

--------------------- Mid-Range Holy Priest --------------------

This is my personal Priest deck that I want to share with you. I have always loved the Priest as a class, so I set out to create a new GvG Priest that didn't have the same shortcomings and flaws as its predecessor. The new cards we received were not only good, but they fill roles that no other cards could.

 Just to clarify, this is a Control deck at it's core, but not limited to only that. It is more of a hybrid, using strong and sturdy minions, with your heals to make you extremely efficient and consistent. With a much faster rate of play than the standard control Priest, you now have options for early game. Meaning your not at the mercy of the luck of the draw. Thus the "Mid-Range Control Priest" is born.

I encourage you to leave a comment, and I will take any suggestions or questions you have seriously and do my best to respond. If you like the deck, be sure to give me an up-vote / +1.

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The Core Mechanics:

If your familiar with playing Control Priest it shouldn't be too hard to grasp, however if your inexperienced with this with this class, don't worry... I will outline basic mechanics here.

If you have never played a control Priest before, be prepared. Its a class anyone can play decently, but is quite hard to master. As with most control decks, it isn't as much about the strength of your minions on the board. It's about the way you can manipulate the board to make those minions stronger.

This deck is played a slightly bit different than usual. It's about using all your forms of healing and stat buffing, to get the absolute maximum value from your minions. Ideally you want to buff your minions health via Velen's Chosen, Light of the Naaru, your Hero Power, and Dark Cultists Death-rattle. Then, you can trade into their minions, live, then heal them back up to fight another day. The goal is to try to take out 2 or more of their minions for every one of yours. Aside from these minions, you have numerous spells that can take out any threats that wouldn't be favorable to trade your minions into. Quite often I end up dealing with their cards so effectively that they lose because I've forced them into having to top-deck, with no combos.

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Deck Lineup Changes

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 You keep all the core cards, but really add onto an already strong class. 

Key Cards and their uses/synergys :

 Shrinkmeister : Just an obviously good minion, 3/2 body and can help you make more favorable trades and can allow you to Cabal or Shadow Madness higher attack creatures. Don't save him forever trying to get the perfect combo, more often, just use him for a good trade or just to use as a 3/2.

 Velen's Chosen : This is such an amazing card, used early game on a Northshire Cleric, Dark Cultist, or Injured Blademaster provides a very scary high health minion. For example a turn 1 Northshire Cleric into a turn 2 Coin + Velen's Chosen for a 3/7 on turn 2, its value it just outrageous.

 Light of the Naaru : A very cheap heal, that summons a minion that is buffed very easily due to our many heals + Hero Power. It can be used on your hero if you really need to spawn the Lightwarden, or on Injured Blademaster instead of blowing the highly prioritized Circle of Healing.

 Lightbomb : This card can have many uses, either as yet another board wipe vs aggro, or as a high attack minion killer (think Handlock Giants or Rag). This card it a little more situational so at this point is a 1'of. Another function is that all of your minions have higher Health than Attack, so you can use this even with your minions out, kill the enemy off, then (with a Northshire Cleric out) use a CoH, drawing 3-4 cards while also buffing your Lightwardens.

 Vol'jin : An almost auto include, good attack for 5 mana, but the fact you can basically set your own health, and reduce any minion they have to 2 health.

 Troggzor the Earthinator : This minion has a decent body, but the true value comes from it's effect. It's the new Loatheb. Makes your opponent think twice about using any spell, and even if he gets removed by a spell, you still get a 3/5 minion.

 Mass Dispel : With the whole new array of deathrattles and buffing minions, I see this card becoming very viable once again. The mana cost is slightly high, but the risk vs reward seems quite worth it. Cycles itself, and can remove all those pesky deathrattles. These 2 cards aren't mandatory, and can be replaced with whatever you feel necessary. (Silence, Smite, SW:P/D, Shadow Madness, Holy Fire all good options)

Defender of Argus : These guys are yet another nice buff to your creatures, and can help you protect your Lightwardens and Troggzor. But the best use is to taunt up your Dark Cultists so that you are pretty much guaranteed to get the Death-rattle bonus.

Zombie Chow : Simply, just another minion to help with early game board control, quite strong when buffed, but also useful if you kill him with Auchenai Soulpriest out as a 5 damage nuke to the face.

Jeeves : Jeeves is there to help in the transition from mid-late game, he is situational, and can backfire. So be careful when using him, and do not play him if your opponent is going to get more use from him than you are. If your doing fine on card draw (efficiently using your minions) feel free to remove him and add in Mass Dispel or Mind Control.

Harrison Jones : Lately many classes have been using a lot more weapons than usual, and this deck did have problems dealing with them. Harrison has a strong body to use regardless of the effect, so he can always be useful... and now vs classes with weapons, you have a removal for them, and gain card advantage and that's a win/win/win.

The rest of the deck is pretty self explanatory, this deck is built to be faster, to keep up with the new pumped up MechZoos and other aggro rush decks while also maintaining its core cards for control matchups. Overall I see no exploitable flaws that the priest had pre-GvG. It should be able to keep Aggro decks on the defensive and just enough control to batter down other control decks.

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Mulligan Guide:

 I had someone message me and ask a pretty good question, "How does this deck handle heavy aggro without Wild Pyro or other X card/s. This deck is quite a bit different than what were used to, I am posting my reply here, in case anyone else is wondering...

 Possible Substitutions :

Be sure to +1 if you like and leave a comment or suggestion.

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