Crusher Silent Priest (Updated Using HSReplay)
- Last updated Jun 7, 2020 (Second DH Nerfs)
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Wild
- 18 Minions
- 12 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Silence Priest
- Crafting Cost: 5600
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 5/14/2020 (Second DH Nerfs)
- HSCrusher
- Deck Architect
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- 12
- 23
- 46
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
1574
Crusher Silent Priest
62.0% Win Rate from Bronze 10 to Legend 2167
Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/crusherhs
Deck in action
Example Gameplay: https://youtu.be/oR6HpGi-VZQ
Video Deck Walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws1O78f14Tg&list=PLt6uOfHoQn3T_xJHk-vDpMt1hh9l8c1BE&index=1
Objective
This is an aggressive (seriously be aggressive) priest that drops big statted minions early, buffs them, and duplicates them. In particular you have the Watchers (Ancient Watcher, Arcane Watcher) that need to be silenced, and the Imprisoned Demons (Imprisoned Homunculus, Imprisoned Vilefiend) that you need to wait on. The result is lots of stats for the mana that can quickly snowball with buffs and duplication effects (Apotheosis, Faceless Rager, Unsleeping Soul, Psyche Split). This should hopefully lead to a kill by turn 8, before your opponent has a chance to clear your board and rebound. If you stall out, you have Sethekk Veilweaver and Octosari to try to randomly save you, but try to not let the game last past turn 10.
Why to Play
I took (a slightly different version of) this deck from Rank 5 Diamond to Legend and I think you can too. It combines my favorite things: paring cards for tempo gains (Like Silent Druid), building big minions (Like Bubble Paladin), and duplicating them (like Crusher Shaman). It's a fast deck that can help you ladder quickly, while having a unique playstyle. It destroys Demon Hunter and Hunter, the first and third most popular classes on ladder. It is cheap: four epics, and one legendary (that I didn't even use in my climb). The remaining cards are entirely Basic/Classic + Rise of Shadows + Ashes of Outland, so it's very approachable if you missed a couple sets and are a returning player, like me. Plus it's always really enjoyable to see a bunch of buffed copies of your minion on the board.
Mulligan Guide
Against Druid, Paladin, Shaman, or Demon Hunter, keep Holy Nova.
Against Mage, keep Dalaran Librarian.
Against Hunter, keep Holy Smite.
Other than that, mulligan hard to get one of the following: Arcane Watcher, Ancient Watcher, Imprisoned Homunculus, Imprisoned Vilefiend, or on coin, Henchclan Shadequill. Assuming there's one other card you'd keep for the matchup and otherwise a hard mulligan, you have a ~95.7% of finding a watcher or imprisoned demon by turn 3 without The Coin or turn 2 with it. The remaining 4.3% of games will be pretty rough, but should be rare.
If you have one of the watchers or imprisoned demons, mulligan hard for a combo piece, i.e. Faceless Rager, silences for the watchers.
Beyond that, mulligan to fill out a nice curve through turn 5 or keep a Holy Smite against a suspected aggressive opponent.
Matchups
Links to example gameplay for each matchup provided.
Favored
Demon Hunter (19/26 - 73.1%): I'm mostly seeing the aggro variant (79% win rate) on ladder now, which I have been farming on my climb. Holy Smite, Holy Nova and your cheap minions let you go toe to toe in the early game. Demon Hunters lack hard removal so feel free to buff up a huge minion that can punish him in the mid-game.
Hunter (11/14 78.6%): This deck destroys Face Hunter and Dragon Hunter, and does decently well against Highlander. Hard removal like Primordial Explorer and Rotnest Drake are your main concern. Keep a Holy Smite for the former, and try to go wide when possible to protect against the latter.
Toss-up
Warrior (6/10 - 60%): Mostly seeing the enrage archetype, which is a pretty evenly matched game. Silence is pretty effective on their minions. One of the few matches you can win in the turn 10+ range without Octosari.
Mage (5/11 - 45.5%): Your silences are doubly effective, since they can release frozen minions. Dalaran Librarian is a star. They do have lots of strong AoE, so this is one of the few matchups where you might want to hold back a minion. Their abundance of removal and RNG fiesta keep this matchup close.
Rogue (7/15 - 46.7%): They have high tempo cards, but you can go toe to toe in the early game. Favor imprisoned demons over watchers slightly, so that all your minions come online at once. Often comes down to whether they can find their Blackjack Stunners and Flik Skyshiv (he's a real buzzkill). Rogue has big swing turns in the late game that mean you can't afford to let the match go long.
Disfavored
Warlock (1/6 - 16.7%): Only really seeing the Magic Carpet archetype right now. I feel like this shouldn't really be that disfavored, but they always seem to generate too much tempo early with all the buffs, and everything is just a bit out of Holy Nova range.
Played 5 games total against Priest, Druid, Paladin, and Shaman combined. Priest is probably unfavorable, since they have so much removal, but I feel like the rest should all be favored because they either start slow or can be shut down early by keeping tempo, but I'd need more experience to really know.
Galakrond Variant
You will certainly run out of cards in hand some games, but if you want to run a slightly slower variant that still gives you a chance (all praise RNGsus) in the late game, then swap Galakrond, the Unspeakable and Kronx Dragonhoof in for two cards (I recommend Mortuary Machine and a Imprisoned Vilefiend). I tried the Galakrond version out a lot earlier in the season, and it was working pretty well, but I think I prefer the more consistent early game this version gives you. Galakrond, without the support cards often isn't quite enough to save you, even if he can generate infinite random cards.
Other 31st Cards:
Boompistol Bully: Good way to solidify a board against battlecry minions like Flik Skyshiv
Apotheosis: Had this card in for a long time, but it didn't perform well statistically. Dominant in matchups like Hunter and Demon Hunter, but these are already favorable, and you can find the heal you need off of Renew
Shadow Word: Death: Good tempo and pairs well with Sethhek Veilweaver, but is too situational for a proactive deck like this.
Soldier of Fortune: Fits the theme well, but that's too many 4-mana cards for such an aggressive deck. It's nice the downside comes on the next turn, so you can wait to silence, but the downside is a bit too high compared to Hench-Clan Shadequill. I'd also rather have the extra health than the extra attack.
Conjured Mirage: An interesting silence target with solid stats. Occasionally useful to set up a wall before a kill turn or some AoE, but ultimately not threatening enough, and too often not useful without the silence.
Shout Outs
Thanks to Lyrinian for some great brainstorming in the early stages of brewing this deck, in particular Imprisoned Vilefiend, and the Galakrond variant.
Thanks to Mrdiddles, whomever you are, for showing me the power of watcher + silence in priest on ladder, inspiring me to brew this deck. Regret not friending you.
thanks a lot for this deck! been stuck at diamond 2 for some time playing galakrond priest, and hit legend for the first time after picking up this deck. went 7-0 against demon hunter and 2-0 against face hunter (lost to highlander hunter pretty badly) and seem to be even vs other class (50/50), although I do climb pretty fast (farm a lot of DH) so sample size maybe a bit low.
Glad to hear you're having success. Looks like you're having matchups play out similarly to me. Good luck!
As everyone said above, the lack of card draw is not only an issue but makes this deck borderline unplayable. I guess you can get lucky a couple of times, and chain some win streaks but its super inconsistent. The aggro decks are just better at being aggro, and control decks smash this one out of the field. I really like silent priest (the old inner fire versions that made the deck viable), shame this one is not as good.
I miss Inner Fire too, although more for the combo deck version. I think the strength of this deck is that it outtempos aggro and midrange decks. Control decks are problematic of course, but without some good card draw for priest, it's tough.
I added Octosari, and he's a real game changer in this respect. Obviously, he's only a one of, but he seems to be helping a lot.
I like the concept, a very original deck in the current meta (fast Priest? didn't even know that it was possible). I might try it once, but as said above card draw/generation really seems that it can be an issue
Running out of cards is definitely the weakness of the decks, but Priest just doesn't have good access to card draw anymore. I tried to mitigate it in a couple ways, and Galakrond wasn't too bad for instance, but ultimately everything I tried just took away from consistency on turns 1-5, and I felt I was better of leaning into its strength of getting a really fast snowballing start than to try to help with the longer game.
Hey, tried the deck out, played about 10 games with it. Very inconsistent, there's no card draw in the deck at all, so whatever you mulligan into you're stuck with. It can be strong, but I think that there are other midrange decks that do it better, specifically Demon Hunter.
I find you can get very close to winning, but due to there being a lack of burst there's no way to win after your oppenent takes the board back.
I feel like regular Galakrond or Highlander Priest are both better as class decks, and Midrange Demon Hunter seems like it just accomplishes much more against a larger variety of decks as a Midrange build.
I really like the idea, Silence Priest has always been one of my favorite archetypes, but without the draw provided by Northshire Cleric, I don't see anyway to make it work, sorry. Just my 2 cents.
Priest certainly misses card draw and reach, and this deck suffers for it, but it seems to fairing pretty well without. Is there any reach even possible with Priest?
Unfortunately without Divine Spirit, Inner Fire just isn't good enough to be burst anymore. And now that Leeroy was rotated too, there's just no easy way to do damage from hand :/ So to answer your question, no, I don't think Priest is capable of any burst anymore, unless you really compromise the deck with Reckless Rocketeer, which seems like a no-no.
As someone point out elsewhere, maybe if you could Psyche Split Reckless Rocketeer on the same turn it would be worth it, but sadly, you can't without coin.