Hearthpwn

Is it worth it to run 2 copies of Doomsayer? The deck seems to be more about surviving and clearing the board until you have made the preparations to burst them down - it just seems like 2 copies would only help with this, make getting Doomsayer on turn 2 a little more consistent, and gives you a better chance at preventing early game snowball from popular decks like Shaman, Tempo Warrior, and Zoolock.

I have built my own version and saw this in the related decks. My original version was a lot more like yours, but I removed Alex and Malygos. I don't think Alex is necessary considering the damage potential of this deck. Velen is much easier to combo with spells than Malygos, so I cut Maly for more card draw. I also had a doomsayer but didn't really want to take anything out to keep it in. I also cut Justicar for card draw. 

Put in 2 Zombie Chows to help OTK: 2 Chow, either Aucheni or Embrace the Shadow, Circle, multiple Flash Heals and Mind Blasts.

Hey is this deck still viable in current meta? If yes what rank did you get with it?

I don't have Ragnaros. Would chromaggus be a good replacement?

I shall try that. Thx!

Cool deck idea and well done. +1

What i cannot figure out is, how to surive the early gama i.e. how to get to the late game not being completel behind. Nearly every time i have such a hard time cotrolling the board that i dont have a SWD left anymore in the late game. Mostly my hand in the early stage consists of  high cards that dont help me much.

Gotta play it some more and try to get the hang of it.

Just thought I'd drop in and add my deck list to the discussion, since I haven't seen many others attempting a Shadow Priest deck.

My current list is as follows, although I haven't had a ton of success with it either.

[deck]
Circle of Healing x2
Holy Smite x1
Power Word: Shield x2
Northshire Cleric x2
Shadow Word: Pain x2
Wild Pyromancer x1
Shadow Word: Death x2
Shadowform x2
Thoughtsteal x2 
Acolyte of Pain x1 
Earthen Ring Farseer x2
Mindgames x2
Auchenai Soulpriest x2
Holy Nova x2
Holy Fire x2
Prophet Velen x1
Ragnaros the Firelord x1
Mind Control x1
[/deck]


It's not the greatest deck, and could certainly use some tweaking; but it does okay.  I'd like to say it's fun, but this game has lost a lot of its fun for me lately (but that's an entirely different subject).  It typically can control the early game fairly well (barring a great start from rush decks and/or RNG screwing me over and drawing nothing useful early), but it's sorta lacking in finishing power.  I don't have a complete collection nor BRS, so no Emperor or Malygos available.  Dr. Boom is probably the only other top-end minion I would consider, despite not really having much synergy with the deck.

It could use some numbers tweaks, as I often wish I had second copies of Holy Smite and Pyromancer.  The two Mindgames could probably be cut for something more consistent, but I just really wanted to try playing with them (you know, live the dream of a 4-mana Rag or similar bomb, lol).

I could've sworn I had at least one Healbot in there until I typed up this list.  : /

Anyways, like I said, early-to-mid game I'm usually ok if I don't get blown out by aggro + bad RNG.  Most of my other losses usually come from only having two real win cons (other than Shadow pings over MANY turns); so if they are dealt with, I'm pretty much screwed.

So yeah, not the most competitive deck, but just thought I'd add this to the discussion.

Edit:  Sorry about the formatting.  I'm new to this forum (posting, at least), and the deck tag didn't work like I thought it would.

Would you consider running faceless manipulator for Velen or Malygos? Mind blast or shadowform abilities would become very powerful.

Really interesting deck, can't wait to try it!

Hey Skylarapas,

Thanks so much for sharing this deck.  I've always wanted to find a good Shadowform build for Priest, since I'm addicted to playing the class and can't get enough of trying out new decks.

I played with your deck here and unfortunately, its results are quite mixed.  It has a huge weakness in early/mid-game that makes it very hard to recover late game, which this deck is entirely built around.  I often found myself sitting on a large number of spells while my opponent took over the board with low cost minions.  As a control deck, I feel this build is quite lacking.  I also noticed I was sitting on my Shadow Word: Deaths a lot, since most players don't currently use a whole lot of high health minions (handlock being the exception).  I swapped out 1 SW:D for 1 SW:P and that worked a little better for the current meta.

Unfortunately, this deck's biggest weakness seems to be the theme which it's built around: Shadowform.  Often, these 2 cards would just sit in my hand useless (if I was lucky enough to draw them at all).  This deck's win condition is all about getting Velen or Malygos with mind blast or holy smite, and by the time those are available to be played, you usually don't need to be in Shadowform.  Playing Shadowform early ruins your tempo and hobbles your ability to stay alive, and playing it later on means you're either almost dead (below 15 health by turn 7), or that it's not even worth playing it because you're too busy trying to stay alive long enough to evoke your win condition.

The sad fact is that Auchenai Soulpriest has far more value in a deck than Shadowform does.  Auchenai is essentially Shadowform, but it also combos with other cards, whereas Shadowform doesn't.  The one combo Shadowform has adds just +1 damage to your hero power, whereas Auchenai is so much more versitile.  Auchenai combos with:

• Hero Power
• Circle Of Healing
• Zombie Chow
• Voodoo Doctor
• Earthen Ring Farseer
• Light of the Naaru

Plus, you can control its use better than Shadowform, allowing you to go back to healing instead of being stuck in damage mode.  And when you factor in the major 0-cost "flamestrike" you get with Circle of Healing, the value one has from Auchenai just outmatches Shadowform in all respects.

Thus, I'd say you could completely remove Shadowform from this deck and fit in Auchenai in its place, and actually get better results.  Its just more versatile and robust.

I do commend you on formulating this deck, though.  It's a lot of fun to play!  But I wouldn't recommend people play ladder with it.  It takes a lot of skill (and luck) to play well.  Good Hunters and Warlocks can steamroll this deck build, but it does seem quite good against Mage, Priest, and Paladin.  However, I think if you abandoned the "Shadowform" concept, you could make this deck much stronger.

Just my two cents.

Hi Skylarapas,

Thanks for responding.  I realize that the concept of the deck is Shadowform, I just believe the card is inherently flawed.  Shadowform is a real tempo-breaker, and it also hobbles the Priest by removing his heals.  Priest isn't Hunter or Mage, so the damage of the hero power doesn't really gell well for most decks due to the nature of Priest cards.  The lowest amount of Manna that is needed for that spell to be viable is 5 (3 mana for entering Shadowform, plus 2 mana to use it), and there are so many better 5 drops that can be used.  If you go Shadowform late-game, chances are you've already won, so it doesn't matter if you have the spell or not.  And the board clears you have are nowhere near as powerful as Auchenai/Circle (4 mana for 4 damage AOE trumps Holy Nova and Pyromancer).

I understand where you're coming from, but too many decks in this current meta will burn you down and take over the board if you're not able to control them.  My biggest issue was that I was drawing lots of spells early that would sit dead in my hand until late game.  (Mind Blast is pretty dead until Velen comes along).  As you know, we can't control what cards we get from mulligan and draw, and all too often, I was lacking an answer for the minions my opponent was playing.

However, after a bit of tinkering, I think I found a way to make this deck work so that we survive to the late game where we can get to use Shadowform.

Essentially, this is what I did:

Removed:  Ragnaros, 2 Azur Drakes, 1 Pyromancer, 2 Alchemist, Vol'jin, 1 Shadowform, 2 Dark Cultists

Added:  2 Sunfury Protector, 1 Mountain Giant, 1 Molten Giant, 2 Antique Healbots, 1 Auchenai Soulpriest, 1 Circle Of Healing, 2 Earthen Ring Farseers

Circle of healing gives you a strong AOE heal, and can be comboed with Auchenai for yet another board clear (so no board survives with this deck! lol).  Auchenai + Earthen Ring gives you a 3-damage nuke (good if you don't have circle to combo).  Earthen Ring also gives you a spot-heal when needed, so in a way they are more useful than Dark Cultists because the Dark Cultist's deathrattle can be easily wasted in this deck because you don't have lots of minions on the board to benefit from it, and it's often easily removed (plus, PW:Shield has the same effect, essentially).  The two Antique Healbots save your butt when you've been aggroed down (and useful if you go into shadowform mode).  The real clincher here, however, are the giants and the Sunfury Protectors.

I put one of each giant into the deck, because I was in situations where I either had too many cards in hand (sitting on spells and high cost minions) or I had to play tons of cards to try and survive as I got rushed down.  Having a mountain giant helps get a big minion on the board if you have lots of those dead spells early on, and the molten is clutch if you've been bursted down.  Unlike Ragnaros, which needs 8 mana, giants can be played with anywhere from 0 mana to 10 mana.

Having the Sunfury gives you some much needed early game cover, especially if you have giants on the board.  What I noticed is that as soon as the giants appear, most players will forget about attacking you and go after removing the giant before it can do too much damage.  These giants also bait most of the opponent's removal spells, so by the time you get to Antonidas or Malygos, they are totally safe to be played.  Not only that, but taunted giants allow you to play things like Northshire Cleric and Acolyte of Pain to begin getting safe and steady card draw.  Circle of healing also synergizes really well with these two cards.

Missing out on the Azur Drake's spell damage and card draw isn't even missed, but the 8 healing from Antique Healbot is definitely a lifesaver, and can carry you to your end-game win condition.  It can also allow you to enter shadowform on turn 3 or 4 since you now have a massive heal for your hero if needed.  Also, dropping 1 Shadowform isn't a big deal, since it's only 1 extra damage for a 3 mana tempo-kill.

I played about 10 games with this revised build and did so much better than I had with it previously.  Once you get to turn 7+, this deck can really wreck an opponent.  My previous issue was getting to that point, because I had to draw really lucky to do so.  These changes, for me, evened out this deck and made it more possible to get to the win condition.

Give these changes a try and let me know what you think.

Works pretty good, i've changed 1 azure drake for dr boom since he has pretty decent damage with his bombs and it only costs 2 more mana

This deck has absolutely NO chance against aggro.  Shame really, i like this deck.  turn 3, they already have like 5 minions on the board, all I usually have is a Cleric that gets no value. 

Looking forward to it. I am mainly a Paladin player, but the only reason I got interested in Priest was because I kept getting beat by em, but I never played an aggro deck myself, so I wasn't too sure how well Priest was against aggro.   Anyways, I happened to craft and find the 2 class Legendaries without doing much research.   Priest is damn hard to play...     I have tried and tried to come up with an anti aggro priest but fail.    

 I was thinking about DE the legendaries, but I will wait for your next deck or hopefully someone else comes up with something because I sure am not having any luck. Thanks!