[S12:Legend] Shattered Shadows (updated)
- Last updated Mar 21, 2015 (Undertaker Nerf)
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Wild
- 16 Minions
- 14 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 7680
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 3/12/2015 (Undertaker Nerf)
- VeiledSyn
- Registered User
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- 18
- 16
- 29
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Battle Tag:
VeiledSyn#1435
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
493
---Shattered Shadows---
S12, 62% Win-rate, 16-Legend in 10 days.
Updated 3/21 (-1x Sludge Belcher -1x Shadow Madness / +1x Vol'jin +1x Mind Control --- I feel these changes will give you more options for late game, and have giving the deck more flexibility and to deal with troublesome decks slightly better.
Due to the hard time Priest is having on the ladder at the moment, it's time to throw the generic control decks out. The meta Priest is facing is generally too aggressive and minion heavy to combat with normal control spells. It's time to adapt and play a deck that is equally aggressive.
Shattered Shadows is everything you expect from an early game Control Priest, with the ability to reach lethal from much further than any opponent will expect. Normally Priest has to slowly wear their opponent down, being careful to apply just enough pressure to keep the board in check.
Not this deck. Using Malygos and/or Prophet Velen with Mind Blast is just like a Druids Force of Nature + Savage Roar or a Mages Pyroblast. One Mindblast can do 10 damage with the added bonus of still having a couple large bodies on the board in addition to also working with Holy Smite, Holy Fire, Holy Nova, and your hero power. So not only is it a huge hit to the health, but also provides another threat by leaving behind some big and hard to deal with bodies.
How to play the deck: With one forewarning... It is not an easy deck to play, but done right... the match ends very quickly. Do not hold onto your finishing spells like Smite/Holy Fire if you need them to take care of a troublesome minion.
During the early game, the deck plays exactly like most Control Priest decks would. Protect your Clerics and get as many draws as possible, Between your 4 class AoE's and Wild Pyromancers the early game aggression by your opponent isn't too hard to handle.
By mid game, you have to start playing a little more aggressively. Majority of the time Control Priest would rather play it safe and trade than going face and letting them decide how to trade, this is where the deck gets tricky. You have to take opportunities to go face, while playing the right minions where they can initiate trades, but it doesn't end disastrously for you. Be aggressive enough to bring them down to around 20 health, but not so aggressive they feel threatened and heal/taunt up.
Late game is where things differ from standard Control. In this deck you have 24 points of unbuffed spell damage (or well over 35 buffed). This allows you to use some of the Holy Smites / Holy Fire to deal with minions if you have the need, while also giving you the ability to reach lethal from very far away. This means that in order to fit in these lethal reach cards, some late game has been sacrificed. The bonus is that not only can you end the tediously long control vs control matches quickly, you still have several strong late game minions that can be used. You still have 2xShadow Word: Deaths, Malygos is still a 4/12, and Prophet Velen a 7/7. So even if you do not draw into your finishers, you still have options.
Mulligan Guide:
Versus any setup you're looking for any of your early game cards / combos like:
Injured Blademaster + Circle of Healing
Wild Pyromancer + Power Word: Shield / Holy Smite
Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing
Northshire Cleric + Power Word: Shield, if you doubt they have a removal.
Substitutions - Be sure to check this if you are missing any key cards.
I am sure most people might not have Prophet Velen, sadly there isn't a replacement for him, closest thing I could suggest might be a Faceless Manipulator. Ysera is much slower, but can supply some burst + late game functionality.
Malygos is also something that isn't replaceable, but the same thing goes for what I said about Prophet Velen above. A second Holy Fire, a Mind Control, and Alexstrasza can be tried instead of Malygos, though not recommended.
Mass Dispel is something that fits into this deck perfectly, when it gets to late game and you're off lethal by just a few points... it's a nice way to get through their taunts and bring the game to a swift halt.
Vol'jin can also be subbed in if you feel the need, he works well with the smites, you can sub him in for a Shadow Madness or a Sludge Belcher. I chose to leave him out in favor of a stronger more defensive early/mid game, feel free to use him if you wish.
Kezan Mystic is also a great fit if you're seeing a large number of secret decks, sub for Shadow Madness
I generally prefer Holy Nova over Lightbomb, due to Velen and Malygos (4/7 damage/heal is amazing), but you are never sure if its going to stick around next turn. If you find that Holy Nova isn't doing enough for you Lighbomb is a good sub for one of your Novas.
This deck is built to be aggressive, and I have had an absolute blast playing it this season. It fits into the meta so well, it's built like a Shadow Priest, yet without the huge downside of being too slow, you still have burst and are able to heal your minions for extra value. The goal was to keep it fast, not rely on too many combos that ultimately you're holding onto dead cards that aren't playable, or might get better value later. Important Note: The idea of how this deck works in an ideal situation is just amazing. But under no circumstances should all your Holy Smites, Mind Blasts, Holy Fire,Prophet Velen, or Malygos be held back if you need to use them keep the board balanced.
Anyone got any footage of this deck, good or bad matches.
Am playing a similar one, winning a good amount but never really being able to use the full velen combo.
I've been trying this deck, and it's just not doing well. Now, if you get Emperor out, and have Mind Blast, Holy Fire, etc, in hand, it can come a nice finisher with Maly or Velen.
Otherwise, I'm losing almost every match, and pretty badly.
Check out this deck: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/217915-brm-viable-and-tested-otk-burst-priest
Essentially the same, but update for BRM with a better chance in today's meta.
Hi VeiledSyn any updates with BRM?
Doubtful, need to wait a bit for the meta to smooth out. With things changing so rapidly over the next few weeks there's no real need because anything becomes outdated the next week =). Change out Emporer for Loatheb, thats the only change I would do currently.
Hi this sounds a really good deck that finally uses Velen ! i give it a try for sure ! :D
Some gameplay?
Theres a couple videos listed below, I don't have any as I am playing on my Tablet.
- Mind Control
- Dark Cultist
+ 2x Zombie Chow
Problem solved
I find Shredders work better than cultists if you must make a change. Zombie Chow is great and can have some nice synergy if you mange to Auchenai kill one or both of them, so not a bad change either way.
Terrible deck in this meta. Oh yes he can be very awesome, but you need the REALLY PERFECT starting hand. Just won 1 games out of 12. Deck deleted
Do you have a twitch to watch you play this deck??
Between Velen and Malygos, if you must Malygos is the better of the two if you have to replace, try it with a Second Holy fire, Ysera, Rag, or maybe even Faceless or Alexstrasza before crafting Maly. Plus BRM is around the corner and we haven't seen any of the new Priest cards, might be worth it to wait just a bit longer before committing.
Theres nothing wrong with running Boom, I just feel thats pushing the late game side of things too much, when in reality it's the early/mid game that need to be the strongest. Even if Velen only lasts one turn he should be worth at least 10-14 damage. If you think that you can make it consistently to late game with your early/mid game, while being able to do at least 10ish face damage. Then go ahead and make the change. But with the current aggro/burst decks, I needed a stronger early game in favor of a turn 7 drop that that should realistically be Velen/Maly to execute. I played over 300 games with different variations of this deck trying to find the best overall and consistent set of cards, this is where I ended up.
I think this all depends on play style. This is by far the BEST priest deck I have used. I am a casual ladder climber, and went probably 13 or 15-0 before losing to a warrior. I started at rank 20... had some trouble around rank 16, but now am at rank 12 and must be well over 60% win rate.
This deck is insanely good if you play it right. Keep board presence with all of your minions and keep healing up...throw down your belchers when you can, and keep your Auchenai's and Circles to take out 3 or 4 minions.
Start playing your big guys now - they will all be removed. Make sure to hang on to Velen. By the end, you should still be alive, and your opponent should be at around 20 life (or lower). Drop Velen, play Mind Blast and a Holy Smite. They are at 6 life at this point (or lower)...if you've got any other minions out, it's game over.
I swapped Malygos for Voljin, which has been awesome for me. However, running Malygos might be even better...maybe I'm missing out.
Also @Krewger, @WanYao,
Yeah, it's a bit difficult to play right. Sadly Priest isn't performing well in ladder to begin with (though it's certainly not bad), this deck has given me a decent win-rate, and something fun and new,
It's true, while it doesn't contain any GvG cards, but then again the core of Priest hasn't changed since Naxx. Almost every Priest deck runs the same exact cards, the only new cards to come from GvG that are used often are Boom and Vol'jin, with flavor cards of Light of the Naaru, Velens Chosen (rarely run), Shrinkmeister (rarely run) and... Lightbomb?. Priest just hasn't changed, I never said it's a revolutionary idea, rather one that has worked better for me in the current meta than standard Control.
Almost all Priest decks are the same combo-dependant decks as pre-GvG, we didn't receive any new viable deck types like MechMage or Oil Rogue, rather we received a few new flavor cards that had little impact on the Priest class as a whole. So no, it's not a new deck/build, but rather performs much better now due to the aggressive meta. If you haven't had any success with the deck I suggesting taking a look at how you are playing once more. But again, its not a revolutionary idea, just something that works well against the most common matchups like MechMage, FaceHunter, mid-range Hunter, any Warlock, Oil Rogue, Druid/Pally is a 50/50 match, and Control Warrior is by far the worst matchup and seems like a 30/70 win/rate. So if your meta isn't playing a lot of your strong matchups it of course won't been a good deck for your current meta.
Regardless, good luck to you. I have had so much fun with this deck, so even though I could have gotten better/faster matches with a Oil Rogue, Ramp Druid, or Control Warrior, it went by faster with this deck, if it doesn't work for you then feel free to play something else, but several other of my friends ingame have had good results while having a blast at the same time. Feel free to make any changes you enjoy. Vol'Jin for a Blecher or Maly aren't necessarily bad either. In all I have found that Priest is capable of doing well until late game where I would have a hard time finishing off other aggro/control deck. So adding in an execute that is better than a Druids FoN+SR, because you also leave a 7/7 body on board has served me well.
VeiledSyn: "It's true, while it doesn't contain any GvG cards, but then again the core of Priest hasn't changed since Naxx. Almost every Priest deck runs the same exact cards, the only new cards to come from GvG that are used often are Boom and Vol'jin, with flavor cards of Light of the Naaru, Velens Chosen (rarely run), Shrinkmeister (rarely run) and... Lightbomb?. Priest just hasn't changed, I never said it's a revolutionary idea, rather one that has worked better for me in the current meta than standard Control."
Most of the major deck archetypes incorporated a handful of GvG cards but their core remained the same, including priest. This isn't in any way unusual: successful decks work because their core cards are solid. Cards / combos like Northshire, Wild Pyro, Auchenai + CoH are solid and tested, why would they change? There is, however, room for change. And Light of Naaru and Velen's Chosen -- two cards which you've dismissively referred to as "flavour cards" -- are, in fact, among these excellent answers to the meta.
It's great that you enjoy this deck and the success you've had with it is admirable, but I stand by my opinion that this deck is quite weak in the current meta.
Other than running Velen and Malygos, this deck is identical to the standard post-Naxx control priest -- and it has all the the same glaring problems and weaknesses as that deck. It's way too slow, situational and combo-dependent in this meta. I find all the claims of 60%+ win rates highly dubious.
Perhaps you should look up what words actually mean before you use them incorrectly again.
Perhaps before posting complete rubbish you should try to find your brain, troll.
This deck removes Mind Control, 2x Thoughsteal and (typically) Ysera to add Velen, Maly and 2x Mind Blast. The rest of the deck is basically IDENTICAL to the standard Amaz Naxx-era priest build -- a deck which is, quite frankly, obsolete and ineffective in the current meta.
I am right. You are wrong. Deal with it.