[Legend] Brann Dragon Priest
- Last updated Dec 10, 2015 (Explorers)
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Wild
- 20 Minions
- 10 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 5680
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 11/23/2015 (Explorers)
- Legendonger
- Registered User
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- 3
- 4
- 11
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
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Total Deck Rating
324
A simple dragon priest deck I used to climb from rank 6 to legend this season.
Stats
The strength of this deck is in it's ability to destroy the aggressive decks (secret paladin, aggro druid and zoolock) currently prevalent on the ladder with it's strong early minions and it's many board clears. However, this deck can also perform well against other classes and archetypes.
Mulligan
The mulligan phase for this deck can be very simple, as you are always looking for a strong curve in turns 1 - 4. Therefore ideally you will want to find Twilight Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent, Blackwing Technician and Twilight Guardian. Northshire Cleric and Brann Bronzebeard can also be strong cards to play in the early game if you're not finding dragons.
It's important to be able to activate your dragon synergies early game, and thus it can be completely correct to keep Ysera or Chillmaw in the mulligan if the rest of your hand demands that you have a dragon in hand. Twilight Guardian is an ideal dragon synergy activator to keep as they will allow your strong early game of Twilight Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent and/or Blackwing Technician while still being playable on turn 3 or 4.
I will keep Northshire Cleric despite it not playing to the dragon synergies as it can be a great way to fill out the curve if the strong early minions are not being drawn.
If you suspect that your opponent is likely to play very large minions very early (i,e, a handlock playing giants or an aggro druid playing an early Fel Reaver) you may consider keeping a Shadow Word: Death in the mulligan, but I would only do so if the rest of the hand allows for a strong early board.
Brann Bronzebeard?
Brann Bronzebeard is a powerhouse in this deck, with almost all minions having strong battlecry effects. Twilight Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent, Blackwing Technician and Twilight Guardian are all already very strong minions for their cost if you can trigger their battlecry, and each of these battlecry buffs are triggered twice with Brann on the field which can be game-winning if achieved early. Azure Drake will draw two cards, Shrinkmeister, and the strongest interaction in the deck being Blackwing Corruptor dealing 6 damage on being played.
Although Brann Bronzebeard has very strong interactions in this deck, he is not the only way the card can win the game, so you can play him on board as simply a 2-4 minion, but I would avoid doing so unless you have board control already. This is espcially strong on turn 3 if you can play him while he's protected by a Wyrmrest Agent, allowing you to follow up on the next turns with Twilight Guardian, Azure Drake or Blackwing Corruptor. Brann can also be saved in hand and used to combo with battlecry cards when you have a bit more mana to utilise.
General Gameplay Tips
Against Aggro:
The key to winning against aggro is get a strong start on board using your early minions (especially the taunts). The combination of a strong board presence, many board clear options (Holy Nova, Lightbomb and Chillmaw) and the priest hero power put this deck heavily in favour against any aggressive deck. Simply fight for board presence whilst sustaining through any burn.
Cabal Shadow Priest is also very strong against many popular decks right now, as it can be used to steal Imp Gang Boss, Shielded Minibot, Keeper of the Grove, etc. Or can be used with Shrinkmeister to steal larger minions.
Against secret paladin, it is important to use Lightbomb and/or Shadow Word: Death effectively in order to shut down a Mysterious Challenger turn. Lightbomb is usually the preferred removal of choice as it will clear the rest of the board, whilst leaving Shadow Word: Death for removal of Dr. Boom or Tirion Fordring.
Against Control
This deck is much less suited to winning against control decks, but that does not mean it is impossible. If you can get a strong early game curve you can become the aggressor and win games very early against a slower starter, with many strong minions in turns 1-4 and Holy Nova and/or Blackwing Corruptor as potential burn to push for lethal.
In games that run longer, Ysera will become a very important card. If possible, Ysera needs to be played when you're confident it won't be immediately removed. This can mean waiting very late into the game before playing her, when all other removal has been used on your smaller threats and the board state is favourable to play her. If not Ysera can snowball out of control and win a game almost single handedly.
In control matchups it's also very important to make good use of Lightbomb, preferably removing more than one of your opponents large threats, but it is often unlikely that skilled control players will overextend into the board out of fear of this card.
Substitutions
A lot of are asking how to replace certain cards from the list, or if certain changes are a good idea, so I thought I'd write my thoughts here.
Possible cards to remove:
- Blackwing Technician - I run this card purely for the synergy with Brann Bronzebeard, as well as it's strong early game presence against common minions such as Piloted Shredder. However, if you find the dragon synergies of this card to be too inconsistent, Dark Cultist or even Eydis Darkbane and Fjola Lightbane can be used effectively in it's place.
- Velen's Chosen - This card can be substituted out for any of the 3 drops listed as substitutions for Blackwing Technician if you're looking for a slightly more consistent early game. I intend on testing out replacing 1 (or both, perhaps) copy of Velen's Chosen for Museum Curator
- Holy Nova or Lightbomb - If you find yourself playing against much less aggressive decks, the large suite of AoE removal in this deck may not be completely necessary. You could remove either one of Holy Nova or Lightbomb for a high impact card such as Vol'jin (if you're careful with Brann), Sylvanas Windrunner or even Dr. Boom if you're happy to add a Big Game Hunter to the deck. In order to keep up the dragon count in the deck, Dragonkin Sorcerer can also be a strong addition to the deck with the various buffing spells.
- Cabal Shadow Priest - Although I believe this card is undeniable strong enough to run in this deck, as an epic there are may players without access to this card. Any of the replacements for Holy Nova/Lightbomb will be fine replacements for Cabals. If you are only running one Cabal Shadow Priest then I believe Shrinkmeister to still warrant a slot in the deck, but if you are running no Cabal Shadow Priest then Shrinkmeister should be replaced with one of the possible replacements for Blackwing Technician (although Museum Curator will be an ideal substitution for Shrinkmeister when it is available).
- Ysera and/or Chillmaw - Although I believe that it will be hard to replace these cards without hurting the strength of this deck, in order to keep the dragon count up I would recommend replacing them with Chromaggus and/or Nefarian. It's worth noting that while Nefarian seems like a strong choice due to the synergy with Brann, I feel that Nefarian is in fact a worse replacement than Chromaggus as due to the high cost it is very unlikely that you will be able to combo Nefarian with Brann Bronzebeard, and having 8 damage makes it as the only Big Game Hunter target in the deck, greatly reducing it's effectiveness. If you feel that having less dragons won't hurt the consistency of the deck too much, then Dr. Boom can also be a strong replacement.
Update 11/12/2015
I've made some changes due to the availability of new cards to address some flaws in the deck:
- -1 Lightbomb, +1 Entomb
Prior to release, I thought entomb would be too slow in a deck like this. But after testing, running one copy of the card is insanely strong. Often a Lightbomb would just be used primarily to remove a single minion such as Mysterious Challenger or Dr. Boom, and obviously Entomb is much better suited for this purpose. This card also greatly improved the control matchup, giving a better chance against decks such as Control Warrior which were previously hugely unfavoured; as you can not remove one of their threats while gaining a new threat of your own. - -1 Shrinkmeister, -1 Blackwing Technician, +2 Museum Curator
The main criticism that has been made against this deck is that the early game is too inconsistent, and that was absolutely true, and has always been an inherent problem with dragon priest. All decks have games when you simply don't draw any of your early minions in the starting turns, but the added requirement of these minions requiring dragons made these inconsistent starts more common with this decklist. This is why many players have taken to running Zombie Chow, but I don't think that adding even more 1 drops is the answer.
Museum Curator is absolutely awesome. He's a minion that can be played on turn 1 or 2 without requiring a dragon in hand, that will often discover a minion that will help fill out your early curve even more. In the early game, due to the prioritising of class cards, there are very good odds of discovering a Dark Cultist to drop on turn 3, or another good 2 or 3 mana deathrattle card (Deathlord, Harvest Golem, etc). Increasing the odds that you'll curve out nicely in the early game will help a lot when playing against more aggressive decks, but this discover effect is also strong against control decks as it will often allow you to gain more lategame threats that the deck is lacking when playing against control warrior or control priest decks. The discover effect being a battlecry also gives another very strong interaction with Brann Bronzebeard. Museum Curator having a non-threatening 1-2 body also means it may often survive a turn and become a great Velen's Chosen target on turn 3.
I'm removing Shrinkmeister from the deck as I find that it is not necessary in order to make good use of Cabal Shadow Priest and often ends up sitting in my hand for most of the game and then being played simply as a 3-2 body. There are a huge amount of strong 2 attack minions in the meta right now so comboing Cabal Shadow Priest is often not necessary and the slot in the deck can be better used by a Museum Curator
I'm aware that removing a Blackwing Technician is a questionable decision, but with Brann Bronzebeard, Velen's Chosen and one Blackwing Technician you will seldom have no play to make on turn 3. Especially with the ability of Museum Curator to generate Dark Cultist and other similarly costed cards. You may try remove one Velen's Chosen instead of one Blackwing Technician but I believe this to be a slightly worse choice.
Hi guys, what about
-1 Cabal Shadow Priest -1 Lightbomb -1 Northshire Cleric
to input +2 divine spirit 1 inner fire ?
i've been playing it like this because I lack the epic cards,
and because i love the combo Divne spirit inner fire on ysera :P
Cheers !!
If you want to run combo I would make more changes like adding Deathlords and maybe Dragonkin Sorcerer. My experience with combo dragon priest is that it is less consistent and can get awkward spell heavy draws. Still effective though and very fun when it works :).
Ive seen this before, and beat it with ease since no Lightbombs basically cut half of your clear... entomb would be another option but like, keep the cleric at least. Take out a blackwing technician if anything.
my second variation of the Dragon Priests removed that card completely and put in Dr. Boom.
Entomb is pretty good. Keeps your board and remove threats while maintaining the tempo
So OP climbing fast af at the high ranks (15ish) and aggros stand 0 chance
Vol'jin is better when you have an easy way to deal the remaining 2 health - eg Holy Smite. No space for those cards here.
Holy nova... you would have to use that in conjunction.
Using Holy Nova and Vol'jin combo is expensive at 10 mana and you wouldn't feel good about doing it unless its achieving something else at the same time. Holy Nova by itself doesn't justify running Vol'jin, especially in a dragon deck where the spot is much more valuable running a Dragon.
Entomb might be a good idea.
Has anyone tried to put Entomb in? I am trying it in place of one of the shadow's of death. It's a great answer to many thing -- love to run 2 copies but not sure what else to cut.
replace some cabal shadow priests with it. its a bigger version of it sans taking something to suicide it into something else.
I've made some changes to my already really good dragon priest, I cant wait to try it out!
Here are my changes..
-[card]Twilight Guardian[/card]X2 +Twilight DrakeX2 -- Because I have none, and the drakes have done me so well in my last deck.
-[card]Lightbomb[/card] +Holy Fire -- I like the card to catch up on health when you're getting low, and use it on big beat sticks.
-Cabal Shadow Priest +Mass Dispel -- I couldn't tell you how many times this silence ALL enemies has come in handy, as well and drawing yet another card! -- I would love to get your input on this card, it only costs 4!
I was running Rend Blackhand with great success. Have you thought about putting this in the deck? There have been times where there were two legendary's on the opponents team, and it is a battlecry!!!!.. I will test it out.
I think I might need those Guardian's..
So far, I am 2-2..
This deck is pure trash... Make up your mind, are you a control priest or a dragon priest?
turn 1: twilight whelp
turn 2: coin -> velens
Boom. I have a goddamn 4/7 on turn 2. GG.
replace all the dragon bullshit with mind control, thought steal, sylvanas and shadow word pain and you can see why this loses to control priests
No way you got legend with this, I even added twilight drake instead of 1 cabal and out of 20 games I probably got 2 good starting hands, 2-3 ok and 15 terrible auto losses... Either too high curve or no dragon for synergy...
Agreed, it has enough control that it doesn't need the cabals/shrinks - it needs generically-good earlygame stuff like dark cultist.
You guys must know nothing about dragon priest
the list is fine. Shrink/cabal are minions in the end. Shrink is a wonderful support/early...really any-game minion. And cabal great for tempo Mage stealing flamewakers or minibots, etc. And of course the shrink/cabal combo. So what if you got lightbomb. It means nothing if you can't capitalize after. That's SIX mana. you need to be able to swing the game. Shrink/cabal do that
I'd love to hear your thoughts on Chillmaw. I usually find myself in a boardstate where I don't want to play it, because it kill too many of my minions as well as my opponents. I've tried Chromaggus as a dragon replacement, and found it to be lackluster as well. 9 times out of 10 it costs me an entire turn, and then gets killed before I can untap with it in play.
In any case, I just wanted to hear your thoughts on Chillmaw and how it's been good for you. Thanks!
Deck has done really well so far! I think Entomb is awesome, what would you replace in the deck with it?
I just stole an Ancient of Lore from a Druid with the Shrinkmeister + Cabal Shadow Priest combo while I had Brann Bronzebeard on the board for a huge tempo swing that won me the game. Nice one!