Well balanced Dragon Priest
- Last updated Dec 18, 2015 (Explorers)
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Wild
- 20 Minions
- 10 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 6580
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 12/12/2015 (Explorers)

- Linklater
- Registered User
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- 10
- 49
- 91
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Battle Tag:
Linklater#2238
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
120
Hey guys thats my new LoE Dragon Priest List.
[ Update: Added a section for possible substitutions in case you miss cards]
[ Update, 18.12.15: I included the Deck Spotlight Video into the Descripton --> a very special thanks to Kristophesaurus for making the Video!]
UPDATE: Removed 1x Shadow Word: Death for Vol'jin and Dr. Boom for Loatheb
(Explanation: After some testing and consideration Boom most of the time got shot by BGH so we make the deck much more invulnerable to this by removing him and putting in Loatheb for even more pressure and Conrol of enemies board/hand
Vol'jin puts just more pressure on the board then Shadow Word Death - and while we have 2x Entomb, another Shadow Word and the mass AoE removal this seems to be an even more solid and aggressive option)
General Thoughts / Card Choices
I tried to find a good mixture between anti Aggro (which is dragon priests usual strength) and useful tools in Control Matchups ( 2xEntomb, Sylvanas Windrunner).
The main benefit I see in this list in comparison to earlier lists is, that via the inclusion of Entomb and Sylvanas Windrunner you are able to cut the very expensive lategame dragons like Ysera, Chromaggus / Onyxia.
I addedChillmaw again to have another boardclear tool since the meta seems to be very board heavy at the moment.
As of right now i also added Brann Bronzebeard, 1x Blackwing Technician over 2x Dark Cultist. THe Cultists just got killed so often staying alone on the board that i got kinda tired of them - and i saw yet again that the 1 extra health from the blackwing tech makes a major difference. Bran is also a cool tool to mix up some little combos with Blackwing Corruptor or Azure Drake and still has not the worst stats for 3 mana ( But he is not an auto include and might loose his spot again)
But because of Bran the Twilight Drake is much stronger as for example Dragonkin Sorcerer. Since i cut Ysera i thought i might need another dragon and the 4-Slot was kind of empty.
Since i stacked the 6Slot with the Control Matchup Win Conditions i removedCabal Shadow Priest from my thoughtprocess and alsoShrinkmeister got subbed by the new Museum Curator as 2-Drop due to this fact.
Playstyle
The deck still wants to be a midrange Deck - in fact, as always when you play dragon Priest - you have to make yourself your position clear at the start of the game, when you know what enemy you are facing.
There will be matchups where you get the control role and some matchups where you have to make sure not to grind for board control forever - so start to do damage at some point.
In general you have all the tools for the 3 roles you can sit in.
Early game minions and strong board clear to fight off aggro and then push (Hunter, Zoo etc.)
Strong boardclear in grind heavy midrange battles (for example against midrange paladin)
Lategame tools from your enemys deck in control matchups.
The Importance here is to play entomb on the right targets - thats a question of experience and general favor in my opinion - but you usually wanna remove Sylvanas Windrunner,Tirion Fordring, Ysera and stuff from this category.
In midrange battles it can be totally worth to sometimes even entomb a midrange creature from the enemy board to remain board control and gain tempo( say you already have a board and your enemy plays Sludge Belcher - maybe remove him and push for damage if this gap opens for you.
General Mulligans
You always wanna seach for your early game minions(Twilight Whelp, Northshire Cleric, Wyrmrest Agent, Museum Curator, Blackwing Technician - and if you can for another Dragon to set up Synergy. Power Word: Shield is also really good.
IN some matchups i would totally hold Velens Chosen - for example in Priest mirror especially if you have the coin and a 1-drop.
Make sure that you usually can get some value from Northshire Cleric if you dont face absolute pure aggro (like face hunter or Shaman where you need the minion immiedatly to fight for board)
Matchups
The deck seems very strong against decks which fight for board (especially paladin and Midrange Hunter (since you can remove/steal their Savannah Highmane pretty easily) also against the Druids you have a general favorable matchup.
I'd say you are also favored against Casino/ Tempo Mage
Zoo can be either pain in the ass or heavily favored for you - this depends on your both sides draw. Different from my first impressions im winning every game vs Reno Warlocks lately. A well placed Loatheb turn can really throw them offguard and help you push for cruel damage. SInce their removals and options are highly limited try always to stay ahead on the board. The only really Scary card ive seen is Twisting Nether in some of this decks.
Face Shaman, Freeze Mage and Malylock can be very hard to win.
The other matchups seems almost even. Via Inclusion of Entomb you are also slightly favored vs the new Zetatot Priest since you have more board presence. Also against Control Warrior your Percentages highly increased since they have quite some unuseful cards against you.
Substitution Section
In case you miss some of the cards here are some easy advices for Subbing them:
Vol'jin --> while very strong as tempo play, hes a premium removal in the first place - so just put in another shadow Word: Death again.
Chillmaw: here you have like 2 options depending on what you want: either put in another lightbomb for board control or put in an Endgame dragon - id sayChromaggus orYsera
Sylvanas Windrunner: Can easily subbed by Cabal Shadow Priest - taking the same deck slot but less reliable as steal option, while more tempo play at the same time.
Brann Bronzebeard: Feel free to remove him if you think hes not enough value in your opinion and just put in another 3-drop.Eydis Darkbane is a cool option, Blackwing Technician is the option for most stats and Dark Cultist is the more classic option. --> But Remember: If you remove Brann Bronzebeard your Twilight Drake gets a little weaker(but still a solid option).
Some other considerations:
Museum Curator looks really strong as of right now - i get like either Sylvanas, Chillmaw or something like a Sludge Belcher everytime - and thats huge! If you find place you can add another Curator - hes really good and also cheap to be comboed with Brann.
Ysera and Dr. Boom: As explained at the start our goal was to remove this expensive minions for cheaper hands and more options to play with. But you can add them like all the time if you feel you need to. Remember Dr. Boom is the only BGH target and that makes him very vulnerable. I have more success by playing Loatheb these days.
If you wanna play around with some tech heavy 2-Drops try out Acidic Swamp Ooze and Crazed Alchemist ( I especially loved this guy vs Freeze mage - removing Doomsayer for free).
Good Luck on the ladder guys
If you have any questions or sth. feel free to leave a comment
and if you like the deck feel free to give me a +1 :)
Best of luck
Linklaters
How do you see the playstyle of this deck in Standard, when Velen's Chosen rotates out? And suggestion on substitute for Velen's Chosen?
Well - thanks for the question :)
To answer this i took some thoughts in consideration.
Good knews is - Dragon Priest only looses very few tools with the rotation into standard.
Thats Velen's Chosen, Lightbomb and possibly Shrinkmeister / Dark Cultist
Other Priest decks will loose a lot more in my opinion (Deathlord, Sludge Belcher, Light of the Naaru, etc etc.)
Dragon Priests Playstyle is very straight forward - if you can you put your biggest minion every turn and have more value then other decks on the same turn - that how it goes (nearly as in druid) good thing is and was you can heal your stuff after trading and get board control.
Velens Chosen was maybe one of the key cards to get or maintain board control vs aggro decks. Loosing it is not good but in my opinion not that much to worry if the meta slows down - what it arguably will after the going down of Piloted Shredder and other very annoying cards.
The real thing is - our "hardest enemies" loose some of the best cards to trade into Dragon Priest - this is shredder, Deathbite, Glaivezooka, Flamecannon Minibot+Coghammer, Tinker Oil, Powermace/Crackle, Darkbomb/Implosion
--> All of them provide possible trades into 4Health minions --> which Dragon Priest has quite a lot - so the chances are high in my opinion, that Dragon Priest will get better matchups.
Maybe it could even become one of the most straight forward midrange decks.
While the loose of Lightbomb is quite a blow for priest - there are possible techs to make - e.g. Entomb and Shadow word: horror if needed.
If the health buff is still needed we could arguably even go into Divine Spirit - maybe even use Confuse for lategame OTK Shenanigans.
And there are still some Cards for priest to be released - letz hope we get some cool stuff.
Im really looking forward to standard in the sights of the Dragon flight :)
Thanks for the replies. Im actually running 1 Entomb instead of Lightbomb already i my dragon priest.
Shadow Word: Horror - I completely missed this one! I think Ill run one of these and 1 SW:Pain instead of Velens Chosen.
Very good deck, it`s working well against any type of decktype and well balanced indeed.
Here is some gameplay at rank 6 which I recorded two days ago: Dragon Priest Gameplay
Do you think its good to cut Technician and Brann for Fjola and Eydis? And i really love ysera its cool to throw maybe vol'jin for her? This deck has good removals, 2 entombs and swd i dont think another removal is needed i often have no way to play vol'jin cause its just not worth it and this contain 2 much of 5 mana cards, actualty 8 of them.
i recently removed voljin also - so yeah its ok to cuz him for ysera - but i wouldnt play the twins - dark cultist even seems like a better option
Yeah with introducion of entomb vol'jin is kinda unnecessery. But while playing a lot dragon priest with my favorite wow boss in it, realized that well they are kinda gamble here. While cultists and technicians are consitent, twins can sometimes win you the game on they're own especialy fjola taking out strong minions like loatheb or thaurissan without taking any kind of damage. I'm gonna test them for a time but im sure i wont be putting brann in dragon priest, he just dosent give me enough value here to justify playing him. Additionaly he leaves me with only 1 technician/cultist as 3 drop so its kinda uncool.
Just used a few of your tweaks from standard dragon priest and so far so good. I dropped dark cultist for bran and museum curator, even if its not better its still more fun.
Now that the new season's underway and Paladin is occupying ladder, what do you think about Zombie Chow? I've tried it out over Twilight Drake and it seems to be doing better.
if you are in need of another onedrop go for it - but if you wanna hit secret pala hard - id rather cut voljin vor shadow word death again - since it helps you killing challenger easier
hey !
Dark cultist used to be the standard 3drop for a long time - i also played them very often
- but got tired of them got killed by truesilver and deathbite ---> this was the time when i starte to play around with brann, blackwing tech and twilight drake.
if you wanna include them you usually would sub either brann and blackwing tech or blackwing tech and twilight drak
i wrote about that in the sub section if i remember correctly :)
Hey Linklaters, sick deck.
I don't have Vol'jin, Chillmaw, or Sylvanas. Do you this deck is still pretty decent with SW: Death, Chromaggus, and Cabal Shadow Priest replacements? If so, should I replace the curator for a shrinkmeister to synergize with cabal? Still kinda torn cuz I love museum curator.
this should also work atleast decent - im currently also messing around with the list to frontoad it even more
so the voljin - death cut is totally fine --> the thing is , if you do this you have so much removal -> id rather cut 1 entomb then and put in Cabal Shadow Priest in this spot so you can sub CHillmaw, Sylvanas, Voljin for Cabal,Ysera/Chromaggus, Shrinkmeister or sth. :
-voljin, - Chillmaw, - Sylvanas, - 1entomb
+ 1cabal shadow priest, + Shadow word death, + Shrinkmeister/or 2. Curator/Acidic Ooze, + Ysera(or chromaggus if you dont have her)
youre welcome :)
I'm having no luck against renolocks with this deck :\ they have so much control over the board :(
EDIT: Currently 100% loss rate against renolock
you might do something wrong - i won almost all games against renolock
make sure to 1. not overextend to much ( keep about 4-8damage on board not more if not needed)
2. entomb th right targets (sylvanas, maybe dr.boom, or other hard to remove stuff)
3. use loatheb properly (either before turn eight to deny twisting nether, or in turns were giant+shadowflame would kill your board)
... usually you should only loose to early jaraxxus
hope this might help a little
Ive lost to early jaraxxus and very late game with only a few cards left, Im clearly doing something wrong. maybe not my kinda deck. Had some success from rank 8-6 but just keep getting control warriors and renolocks now. :(
I don't think there's anything wrong with this deck but I also don't think Vol'jin is a great pick in this deck. You have 4 drops that synergize with voljin (Both welps, and both agents (if buffed)). Other than that, you have no way to deal 2 damage to whatever you swap health with so you're gonna end up trading a minion in you most likely dont want to trade anyways.
Vo'jin tends to work better in decks that run 1 of the following 3 options: Auchenai (combos if you have one in play already). Shadowform hero power, or a smite.
This deck has none of those options unfortunately so I don't feel vol'jin is the greatest pick. He's essentially removal, except we now have shadow word death AND entomb. (Entomb kind of obviated Vol'jin for the role of mid game removal). Yes you can combo Vol'jin with a nova on turn 10, but that's usually a very expensive turn that only nets you a 6/x.
Subbed Jin for a Death and Chillmaw for Ysera... This deck is a beast.
Seriosly, when enemy builds a board, Lightbomb is a huge NOPE to him, he puts a big guy (Ragnaros, for example, already happened twice) and you Entomb him, and because of Brann, he gets more pissed at the stats your minions get than the fact you have a big dragon waiting to come to play from your hand, 10/10 love to play with, 11/10 would hate to play against :) awesome deck!
hey man - i am really glad to hear that -sounds like yu have a lot of fun :D