Hearthpwn

Hello all!

I know there have been decks that are maybe one card off this or maybe even exactly the same list as this here on Hearthpwn, but I'm bored and I'm rank 2 this season with it so far. (Will grind to legend in the next couple days) Last season I reached rank 83 with this exact list and honestly, this is the most consistent dragon priest list I have played thus far. I'll give some card choices, and why I've avoided putting other popular cards in my list. I picked practicing and playing with this deck because it's consistent and it's the most fun I've had with ranked Hearthstone in quite some time!

Here's an example of some shenanigans I've pulled.
Anfyin can happen guys!

Card Choices:

Nefarian -  was the most recent, and also the most important addition I made to the deck. I honestly cut a Blackwing Technician for it and never looked back. Nef can do some crazy things for you. (I've gotten druid combo from it, and I've killed Jaraxxus twice with Sacrificial Pact) Besides those outlandish occasions. He's simply just good value.

Museum Curator - has saved me quite a few times. Dark Cultist pops up about 75% of the time to keep you on curve, but he also offers Chillmaw if you find yourself running low on dragons. You have a chance at getting any of the Shredder boys so it's always fun to grab one of those too. 

Brann Bronzebeard - lately he's been in almost every Dragon Priest deck I've seen, but just to really stress how important this card is. If you're unfamiliar with the deck, things to understand are that Blackwing Corruptor will trigger twice, but will only hit one target of your choice. So you can't pick one target and then pick another target for the second battlecry trigger. The same applies for your one copy of Shrinkmaster. He will only shrink one target, but he will shrink it by 4. So stealing your opponent's Emperor Thaurissan or Sylvanas Windrunner is entirely possible. But keep in mind, Cabal Shadow Priest will only steal one minion.

Everything else is pretty standard. Chillmaw is an excellent anti-aggro card, and your one copy of Entomb will usually be targeting Tirion Fordring or a Warrior's Golden Monkey.

I picked this deck simply because in the current meta, you can win against every deck. The only deck I would say we really struggle against and almost unwinnable is Freeze Mage. If you're running into a lot of Freeze, Kezan Mystic is a fantastic additon. I would cut a slow card like Nefarian for it.

Mulligans and General Gameplay: We want to establish early board control to put pressure on our opponent. The dream Hand would be: Twilight Whelp, Wyrmrest Agent, and Twilight Guadian. That doesn't always happen however, so the things I'm always looking for are: Twilight Whelp, Northshire Cleric, Museum Curator, Twilight Guardian, and in cases where you have a Twilight Whelp in your opening hand, don't be afraid to keep a card like Azure Drake along with it. Synergy is very important in this deck, but keeping Ysera, Nefarian, or Chillmaw as activators is never ever reccomended.

We have a lot of card draw so it's best to wait it out. You'll have your games where you're awkwardly stuck with a board clear, a pump spell, and something like Wyrmrest Agent. Sometimes it's best to wait it out to get full value out of your minions. Don't be afraid to drop a Cabal Shadow Priest with no target if you need to retain some form of board presence. As I stated above, our main goal is to keep the early game in our favor, so even if our opponent hits a nice board clear, we can re-establish board control quite easily when the cards we're playing (with the right synergy) are valued one mana cost above what they are. I consider Twilight Whelp about a 1 1/2 mana value minion when activated, Wyrmrest Agent is easily a 3 mana value minion when activated, and cards like Twilight Guardian and Blackwing Corruptor have absolutely insane value alone.. but when we have Brann Bronzebeard out, it's hard for your opponent to ever re-establish a favored board state. Sometimes holding onto Brann early game is okay if we have other early game cards. Sometimes I'll hold onto him to get 6 damage out of a Corruptor or to draw 2 cards off of Azure or Curator. We can generate big board clears with Holy Nova with cards like Azure Drake and Velen's Chosen. Our games typically last beyond 10 turns because our minions aren't easily dealt with and can survive Lightbomb like it's nobody's business. Stacking a minion with a Power Word: Shield before you Lightbomb is always a good play so we can ensure that minion has a better chance of living next turn. Be wary however, Spell Damage directly affects Lightbomb, so for example: our board cosists of Azure Drake, Twilight Whelp, and Wyrmrest Agent all at full health; you Lightbomb, which kills the Azure Drake by doing it's 4 damage, plus the 1 extra damage off of Spell Damage +1, the Twilight Whelp will die, and our Wyrmrest Agent will now be left at 1 toughness. Power Word: Shield can save a minion from dying in such a case. As you play this deck you might think, "This deck doesn't have much of a win condition." in which case, you are absolutely right. Ysera seems to be the deck's only win con. But Ysera doesn't typically last more than the turn after she comes into play.. so how do we win? Throughout the game, you will notice with the amount of taunt minions we have, it's hard for our opponent to do damage to our face. So while we keep the board clear, there will be times you can sneak in 1-6 damage in a turn. You simply are withering their life away a little bit at a time, and a lot of the time I win after getting a big turn off of Azure Drake + Holy Nova. Our board clears are so good that you can wipe the board and swing in for 15-20 damage in a turn with a developed board state. Our games last a long time, so sometimes you will beat your opponent with fatigue because we have a healing factor. While a lot of decks win by burst damage, that's just not how we typically win, and that's why this deck is underrated in my opinion. Not every deck needs to be able to suddenly do 20 damage to your opponent. Sometimes we'll get lucky off Nefarian, and a lot of the time, your opponent has spent their removal on the early game threats. But yes, Nefarian will usually get BGH'd the very next turn, but our opponent will sometimes waste him early on to try and keep up with the board. So even if he gets BGH'd we got the 2 spells that we wanted out of him anyway.

Matchups:

Druid - I used to hate this matchup before I really figured out how to play against it. Now I hope that I get matched up against one. Establish your early game. The main goal in this matchup is to make sure they can't keep a minion on board. Even if it's a Sapling token and you have an Azure Drake out... kill it. Save your Shadow Word: Death for Emperor Thaurissan or one of the Ancient brothers. (sometimes they run Ancient of War as a one of) Lightbomb is great against Druid. As long as you keep healing and don't let their minions live, you will outlast them and you will beat them with taunt minions. If you're in the danger zone (25 health or lower....lol) and it's later in the game, Chillmaw can completely shut out their combo. If you feel like your opponent is setting up a combo for the next turn, drop Chillmaw. They have no easy way of taking care of Ysera, so play her when you feel like you're safe and then ride the dream cards to victory.

Hunter - I love the hunter matchup. It's usually a Face Hunter, but you will see the occasional Midrange deck. If we don't get a good early game, we can easily lose to how fast this deck is. Face Hunter, along with any other aggro deck, we are favored against. Our taunts are too big and they have to waste their spells on Twilight Guardian and Wyrmrest Agent to try to get through to our face. Heal smart and heal your face often. A lot of times it will come down to you healing your face over healing a minion. Be careful with you how many minions you put down because we don't want to get Unleash the Hounds'd for 6 because you will die. Cabal Shadow Priest is our hero in this matchup and can easily win us the game. Make sure you get full value out of Holy Nova and you win!

As for Midrange, our board clears and early game presence are typically too much for them to handle. Cabal Shadow Priest can steal a lot of things in this matchup so choose carefully. Our main targets are Mad Scientist and Haunted Creeper. Play around the Kill Command, Entomb their Savannah Highmane, win the game.

Mage - As for Tempo Mage, Keep Sorcerer's Apprentice, Mana Wyrm, and especially Flamewaker off the board. Some decks are running Archmage Antonidas so save your Shadow Word: Death or Entomb for him. I've seen Ragnaros being played so same goes for him. We out-value our opponent in this matchup, and you will see very quickly we're favored.

As for Freeze Mage. 98% of the time, we're just going to lose. You have to rely on them not drawing Alexstraza to win this one. Fill your board up, steal their Acolyte of Pain, get them down to 1 health and then pop their Ice Block. You NEED to be fast here. Be careful on their turn 5 board clear. Try to Entomb a Doomsayer Hold a couple of minions, and then fill it right back up. I won't go into too much detail here because as I said, we're probably just going to lose this one. 

Paladin - When you're facing Paladin, assume that it's Secret Pally. (95% of the time at ranks 5-Legend you will be right) As is the case for every game, we're trying to establish that early board presence. Holy Nova will completely wreck this deck early on, and we want to save our Lightbomb for after they drop Mysterious Challenger. After they drop Dr. 6, make sure you attack first to activate the Noble Sacrifice. We want the Avenge to hit one of their minions so that it just gets Lightbomb'd anyway. After Redemption triggers on their 2/1 defender, he will also never get to see an attack phase. So now our opponent is only left with their Competitive Spirit and nothing to get buffed. The other 2 threats we are worried about are Dr. Boom and Tirion Fordring. DO NOT under ANY circumstances use your Entomb throughout the game until Tirion is played. The only time I recommend playing Entomb on their Dr. Boom is when you simply can not deal with it. (It happens) The second Lightbomb will take care of Dr. Boom, but he's not our Entomb target. Usually after we Entomb Tirion Fordring, our opponent will hit the concede button.

Priest - Control Priest is such a hard matchup, but it is absolutely winnable. Playing around Auchenai Soulpriest is recommended, always kill their Zombie Chow when it comes out so they can't get the Auchenai combo off. Save your Entomb for either Elise Starseeker or Golden Monkey. A lot of the time your opponent will play their Golden Monkey too early, in which case our deck has enough removal to deal with their big threats which they are typically playing 1 at a time. It's easy to get out-valued in this match so don't stress it too much. Remember, they're running Cabal as well, so make sure you can steal your minion back before you play a small one. Sometimes.... our opponent will put 2 Northshire Cleric in play, if it's late enough in the game, you can try to fatigue them by healing a lot of minions, just as another win con.

The mirror match doesn't happen very often, but when it does, save your Entomb for Elise or Golden Monkey, and race race race race.

Rogue - There's really only one Rogue deck worth noting, so when faced against Miracle/Oil Rogue, you need to be as fast as possible. They have removal but sometimes our minions are just too big. This matchup is all about the race. Save Entomb for a Sludge Belcher or a Dr. Boom. Make sure before you end every turn you have a way to kill Edwin VanCleef. Just like the druid matchup.. keep their board clear and this should be no problem.

Shaman - Establish your early game presence, always keep the board clear, play your taunt minions, steal their Argent Horserider or Spirit Wolf, HEAL YOUR FACE A LOT, GG everyone, no problem at all here.

Warlock - The zoo matchup is just like every aggro matchup, only in this one, we actually get value out of Entomb and Shadow Word: Death. Steal the Sea Giant or Doomguard with Entomb, steal their Imp Gang Boss or Nerubian Egg with Cabal Shadow Priest, use your board clears, and just like every other aggro matchup; GG.

The Reno matchup is iffy... like probably 45/55 iffy. You want to constatntly be doing damage to them, keeping the board clear, and being wary of Reno Jackson and Jaraxxus. Once they clear the board and play Reno, it's probably over. Once they play Jaraxxus, it's beatable, but barely. My favorite play is trying to get Sacrificial Pact off of Nefarian and saving it for when they play Jaraxxus. Try to keep some minions for the late game.

Warrior - I'll only note Control Warrior here because we typically just auto-win against Patron. Get your early game out of the way first, because they are ALWAYS going to turn 2 Fiery War Axe.... always. It doesn't matter if your Whelp or your Northshire Cleric dies turn 2 because that's not how we win. Mid game keep around 3 minions on the board, you don't want them to get a giant turn off of Brawl. They have a lot of removal but we can steal a lot of stuff too. Save Entomb for Elise Starseeker or Golden Monkey. Don't play the Golden Monkey until you've used both Lightbomb and Shadow Word: Death because those cards are of the utmost importance here. Keep the board clear at all times and don't let them get too too far ahead with armor. This is extremely winnable, I haven't lost to a Control Warrior in quite some time to be honest.

 

If you have ANY questions at all, please message me. I would love to help. I love the HS community and this game in general and I'm always willing to help.

Good luck and have fun everyone!!!