Shimmering Light - Rank Climbing Priest
- Last updated Jun 13, 2014 (Live Patch 5506)
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Wild
- 17 Minions
- 13 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 6760
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/28/2014 (Live Patch 5170)
- Lux_EU
- Registered User
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- 11
- 17
- 43
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Battle Tag:
Lux#2884
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Region:
N/A
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Total Deck Rating
359
Welcome to Soulbound's Guide to Expert Level Priest. Here we will be Discussing Priest in Rank Leveled Play and go through some Specific Card Choices and how the Meta works.
- Pros
- Priest is incredibly versatile, more so than other classes
- Getting into a Late Game Match will usually be in your favor.
- Priest is Infamous for the amount of Control it has.
- Turtle your way to victory (Heal, till the late game)
- Hard to counter a Priest
- You are cool for not being Meta
- Cons
- You need certain card draws, don't get some? GG.
- The best cards are usually the most expensive to craft
- Minions with 4 Attack will counter you... *Sobs Quietly*
- Can be killed before you establish a board presence.
Introduction
First a little into me and Soulbound in General. Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, I go by the Name Lux and I am the Owner of Soulbound, an Infamous Deck Building team with some of the Best Players in the world. I have been playing Hearthstone since the closed beta. Although I personally spent most of my time playing casual being far to busy to sit down and dedicate time to rank play I have a large knowledge of the Meta and what works and what doesn't.
So no more delays this is Soulbound's Expert Leveled Rank Priest Guide. This will be a long detailed guide and since Soulbound releases not everyone has the fastest internet I will put stuff in Spoilers.
Now on with the show
About this Deck and Priest in General.
Although there are a huge amount of different Priest styles, Ancient Watcher Style decks are the most common and regarded as the best out there, This deck is a mix between Ancient Watcher (Often seen in Handlock) and a Circle of Healing deck. The idea of this deck is to Control the Board, Put up those Early game Ancient watcher and get ready to clear the board setting up for your Damage dealers like Ragnaros, Since you will want to be able to hold your own against Control Decks such as Handlock Alexstrasza is there to pull that victory from your opponent.
Main Strategy - Control
The aim with this deck is to set up board control early in order to shut your opponent out and get the game to the late game, Where your cards will naturally excel we do this by putting taunts on Ancient watchers and keeping them alive. We can also use our Board Wipe spells such as Soulpriest + COH or Holy Nova in order to keep the board clear.
As you progress to the late game you want to make sure that your opponent keeps any big threats off the field such as Ragnaros etc, You can do this Via Mindcontrol, SW:D or Faceless Manipulator and RNG it.
You will want to out last your opponent so all those Hunters using tracking will cry when they run out of cards.
Win Condition -
This Priest Deck win condition is mainly focused around board control and to keep a board presence in order to get to the later game where your deck will excel , We use Ragnaros and Cairne for Damage dealers and Ysera for late game sustain and Card Pull.
Mulligan Strategy-
There are two Mulligan Strategy for This deck.
Cards you generally want to keep: (Method 1) - Early Game Board Presence
Circle of Healing
[card]Power Word: Shield[/card]
Cards you generally want to keep: (Method 2) - Early Game Taunt
[card]Power Word: Shield[/card]
Cards you don't want to keep:
Auchenai Soulpriest
Shadow Word: Death
+ Most other Big Minions
Yeti is Ok.
Popular Combos -
Some of the popular combos of this deck include:
[card]Ancient Watcher[/card]+ Sunfury Protector+ Power Word: Shield For that Early Game Taunt Wall.
Northshire Cleric + Injured Blademaster + Circle of Healing For that Super Yeti of a Card + Card draw.
Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing For that Buffed Up Board Wipe
Cards to Swap or Consider-
Although there are many small tweaks you can make to this deck the most Viable ones in my Opinion are
Adding some silence (I am currently running one silence against Cairne Bloodhoof
Adding a Big Game Hunter to replace a Shadow Word: Death - Although a Bit risky unless the Meta Shifts to a lot of Handlock and Druid Play.
Running into a Lot of Early game Aggro/Zoo? Change the Chillwind Yeti for Wild Pyromancer and watch the world burn with that for Wild Pyromancer + Power Word: Shield
If you have any more Personal Message Me.
Our Completed Decks -
Wild Wrath - Low Budget Druid - http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/37113-wild-wrath-low-budget-druid
Cloak and Dagger - Low Budget Rogue - http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/39477-cloak-and-dagger-low-budget-rogue
Pulsating Light - A competitive guide - http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/38510-pulsating-light-a-competitive-guide
Druid Options Deck - http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/37817-firebat-druid-options-deck
Wrath of the Forest - A Guide to Ramp Druid - http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/46206-wrath-of-the-forest-a-guide-to-ramp-druid
This Deck is Dedicated to All The Members of Soulbound who make Playing Hearthstone an Thoughtful and Enjoyment experience.
not good against midrange hunter
I like the priest deck its pretty solid. but I would personally find a place to fit in atleast 1 wild pryo, possibly 2. they synergize extremely well with priest decks and help vs all those agro/rush decks that control the meta
I do not recommend this deck, it's lack of fully committing to the ancient watcher combo leaves a potential 2 permanent dead cards in your deck, and the lack of even 1 shad word pain leaves a sweet taste in any zoo/rush deck, especially since it's the most prominent deck from what I've seen.
What do you mean "it's lack of fully committing to the ancient watcher combo"? He's running taunt activation with x2 Sunfurys and x2 Defenders
It is running one defender, and frankly there isn't any hard combos that allow you to play around current meta decks, it lacks the pyromancer combo, and it lacks a double cabal which frankly, is an amazing card. Don't get me started on the yeti. Down vote my comments all you want, they did a nice job with the bio, but the deck is not destined to shine in this meta, this is coming from a priest player since closed beta, just my opinion. *crappy win condition* ~ MitigatedYourCard
This deck is sick I have to agree, but man those zoo matchups are hell.
So i just tried 4 matches around rank 8 and got destroyed all 4 times. I'm familiar with all the cards as the deck is somewhat similar to what I had prior but the RNG gods were not pleased. I went 4 games without getting a single (battlecry)taunt card. This deck seems decent if given the right combos early but when not it seems to get rolled over considerably. I'll give it a few more games and try to get used to it but the RNG is strong with this one.
Add another Defender of argus, swap out something less effective. I also added a Crazed Alchemist to combat Ysera
Without a doubt one of the best priest decks out there. Stomps all control match-ups and does well against the aggro match-ups when played correctly.
Zoo deck is a hard match up but there are cards you can sub in to improve the early game.
I main Priest and I like this deck a lot, I think its very solid in terms of creatures and thats what other Priest decks lack. But the deck has downsides too, I think you can have a rough time versus Zoo and face Hunter, because you dont have Wild Pyromancer and a weapon destroyer.
This deck seems nice at first glance, but is utterly terrible in the current meta. Rush anything will stomp this deck unless you get really, really, REALLY lucky with the draws/mulligans. You have way too many card combos required to get anything done (injured+circle, watcher+sunfury, auchenai+circle etc etc etc) and aggro/zoo/midrange can all manhandle you way before you get a chance to summon anything 6 gems or higher, let alone Ysera. There's a reason priest isn't popular in the meta. It's just sub-par. This would be a great deck for fun/casual/non-ranked matchups, but I wouldn't take this anywhere near competitive. And yes, I did playtest this deck in many matches. 8/10 were zoo/rush paladin/rush mage/rush warrior and all of them crushed this deck. Definitely recommend revision if you want to call this a "ladder-climber" deck. My advice: You mentioned correctly that priest is infamous for its control, but you put very little of that control in this deck. Run some shadow madness, some shadow word pain, some taunts like shieldmasta that don't require a two-card combo, and you'll be way better off.
I disagree you have enough sustain to last into the late game with Holy Fire etc. If you are running into Rush Decks like Zoo. You should run Wild Pyromancer and Holy Smite. This deck excels after Rank 10 when you run into a larger selection of decks like Handlock and Ramp Druid.
Shadow Madness and SW:P are too slow in the current meta.
SW:P and Shadow Madness are in no way "too slow" for the current meta. Pain drops a creature for 2 and Madness drops 2 creatures for 4. I'd argue instead that Cabal Shadow Priest and Auchenai Soulpriest are too slow.
Your suggestion of Wild Pyro and Smite is well-taken, but note that it's another 2-card combo. What you need to understand is that 2-card combos are not the solution for aggro decks, as they rely far more on luck/draws than something like a Sen'jin Shieldmasta, an Abomination, or the two cards I mentioned above. You have so many cards in your deck that will just sit as dead cards until you get the partner card necessary to make them useful. Watcher is a big example. Unless you're running 2x Argus 2x Sunfury and some Silence (like most druids), Watcher is more than likely a dead card in your hand for most matches. Wild Pyro would be reliable if you had a lot of cheap spells to complement him (hence, SW:P. Shadow Madness), But Smite and PW:S aren't gonna cut it.
All my previous comments aside, this deck actually does really well against control druid/handlock/control warrior setups. In EU these might be super popular. In NA they are popular in Rank 2 and up, but are far outnumbered by rush hunter and zoo. For the rest of the ladder, you're better off not playing priest IMO.
I wish you the best of luck with the deck, and I appreciate the time you put into crafting and fine tuning it. I just think it's the right deck for the wrong meta.
Well exactly. Holy smite and or pyromancers is what this deck is missing. It has absolutely terrible time dealing with early game rushing. You are completely reliant on lucky card draws to survive something like zoo since the only decent early game you have is watcher + taunt.
Yes you run into Handlock(not that much lately) and Ramp druid in ranks above 10, but you also run into hunters and zoo that will just crush you if you are only relying on watchers.
This type of deck is so prominent to "unlucky draws" it's not even funny. That's the definition of bad deck design in CCGs
How does this deck do against zoo? I love playing priest but I feel like a big weakness priest has is zoo/rush style decks. Maybe Wild Pyromancer to help with early clear? I run Wild Pyro with 2 Holy Smites and it works wonders in some cases. Helps vs Hunters and the occasional paladin, rogue, or shaman as well.
This deck doesn't have a great early game unless you get a early taunt or pull a early game wipe, If you are wading through lots of Zoo decks Run Wild Pyro, (You can find more Detail in the Cards to swap area. - This deck really excels after Rank 10 when you start running into Handlock, Control Warrior, and Ramp Druid
Only thing real sketchy here is the Alextrasza.
I have actually changed it for a Ysera after testing it for a bit.
Thumbs up then!