Control Warrior was a good deck in its own right. And wasn't built as a pure counter to Freeze Mage. If you want a good deck that often wins against priest though, choose pretty much any aggro deck. Priest often can't handle it unless they draw the nuts early on. Fortunately other control decks can beat aggro easily - and that is how it should be.
Think about it objectively for a moment : If you had one deck that could solidly always beat priest. AND it didn't lose to other decks. Then it would basically be unstoppable and would destroy the game. You would have the Pirate Warrior problem on steroids. This is not a good thing.
I dont want that deck to beat other decks. I just want it exists so it will keep priest in check.
My point was that the counter that you are asking for DOES exist. Just pick a decent aggro deck "et voila"! You have a counter to Priest which works pretty well without being so overpowered as to beating everything else as well.
TBH the only aggro decks 'countering' Priest are teched Rogue and Pirate Warrior.
But there are still decks like Quest Mage, Big Drood and Dragon Priests and they are really good as a counters.
1. Sorry about the mash up of posts earlier. Two different people both kinda tossing the same thing out at once, and it got confusing there. My apologies.
2. I get the initial "knee jerk" reaction when someone says "but my experience in "xx" games =/= the VS report". I had actually written a pretty lengthy post last night trying to give some specific arguments why we should not take VS reports as "Gospel" in this game. I really don't want to try to recreate that post (that wen't "poof" when Chrome decided to take a crap on me), so I will paraphrase pretty extensively.
VS data is gathered from a very specific subset of players ... those that are willing to run the client for the data to be gathered. And the vast majority of those players are of a significantly above "average" skill level. I realize VS breaks data down into categories based on rank, but we all know that not every Legend level player pushes to Legend every month. So while they may be presenting data from across the rank spectrum, the majority of that data is coming from Legend level players, or those close to it. This does skew that data enough that it cannot be presented as "fact", at least not as it relates to the game community as a whole.
While my little sample size may only be 54 games, I believe it is possibly a better representation of the "real" players meta. I am nothing special in this game. I do not sail through the ladder to Legend every month. In fact I tend to struggle at every rank floor, and I grind out every star, every game. I have finally gotten pretty consistent at landing around Rank 6, but also tend to yo-yo back and forth between 6 and 10 for a good part of the season. This seems to be a very common thing when you start to interact with a larger group of "Average Joe's" in the game. Most will spend the majority of a season either bouncing around 10-6, or 15-11.
And, now with scorpyon, it is the same response ... "only aggro decks countering' Priest are teched Rogue and Pirate Warrior." This just isn't the case. You don't have to believe my 42-12 sample to see this ... just apply some common sense and logic. The deck is, for the most part, a face race, just like Exodia Mage. The best "counter" to it (with the exception of Big Druid), is going to be to kill it off before Turn 8 if possible. This is just forcing people to play decks that otherwise would be more of a tempo deck in an aggro fashion, or switch to outright aggro decks, to counter it.
You can't compare aggro vs Razakus and aggro vs Quest Mage, it's completely different dog, Priest has MUCH more removals and things to help you survive until Raza/Anduin (and maybe Velen/Blast). I understand where you're coming from, but by this logic you can just call every slower deck vs aggro M/U "face race".
Have to admit that i don't know much about "Average Joe" since i'm mainly sitting at higher ranks and watching streams and tournaments played by top players, but when i'm talking about M/Us i just assume that both players are playing atleast correctly. In this case the only good aggro decks vs Razakus are the ones i listed (and maybe Hunter, but it's more of a midrange and it's preety bad vs most of the decks in the meta).
To the VS thing: I was actually the one talking from mine+streamers'+tournament experience, not from Vicious Syndicate data.
LMAO. You're gonna want to nerf the only actual fun deck to play?
Highlander priest is just a 30 cards bin with all the draw cards of the game, i don't see what is funny in there. Mage and warlock with the dks are 100x more funny to play than this shit
My point was that the counter that you are asking for DOES exist. Just pick a decent aggro deck "et voila"! You have a counter to Priest which works pretty well without being so overpowered as to beating everything else as well.
TBH the only aggro decks 'countering' Priest are teched Rogue and Pirate Warrior.
But there are still decks like Quest Mage, Big Drood and Dragon Priests and they are really good as a counters.
Face Hunter is very good against Priest right now. Mostly due to the deathrattle beasts causing a problem with the Priest board clears. It counters Priest very well, but falls to other more conventional Control decks (which is as it should be, I guess). Pirate Warrior (while much less used these days except for the small few desperate to still play it) also seems to have a pretty good matchup against it.
Basically anything that aims to kill you by about turn 7, really, before the Priest can stabilise and start the draw mechanics of Lyra, et al.
It may be, but it's just really outshined by Midrange Hunter vs the most of meta decks and even Mid Hunt is not that good. Imo it's just better to run Big Druid, because it's just much better deck overall than both Hunters. Although, i can understand that i might by too expensive for some players. Then you can just play thing like the decks i mentioned earlier (Tempo Rogue, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Priest, maybe Exodia, but gotta admit that it also has problems of really poralized match ups).
1. It doesn't need a nerf. Razakus has more than enough counters in the current meta. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
2. All nerfs proposed in this thread will make it unplayable. That's some Blizzard level nerfing, apply for a job with Team 5 while you can.
3. No, I don't even play Razakus.
Raza priest has only two half baked counters ... agrro, and bad luck. And with enough good luck, even aggro doesn't stand a chance. It is one of the most busted decks in recent history. It gives one of the best control decks out there a near guaranteed win condition, that can be drawn by turn 8.
What are you at? Only "aggro" deck which is good against Razakus is teched Tempo Rogue and maybe Pirate Warrior, but PW is like worse Rogue atm. But aggros aren't it's biggest counters. It's worst M/Us are Big Druid, Dragon Priest, Exodia Mage (ofc assuming that both sides are playing M/U correctly) etc.
So please, stop talking things out of your ass if you don't know what you're talking about.
To the nerf 'suggestion': It's just straight away killing Raza, he dies 80% just after being played rn, when he's only 5/5, with this nerf it would happen even more often since people would always just use their removal. You are just dreaming in the perfect world where Raza survives on the board and opponent doesn't do anything, but it wouldn't happen more often that like 1 in 15 games, if not even less. So even if you would make this nerf and delete Highlander effect (since without deleting it the nerf would be just Warsong Commander level) i think it would still be too bad to played.
Please stop vomiting VS stats as if they actually represent how the game plays out in actuality.
This season, I have won 42 of 54 matchups against priest, with (estimated) 80%+ of those being Raza. With the very small exception of a handful of games I have played with a demon control warlock, every game has been played with some form of aggro(ish) deck. I put the (ish) there, because the line between what defines aggro and tempo is getting pretty blurry, especially against Raza priest, where with only a couple exceptions, you are just going to go face whenever possible.
As for Raza just dying ... like I said ... err.. like you said ... adapt. Drop something else in the deck that forces removal. Or just use whats already there ... Velen. I kinda find it pretty thick of you to just tell everyone else to adapt to busted decks, but be diametrically opposed to any changes being made to those busted decks. But, just like everyone went berserk because Fiery War Axe got pushed up ONE FREAKING MANA, and instantly proclaimed Pirate Warrior dead, every possible nerf to Raza priest is met the same way. Hell, I suggested just lower his HP down to 1 damage, and that will supposedly make the deck unplayable as well.
Wait sooo, let me understand the first part of this. You are saying that we shouldn't quote VS statistics then proceed to cite your anecdotle statistics as, what, a better source of data? Then the actual data you supply literally backs up the point that this supposedly "busted" deck doesn't actually need a nerf? All sorts of confusing signals here man.
As for me. It doesn't need a nerf. It's a GOOD deck, but not busted. Nothing really worth nerfing here. Also we aren't going to see ANY change this close to the expansion unless the devs are worried about future interactions.
LMAO. You're gonna want to nerf the only actual fun deck to play?
Highlander priest is just a 30 cards bin with all the draw cards of the game, i don't see what is funny in there. Mage and warlock with the dks are 100x more funny to play than this shit
Meh, everyone enjoys other things, for example i don't find anything interesting about filling your board with Demons/Water Elementals. Not saying that i'm really big fan of Anduin, i just don't see anything more interesting in Gul'Dan/Jaina.
LMAO. You're gonna want to nerf the only actual fun deck to play?
The deck is extremely unfun to play against...its way worst then facing Quest mage...at least with Quest mage, you know you only need to deal with 2 doomsayers...if you can somehow kill off/silence doomsayer, you have good chance of winning.
My point was that the counter that you are asking for DOES exist. Just pick a decent aggro deck "et voila"! You have a counter to Priest which works pretty well without being so overpowered as to beating everything else as well.
TBH the only aggro decks 'countering' Priest are teched Rogue and Pirate Warrior.
But there are still decks like Quest Mage, Big Drood and Dragon Priests and they are really good as a counters.
And, now with scorpyon, it is the same response ... "only aggro decks countering' Priest are teched Rogue and Pirate Warrior." This just isn't the case.
That wasn't me that said that, bud! ;-)
I meant it was said in response to you, not by you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland I wanna write her, name in the sky I wanna free fall, out into nothin' Gonna leave this, world for awhile
my preferred nerf would be to make raza a 3/3 for 5 mana or a 5/5 for 7. currently it advances your wincon while having a fairly powerful immediate effect/board presence - it's always a good play on t4/5/6. raza should be more of a tempo hit.
deck isn't really busted in standard but it's kinda messed up in wild w/ access to lightbomb, excavated, and reno, in addition to all the other clears....i prefer wild because of the more diverse meta but it might wind up being unplayable after the next rotation.
yeah, pain > thalnos spirit lash > excavated > raza > lightbomb > anduin. pepper with taunts. it's fun losing knowing that there is no combination of plays or draws in your deck that could have won.
Just change Velen to this: "Double the damage and healing of your spells."
That's it, problem solved. No OTK bullshit from 25+ health anymore, and it is not too big of a nerf to Raza priest. I personally think the Raza and DK combo is fine, it's kind of frustrating to play against, but there are plenty of ways to counter it.
However, it just get ridiculous if you deal 4 damage for 0 mana.. that's not like a machine gun anymore, but rather a tank firing 120mm projectiles at your face..
Then they will just machine gun you down over a couple of turns
Just change Velen to this: "Double the damage and healing of your spells."
That's it, problem solved. No OTK bullshit from 25+ health anymore, and it is not too big of a nerf to Raza priest. I personally think the Raza and DK combo is fine, it's kind of frustrating to play against, but there are plenty of ways to counter it.
However, it just get ridiculous if you deal 4 damage for 0 mana.. that's not like a machine gun anymore, but rather a tank firing 120mm projectiles at your face..
That's it guys, we are nerfing Velen.
The "if you open it just dust it" Velen. One of the lowest rated legendaries of the classic pack. There's really hope for everyone. I'm calling it, someday people will call for nerfing Millhouse.
Just change Velen to this: "Double the damage and healing of your spells."
That's it, problem solved. No OTK bullshit from 25+ health anymore, and it is not too big of a nerf to Raza priest. I personally think the Raza and DK combo is fine, it's kind of frustrating to play against, but there are plenty of ways to counter it.
However, it just get ridiculous if you deal 4 damage for 0 mana.. that's not like a machine gun anymore, but rather a tank firing 120mm projectiles at your face..
Raza will see his final expansion in Standard come december. Why should they nerf an evergreen legendary like Velen just to slightly power down ONE deck that is on borrowed time anyway?
I hate Quest Mage but I'm not calling for Antonidas to be nerfed, and he is 10x as good and present in every meta as Velen ever was or will be. And QM will stick around for over a year.
In my opinion they should just have Raza the Chained effect be : If your deck has no duplicates, your startinghero power costs (0) this game '' similar to Justicar Trueheart . That would also nerf reno priest decks that change hero power other than Shadowreaper Anduin but that's just a negative synergy and you would avoid those cards in reno priest I guess.
I remember the MSoG meta reno priest and it was not obnoxious at all (while also being a decent deck) and Raza the Chained was good enough to see play there even if it was affecting only your normal hero power so he would not be useless.
Thing is Shadowreaper Anduin hero power is strong enough on it's own and he would see play even without Raza the Chained , as a board clear + some extra control vs board or finishing power vs face when opponent is out of resources so that would not be bad either.
Even if Raza rotates soon it will be forever destroying wild because all the control tools priest will get in the future will enable the OTK so much that only other OTK decks that can do it faster will stand a chance ( and contrary to popular belief Blizzard DOES care about wild, they did say they would nerf Naga Sea Witch if the giants hunter deck became too strong ) . Also ALL inspire cards are completely broken with a repeatable 0 mana hero power ( especially Spawn of Shadows ) so Blizzard would probably never be able to print a good inspire card ever again if it is left like this.
I wanna glide down, over Mulholland
I wanna write her, name in the sky
I wanna free fall, out into nothin'
Gonna leave this, world for awhile
my preferred nerf would be to make raza a 3/3 for 5 mana or a 5/5 for 7. currently it advances your wincon while having a fairly powerful immediate effect/board presence - it's always a good play on t4/5/6. raza should be more of a tempo hit.
deck isn't really busted in standard but it's kinda messed up in wild w/ access to lightbomb, excavated, and reno, in addition to all the other clears....i prefer wild because of the more diverse meta but it might wind up being unplayable after the next rotation.
yeah, pain > thalnos spirit lash > excavated > raza > lightbomb > anduin. pepper with taunts. it's fun losing knowing that there is no combination of plays or draws in your deck that could have won.
Fuck cubelock
I'm calling it, someday people will call for nerfing Millhouse.
In my opinion they should just have Raza the Chained effect be : If your deck has no duplicates, your starting hero power costs (0) this game '' similar to Justicar Trueheart . That would also nerf reno priest decks that change hero power other than Shadowreaper Anduin but that's just a negative synergy and you would avoid those cards in reno priest I guess.
I remember the MSoG meta reno priest and it was not obnoxious at all (while also being a decent deck) and Raza the Chained was good enough to see play there even if it was affecting only your normal hero power so he would not be useless.
Thing is Shadowreaper Anduin hero power is strong enough on it's own and he would see play even without Raza the Chained , as a board clear + some extra control vs board or finishing power vs face when opponent is out of resources so that would not be bad either.
Even if Raza rotates soon it will be forever destroying wild because all the control tools priest will get in the future will enable the OTK so much that only other OTK decks that can do it faster will stand a chance ( and contrary to popular belief Blizzard DOES care about wild, they did say they would nerf Naga Sea Witch if the giants hunter deck became too strong ) . Also ALL inspire cards are completely broken with a repeatable 0 mana hero power ( especially Spawn of Shadows ) so Blizzard would probably never be able to print a good inspire card ever again if it is left like this.