I've wrote more than enough explanation on why I picked each card with in depth options on other choices and possible tactical uses of the deck. But just in case I will also copy the description here. Enjoy :D
Deck Overview
This deck posesses very powerful combos if used correctly. It can make you have very high dmg minions and maximizes the use of your opponents hand against them. It consists of several minions to buff up your spells to make devistating casts on powerful minions or the opponent himself. The deck also contains cards that can substitute each other which allow making the same tactics work with different cards.
The Dianamic Duo
The Dinamic Duo refers to the synergy between Prophet Velen and Malygos. Theoretically Malygos will give 5 dmg to any spell we cast and Prophet Velen will double that dmg meaning if a spell that dealth 0 dmg egzisted it would do 10 dmg with both minions present. Prophet Velen is also the only the card in game that increases heal amounts (not on our hero power). More examples can be found below for spesific spells.
Freaky Friday
First of all the use of Crazed Alchemist. This is seen so far in fireside duels to swap 0/2 totems to kill it instantly but in this priest build you can use it on a friendly target. With the use of Power Word: Shield and Divine Spirit together or seperate you can give even a 1 health minion +3 then x2 life to make 7 life then swap the life and attack to make a 7 attack minion. You can use Crazed Alchemist on Malygos just itself to make 4/12 into 12/4. I'm not even mentioning the possiblities of one or multiple Divine Spirit , Power Word: Shield useage before swapping. Use one Divine Spirit on Malygos then play Crazed Alchemist and you've got yourself a 24 attack minion which is epic (and probably be nerfed)
Hold These Cards While I Punch You In the Face
Secondly you can make use of your opponents hand size to your advantage in this deck through Mental Collapse and Greater Heal via Auchenai Soulpriest. But with this deck you don't have to rely on your luck too much because you have Coldlight Oracle and King Mukla to give your opponent a potencial 6 card in a turn before using Mental Collapse. Of course you have lots of spell power minions this deck to increase your total dmg by 1 or more not to mention a possible Prophet Velen in play which will double your dmg. In a lucky moment you can have an opponent with 8 cards in hand and use 2 card givers (both are 3 mana) to make your opponents card count 12 and if you have Prophet Velen out already you would do 24 dmg with Mental Collapse. This dmg can go even higher if you have +spell power minions out as well as using a second Mental Collapse to deal 48 dmg! Thats 48 dmg from two 2 mana cost spells (potencially). That is amazing and will probably will be nerfed. There is also the other thing mentioned below that can increase your dmg. So you can possibly get much much higher than that in a "one in a million" situation.
NEW Apperently maximum number of cards anyone can have at any one time is 10. So the maximum dmg of Mental Collapse would be 10 (plus modifiers) or 20 for Greater Heal via Auchenai Soulpriest
Kage Bunshin No Jutsu
Also this deck contains Faceless Manipulator which has a potencial derived from luck by mimicing opponents cards as well as a luck independant use from our own cards like Malygos or Prophet Velen to give incredible spell dmg potencial. I'm almost definitely sure two Prophet Velen wouldn't stack (even if they did it would be nerfed) but having two out at once means even if your opponent manages to kill one you will still have the effect active. Not sure if Faceless Manipulator will give battlecry effects but if so it can also give us two more cards to fill our opponents hand via King Mukla and Coldlight Oracle.
All cards up till here are the core stones of my deck so I have the maximum possible number of cards for each of them.
From Zero To Hero
*Ever since I've seen Angry Chicken I wanted to make it work and this build does exactly that. You can summon the chicken then use a Power Word: Shield and Divine Spirit combo to get him from 1/1 to 1/7 then swap it to 7/1 with Crazed Alchemist then use Power Word: Shieldand Divine Spirit again to make him a 7/7. Then use Prayer of Fortitude to make a 8/8 chicken with a possible +5 dmg. All in the same turn! You can probably squeze a Fade in this deck if you want, to make sure the enemy attacks your chicken at some point. Of course all of this is based on luck so you might not be able to get this much but it is still a possibility. The examples are based on Angry Chicken (a 1/1 card) but the math and tactic is applicable to other minions.
You can for example go all in with 2 Power Word: Shields making a 1/7 then using 2 Divine Spirits back to back to make 1/28, swaping then would give you a 28/1 but it would only be worth it if your minion can attack that turn. If you can use the same tactic on Malygos (probably not as it would be ridiculously OP) you can make 72/4 minion ready to attack.
Mind Blowing Shadow Damage
What's a shadow priest without Shadowform? Take two for 3 dmg per 2 mana each turn. Unfortunately no spell power or Prophet Velen is gonna change it's dmg but 3 is enough considering mages currently have 1. I also love Mind Blast so I've added 2. Even without any multipliers 10 dmg to the enemy which regularly has 35 tops is a lot, almost 1/3 his health (exactly 1/3 if he goes first). With Prophet Velen you can do up to 20 dmg. Not only Prophet Velen but Malygos will also tecnically double the dmg from Mind Blast. Both cards in combination with each other or Faceless Manipulator will give you up to 40 possible dmg (or more). Of course the worst case senario is still 10 dmg which is awsome.
A maximum dmg from any dmging spell in this deck is calculated as follows.+5 from Malygos,+10 from two Faceless Manipulator copying Malygos +3 spell power from other possible minions and the number you get can be doubled by Prophet Velen for a maximum of 36+ double the spells normal dmg.
What Do We Say To Death? Not Today
You also have a Holy Nova for board clear (especially with spell power modifiers or Prophet Velen ). The heal will only be 4 with Prophet Velen since spell power doesn't affect it but still it can also be used to heal as well. You also have a Penance for heal and dmg (affected same way as Holy Nova ). You can use Greater Heal for heal rather than dmg as well. You can replace Prayer of Fortitude (or sth else) for Circle of Healing if you want, for more heal. Just remember Circle of Healing heals all minions so it's best used when your oponent doesn't have a damaged minion. Or it can potentially devistate an enrage warrior since when minions are healed to full health they lose their enrage benefits. Though I would recommend killing them off faster rather than healing them to full. Unless you make them lose the benefit of enrage to make their attacks lower (with a probable higher health) then using Crazed Alchemist to make them easy pickings.
When All Else Fails
The tactics given above are all of course possible or maximum uses from this build, so you might not be so lucky as to get the cards you want. If that happens I think since our special is +2 life we have much more tolerance than other classes (other than warrior) to wait and stack some cards in hand until we can play a good combo in one turn. This build also has quite considerable "draw a card" cards to help with that. Also the deck is pretty powerful itself even without the combos mentioned.
Mass Effect
Mass Dispel is in there because of that damn fireside duel where that 1 Mass Dispel was practically destined to be played (you could say it had a *puts on glasses* mass effect on me. Yeeaahh). Though it might be a conditional card it still gives a card and might come in handy. Still if you fell it's not necessary fell free to replace it.
What Could Have Been
**I also would have liked to fit an Azure Drake, a Wild Pyromancer and a Holy Smite in there somewhere but I just couldn't give up any other cards. But if I have to give up something I could give up Bloodmage Thalnos, Ancient Mage and Angry Chicken for the other three cards. Even though I love Angry Chicken it is very situational and I can always make a different deck for him. Holy Smite especially can go up to 14 dmg from our legendary duo (Prophet Velen and Malygos with a Faceless Manipulator substitute) Maybe just the Angry Chicken, Holy Smite swap is good cause even though Azure Drake is great Bloodmage Thalnos gives more spell power per mana crystal and can be used as early as second turn. And also while Wild Pyromancer has a potencial of dealing lots of dmg since it requres a spell it might be better to buff those spells' dmg by 2 with Ancient Mage instead of by 1 to a random (probably different) target with Wild Pyromancer even though Wild Pyromancer will work with non-dmg cards the double dmg from Ancient Mage might be more optimal for best dmg. Plus Ancient Mage has more health so will be easier to keep alive for the effect.
**Though after thinking more on it, it's probably not wise to play Bloodmage Thalnos on a second turn due to the fact it's rather easy to kill a 1 health minion with 2 or 3 mana crystals therefore we would not benefit at all for playing her. the only benefit would be acquiring another card which would make Bloodmage Thalnos a catalyst (same as having 29 remaining cards but just allowed you to get all your cards 1 turn early) which would be the same as having nothing in her place (having 29 cards total which will also allow us to draw all our cards 1 turn early). Bottom line even though she has 2 cost you should play her in a chain of cards later in game. Of course this also means Azure Drake might be a better choice cause the only difference of having Bloodmage Thalnos now over Azure Drake is that she enables us to do more things with same spell power benefit which is a debatable benefit really. As one of the reasons I justified Ancient Mage over Wild Pyromancer was that he could survive better for a longer effect so I would be a hypocrite if I didn't also apply the same logic here. (As a result of this my deck has been changed.)
Lorewalker No
Also someone pointed out to me Lorewalker Cho can be used to give opponent more cards but when I think about it I wouldn't want my opponent to use my cards against me especially when we both get a lot of cards and him using Mental Collapse on me or Greater Heal on himself is not what I want. Plus a pro player will definately come up with an excellent strategy to utilise cards he wouldn't normally have to that situation. Though on that note I also get his cards so I'm not 100% positive about it.
So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
I think with that I've explained the reason for every card in the deck. You can still flex it a little to your liking. So if you like the deck and tactics provided please give +1 and lets see where this goes. If you have any suggestions or thoughts please do not hesitate to say so. Have fun :D
Edit: I removed the Angry Chicken due to it requiring too much effort to make it work. Instead I've added a second Holy Nova on a suggestion which I also thought seemed fitting due it's powerful nature (the way aoes react to spell power multipliers). Originally I would have wanted to have a Holy Smite instead but Holy Nova is just a Holy Smite that requires 4 extra crystals to make it an aoe skill, which I believe is worth it. Plus it also heals. Thank you for your suggestion "Felys" :D
I like the deck idea but I wouldn't use Angry Chicken as its effect has a ton of investment for a potentially easily removed card. I'd rather have another Holy Nova as it's one of the better priest board wipes.
Yh my thoughts exactly though I figured maybe smite instead of chicken though holy nova is tecnically an aoe smite when you think about it so ty for your suggestion :D
Really great deck. I'm guessing Mental Collapse will only do 1 damage per card in your opponent's hand +spellpower on the board. With the clarification to spells like Arcane Missiles and Avenging Wrath, it just doesn't seem like Mental Collapse adds +spellpower per card. Plus it'd be way overpowered. Maximum hand size is 10 so the max you could do with Prophet Velen is 20. Nice counter to decks hoarding cards to unleash a combo or summon a giant.
It's still a great card for 2 mana and fits well with the deck.
You may want to make room for a 2nd mass dispel. It draws you a card and silence is just so good.
Ah I didn't know the max hand count was 10 thank you pointing it out. Yes I also do imagine the dmg would increase by 1 in total, not per card, per +1 spell power.
I didn't know how often I would need a mass dispel in an actual duel, though it's very powerful as seen in the fireside duel so I just put one to find a middle ground. I'm thinking of either adding one more or removing the one I already have depending on how many times I wished I had it in my hand.
I've changed the text some to make it more readable as I'm sure a lot of pll were too lazy to read it. It is now catagorized. "What Do We Say To Death? Not Today" is for dmg spells with healing attacked to them.
*looks at OP*, holy wall of text batman. That's way too much effort given the game isn't even beta yet, and there are some inevitable rule changes/clarifications incoming.
Though I will probably keep updating this long after the game launches as this right now is the deck I want. It started out with "what cards I will definately have on my priest". So I will follow the same niche as the game changes.
Greetings fellow gamers like myself who have already obsessed about a game not even in beta yet :D
I put a lot of thought to building a shadow priest deck which I found very powerful and would like to hear your opinions on. Here is the deck:
I've wrote more than enough explanation on why I picked each card with in depth options on other choices and possible tactical uses of the deck. But just in case I will also copy the description here. Enjoy :D
Deck Overview
This deck posesses very powerful combos if used correctly. It can make you have very high dmg minions and maximizes the use of your opponents hand against them. It consists of several minions to buff up your spells to make devistating casts on powerful minions or the opponent himself. The deck also contains cards that can substitute each other which allow making the same tactics work with different cards.
The Dianamic Duo
The Dinamic Duo refers to the synergy between Prophet Velen and Malygos. Theoretically Malygos will give 5 dmg to any spell we cast and Prophet Velen will double that dmg meaning if a spell that dealth 0 dmg egzisted it would do 10 dmg with both minions present. Prophet Velen is also the only the card in game that increases heal amounts (not on our hero power). More examples can be found below for spesific spells.
Freaky Friday
First of all the use of Crazed Alchemist. This is seen so far in fireside duels to swap 0/2 totems to kill it instantly but in this priest build you can use it on a friendly target. With the use of Power Word: Shield and Divine Spirit together or seperate you can give even a 1 health minion +3 then x2 life to make 7 life then swap the life and attack to make a 7 attack minion. You can use Crazed Alchemist on Malygos just itself to make 4/12 into 12/4. I'm not even mentioning the possiblities of one or multiple Divine Spirit , Power Word: Shield useage before swapping. Use one Divine Spirit on Malygos then play Crazed Alchemist and you've got yourself a 24 attack minion which is epic (and probably be nerfed)
Hold These Cards While I Punch You In the Face
Secondly you can make use of your opponents hand size to your advantage in this deck through Mental Collapse and Greater Heal via Auchenai Soulpriest. But with this deck you don't have to rely on your luck too much because you have Coldlight Oracle and King Mukla to give your opponent a potencial 6 card in a turn before using Mental Collapse. Of course you have lots of spell power minions this deck to increase your total dmg by 1 or more not to mention a possible Prophet Velen in play which will double your dmg. In a lucky moment you can have an opponent with 8 cards in hand and use 2 card givers (both are 3 mana) to make your opponents card count 12 and if you have Prophet Velen out already you would do 24 dmg with Mental Collapse. This dmg can go even higher if you have +spell power minions out as well as using a second Mental Collapse to deal 48 dmg! Thats 48 dmg from two 2 mana cost spells (potencially). That is amazing and will probably will be nerfed. There is also the other thing mentioned below that can increase your dmg. So you can possibly get much much higher than that in a "one in a million" situation.
NEW Apperently maximum number of cards anyone can have at any one time is 10. So the maximum dmg of Mental Collapse would be 10 (plus modifiers) or 20 for Greater Heal via Auchenai Soulpriest
Kage Bunshin No Jutsu
Also this deck contains Faceless Manipulator which has a potencial derived from luck by mimicing opponents cards as well as a luck independant use from our own cards like Malygos or Prophet Velen to give incredible spell dmg potencial. I'm almost definitely sure two Prophet Velen wouldn't stack (even if they did it would be nerfed) but having two out at once means even if your opponent manages to kill one you will still have the effect active. Not sure if Faceless Manipulator will give battlecry effects but if so it can also give us two more cards to fill our opponents hand via King Mukla and Coldlight Oracle.
All cards up till here are the core stones of my deck so I have the maximum possible number of cards for each of them.
From Zero To Hero
*Ever since I've seen Angry Chicken I wanted to make it work and this build does exactly that. You can summon the chicken then use a Power Word: Shield and Divine Spirit combo to get him from 1/1 to 1/7 then swap it to 7/1 with Crazed Alchemist then use Power Word: Shieldand Divine Spirit again to make him a 7/7. Then use Prayer of Fortitude to make a 8/8 chicken with a possible +5 dmg. All in the same turn! You can probably squeze a Fade in this deck if you want, to make sure the enemy attacks your chicken at some point. Of course all of this is based on luck so you might not be able to get this much but it is still a possibility. The examples are based on Angry Chicken (a 1/1 card) but the math and tactic is applicable to other minions.
You can for example go all in with 2 Power Word: Shields making a 1/7 then using 2 Divine Spirits back to back to make 1/28, swaping then would give you a 28/1 but it would only be worth it if your minion can attack that turn. If you can use the same tactic on Malygos (probably not as it would be ridiculously OP) you can make 72/4 minion ready to attack.
Mind Blowing Shadow Damage
What's a shadow priest without Shadowform? Take two for 3 dmg per 2 mana each turn. Unfortunately no spell power or Prophet Velen is gonna change it's dmg but 3 is enough considering mages currently have 1. I also love Mind Blast so I've added 2. Even without any multipliers 10 dmg to the enemy which regularly has 35 tops is a lot, almost 1/3 his health (exactly 1/3 if he goes first). With Prophet Velen you can do up to 20 dmg. Not only Prophet Velen but Malygos will also tecnically double the dmg from Mind Blast. Both cards in combination with each other or Faceless Manipulator will give you up to 40 possible dmg (or more). Of course the worst case senario is still 10 dmg which is awsome.
A maximum dmg from any dmging spell in this deck is calculated as follows.+5 from Malygos,+10 from two Faceless Manipulator copying Malygos +3 spell power from other possible minions and the number you get can be doubled by Prophet Velen for a maximum of 36+ double the spells normal dmg.
What Do We Say To Death? Not Today
You also have a Holy Nova for board clear (especially with spell power modifiers or Prophet Velen ). The heal will only be 4 with Prophet Velen since spell power doesn't affect it but still it can also be used to heal as well. You also have a Penance for heal and dmg (affected same way as Holy Nova ). You can use Greater Heal for heal rather than dmg as well. You can replace Prayer of Fortitude (or sth else) for Circle of Healing if you want, for more heal. Just remember Circle of Healing heals all minions so it's best used when your oponent doesn't have a damaged minion. Or it can potentially devistate an enrage warrior since when minions are healed to full health they lose their enrage benefits. Though I would recommend killing them off faster rather than healing them to full. Unless you make them lose the benefit of enrage to make their attacks lower (with a probable higher health) then using Crazed Alchemist to make them easy pickings.
When All Else Fails
The tactics given above are all of course possible or maximum uses from this build, so you might not be so lucky as to get the cards you want. If that happens I think since our special is +2 life we have much more tolerance than other classes (other than warrior) to wait and stack some cards in hand until we can play a good combo in one turn. This build also has quite considerable "draw a card" cards to help with that. Also the deck is pretty powerful itself even without the combos mentioned.
Mass Effect
Mass Dispel is in there because of that damn fireside duel where that 1 Mass Dispel was practically destined to be played (you could say it had a *puts on glasses* mass effect on me. Yeeaahh). Though it might be a conditional card it still gives a card and might come in handy. Still if you fell it's not necessary fell free to replace it.
What Could Have Been
**I also would have liked to fit an Azure Drake, a Wild Pyromancer and a Holy Smite in there somewhere but I just couldn't give up any other cards. But if I have to give up something I could give up Bloodmage Thalnos, Ancient Mage and Angry Chicken for the other three cards. Even though I love Angry Chicken it is very situational and I can always make a different deck for him. Holy Smite especially can go up to 14 dmg from our legendary duo (Prophet Velen and Malygos with a Faceless Manipulator substitute) Maybe just the Angry Chicken, Holy Smite swap is good cause even though Azure Drake is great Bloodmage Thalnos gives more spell power per mana crystal and can be used as early as second turn. And also while Wild Pyromancer has a potencial of dealing lots of dmg since it requres a spell it might be better to buff those spells' dmg by 2 with Ancient Mage instead of by 1 to a random (probably different) target with Wild Pyromancer even though Wild Pyromancer will work with non-dmg cards the double dmg from Ancient Mage might be more optimal for best dmg. Plus Ancient Mage has more health so will be easier to keep alive for the effect.
**Though after thinking more on it, it's probably not wise to play Bloodmage Thalnos on a second turn due to the fact it's rather easy to kill a 1 health minion with 2 or 3 mana crystals therefore we would not benefit at all for playing her. the only benefit would be acquiring another card which would make Bloodmage Thalnos a catalyst (same as having 29 remaining cards but just allowed you to get all your cards 1 turn early) which would be the same as having nothing in her place (having 29 cards total which will also allow us to draw all our cards 1 turn early). Bottom line even though she has 2 cost you should play her in a chain of cards later in game. Of course this also means Azure Drake might be a better choice cause the only difference of having Bloodmage Thalnos now over Azure Drake is that she enables us to do more things with same spell power benefit which is a debatable benefit really. As one of the reasons I justified Ancient Mage over Wild Pyromancer was that he could survive better for a longer effect so I would be a hypocrite if I didn't also apply the same logic here. (As a result of this my deck has been changed.)
Lorewalker No
Also someone pointed out to me Lorewalker Cho can be used to give opponent more cards but when I think about it I wouldn't want my opponent to use my cards against me especially when we both get a lot of cards and him using Mental Collapse on me or Greater Heal on himself is not what I want. Plus a pro player will definately come up with an excellent strategy to utilise cards he wouldn't normally have to that situation. Though on that note I also get his cards so I'm not 100% positive about it.
So Long And Thanks For All The Fish
I think with that I've explained the reason for every card in the deck. You can still flex it a little to your liking. So if you like the deck and tactics provided please give +1 and lets see where this goes. If you have any suggestions or thoughts please do not hesitate to say so. Have fun :D
Edit: I removed the Angry Chicken due to it requiring too much effort to make it work. Instead I've added a second Holy Nova on a suggestion which I also thought seemed fitting due it's powerful nature (the way aoes react to spell power multipliers). Originally I would have wanted to have a Holy Smite instead but Holy Nova is just a Holy Smite that requires 4 extra crystals to make it an aoe skill, which I believe is worth it. Plus it also heals. Thank you for your suggestion "Felys" :D
Edit 2: After thinking out loud I realised an Azure Drake over Bloodmage Thalnos is probably more beneficial. So I have removed Bloodmage Thalnos from the deck and added an Azure Drake in its place.
*At the time this was written I had an Angry Chicken in my deck instead of a second Holy Nova.
**At the time these were written I had a Bloodmage Thalnos rather than an Azure Drake.
Let me change your mind
I like the deck idea but I wouldn't use Angry Chicken as its effect has a ton of investment for a potentially easily removed card. I'd rather have another Holy Nova as it's one of the better priest board wipes.
Yh my thoughts exactly though I figured maybe smite instead of chicken though holy nova is tecnically an aoe smite when you think about it so ty for your suggestion :D
Let me change your mind
Really great deck. I'm guessing Mental Collapse will only do 1 damage per card in your opponent's hand +spellpower on the board. With the clarification to spells like Arcane Missiles and Avenging Wrath, it just doesn't seem like Mental Collapse adds +spellpower per card. Plus it'd be way overpowered. Maximum hand size is 10 so the max you could do with Prophet Velen is 20. Nice counter to decks hoarding cards to unleash a combo or summon a giant.
It's still a great card for 2 mana and fits well with the deck.
You may want to make room for a 2nd mass dispel. It draws you a card and silence is just so good.
Ah I didn't know the max hand count was 10 thank you pointing it out. Yes I also do imagine the dmg would increase by 1 in total, not per card, per +1 spell power.
I didn't know how often I would need a mass dispel in an actual duel, though it's very powerful as seen in the fireside duel so I just put one to find a middle ground. I'm thinking of either adding one more or removing the one I already have depending on how many times I wished I had it in my hand.
Let me change your mind
I've changed the text some to make it more readable as I'm sure a lot of pll were too lazy to read it. It is now catagorized. "What Do We Say To Death? Not Today" is for dmg spells with healing attacked to them.
Let me change your mind
*looks at OP*, holy wall of text batman. That's way too much effort given the game isn't even beta yet, and there are some inevitable rule changes/clarifications incoming.
Yh I have no life :(
Let me change your mind
Though I will probably keep updating this long after the game launches as this right now is the deck I want. It started out with "what cards I will definately have on my priest". So I will follow the same niche as the game changes.
Let me change your mind
yeh, shadowpriest burn deck style of play really looks appealing to me at the moment.