I've been playing Spiteful Priest (see deck below) this season. I got to Rank 3 pretty easily, but after that I hit a wall. I decided to start tracking my games (probably should have been doing that before) and these are the results from the past 30 games.
Here are my two biggest takeaways: I had exactly a 50% win rate (obviously not great). I played against almost 50% Paladins (definitely not great).
Based off all that, I have a few questions:
Should I keep playing this deck?
Should I make different tech choices?
Is this a pretty typical spread of decks being played?
Typically i would say stick to one deck and learn how to pilot it well (so obviously you shouldn't switch), but Spiteful Priest isn't a very hard deck to pilot so by switching you won't be losing too much. Your tech choices seem pretty standard and you are already running the most effective cards against Paladins anyway. I used a Control Priest deck to hit legend this season and I found Cabal Shadow Priest to be pretty effective at swinging close games with paladin (but then again that deck had more board clears so I don't know that you would get much out of Shadow Priest with just 2 Twilight Acolytes.
- Is this a pretty typical spread of decks being played?
This isn't an easy question to answer, because it depends a lot on different factors outside of your control. Therefore, its better to focus on your own game, e.g. how you mulligan based on your opponent's class, how you handle losing a game (a tip I hear a lot is if you lose 3 times, stop playing so that you don't let tilt get to you). In the end, you need to realize that you will lose games, but if you can pilot a deck very well you will eventually make it, so long as you don't give up (and have the time ofc).
- What the hell beats Paladin?
I think that Control Priest and Control Warlock are probably the strongest decks that also have a very good winrate across the board. Cubelock is also pretty, but I think that is much closer. However, I think it is the wrong strategy to target one specific class at this point in the season and it shouldn't be the criteria off which you base your deck choice on. You could switch to one of these decks though to try and farm Paladins in the last few days of the season (as people start gravitating to more aggressive decks to be able to play more games).
- Should I be playing Paladin?
Well, tbh I despise the current Paladin playstyle, especially since it favors vomiting your hand into the board and refilling with the broken card that is Divine Favor, but it is definitely a stronger deck than Spiteful Priest and I don't think it has a very high learning curve.
In conclusion, I think that whether you change deck or stick to the one you have you shouldn't change too frequently, because its counter-productive. It is much better to improve your play rather than try to counter that of your opponent, especially in an environment as varied as Ranked Play. Learn that loss in a natural part of the cycle of the game and in this way you may learn to accept losses, but also try to think on what went wrong, did you get steamrolled without anything to do? (no reason to feel as bad, luck is a part of the game and a deciding factor in a few of them) or was it perhaps your fault? (in which case there is something to learn from your loss).
Hope that helps a bit. Good luck on your Legend grind.
Control warlock is favoured against both murloc and dude paladin so try switching to this deck,however maybe yu might try control priest,should be quite good too.
And then the second you do that you can lose to every deck that you beat as Priest, and beat every deck you lost to as priest to maintain your perfect 50% win rate and go nowhere!
I'd recommend you to use Warlock (Cube or Control, doesn't really matter). Both have a decent matchup against pally, given that the player knows how to pilot the deck which is far from easy, and both variants stand a good chance against various other decks.
...Or just switch to autopilot pally and enjoy winning and losing games in 6 turns, eventually you will end up in Legend.
Well, it might not help much, but I think your matchups with Jade Druid and combo priest are probably good enough without Geist. And that Glimmerroot doesn't seem to be doing a ton for you.
I'd try something like
- Geist - Glimmerroot +2 Mistress of Mixtures (or any other anti-aggro card you prefer)
I've been playing Spiteful Priest (see deck below) this season. I got to Rank 3 pretty easily, but after that I hit a wall. I decided to start tracking my games (probably should have been doing that before) and these are the results from the past 30 games.
Here are my two biggest takeaways: I had exactly a 50% win rate (obviously not great). I played against almost 50% Paladins (definitely not great).
Based off all that, I have a few questions:
Played Against (Win-Loss Record)
- Should I keep playing this deck?
Typically i would say stick to one deck and learn how to pilot it well (so obviously you shouldn't switch), but Spiteful Priest isn't a very hard deck to pilot so by switching you won't be losing too much. Your tech choices seem pretty standard and you are already running the most effective cards against Paladins anyway. I used a Control Priest deck to hit legend this season and I found Cabal Shadow Priest to be pretty effective at swinging close games with paladin (but then again that deck had more board clears so I don't know that you would get much out of Shadow Priest with just 2 Twilight Acolytes.
- Is this a pretty typical spread of decks being played?
This isn't an easy question to answer, because it depends a lot on different factors outside of your control. Therefore, its better to focus on your own game, e.g. how you mulligan based on your opponent's class, how you handle losing a game (a tip I hear a lot is if you lose 3 times, stop playing so that you don't let tilt get to you). In the end, you need to realize that you will lose games, but if you can pilot a deck very well you will eventually make it, so long as you don't give up (and have the time ofc).
- What the hell beats Paladin?
I think that Control Priest and Control Warlock are probably the strongest decks that also have a very good winrate across the board. Cubelock is also pretty, but I think that is much closer. However, I think it is the wrong strategy to target one specific class at this point in the season and it shouldn't be the criteria off which you base your deck choice on. You could switch to one of these decks though to try and farm Paladins in the last few days of the season (as people start gravitating to more aggressive decks to be able to play more games).
- Should I be playing Paladin?
Well, tbh I despise the current Paladin playstyle, especially since it favors vomiting your hand into the board and refilling with the broken card that is Divine Favor, but it is definitely a stronger deck than Spiteful Priest and I don't think it has a very high learning curve.
In conclusion, I think that whether you change deck or stick to the one you have you shouldn't change too frequently, because its counter-productive. It is much better to improve your play rather than try to counter that of your opponent, especially in an environment as varied as Ranked Play. Learn that loss in a natural part of the cycle of the game and in this way you may learn to accept losses, but also try to think on what went wrong, did you get steamrolled without anything to do? (no reason to feel as bad, luck is a part of the game and a deciding factor in a few of them) or was it perhaps your fault? (in which case there is something to learn from your loss).
Hope that helps a bit. Good luck on your Legend grind.
I'd recommend you to use Warlock (Cube or Control, doesn't really matter). Both have a decent matchup against pally, given that the player knows how to pilot the deck which is far from easy, and both variants stand a good chance against various other decks.
...Or just switch to autopilot pally and enjoy winning and losing games in 6 turns, eventually you will end up in Legend.
Well, it might not help much, but I think your matchups with Jade Druid and combo priest are probably good enough without Geist. And that Glimmerroot doesn't seem to be doing a ton for you.
I'd try something like
- Geist
- Glimmerroot
+2 Mistress of Mixtures (or any other anti-aggro card you prefer)
Galavant Animation
Spiteful Priest is probably good enough to hit legend but you will not hit legend with a 50% winrate.
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