Hearthpwn

I climb rank 20-10 with N'Zoth Priest in Wild mode, as you can carry those old Deathrattle faces: Sludge Belcher x2, Shredder x2, Dark Cultist x2. N'Zoth Priest is very superior there. Since it's Wild mode, I have to tech in 2x Eater of Secrets and Shadow Word: Horror (this is amazing against Secret Paladins, Zoo, and Aggro Shaman)

I will try N'Zoth Priest in Standard mode soon =] 

Great OP, btw! 

Quote from comvarrior >>

+1 for the post, we should encourage players to do this for every archetype...

To the topic: OP, why is N'zoth Priest superior to N'zoth Paladin? with Wild Pyromancer/Equality/Consecration Paladin appears to have more efficient and effective sweepers, they also have great soft-removal (Keeper of Uldaman, Aldor Peacekeeper) and another awesome deathrattle minion with Tirion Fordring. They also outshine Priest in terms of healing imo, as they can play 2 Forbidden Healing and Ragnaros, Lightlord

Yes, i acknowledge that Priest is great at fatigue games but once N'zoth hits the board, you´re gonna have a hard time getting to fatigue, as you have no way of clearing lots of big minions with Lightbomb gone. There also don´t seem to be too many fatigue decks around these days.

We should write up some match up guides for this deck, and the various card choices and why they are good or bad for the specific matchups. This would help with making meta card choices as well. I will make an attempt later, but I have been doing nothing but daily quests for the past like year or so in hopes of the game becoming fun enough for me to want to actually play more than that. Now I think it's pretty fun and standard is great, I love this deck and I'll play more and try to see if I can give any decent input. Hopefully people will respond to what I say with way better ideas. I've never been legend, been to rank 1 several times with different classes, then I'd say to myself "no! I must get legend with shaman!" and proceed to lose ranks and say screw it and give up. Which is why I only play for the daily quests up until the past few days. 

So yea, later today or tomorrow I'm going to make an attempt at matchup specifics, strategies, card choices and such.

BTW I'm using Infested Tauren now and its actually great.  It seems to make up for a lot of problems I was having in early-mid game situations.

I'm rank 10 with Nzoth priest right now. I've been having a hard time finding the right balance and synergy between cards.

1) Without northshire clerics, you have very little card draw. Without blademasters you have no real good target for healing. Your 4 drops either have 3 hp or are reserved for combo clear. Best case you shield something and then can heal it. So I've been running blademasters. You could run loot hoarders, but you don't ever want to see them a second time when Nzoth is dropped. Usually those games are going into fatigue.

2) Shades are solid gold and it's worth running curators because you get more shades most of the time. Forget corrupted healbots and Cairne, you just need 2 shades and two curators to get more shades. I regularly drop 2 by midgame and often get a game winning card. I've gotten Ysera ( 4 times in the same game lol), grom, call of the wild, you name it. Great vs everything and especially great vs any game going into fatigue and better still vs another priest running 2x entombs. Shades (and a well timed circle combo are what wins vs dragon priest)

3) I have had some success with abominations, but I'm not running it now. They are fantastic as a 1 of vs shaman and zoo. 

4) Rarely does dropping Nzoth win me the game. 

5) Forbidden Shaping is very good to me. Seriously, what else are you dropping on turn 3? And you can just hold it for the 8 cost on any game going long. Only anamalous is a bad draw really.

The big problems I face are that most games are tempo warrior, mirror matches, hunter, rogue, shaman, and freeze mage. The only one of those that feels like a favorable match up is shaman and the mirror matches. The rest of the meta is hard for priest. Tempo warrior, hunter, rogue, and freeze mage are all pretty terrible. And any face deck is just a dice roll on whether you draw your board clears in time.

Unfortunately, no longer is 1/3 of the meta c'thun druid and warrior. What priest really needs is a solid 3 drop or 2. Blademaster seems like the only good option in that slot. I'll have strings of games against rogue and then a game against a tempo warrior next. It feels too much like rock paper scissors out there. About 70% of the games you are slightly favored but the other 30% just hard counters you. If you lose 90% of the 30% games, you have to win 67% of the other games to break even. But the other match ups aren't that heavily favored for you.

I'm running into too many 0% win match ups. Not sure what to do.

1) How do I beat patron that can do 30 damage from hand before they hit combo reliably?

2) How do I beat miracle rogue reliably?

There are other match ups that are bad, but you are just easy pickings for those two match ups.

Quote from lovejohnny >>

I'm running into too many 0% win match ups. Not sure what to do.

1) How do I beat patron that can do 30 damage from hand before they hit combo reliably?

2) How do I beat miracle rogue reliably?

There are other match ups that are bad, but you are just easy pickings for those two match ups.

It's not the patrons that get me. It's the OTK they also run with worgen. I can't apply enough pressure to kill them before they draw their combo.

Quote from lovejohnny >>

I'm rank 10 with Nzoth priest right now. I've been having a hard time finding the right balance and synergy between cards.

1) Without northshire clerics, you have very little card draw. Without blademasters you have no real good target for healing. Your 4 drops either have 3 hp or are reserved for combo clear. Best case you shield something and then can heal it. So I've been running blademasters. You could run loot hoarders, but you don't ever want to see them a second time when Nzoth is dropped. Usually those games are going into fatigue.

2) Shades are solid gold and it's worth running curators because you get more shades most of the time. Forget corrupted healbots and Cairne, you just need 2 shades and two curators to get more shades. I regularly drop 2 by midgame and often get a game winning card. I've gotten Ysera ( 4 times in the same game lol), grom, call of the wild, you name it. Great vs everything and especially great vs any game going into fatigue and better still vs another priest running 2x entombs. Shades (and a well timed circle combo are what wins vs dragon priest)

3) I have had some success with abominations, but I'm not running it now. They are fantastic as a 1 of vs shaman and zoo. 

4) Rarely does dropping Nzoth win me the game. 

5) Forbidden Shaping is very good to me. Seriously, what else are you dropping on turn 3? And you can just hold it for the 8 cost on any game going long. Only anamalous is a bad draw really.

The big problems I face are that most games are tempo warrior, mirror matches, hunter, rogue, shaman, and freeze mage. The only one of those that feels like a favorable match up is shaman and the mirror matches. The rest of the meta is hard for priest. Tempo warrior, hunter, rogue, and freeze mage are all pretty terrible. And any face deck is just a dice roll on whether you draw your board clears in time.

Unfortunately, no longer is 1/3 of the meta c'thun druid and warrior. What priest really needs is a solid 3 drop or 2. Blademaster seems like the only good option in that slot. I'll have strings of games against rogue and then a game against a tempo warrior next. It feels too much like rock paper scissors out there. About 70% of the games you are slightly favored but the other 30% just hard counters you. If you lose 90% of the 30% games, you have to win 67% of the other games to break even. But the other match ups aren't that heavily favored for you.

I've been playing N'Zoth Priest almost exclusively this season, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

While the games are slow I have to say it feels like a really solid choice in the current meta. It's a deck that gives you the options to fight most anything you'll encounter, and has the benefit of a lot of tech choices depending on what you're facing. Losing access to Lightbomb is not great, but the aoe the deck does have access too is still usually enough. I haven't run in to too many boards that require it over the aoe we have now.

Midrange strategies with a lot of 4 power minions and combo decks are the matchups I find to be the most difficult. Fortunately, decks like Miracle Rogue and Freeze Mage are not the easiest to play, and so make up a smaller portion of the meta than their strength would suggest they might. The popular decks tend to be 50/50 to favorable, depending on your build, so it's really up to you what you want to target. The deck has around six easily flexible slots, so work in what you need.

Among its advantages is the existence of a matchup that feels nigh unlosable in N'Zoth Paladin, though I suspect the deck will be less popular moving forward as it's more suited to tournament play than ladder given the complexity of the decision trees and time required to win. Your answers line up so efficiently with their limited threats that unless they get an early Monkey you almost can't lose. Paladin doesn't have a great way to pressure your life, and their best bet is usually just to never actually play their Tirion. Not a bad place to be.

One failing of the deck is that it can sometimes fall to the "drawing the wrong part of the deck" problem. Against Zoo and Shaman you basically must draw into two board clears (at least with the version I've been running). Sometimes you'll simply not draw those, or not draw early interaction, and lose. Remember to accept those games and just move to the next one. he deck can pretty easily maintain in the neighborhood of a 65% winrate even accounting for those games, but you have to devote the time to learning the deck and matchups.

More than most other decks I've played, N'Zoth Priest requires you to have a plan. That is, identify the matchup as soon as possible, and identify what the game is going to be about. Similar to playing Warrior against a Freeze Mage where all you really care about is generating as much armor as possible, N'Zoth Priest is at its best when you can develop a plan early and stick to it. Often this means identifying the key cards in a matchup and mulliganing aggressively for them. Look for Pain and aoe against shaman, for example, or Entomb against Paladin. 

It's a fun deck, and very powerful. If the meta shifts it could be a poor choice, but as it stands I think it's a strong deck that can bring you however high you want to go on the ladder if you put in the time.

Speaking as someone who's been playing a lot of N'Zoth Paladin lately:  N'Zoth Priest is the one deck that has consistently given me problems.   Having said that,  I have beaten it with my Paladin deck.   But it's a very unfavorable match up.  

Which led me to try N'Zoth Priest out myself,  and though I definitely like the deck,  I have a much easier time against Aggro Shaman & Zoo Warlock using N'Zoth Paladin.    The Priest version feels like requires a perfect draw against those decks.

I have Chillmaw and Deathwing, Dragonlord as the only dragons in both my N'Zoth priest and pally decks, and they are often game winners.  Late game you can either damage opposing minions or get a big taunt for free, depending on play order.  And then N'Zoth becomes huge when these revive.

Quote from comvarrior >>

+1 for the post, we should encourage players to do this for every archetype...

To the topic: OP, why is N'zoth Priest superior to N'zoth Paladin? with Wild Pyromancer/Equality/Consecration Paladin appears to have more efficient and effective sweepers, they also have great soft-removal (Keeper of Uldaman, Aldor Peacekeeper) and another awesome deathrattle minion with Tirion Fordring. They also outshine Priest in terms of healing imo, as they can play 2 Forbidden Healing and Ragnaros, Lightlord

Yes, i acknowledge that Priest is great at fatigue games but once N'zoth hits the board, you´re gonna have a hard time getting to fatigue, as you have no way of clearing lots of big minions with Lightbomb gone. There also don´t seem to be too many fatigue decks around these days.

Quote from cooperdb >>

hey guys,

would you suggest crafting Justiciar Trueheart or Harrison Jones? 

Which one is more important for N'Zoth Priest?

I have got enough dust for only one of them.

 

Quote from Coagulant >>

I have Chillmaw and Deathwing, Dragonlord as the only dragons in both my N'Zoth priest and pally decks, and they are often game winners.  Late game you can either damage opposing minions or get a big taunt for free, depending on play order.  And then N'Zoth becomes huge when these revive.

Great post! Thx you man! :)