I wanted to create this thread because I, and I think a lot of others, are very interested in seeing Blizzard give more support to Odd/Even Priest.
For one, I think there is a definite, but small, cult following for Odd Priest. I’m always excited to see a new Odd Priest build (and now even seeing some dabbling in Even Priest now). I think that a lot of people who have not played Odd Priest before might question why you would make a Priest deck Odd. If you have played around with Odd Priest, you know who powerful the hero power healing is. It’s great for control because you can make more valuable trades. You can also bring yourself back from the dead, so to speak, faster than your opponent expects. A lot of the thief cards being Odd also support the control aspect of Odd Thief. I think that Blizzard may be laying a foundation for this Odd archetype in later expansions with cards like Surrender to Madness, Spirit of the Dead and Bwonsamdi. As far as control decks, if Blizzard would release another card that requires you to control the game until your deck runs out or you fatigue, such as Mecha’ thun or Hakkar, the Soulflayer that was Odd, it would be nuts for Odd Priest (I do think that kind of thing will be come a trend for every expansion which is a new win condition card that is nuetral).
So, why would we want to play Even Priest? I haven’t explored this much, but if you wanted to heal very often every turn, then it would make sense to play. More self damage cards like Ornery Tortoise would be be great for Even Priest, except that card was Odd. If we had more cards like this, there would be more incentive to play Even Priest, much like why people play Zoolock by trading self damage for fast cards, then healing with cards like Vodoo Doctor. Also, Even Priest needs one really strong card that gives it support like a Black Cat or Glitter Moth.
What are your thoughts and ideas about Odd/Even Priest and the future of it?
What kind of cards would you like to see Blizzard print for Odd/Even Priest and what kind of strategy would you like to see it support?
i’m going to post some card ideas for Odd/Even priest. I welcome feedback and would like to see card ideas from others.
Feels to me that they wanted to keep all Auchenai effects as "Even" effects. If Auchenai slotted into "Odd" we would have a much stronger deck.
Right now, I think Even Priest with Talanji is an "OKAY" deck. The core of the deck is essentially the Dragon Package for early AOE, Bone Drakes (Talanji Fuel), Mechanized Pinata (Talanji Fuel), and Undatakah (More Talanji Fuel). Firewitch Doctors give you early game spells to contest the board. And then you have the Auchenai package with Circle of Healing/Regenerate/1 Mana Hero power to fight for board.
Straight up loses to decks with value, though. Auto lose to Warrior and DK Rexxar.
I think giving support to odd/even decks a mistake. The payoff for handicapping yourself already exists: upgrading your hero power. Creating cards that increases this payoff tends to create a situation in that odd/even decks are way stronger that it's vanilla counterparts.
But don't take my opinion too seriously: I think the introduction of the odd/even mechanic a stupid move for the game.
I think giving support to odd/even decks a mistake. The payoff for handicapping yourself already exists: upgrading your hero power. Creating cards that increases this payoff tends to create a situation in that odd/even decks are way stronger that it's vanilla counterparts.
But don't take my opinion too seriously: I think the introduction of the odd/even mechanic a stupid move for the game.
I see your point, but Pandora’s box is open and archetypes like Odd Rouge, Even Shaman and Even Paladin currently receive an unbalanced advantage over other classes. Even Rouge got support this latest expansion... I think if Blizzard is going to release nuetral cards like Baku and Genn, they should give support to all classes and not just some.
I think giving support to odd/even decks a mistake. The payoff for handicapping yourself already exists: upgrading your hero power. Creating cards that increases this payoff tends to create a situation in that odd/even decks are way stronger that it's vanilla counterparts.
But don't take my opinion too seriously: I think the introduction of the odd/even mechanic a stupid move for the game.
I Agree - call me a traditionalist but I think you should have to draw and play cards for them to do anything in a card game....
I actually made odd priest in witchwood and had a lot of success with it. It's a lot like your typical Inner Fire deck, but more fun imo. You build a moderately sized board, then play Glitter Moth [/card] and [card]Void Ripper and murder them.
I like odd Priest. Glitter Moth/Void Ripper seems close to being viable. Unfortunately the second part of that combo is about to rotation out, which will sap the combo potential and just turn it into a pure midrange build.
Issue I have is that Priest doesn't really have a high impact on curve 3-drop right now. Odd Priest will often include Injured Blademaster, but not as an on-curve play. Same for Omega Medic. It doesn't have anything snowbally like Hench-Clan Thug. If they print a more threatening 3-drop for Priest in the future, it could go a long way towards helping the archetype out. Otherwise the deck just takes too long to get rolling.
Problem with both decks is the lack of payoff from the hero power.
Even means you want to Hero Power on turn 1. That'S why all currently existing Even decks have proactive hero powers that actually do something. Even Priest will always have to pass turn one.
Problem with ODd Priest is similar. Odd decks usually want to get the advantage of having their upgraded hero power from the start (as opposed to Justicar's turn 6 effect). Odd Priest power doesn't do much either. You can't overheal yourself like Warrior so it only works if take damage or have a minion on board, which further means that if you somehow miss a 1-drop you're pretty much boned as you get to do nothing for 2 turns.
Zetalot actually built an odd priest deck with VOid ripper and GLitter moth that looked pretty okay, but okoay doesn'T cut it when you compare it to all the other broken shit in the meta right now.
Problem with both decks is the lack of payoff from the hero power.
Even means you want to Hero Power on turn 1. That'S why all currently existing Even decks have proactive hero powers that actually do something. Even Priest will always have to pass turn one.
Problem with ODd Priest is similar. Odd decks usually want to get the advantage of having their upgraded hero power from the start (as opposed to Justicar's turn 6 effect). Odd Priest power doesn't do much either. You can't overheal yourself like Warrior so it only works if take damage or have a minion on board, which further means that if you somehow miss a 1-drop you're pretty much boned as you get to do nothing for 2 turns.
Zetalot actually built an odd priest deck with VOid ripper and GLitter moth that looked pretty okay, but okoay doesn'T cut it when you compare it to all the other broken shit in the meta right now.
What if there was a nuetral or Priest “0” cost card that gives you a benefit by taking damage? Such as draw two cards and take four damage for “0” cost. That would be perfect for even Priest. Well, not just for Even Priest. Other classes would love that, too.
I'm just hopeful Blizzard abandon's flipping high health minions as Priest's primary win condition. (This is what Glitter Moth was trying to accomplish in Odd decks). With Shadow Visions and Anduin rotating out.. I'm scared that this is what Blizzard is going to return to...
We will have to see what the big mechanic Blizzard is going to push in April 2019. Looks like its the year of the Wyrm (Dragons).. hopefully that means its time for some beefy minions and fights over control of the board.
I think it likely that Blizzard will print many synergistic cards for classes.. that happen to be Odd-Costed and Even-Costed to avoid ramping up the strength of Odd/Even decks. Priest might be the exception this rule. If it gets two beefy minions/spells that are both equally costed as odd/even... Priest might have something going for it.
Problem with both decks is the lack of payoff from the hero power.
Even means you want to Hero Power on turn 1. That'S why all currently existing Even decks have proactive hero powers that actually do something. Even Priest will always have to pass turn one.
Problem with ODd Priest is similar. Odd decks usually want to get the advantage of having their upgraded hero power from the start (as opposed to Justicar's turn 6 effect). Odd Priest power doesn't do much either. You can't overheal yourself like Warrior so it only works if take damage or have a minion on board, which further means that if you somehow miss a 1-drop you're pretty much boned as you get to do nothing for 2 turns.
Zetalot actually built an odd priest deck with VOid ripper and GLitter moth that looked pretty okay, but okoay doesn'T cut it when you compare it to all the other broken shit in the meta right now.
What if there was a nuetral or Priest “0” cost card that gives you a benefit by taking damage? Such as draw two cards and take four damage for “0” cost. That would be perfect for even Priest. Well, not just for Even Priest. Other classes would love that, too.
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
You are just further validating my point lol the hero power for mage is insane in odd mode which means the criteria of it being solid enough to sack all the even side of your collection but even a card like Black Cat which is specifically made for this archetype wasn't good enough so when other supporting cards like Daring Fire-EaterPyromaniac and Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk just gave the archetype the final push it needed to be viable but the strong foundation was already there.
Hearthstone is a tempo game, it doesn't matter what type of deck or archetype you're playing, tempo is always important, and even and odd decks always have some form of cheating out extra tempo which is the thing that makes them viable, priest's heal is so passive that it just cant push enough tempo and the times it could it would be just promoting a worse type of play which is trading a lot so you can heal the damage and generate tempo that way, cause the general rule is that you should always go face unless there's an insanely good reason to trade, and being able to heal the damage is a pretty mediocre (and kinda dumb) reason to trade instead of going face.
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
Also, why does Even Priest have to play something on turn one? Evenlock never wants to play on turn one and two if they have a Mountain Giant for turn three. What if Blizzard released more even cards for an Even Hand Priest acrchetype that gave a benefit for the number of cards in your hand, similar to Astromancer, along with some “0” and “2” cost cards that put cards back in your hand? Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake are both even and not going anywhere.
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
Also, why does Even Priest have to play something on turn one? Evenlock never wants to play on turn one and two if they have a Mountain Giant for turn three. What if Blizzard released more even cards for an Even Hand Priest acrchetype that gave a benefit for the number of cards in your hand, similar to Astromancer, along with some “0” and “2” cost cards that put cards back in your hand? Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake are both even and not going anywhere.
I never said you have to play something on turn 1 as an even deck, where do you get that from? If you read what I said you would realize that I say that the hero power has to DO something turn 1, and you gave the perfect explanation for that, Evenlock's hero power draws it a card every single time abd drawing cards is very powerful, also the only reason you choose to keep drawing in turn 2 instead of playing a 2-drop is again cause dropping the giant on turn 3 or 4 is more powerful and developes more tempo than a 2-drop on 2. Priest's hero power does not draw you cards which does not discount your giants which means you can only play it on turn 5 (or 4 with the coin) while also lowering your chances to actually draw the giants by A LOT cause you can't draw extra cards, so no, "hand even priest" won't be a deck lol
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
Also, why does Even Priest have to play something on turn one? Evenlock never wants to play on turn one and two if they have a Mountain Giant for turn three. What if Blizzard released more even cards for an Even Hand Priest acrchetype that gave a benefit for the number of cards in your hand, similar to Astromancer, along with some “0” and “2” cost cards that put cards back in your hand? Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake are both even and not going anywhere.
Evenlock plays even cards and 1 is an odd number, so it doesn't have any cards to play on T1. That's the point of even decks, you want to spam your hero power on odd turns to benefit by making big plays on even turns. Evenlock benefits from hero powering because it reduces the cost of giants and increases the health of drakes. Even Shaman spams hero power to get a big board to play giants and buff minions with flametongue totem and dire wolf alpha. What benefit does Even Priest gets from spamming hero power ? yeah it's nothing, and by going even you miss out on Hysteria and Scream.
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
Also, why does Even Priest have to play something on turn one? Evenlock never wants to play on turn one and two if they have a Mountain Giant for turn three. What if Blizzard released more even cards for an Even Hand Priest acrchetype that gave a benefit for the number of cards in your hand, similar to Astromancer, along with some “0” and “2” cost cards that put cards back in your hand? Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake are both even and not going anywhere.
Evenlock plays even cards and 1 is an odd number, so it doesn't have any cards to play on T1. That's the point of even decks, you want to spam your hero power on odd turns to benefit by making big plays on even turns. Evenlock benefits from hero powering because it reduces the cost of giants and increases the health of drakes. Even Shaman spams hero power to get a big board to play giants and buff minions with flametongue totem and dire wolf alpha. What benefit does Even Priest gets from spamming hero power ? yeah it's nothing, and by going even you miss out on Hysteria and Scream.
These are all great reasons why Blizzard needs to give us a reason to play Even Priest! Oh Blizzard, please help!!!! :-D
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I wanted to create this thread because I, and I think a lot of others, are very interested in seeing Blizzard give more support to Odd/Even Priest.
For one, I think there is a definite, but small, cult following for Odd Priest. I’m always excited to see a new Odd Priest build (and now even seeing some dabbling in Even Priest now). I think that a lot of people who have not played Odd Priest before might question why you would make a Priest deck Odd. If you have played around with Odd Priest, you know who powerful the hero power healing is. It’s great for control because you can make more valuable trades. You can also bring yourself back from the dead, so to speak, faster than your opponent expects. A lot of the thief cards being Odd also support the control aspect of Odd Thief. I think that Blizzard may be laying a foundation for this Odd archetype in later expansions with cards like Surrender to Madness, Spirit of the Dead and Bwonsamdi. As far as control decks, if Blizzard would release another card that requires you to control the game until your deck runs out or you fatigue, such as Mecha’ thun or Hakkar, the Soulflayer that was Odd, it would be nuts for Odd Priest (I do think that kind of thing will be come a trend for every expansion which is a new win condition card that is nuetral).
So, why would we want to play Even Priest? I haven’t explored this much, but if you wanted to heal very often every turn, then it would make sense to play. More self damage cards like Ornery Tortoise would be be great for Even Priest, except that card was Odd. If we had more cards like this, there would be more incentive to play Even Priest, much like why people play Zoolock by trading self damage for fast cards, then healing with cards like Vodoo Doctor. Also, Even Priest needs one really strong card that gives it support like a Black Cat or Glitter Moth.
What are your thoughts and ideas about Odd/Even Priest and the future of it?
What kind of cards would you like to see Blizzard print for Odd/Even Priest and what kind of strategy would you like to see it support?
i’m going to post some card ideas for Odd/Even priest. I welcome feedback and would like to see card ideas from others.
Feels to me that they wanted to keep all Auchenai effects as "Even" effects. If Auchenai slotted into "Odd" we would have a much stronger deck.
Right now, I think Even Priest with Talanji is an "OKAY" deck. The core of the deck is essentially the Dragon Package for early AOE, Bone Drakes (Talanji Fuel), Mechanized Pinata (Talanji Fuel), and Undatakah (More Talanji Fuel). Firewitch Doctors give you early game spells to contest the board. And then you have the Auchenai package with Circle of Healing/Regenerate/1 Mana Hero power to fight for board.
Straight up loses to decks with value, though. Auto lose to Warrior and DK Rexxar.
I think giving support to odd/even decks a mistake. The payoff for handicapping yourself already exists: upgrading your hero power. Creating cards that increases this payoff tends to create a situation in that odd/even decks are way stronger that it's vanilla counterparts.
But don't take my opinion too seriously: I think the introduction of the odd/even mechanic a stupid move for the game.
I'm playing even priest, it's alright but it's missing some core cards:
- card draw <- especially this
- More talanji targets (seance and bone drake aren't enough)
- Or a good win condition (instead of talanji)
The lack of card draw hurts the deck a lot.
Why u hav to be mad? is only card gaem.
I see your point, but Pandora’s box is open and archetypes like Odd Rouge, Even Shaman and Even Paladin currently receive an unbalanced advantage over other classes. Even Rouge got support this latest expansion... I think if Blizzard is going to release nuetral cards like Baku and Genn, they should give support to all classes and not just some.
I Agree - call me a traditionalist but I think you should have to draw and play cards for them to do anything in a card game....
I actually made odd priest in witchwood and had a lot of success with it. It's a lot like your typical Inner Fire deck, but more fun imo. You build a moderately sized board, then play Glitter Moth [/card] and [card]Void Ripper and murder them.
I like odd Priest. Glitter Moth/Void Ripper seems close to being viable. Unfortunately the second part of that combo is about to rotation out, which will sap the combo potential and just turn it into a pure midrange build.
Issue I have is that Priest doesn't really have a high impact on curve 3-drop right now. Odd Priest will often include Injured Blademaster, but not as an on-curve play. Same for Omega Medic. It doesn't have anything snowbally like Hench-Clan Thug. If they print a more threatening 3-drop for Priest in the future, it could go a long way towards helping the archetype out. Otherwise the deck just takes too long to get rolling.
Problem with both decks is the lack of payoff from the hero power.
Even means you want to Hero Power on turn 1. That'S why all currently existing Even decks have proactive hero powers that actually do something. Even Priest will always have to pass turn one.
Problem with ODd Priest is similar. Odd decks usually want to get the advantage of having their upgraded hero power from the start (as opposed to Justicar's turn 6 effect). Odd Priest power doesn't do much either. You can't overheal yourself like Warrior so it only works if take damage or have a minion on board, which further means that if you somehow miss a 1-drop you're pretty much boned as you get to do nothing for 2 turns.
Zetalot actually built an odd priest deck with VOid ripper and GLitter moth that looked pretty okay, but okoay doesn'T cut it when you compare it to all the other broken shit in the meta right now.
I tried having fun once. It was awful.
What if there was a nuetral or Priest “0” cost card that gives you a benefit by taking damage? Such as draw two cards and take four damage for “0” cost. That would be perfect for even Priest. Well, not just for Even Priest. Other classes would love that, too.
I'm just hopeful Blizzard abandon's flipping high health minions as Priest's primary win condition. (This is what Glitter Moth was trying to accomplish in Odd decks). With Shadow Visions and Anduin rotating out.. I'm scared that this is what Blizzard is going to return to...
We will have to see what the big mechanic Blizzard is going to push in April 2019. Looks like its the year of the Wyrm (Dragons).. hopefully that means its time for some beefy minions and fights over control of the board.
I think it likely that Blizzard will print many synergistic cards for classes.. that happen to be Odd-Costed and Even-Costed to avoid ramping up the strength of Odd/Even decks. Priest might be the exception this rule. If it gets two beefy minions/spells that are both equally costed as odd/even... Priest might have something going for it.
You can sort of do that with Crystallizer in odd priest. T1 Crystallizer --> T2 heal face + Happy Ghoul is a decent start.
Priest is never gonna make a good even deck for sure and it will hardly make a good odd deck, let me explain myself so you understand what I'm saying. First of all the reasoning behind choosing to make your deck even or odd is pretty simple and obviouse, the upgrade on the hero power, either making it 1 mana or giving ir the Justicar treatment every game at the start... Which this means is that the pay-off you get in form of the hero power has to be good enough for you to choose to hinder yourself and locking a bunch of cards out of your decbuildin process.
Having said that let's start with EVEN PRIEST, if you look at sucessful even archetypes they all have something in common: The 1-mana hero power has to be good enough to justify playin only even cards, and then obviously comes the question of are the even cards that I have available solid enough to also justify it but in reality it all comes down to the hero power, cause if it isn't good enough why wouldn'0t you just take this good even cards and play some odd ones and make a good deck right? But to more important than anything is the fact that al good even decks have the ability to do something on turn 1, that is the entire cornerstne of the even archetype. I'm not saying that heaing 2 hp for 1 mana isn't good but it does absolutely nothing for you on turn 1 leaving you to just pass, you can't heal if you are already on 30 and you obviously wouldn't have anything to heal on board, just look at succesful even archetypes, Paladin gets a dude on turn 1 every time, Shaman a totem, Warlock draws a card, even not so good ones like Rogue get solid enough turn 1s to justify the archetype and priest's 1-mana heal is just a do nothing on turn 1 and hope to get a 2-drop on time or keep doing nothing and so on.
Now Odd is a bit more intersting cause being able to heal for 4 is very good on paper and there's a card that supports the archetype and everything. But on practice it's still a 2-mana do nothing for a big portion of the game cause again, you can't heal for more than 30 and in the early game there's just nothing that's gonna need to be healed for 4, rarely something will need to get healed for 3 and at that point, again, it's not worth to not play any even cards to effectively not do much. Then it comes the fact that all succesful odd decks also heavily really on the quality of their cards, cards like Hench-Clan Thug , Cold Blood and Vilespine Slayer are too good and that can be said for every odd deck, the cards that they play may not always be the best in a vacuum but they serve an specific purpose that makes sense inside of this deck, Odd Priest has very few things that could make this kind of sense.
TL;DR: Both upgraded priest hero powers are way too passive which means they do absolutely nothing early into the game and that makes it impossible to justify making a deck that meets this criteria that's good enough to be seriosly competitive.
You have great/valid points. Hero power is the biggest deciding factor for choosing Odd/Even. I don’t believe it’s the only. For example, Black Cat was a pretty decent Odd card for mage. Also, two mana hero power for two damage to anything is insane for Odd mage. Yet, very few people were playing Odd Mage until the release of Rhastakan Rumble gave it several support cards to make it pretty decent. I’m not saying it will happen, but I could see a set of powerful zero cost cards and some others support cards over the next several expansions giving people a reason to play Even Priest. Others classes have very playable zero cost cards, namely Shaman, Paladin and Rouge. Never say never. ;-)
You are just further validating my point lol the hero power for mage is insane in odd mode which means the criteria of it being solid enough to sack all the even side of your collection but even a card like Black Cat which is specifically made for this archetype wasn't good enough so when other supporting cards like Daring Fire-Eater Pyromaniac and Jan'alai, the Dragonhawk just gave the archetype the final push it needed to be viable but the strong foundation was already there.
Hearthstone is a tempo game, it doesn't matter what type of deck or archetype you're playing, tempo is always important, and even and odd decks always have some form of cheating out extra tempo which is the thing that makes them viable, priest's heal is so passive that it just cant push enough tempo and the times it could it would be just promoting a worse type of play which is trading a lot so you can heal the damage and generate tempo that way, cause the general rule is that you should always go face unless there's an insanely good reason to trade, and being able to heal the damage is a pretty mediocre (and kinda dumb) reason to trade instead of going face.
Also, why does Even Priest have to play something on turn one? Evenlock never wants to play on turn one and two if they have a Mountain Giant for turn three. What if Blizzard released more even cards for an Even Hand Priest acrchetype that gave a benefit for the number of cards in your hand, similar to Astromancer, along with some “0” and “2” cost cards that put cards back in your hand? Mountain Giant and Twilight Drake are both even and not going anywhere.
T1 lifetap actively contributes to your hand size, though.
I never said you have to play something on turn 1 as an even deck, where do you get that from? If you read what I said you would realize that I say that the hero power has to DO something turn 1, and you gave the perfect explanation for that, Evenlock's hero power draws it a card every single time abd drawing cards is very powerful, also the only reason you choose to keep drawing in turn 2 instead of playing a 2-drop is again cause dropping the giant on turn 3 or 4 is more powerful and developes more tempo than a 2-drop on 2. Priest's hero power does not draw you cards which does not discount your giants which means you can only play it on turn 5 (or 4 with the coin) while also lowering your chances to actually draw the giants by A LOT cause you can't draw extra cards, so no, "hand even priest" won't be a deck lol
Evenlock plays even cards and 1 is an odd number, so it doesn't have any cards to play on T1. That's the point of even decks, you want to spam your hero power on odd turns to benefit by making big plays on even turns. Evenlock benefits from hero powering because it reduces the cost of giants and increases the health of drakes. Even Shaman spams hero power to get a big board to play giants and buff minions with flametongue totem and dire wolf alpha. What benefit does Even Priest gets from spamming hero power ? yeah it's nothing, and by going even you miss out on Hysteria and Scream.
These are all great reasons why Blizzard needs to give us a reason to play Even Priest! Oh Blizzard, please help!!!! :-D