There will be an explosion of priest hype players, that's for sure. Will it be the new OP? That remains to be seen for me in MSG. The cards that make the current meta function aren't cycling for at least a few months until the next adventure and priest, as a control oriented class still typically loses out to midrange, which is an area shaman happily has been residing in for some time. Miracle rogue, Freeze Mage and Anyfin paladin also are favored against priest, so I'm hardly worried that priest will be the next T0 contender like we're seeing with shaman.
If priest gets popular there are plenty of other already existing archetypes that are waiting in the wings to counter the crap out of them. Once BRM, TgT and LoE cycle it's anyone's guess.
miracle, and rogue in general, won't be favorite vs priest anymore.
Tiny madness wrecks their early play completely (huckster) and dragonfire wrecks every minion of their deck regardless if it's stealthed or not.
Since both dragonfire and auctioneer come out at the same time, you only face a miracle without any sort of ability to perform miracles.
If the game slows down enough to where priest would be strong I think that rogue might actually be able to explore some of its greedier tools and archetypes for once. A shadowcaster machine will completely screw over a fatigue win condition for long game decks and does not care about board clears. C'thun rogue may also see more play, which is an OTK condition that doesn't use auctioneer and suitably counters the feared dragon board presence that people complain priest will have. Mill rogue may also thrive since people will be playing more late game decks and can't dump hand to kill you.
Auctioneer has been a core card for rogue for a long time, but afaik not too many rogue cards have been released yet from MSG and it may be that auctioneer may not be as needed as it is now for rogue to function.
maybe , but I don't think so:
3 cards revealed, 4 if you include the triclass discover and they are not good enough.
Maybe THE best, greediest card rogue has (anub) is a huge liability due to entomb. They have now enough board clears to deal with however many nzoths rogue can throw at them.
Etc
I really see no wincon for rogue vs priest as it stands now.
And even cthun or shadowcaster engine, can be countered. cthun by not playing big minions and shadowcaster by entomb .
Plus even if they become favored (a bit) vs priest, they lose to everything faster than a snail. So certainly not worth it to have a tiny advantage vs 1 class and a huge disadvantage vs everything else, even IF the meta becomes something crazy like 50% priests.
Priest will almost always win fatigue games though because of Entomb and their healing. Nothing like a card that silences and destroys your sylvanas, gives them a sylvanas and adds a card to their deck to avoid fatigue. They don't even need to run Elise because they can just entomb your Golden Monkey which is just as good if not better.
Not even close because of the difference in mechanics between the two classes. Shaman's power lies in overstatted early game drops in sacrifice of mana the following turn (overload). What it appears the new set will allow priest to do is compete for board presence against the decks that have been currently defining the meta. Losing against a priest will not feel as bad as losing against a shaman, that's for sure. I welcome the idea of there being new tier 1 decks. I'm tired of shaman
Will it really be the new Shaman? I mean that people play Shaman because 1) It's Strong 2) it's quite fast games and 3) it has no bad match ups so to speak. Will it be strong? Looks like it! Will it be fast? Not really. Which means that players might go to fastest classes even if they have to relinquish some winrate % for it (unless they change the way ladder is working). Priest has bad match ups like it has already been pointed out.
So overall my guess would be that Priest will be back on the map but it won't be as played as Shaman currently or Undertaker Hunter.
There will always be a Shaman/Paladin/Warrior/Hunter in the meta at the point we are in the meta, where it's been solved to the point we have a pool of viable decks and the churn is pretty much all in the tug of war between a) the top deck, b) the top deck's counters, c) the top deck's counter counters. It's inevitable, and I think while Shaman is certainly the strongest by a decent margin... it isn't exactly the end of the world, this is just how card games in general will tend to work. Shaman has decks it is weak to, just like Secret Paladin, just like Patron Warrior, etc.
That being said, I think people overestimate how strong the slow Priest decks are going to be; we've had powerful, powerful tools in Control Priest for a very long time but the popularity of a reactive deck is just always going to be lower. Even when we had Lightbomb and were the ultimate Secret Paladin counter, people shied away from Priest because of the skill-floor and simply the fact the games were almost always going to be longer than they wanted to deal with. Dragon Priest is certainly not a fast deck, but it's proactive; if any sort of Priest is going to become super popular THIS is the archetype that will draw people. Now, we could see a Control variant (similar to Warrior, there are a couple of viable variants of Dragon)... but the midrange variant is undoubtedly what we'd see flood the ladder because generally people want shorter games than Control Priest is ever going to offer.
We're never going to have a Control meta not because Control sucks or doesn't have tools, it's because the majority of people hate playing decks that take forever to win/lose, and the ladder is structured to promote winrate over a large number of games played. The push for Reno decks for Kabal classes might change that a little bit (people do enjoy Reno a lot), but overall those are a small portion of the current meta for essentially the exact reason I listed; people want shorter games, Reno decks rarely ever take a small amount of time.
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I don't think this expansion alone will break Priest just as WotOG didn't break Shaman on its own. Tunnel TroggTotem GolemTuskarr Totemic and Rockbiter Weapon all existed long before Flamewreathed Faceless and Thing from Below. I agree that power creep cards like the new Battlecry Dark Cultist feel an awful lot like Tuskarr Totemic did when they first released it; a card with obvious, insanely high ceiling of value early game with an already relatively high floor. For me, it seems like Priest is getting put in a better position to deal with aggressive and mid-range type decks, which admittedly means a deck that can already house control matchups with Entomb is being well positioned all the way around. I could absolutely see a midrange dragon priest moving way up in the rankings, but I don't think the spoiled cards alone are going to do it. Most of them are pretty situationally strong, unlike something like Flamewreathed which was just too much of a power-push trying to feel out "How bad is Overload?"
Priest can't be broken before Blizz ll give him agro oriented deck (i don't see something like that today). Priest close to OP in full control meta, it was about month in close beta, then HS moved to agro\midrange meta and priest becomes worse. Today meta full agro curve oriented, maybe new board clears and healing potentials will stop that, but, i think, agro goons will be so good and meta ll be still agro oriented, but priest can be a thing.
Priest won't be the "New Shaman" - if you've been at Hearthpwn long enough you will know that Shaman struggled for a long time to "gitgud" as a class, and then it's time finally arrived.... Priest is something different. Priest was always a class that was inherently powerful and only made weak by the comparative power level of the other classes.
Well, not this time - we are going to see what going #FullPriest looks like, so hold onto your butts because it ain't going to be pretty:
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"Speculation is foolish when the tools of certainty are available." —Cinna, Vedalken Consul
And so what if it is? Every class needs thier day in the sun. Pally got their time, Shaman after, now Priest. Question is what will be the worst class after MSG? My bet is on Druid...
I'm kinda hoping Warrior get's the suckage bat but it doesn't seem like it with MSG.
Priest will never been Shaman levels of popular for a simple reason: People don't want to play complicated decks over long games. They want to play quick games with simple decks. Go look at two of the most popular decks in hearthstone ever, Midranged Hunter (Classic) and Secret Paladin (TGT). They weren't even the best decks in their meta! Miracle Rogue in classic and Patron Warrior in TGT were both better. But they were hard to pilot and played longer games.
TL;DR: Priest would be more like Miracle rogue or Patron Warrior than Midranged shaman, Midranged Hunter, Huntertaker, etc if it ever became "op"
Priest will never been Shaman levels of popular for a simple reason: People don't want to play complicated decks over long games. They want to play quick games with simple decks. Go look at two of the most popular decks in hearthstone ever, Midranged Hunter (Classic) and Secret Paladin (TGT). They weren't even the best decks in their meta! Miracle Rogue in classic and Patron Warrior in TGT were both better. But they were hard to pilot and played longer games.
TL;DR: Priest would be more like Miracle rogue or Patron Warrior than Midranged shaman, Midranged Hunter, Huntertaker, etc if it ever became "op"
You are very correct - it is my sincerest hope that the primary limiting factor of a priest meta is that too few players will be actually competent enough to pilot Control Priest to a point of meta dominance.
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"Speculation is foolish when the tools of certainty are available." —Cinna, Vedalken Consul
Priest will never been Shaman levels of popular for a simple reason: People don't want to play complicated decks over long games. They want to play quick games with simple decks. Go look at two of the most popular decks in hearthstone ever, Midranged Hunter (Classic) and Secret Paladin (TGT). They weren't even the best decks in their meta! Miracle Rogue in classic and Patron Warrior in TGT were both better. But they were hard to pilot and played longer games.
TL;DR: Priest would be more like Miracle rogue or Patron Warrior than Midranged shaman, Midranged Hunter, Huntertaker, etc if it ever became "op"
It won't be the new shaman. Nobody ever won a game on turn 6 by clearing the board unless opponent rages and concedes. Midrange shaman is strong vs both aggro and control and generally doesn't have many bad matchups. The new control priest will still struggle vs combo decks. They will still have to deal with the same problems they have today... Mage and hunter will still be bad matchups just due to the residual face damage or sticky boards that those decks constantly push out. Priest will still be digging their decks for answers and if they don't draw well they will lose. They still lack reliable card draw, so even if they have all the answers on curve, vs aggro they can quickly run out of cards in the mid to late game. Priest has never been able to build their own side of the board while controlling the other, so when they do manage to drop a minion it dies hard to hex and polymorph. I think Mage is the class we need to worry about with the new potion of polymorph and 0 mana 5/5 after playing free secrets... that sounds rage inducing imo.
No let's stick with the Shaman meta.
Said no one ever.
We haven't seen the Shaman cards yet. I'm more scared of Shaman being the new Shaman.
Not even close because of the difference in mechanics between the two classes. Shaman's power lies in overstatted early game drops in sacrifice of mana the following turn (overload). What it appears the new set will allow priest to do is compete for board presence against the decks that have been currently defining the meta. Losing against a priest will not feel as bad as losing against a shaman, that's for sure. I welcome the idea of there being new tier 1 decks. I'm tired of shaman
Will it really be the new Shaman? I mean that people play Shaman because 1) It's Strong 2) it's quite fast games and 3) it has no bad match ups so to speak. Will it be strong? Looks like it! Will it be fast? Not really. Which means that players might go to fastest classes even if they have to relinquish some winrate % for it (unless they change the way ladder is working). Priest has bad match ups like it has already been pointed out.
So overall my guess would be that Priest will be back on the map but it won't be as played as Shaman currently or Undertaker Hunter.
I returned to this game much like how a recovering alcoholic can relapse.
There will always be a Shaman/Paladin/Warrior/Hunter in the meta at the point we are in the meta, where it's been solved to the point we have a pool of viable decks and the churn is pretty much all in the tug of war between a) the top deck, b) the top deck's counters, c) the top deck's counter counters. It's inevitable, and I think while Shaman is certainly the strongest by a decent margin... it isn't exactly the end of the world, this is just how card games in general will tend to work. Shaman has decks it is weak to, just like Secret Paladin, just like Patron Warrior, etc.
That being said, I think people overestimate how strong the slow Priest decks are going to be; we've had powerful, powerful tools in Control Priest for a very long time but the popularity of a reactive deck is just always going to be lower. Even when we had Lightbomb and were the ultimate Secret Paladin counter, people shied away from Priest because of the skill-floor and simply the fact the games were almost always going to be longer than they wanted to deal with. Dragon Priest is certainly not a fast deck, but it's proactive; if any sort of Priest is going to become super popular THIS is the archetype that will draw people. Now, we could see a Control variant (similar to Warrior, there are a couple of viable variants of Dragon)... but the midrange variant is undoubtedly what we'd see flood the ladder because generally people want shorter games than Control Priest is ever going to offer.
We're never going to have a Control meta not because Control sucks or doesn't have tools, it's because the majority of people hate playing decks that take forever to win/lose, and the ladder is structured to promote winrate over a large number of games played. The push for Reno decks for Kabal classes might change that a little bit (people do enjoy Reno a lot), but overall those are a small portion of the current meta for essentially the exact reason I listed; people want shorter games, Reno decks rarely ever take a small amount of time.
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I don't think this expansion alone will break Priest just as WotOG didn't break Shaman on its own. Tunnel Trogg Totem Golem Tuskarr Totemic and Rockbiter Weapon all existed long before Flamewreathed Faceless and Thing from Below. I agree that power creep cards like the new Battlecry Dark Cultist feel an awful lot like Tuskarr Totemic did when they first released it; a card with obvious, insanely high ceiling of value early game with an already relatively high floor. For me, it seems like Priest is getting put in a better position to deal with aggressive and mid-range type decks, which admittedly means a deck that can already house control matchups with Entomb is being well positioned all the way around. I could absolutely see a midrange dragon priest moving way up in the rankings, but I don't think the spoiled cards alone are going to do it. Most of them are pretty situationally strong, unlike something like Flamewreathed which was just too much of a power-push trying to feel out "How bad is Overload?"
Balancing busted cards version 1.0.
Priest can't be broken before Blizz ll give him agro oriented deck (i don't see something like that today). Priest close to OP in full control meta, it was about month in close beta, then HS moved to agro\midrange meta and priest becomes worse. Today meta full agro curve oriented, maybe new board clears and healing potentials will stop that, but, i think, agro goons will be so good and meta ll be still agro oriented, but priest can be a thing.
Priest won't be the "New Shaman" - if you've been at Hearthpwn long enough you will know that Shaman struggled for a long time to "gitgud" as a class, and then it's time finally arrived.... Priest is something different. Priest was always a class that was inherently powerful and only made weak by the comparative power level of the other classes.
Well, not this time - we are going to see what going #FullPriest looks like, so hold onto your butts because it ain't going to be pretty:
"Speculation is foolish when the tools of certainty are available." —Cinna, Vedalken Consul
I wont mind if priest is for once the op deck
Priest will never been Shaman levels of popular for a simple reason: People don't want to play complicated decks over long games. They want to play quick games with simple decks. Go look at two of the most popular decks in hearthstone ever, Midranged Hunter (Classic) and Secret Paladin (TGT). They weren't even the best decks in their meta! Miracle Rogue in classic and Patron Warrior in TGT were both better. But they were hard to pilot and played longer games.
TL;DR: Priest would be more like Miracle rogue or Patron Warrior than Midranged shaman, Midranged Hunter, Huntertaker, etc if it ever became "op"
"Speculation is foolish when the tools of certainty are available." —Cinna, Vedalken Consul
I think you're getting ahead of yourself.
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It won't be the new shaman. Nobody ever won a game on turn 6 by clearing the board unless opponent rages and concedes. Midrange shaman is strong vs both aggro and control and generally doesn't have many bad matchups. The new control priest will still struggle vs combo decks. They will still have to deal with the same problems they have today... Mage and hunter will still be bad matchups just due to the residual face damage or sticky boards that those decks constantly push out. Priest will still be digging their decks for answers and if they don't draw well they will lose. They still lack reliable card draw, so even if they have all the answers on curve, vs aggro they can quickly run out of cards in the mid to late game. Priest has never been able to build their own side of the board while controlling the other, so when they do manage to drop a minion it dies hard to hex and polymorph. I think Mage is the class we need to worry about with the new potion of polymorph and 0 mana 5/5 after playing free secrets... that sounds rage inducing imo.