Hearthpwn

I first want to say I myself play "Big Priest"(I don't know why it's not called reanimator or something), been playing it since day 1. This deck is so unhealthy for a game that wants to be seen as a "esport". Is it as good as druid? Probably not. But it's games have NOTHING to do with decision making, it's all about whether they draw barnes or not.

I  don't want to make this very long because I should be asleep actually lol, but I do find it concerning that everybody is complaining about druid, when this priest deck is complete garbage if you're wanting to play a competitive card game.

Because it's win ratio sucks.  I mean why else?

I have a feeling the types of decks that are very popular in the different regions are quite different. Just like pirate warrior was a lot more prevalent at the beginning of the month in NA and not to be seen in Europe. Not that there are no druids in EU but they are not as annoying at least at ranks 10-6.

because if you draw the wrong half of your deck it is almost a 100% loss vs aggro. The individual threats can be sapped, poly'd, hexed and dealt with without leaving behind a 30/30 golem to be followed up with a 31/31 the turn after because reasons.

People dont have a problem with big priest because it hasnt been around forever and isnt at all oppressive.  

Quote from Iplaywhite >>

because if you draw the wrong half of your deck it is almost a 100% loss vs aggro. The individual threats can be sapped, poly'd, hexed and dealt with without leaving behind a 30/30 golem to be followed up with a 31/31 the turn after because reasons.

Big priest is cheesy and not really an archetype that fits well into HS (because we have very little counterplay mechanics), but at least it has a lot of weaknesses. 

Yeah big priest is retarded, but after a certain amount of time you start to realise Blizzard won't learn their lesson about printing card with the word ''random'' on them.

Quote from Weikor >>

Both these decks are annoying, but at least against "big priest" I know that the game is a coinflip to some extent. Ill mulligan for a lot of  removals / silences - or ill counter it in my deck by running something like shadow madness. Or ill gamble hard as well and look for my best opening possible.

Even though the deck looks RNG from a priest perspective, there are actually some fun decisions involved - and even if your deck sucks against it, you feel like you have a chance if he doesnt draw barnes.

Now look at Druid.

If he has a good draw, i lose - if i dont draw geist, i lose. If I draw geist, and he draws most of his jade cards at the start of the game, i lose. Even if i think i might win it, he could innervate ultimate infestation and i lose.

There are basically 50 coinflips involved that want to make me lose to an already overpowered and opressive deck. Thats just infuriating.

Anyone who doesnt see how broken the interactions between druid cards are - doesnt know a lot about this game. A class that can summon 8/8+s, for 1 mana - can naturally not have the best draw engines in the game AND a bunch of ramp.

Its the holy trinity of overpowered - RAMP + Cheap big minions + insane draw.

Hmm by comparison Big Priests inconsistency is what makes it far less irritating than Druid. I compare Druid to playing a Control Deck in Magic, most people who play Magic will know a ridiculous amount of card draw will the vast majority of the time win you the game, drawing into all your answers is really unhealthy for a game that is meant to be based on variance and can be extremely oppressive. You can't win if your opponent draws the majority of their deck which generally will give them an answer for everything, Magic by comparison has counterplay for it but honestly there isn't much counterplay (besides Skulking Geist which if you don't draw into or play at a time where you have tempo generally loses you the game anyway) if any for Druid currently.

Compare this to Big Priest sure they can hitBarnes combo maybe one out of 3 games and Shadow Essence into big stuff but if they whiff with Shadow Essence into Barnes which is a 1 in 6 chance (usually) they lose. Kinda why I call the deck Russian Roulette lol. There is counterplay for it as well as Rogue if you have a dominant board you can Sap their Barnes creature, Shaman has Hex, Paladin has Equality clears and peacekeeper effects, Warlock has Siphon Soul, Blastcrystal Potion, Twisting Nether etc. Honestly list could go on but I don't want to spend all night typing every classes form of removal for Big Priest. The fact is there is counterplay for Big Priest but Jade Druid and Big Druid don't really have much counterplay for them.

Personally I don't feel Jade Druid was overpowered usually got stomped by Aggro/Midrange decks until it received massive powercreep in the form of cards like Ultimate Infestation and Spreading Plague. Some could argue yes it needed more card draw because it was very inconsistent pre-KoTFT but Infestation is probably a little too excessive and Spreading Plague is by far too overtuned 5 mana for a potential 7/35 taunt worth of stats? How could they really think that was balanced?

TLDR version; Big Priest is fine by comparison to Druid.

Jade druids are mostly complained about because of how consistent they are, which is huge in a game like hearthstone. If they don't draw ramp they can win with jades, if they don't draw jades they can win with ramp and ultimate infestations. It is just a really hard deck to beat right now. 

Big priest is called what it is mostly from that it plays big minions and Barnes. It has been around before just faster with cards like Resurrect and Injured Blademaster. 

What makes a game an "esport" at its core is viewership, so unless a deck hurts the playerbase (which in turn effects the viewership) it won't be changed or matter. Even then Blizzard may decide not to change it for whatever reason. I do agree though, a deck that can pretty much win on Barnes by or before turn 4 probably does not belong in the competitive scene.

Quote from Alski107 >>

Easy. Because Big Priest relies on high rolling to win games and is pretty bad on average

Big priest is only slightly more consistent than Renounce lock.  They are both REALLY good when they work, but the key there is WHEN.

Side note, it bugs me that the bar for "Unbeatable" and "Oppressive" is set at a 55% win rate.

As they have mentioned above,Big Priest have weaknesses. However Jade Druid is almost unbeatable in Standart even if you Skulking Geist him on turn 5 with coin

You really think they care that much about cards being balanced? All they do every expansion is pushing 1/2 classes to tier 1 while every other class is pushed to tier 2 and below thanks to some fucked up and literally boring (and easy to play with) in design cards.

If they ever tested cards like the mysterious challenger, ultimate infestation, spreading plague prior to their release, then they would have never released them in forms they look now. Either they have bad decks' testers/builders or they just dont care and prefer busted cards over balanced and fair match ups.

Just look at druids. All they had problems with were aggro decks. 5 mana card which wreck aggro - no more aggro problem for them. They even fixed a problem with card draw which wasnt even there in a first place. I guess blizzard just wanted to break deals with auctioneer.

Because HS shouldnt be called an esport game at first place. Competitive side of HS is pure joke, which only players who lack enough brain to get to skill cap level cant see. 

Almost everyone can become a pro player in HS given much less time, what is required for other competitive games. You simply cant say that about other esport games, where some players are rewarded for their hard input and predispositions. 

 The deck is clunky as hell, it relies too heavily on drawing the exact cards you need, while at the same time not drawing the exact cards you need, but not need to draw. It can get stomped easily by aggro decks and overal its winrate isn't that good.

Because I never wanted to? What kind of question is that? If people were to do only things theyre made to be good at, then this world would have been a better place - or just a sadder one.

You can't really compare the literal cancer that is jade druid with any priest deck, tbh.

Even drawing badly, and not being able to ramp up perfectly - the druid will win most of the time. There is a reason why it's, literally, the most played archetype (well over 30% iirc - and bear in mind there are NINE classes each with various archetypes.)

There's a good reason, with evidence to back it up, why people complain about druid atm - priest, not so much.

The deck revolves around barnes, when barnes is at the bottom of the deck it's almost a joke to play against. I have seriously played a match against a priest that has done nothing but hero power and emote till like, turn 7. That makes up for times they blow you away. The life of high roll decks.