Hearthpwn

Priest decks are very situational.  I love playing Priest, but it's not as OP as you make it seem. 

Happens when 80% of players run mech mage.

Play druid ramp and you'll love priest matchups.

I honestly don't find priests to be that irritating to play against really. I don't think I've seen many priest decks outside of the heavy control/anti-aggro, and if you're playing a control deck, it's not too difficult to win against unless they draw perfectly.

While the mechanics don't really feel all that great to play against, if you've ever played priest long enough, you know that most of the situations of "stealing the best cards" aren't as numerous as everyone likes to say they are. More often than not you find that Thoughtsteal just snagged you both deadly poisons from a rogue, or an ancient watcher from handlock with no way to activate it on your side, or you get stuck in the thoughtception against another priest.

I will say though, as priest being one of my mains, it is one of the most satisfying plays when the stars align against an aggro player, and you get the Wild Pyromancer board clears with Circle of Healing/Holy Nova/Holy Smite/Power Word: Shield/etc. and the pyro just racks up value each turn.

I suppose it depends on what you don't like about them. Priests are very reactive, so a lot of times their power comes from you playing poorly into them. They do not really have a win condition and will not burst you down. As such, it's very easy to make a priest inefficiently burn through their removal. So, it you dislike them because you're constantly losing your minions to them, try to outvalue them which as I stated will quickly make them run out of efficient trades.

Now if you don't like the long games, I get that. Not everyone likes long games, and that is part of the reason they play into the priests favor. They'll usually play everthing on curve to quickly get through the game and it doesn't work out well for them.

TLDR: Make the priest play inefficiently as it can make the games go faster as the priest will lose time. Also, your win % against priests will increase.

I can understand your contempt but hopefully people realize that the game needs a class/classes like the priest. They offer people a very different playing style and overall variety to a game full of netdecks/copycats.

I recently created a priest deck with the intention of making the most annoying deck i could think of with double mind vision, double mind control, double thought steal etc. For me playing against the now defunked undertaker hunter and the current meta op mech mage is far more annoying.  Losing because your opponent does nothing more than draw perfect and is able to flood the board by turn 3 is way more infuriating. 

I like the concept of using their own cards against them.

I think the priest mechanics are pretty cool and unique among all the classes, and, at the same time, not unbalanced.

Though I always wanted a shadow priest deck to be viable. Used to play shadow priest sometimes in wow.

No matter how annoying they can be, I will always have a soft spot for Priest.  My first truly competitive (rank 17 hype!) basic deck was Priest, back when I was just a noob.

Ah, the good old days.

Priests exist to remind us that there are far worse things in this game than aggro.

Quote from oakkin »

I can understand your contempt but hopefully people realize that the game needs a class/classes like the priest. They offer people a very different playing style and overall variety to a game full of netdecks/copycats.

I recently created a priest deck with the intention of making the most annoying deck i could think of with double mind vision, double mind control, double thought steal etc. For me playing against the now defunked undertaker hunter and the current meta op mech mage is far more annoying.  Losing because your opponent does nothing more than draw perfect and is able to flood the board by turn 3 is way more infuriating. 

 

I love playing Priest, but how does Priest fight the netdecking and copycatting? It seems like almost every Priest deck has the same 20-25 core cards. Shaman and Druid decks have much more variation. If you play 2 midrange shaman decks, you will probably see totally different cards and play different games with them.

I've tried to make Priest aggro and a weird deck with Cult Master, but I always end up missing out on the best cards in that class and being so much weaker than the default control build. I'm trying to make it work now with Ancient Watcher, but its still turning into "how many of the only cards that make the Priest class work can I afford to play without."

I LOVE Priests.

-Handlock player

Quote from KneeGrumps »

Quote from oakkin »

I can understand your contempt but hopefully people realize that the game needs a class/classes like the priest. They offer people a very different playing style and overall variety to a game full of netdecks/copycats.

I recently created a priest deck with the intention of making the most annoying deck i could think of with double mind vision, double mind control, double thought steal etc. For me playing against the now defunked undertaker hunter and the current meta op mech mage is far more annoying.  Losing because your opponent does nothing more than draw perfect and is able to flood the board by turn 3 is way more infuriating. 

 

I love playing Priest, but how does Priest fight the netdecking and copycatting? It seems like almost every Priest deck has the same 20-25 core cards. Shaman and Druid decks have much more variation. If you play 2 midrange shaman decks, you will probably see totally different cards and play different games with them.

I've tried to make Priest aggro and a weird deck with Cult Master, but I always end up missing out on the best cards in that class and being so much weaker than the default control build. I'm trying to make it work now with Ancient Watcher, but its still turning into "how many of the only cards that make the Priest class work can I afford to play without."

I thnk he just means in general. In a game where people netdeck, you'll want as much variety as possible, even if the playestyle is pretty universal, the priest offers something drastically different than all other decks.

Quote from fleeeeetwood »

Quote from KneeGrumps »

Quote from oakkin »

I can understand your contempt but hopefully people realize that the game needs a class/classes like the priest. They offer people a very different playing style and overall variety to a game full of netdecks/copycats.

I recently created a priest deck with the intention of making the most annoying deck i could think of with double mind vision, double mind control, double thought steal etc. For me playing against the now defunked undertaker hunter and the current meta op mech mage is far more annoying.  Losing because your opponent does nothing more than draw perfect and is able to flood the board by turn 3 is way more infuriating. 

 

I love playing Priest, but how does Priest fight the netdecking and copycatting? It seems like almost every Priest deck has the same 20-25 core cards. Shaman and Druid decks have much more variation. If you play 2 midrange shaman decks, you will probably see totally different cards and play different games with them.

I've tried to make Priest aggro and a weird deck with Cult Master, but I always end up missing out on the best cards in that class and being so much weaker than the default control build. I'm trying to make it work now with Ancient Watcher, but its still turning into "how many of the only cards that make the Priest class work can I afford to play without."

I thnk he just means in general. In a game where people netdeck, you'll want as much variety as possible, even if the playestyle is pretty universal, the priest offers something drastically different than all other decks.

Yea, i didn't really word that correctly. Just meant without classes like the priest we would be overloaded with other popular deck/class types. Priest offers a different experience for player and opponent. 

I remember the days I felt I was alone playing Priest. Then Amaz-Sama shew them the way.. Changed their minds.

Quote from oakkin »

Yea, i didn't really word that correctly. Just meant without classes like the priest we would be overloaded with other popular deck/class types. Priest offers a different experience for player and opponent. 

OK I agree. If it was all just aggro, anti-aggro and the occasional combo deck that would be pretty boring. I think that HS does need control decks to interact in more interesting ways.

Pretty sure we can guess what decks OP plays without much effort.

Quote from TonSurTon »

I wasn't aware of the contempt emotion towards Priest decks. Probably the same emotion as I have against eg Scavenging Hyena grow on turn 4 to 8/4.

I'm still new I guess to the game. Started early December and so far Priest gives me an answer to "flooding the board" after I discovered Shadow Madness. And Mind Control... what would you suggest otherwise against decks flooded with legendaries. Sometimes 3, 4 on a row to deal with.

But probably I'm not playing the contempted Priest style. I do not like copying and I do only add 1 of the two cards mentioned.

I just love a 20/20 Deathlord or a 12/12 Flying Machine. That's not very reactive or situational, is it?

 

People are complaining about this deck, the most popular style of Priest deck: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/157825-1-na-legendary-priest

Not sure how new you are to TCG's but this is a control deck, meaning the idea is to have a bunch of cards that respond to the cards you expect your opponent to play and a bunch of cards that either give you more cards than the 1 card you invested, or force your opponent to spend multiple cards to deal with. The strategy is effective because you draw more response cards than they draw proactive cards and eventually take complete "control" of the game. This is already a strategy that many people don't enjoy playing against, but Priest takes it further by the number of cards like Mind Control they have, where the opponent tries to make a proactive play and the Priest player not only answers it but actually turns it into a huge advantage.

Priests can cause powerful and annoying board shifts but for the most part they aren't a dominant class. When was the last time a priest deck won any kind of hearthstone tournament? The problem (as people have pointed out) is priests are largely reactionary, which is why they don't see tournament play very often as most high level players will play around the priest and deny them the opportunity to manipulate the board in a meaningful way. So more often than not if a priest is working you over they either got perfect card draw (most decks win if they get perfect draw) or you're walking into their counters. If you drop a big minion on turn 10 and don't expect it to be mind controlled you're doing it wrong... always assume they have the cards they need.

It has to be my least-played class and the one I'm least happy to face, for most of the reasons discussed above (although I like the idea of the theft mechanic, even if it frustrates my aggro tendencies at times).

Mostly, I wanted to post here to mention this to priest players:  No matter how you intend your apology or thanks emote to come across when you steal something or do something to ruin our day, you come across like a jerk.  Pretty much every time.