Hearthpwn

My instinct is always to develop, too - it's really hard to know with Priest. But you probably should have healed Micro Machine. She HP'd meaning she didn't have cheap removal. After you heal Micro Machine, she's left with three options: top deck and play cheap removal, HP again (horrible), or play a minion that will die to Micro Machine.  Since you had a 2/3 or Deathlord to play on T4, you would have retained tempo regardless and been left with good options: play 2 2/3's to an empty board (to be protected by Deathlord), HP Micro Machine after plink and play 2/3, or use Deathlord to protect your Micro Machine from played minion.  I don't think Deathlord was good for developing at that point with no Velen's in hand.  It's good for protecting your weenies from existing enemy minions.  If you had had a 3-attack minion to play on turn 3, then sacrificing your Micro Machine would make sense since your minion could reliably trade up. 

On turn 5 I would have played Velen's on Deathlord, traded, healed, and played Cannon.  About the only way for a Mage with 5 mana to kill Deathlord at 9 life is Polymorph.  You can't play around everything.  But removing Elemental means that she couldn't play Polymorph since her board would have been empty. 

@Blue_Banana: When I was a new player, I didn't just play casual, and new players shouldn't limit themselves to casual.  I certainly tried out lots of different deck ideas of my own in casual, but at the same time, I needed to complete quests with only a limited selection of cards and not even a Dr. Boom or Emperor Thaurissen of my own, both of whom I faced in 2/3 of my games (circa November/December 2015).  And it's not like "casual" means "easy" or "experimental". 

The only way I got enough wins to clear my quests within a tolerable amount of time was by getting competitive basic deck ideas on line.  A friend of mine started Hearthstone about three months ago.  He liked the Innkeeper and playing pre-rank 20.  I played a couple of games against him using only basic cards, and his deck-building was bad.  He didn't understand curve or win condition.  He needed a Shattered Sun Cleric->Chillwind Yeti->Boulderfist Ogre decklist to get him started or to at least to study.  (BTW, he quit HS after he got past Rank 21.) 

12-2 with Paladin on Oct. 23.  My last two games were against the same opponent. 

Silver Hand Regent, 2 Murloc Knights, and Mukla's Champion meant I was chugging out guys all the time and going mostly face.  Sometimes had to trade guys up just to make room for more :-) .  Luckily didn't see a lot of AoEs.  Faceless Shambler on concealed Tiger was another nice trick. 

http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/i5e5xf

Quote from Caio2467 >>

@Ehronatha: with my N'Zoth's Hell deck i reached rank 5 in wild easily, maybe you could give it a try!

N'Zoth's Hell N'Zoth Priest Deck by Caio2467 - Oct 17, 2016 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (15) 1x Cairne Bloodhoof 1x N'Zoth, the Corruptor 1x Sylvanas Windrunner 1x Cabal Shadow Priest 2x Deathlord 2x Shifting Shade 2x Sludge Belcher 2x Museum Curator 2x Northshire Cleric 1x Zombie Chow	Ability (15) 1x Lightbomb 2x Excavated Evil 1x Shadow Madness 1x Thoughtsteal 2x Entomb 2x Shadow Word: Death 2x Velen's Chosen 2x Power Word: Shield 2x Shadow Word: Pain
Loading Collection

If you need info and suggestion don't esitate to ask, the Hpwn community wil try to help you!

This Priest deck actually has a chance in Wild!  I'm hoping it will get me over my next hump. 

I find it challenging to play in a fun way.  I'm still figuring out how to use Wild Pyromancer.  I just lost a game because I overlooked that Circle of Healing with Auchenai was going to kill, not heal, my Pyromancer, leaving my opponents with two Mysterious Challengers with 1 health each. 

The decklist is not the same as that mentioned in the comments.  For instance, there's no Acolyte in the decklist.  I took out Farseer for an Acolyte, which seems to be enough.  There are four 4/5 minions, which do the grunt work after your spells and anti-healing kill everything.

Was playing Wild last night at level 10. Had the Maelstrom Quest so I was playing some Shaman thing with Spirit Claws and Totem Golems, with a decent win rate. 

I played a Mage who opened with Amani Berserker.  I thought - oh, another Enrage quest!  Nope.  She followed up with Chillwind Yeti, Water Elemental, and Ogrefist Boulder.  What was next, Shattered Sun Cleric?  Because my early hand was bad, I wasted prime removal on her early beefy minions.  I got her down to 2 life then ran out of cards while her Ogre went to town and she had ample removal for my stuff. 

My deck tracker showed that besides Kezan Mystic, all her cards were either Basic or a Common from the Classic set. This was really cool to see.  I find rank 10 to be very competitive, even if the pros on this forum sniff at anything lower than 5.  The basic-only Mage deck was pretty darn good when I was starting out, and I guess it can still be good. 

Newer players absolutely should netdeck.  They have to find the beginning players guides on sites like Icy Veins or Hearthstoneplayers.com to get solid beginning decks and learn basic concepts.  The basic and budget decks presented by the site contributors are important jumping off points for new players - at least they were for me. 

I don't think they're going to nerf anything else until the next standard.  However, at that point WOTOG and ONIK will still be in Standard.

I think almost everyone agrees that Thing From Below is too powerful.  Anything to reduce it's powerline would help.  Either the taunt has to be removed or it has to be in hand for the reduction. 

Most people think Spirit Claws is too powerful, because, well, a 3/3 weapon for 1 mana is stupidly powerful.  Not sure why Shaman needed a Fiery War Axe equivalent.  I think that the attack bonus should be reduced to +1.  Would anyone play it like that? No? Oh, so sad. 

I also tend to agree that Alextrasza is pretty stupid.  "I'll sit here doing nothing to you for 9 rounds, and then spend 9 mana to deal 15 damage to you and put an 8/8 on the board."  The flavor is weird: "I bring life!" Huh?  Maybe she should set life to 18, so that she has more of a heal effect.  Anyway, they're never touching this card because of all the dust refunds they'd have to give.

The Boombots still need to have their deathrattle damage reduced to 1-2, but it will never happen. 

Quote from HercraftPwn >>

Hi my Priests friends!

I share my Zoth Priest that take me to Rank 5

 

 

Realized that I zoomed through level 12 because of the new winning streak rule.  Ugh.

Only played 4 games with Death Metal Priest today (because I had another class quest), ending at level 10:

Loss vs. Freeze Mage: Full board frozen four turns in a row, Thaurissen, Alexstrazsa, yada, yada. Not sure how any Priest can beat Freeze Mage unless with C'thun/Darkmenders.

Loss vs. Mid-Range Hunter: Had him down to 9 then he stabilized with Sludge Belcher and Freezing Trap.

Win vs. Face Hunter: Pretty easy. Got my Undertaker up to a 6/5 at the end.

Win vs. Anyfin Paladin w/ Secrets: He used secrets instead of usual control stuff, so maybe not an optimized deck. 

Uhh, Mage is really good?  Ridiculously good early and mid-game, with a respectable late game with all their value gravy train cards.  Oh, and there are actually a lot of variations of competitive mage lists for some minimal variety. 

And no, casual is not casual.  Casual is where you go to see if your deck is OP enough to play on ladder. 

If you want true casual, drop to level 21 on ladder and stay there using the Concede button.  With the understanding of course that 1/3 of those decks are still going to be OP tempo mages, etc. 

That deck looks great.  My intuition had been telling me to try Doomsayers as way to smooth over Priest's problems with board control, so thanks for the "validation".  I also like Alchemist instead of Soulpriest. 

Once I hit a wall with my current deck, I will switch to this one. 

Okay, I decided to really focus on deathrattles, and came up with the deck below: "Death Metal Priest".  After testing it in casual, I took it to Wild where I zoomed from 13 to 11, when I stopped for the night.  

I favor a more active playstyle where I can play on curve, so this deck is better for me.  The sticky minions compensate for all the deck slots devoted to removal and assure both targets for Velens and survivors from board clears, including my own Excavated Evils.  Athough N'Zoth is more  likely to summon junk, he will always fill the board, which wasn't my experience before. 

@HenryBukowski: Nope, the deck still sucks.  I just played 5 games at level 12 Wild.  I went 1-4. 

Control Priest: win

Dragon Priest: loss

Handlock: loss

N'Zoth Paladin: loss

Tempo Mage with Arcane Giants and Medivh: loss

The first control priest did not have an optimized deck. The game in which I lost to the Dragon Priest was somewhat close - perhaps if I had played differently I could have won, although it is unlikely.  The other three losses weren't even close.  I got stomped on. 

Verdict: Holy Nova is not a good enough board clear for a deck that has such little early game. Without Injured Kvaldirs, Circle of Healing does not have enough value to take up so much space. The deck is too weak to have both weaklings Acolyte of Pain and Northshire Cleric. 

Possible?  Sure

Highly improbable?  Yes