Hearthpwn

I do agree that you need to invest some efforts into keeping him around, but when he's in play, he's pretty powerful. And this isn't a win-more situation like you are describing. Instead, this supplements the plan against aggro and against control, he can be seen as a 3/4 many times(like, when they have nothing to add to the board or chip in in killing whatever fatty they've played.

I know this card is not the same as say a harvest golem or a kirin tor mage or so, but this guy shouldn't be seen as those at all. He's not a brawler but a source of free damage. The situations where he is good aren't so arcane to get to at all. If you play him the turn after you drop a respectable taunt, like a shieldmasta or his 1/7 cousin, odds are that they can only deal with him if they use one of their precious removal spells. Even if you silence him, the 1/4 body is not irrelevant, especially when you play him in a priest or with some power enhancers. I think the main thing here is that this guy is not really amazing when you play him on curve all the time, but that goes for many minions out there.

Hello everyone,

I'm certain everyone has faced this creature before in arena. He is what you would call a high variance  card. He either does very little, or he can single-handily start picking off your opponent's board, let your other creatures trade up and prevent your opponent from playing several creatures out there.

I have taken a liking to him in arena. He is early, deals well with several other early plays and in some classes he has a penchant for staying around. One of the best classes I have had him in were a priest, because you can heal him and he's a great target for power word: shield and a temple enforcer, and I often find myself playing the 1/7 taunt in priest anyway. Another great class for him is the mage. His damage adds up nicely on top of all the sweepers I find myself playing. He even combines well with my hero power for a makeshift frost bolt.

This card is great when you are at parity, fantastic when ahead(but what isn't) and pretty bad if you are behind and cannot keep him around. His function as a source of attrition still makes me want to consider him a good card.

I've tested him constructed and find him to be excellent for priests and mages as well there. Particularly against weenie deck hiding behind a taunt of some kind. And given how the meta has many weenie decks around, I think he's in a fine spot right now.  What are you guys' experience with this little guy?

A solid body and a fine ability. Seems best in priests where it can net you several cards. In priests it can occasionally let one of your other guys murder one of their and live to tell the tale with a healthy +4 health.

This guy is a monster if he sticks. Best in priests with decent taunts and healing. Or in shaman with taunts. Or paladins with shields.

Also fun with a mage. It can pay the damage you need on your opponent's creature so your other burn spells/power can finish it off.

I do like Mind control and I could see myself putting one in as I'm seeing more and more legendaries out there. The main reason it's not in currently is that I haven't found the room for it and find the shadow word:death and even holy fire far superior because they're cheaper.

As for the archmage, he's a meta choice. Currently, I've seen many warlocks that try to rush me down and various other fast decks. I'm also keen on gaining some early board presence, and so I'm stuck playing holy smite. I could play an azure drake instead of him, but I appreciate his seven toughness. It dodges more removal and he can tangle with the big boys without dying immediately.

As for the circle of healing: I've found that it just doesn't fit the deck. Most priests are trying to play this as a an impromptu sweeper to compensate for not really gaining board presence early on. This deck however will often be ahead early on if it can stick a mana wraith or it will be at parity. Playing a two card combo that wrecks my board at that point is just massive card disadvantage, and I don't want it to be stuck in my hand, have 4-5 mana and not play the auchenai priest in order to protect the combo. I don't like spending a card on making the blademaster a 4/7 immediately either, as this buys into a possible two-for-one and the circle is again situational here. I would rather have the circle be gas instead.

Currently I'm trying to find space for a second blademaster and I've swapped the remaining yeti with a violet teacher. There might also be some merit to playing an imp master because it has great synergy with priests in general and its cost is quite attractive for what this deck is trying to do.

Without healing, a priest can't really play with the same cards as the regular priests. In fact, I think shadowpriests work better when they play pure aggro. Unfortunately, the priest class cards don't really have many good aggro cards(they're lacking in aggressive creatures), so you are stuck in the same boat as the mage, except they start off with a minor version of the hero power you want and two extra card slots.

I think the auchenai soulpriest is generally superior to shadowform because you can turn it off if you really need it to, so I'd keep it at that if you want to play control.  Since you're not playing control, you should obviously play the soulpriest as shadowforms three and four.

I've been thinking about making a shadowpriest, and I wonder if there is any merit to playing a shell with shadowform, auchenai soulpriest and all those generic minions that have healing battlecries. The Darkscale healer has some nonbo potential, but other than that this seems worthwhile.

You have four cards that you can play on turn 2 that aren't buff cards or direct damage to the face. On turn 3 this becomes 6 cards. The chance that you will have something to add to the board on turn 2 are about 50/50, on turn three it's around three quarters. All without taking mulligans into account. Of these cards, only the injured blademaster is an on curve creature with enough impact to kill another creature. The cleric and the alchemist can get crushed underfoot too easily by creatures  on 2 mana without the creature trading. Simply put, you are doing very little to the board before turn 4 basically. A rush deck can easily get a problematic board state in that time, and a good one will have some things surviving through the holy nova.

Using the circle of healing with the auchenai soulpriest is rather card inefficient. Against 3 out of the 8 heroes, they can kill your surviving priest with a hero power, thus you will often pay 2 cards. The odds of drawing both parts of this combo on turn four are around 16 percent. Again not counting mulligans and assuming you are on the play.

I've found that the best way to deal with a rush deck is to give them something to chew on. I play many one and two mana minions. It's in another thread on this forum(http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/class-discussion/priest/9054-building-a-better-constructed-priest-mana-wraith) if you are interested. I've found the Northshire cleric to be a useful creature, but she dies way too easily to minions. I want to see my opponent take the second or third turn off to kill it with a spell, so I use the shieldbearer to protect it. This way is can pick off minions while staying safe. My other creatures on this mana are a crazed alchemist and mana wraiths, because a rush deck is all about playing things on curve. If it can't curve out properly thanks to the mana wraith, you'll take less damage and by the time he has his horde of murlocks online you'll start dropping bigger creatures.

On your questions:

Improvements: Cut some cards that do nothing against a rushing deck or cards that are just slow(one Thoughtsteal, two Mind blasts, the faceless manipulator doesn't really help versus a rush). You could try to play without two circles of healing. Maybe you can go down to just one of them or just zero of them. Instead, play shadow word: pain and some early dorks. I even play holy smite. It's a necessary evil.

How to play? You want to outlast your opponent. Against hunters, rogues, paladins, warlocks and mages I would mulligan to the early creatures. You're very likely to have one of your 4-drops on turn four anyway. It's the early action that you must have if they're going to rush. You need to be able to do something on turn 2 or turn 3 at least if you don't want to fall behind.

The only time I concede is when I'm dead on board, have no outs and will absolutely die to my opponent the very next turn because I respect his skill in seeing that I am dead meat.

This doesn't mean I concede often. I get the idea that many players get too busy with clearing board and start getting some weird tunnel vision around killing my minions so they don't die on their next turn I presume. Often I will grant them their chance to error and not kill me while I was completely dead on board. I've come back a couple of times after being in situations that I shouldn't have survived if my opponent realized he had me dead.

I think holy smite is more flexible, and the cheaper cost really matters if you are behind and try to kill their creature and play your own in one turn. Plus, asides the pyromancer, it also gains a lot of value with the spell power of an archmage. An archmage is pretty sweet in a priest deck because it is both beefy and helps out with your holy novas as well.

Hello,

Ever since I began playing I've been loving playing the priest. However, I, like many others, struggled with the priest for a long while. It boils down to two things: The priest is the one class that can have a dead turn on turn two. Every other class can at least reap some benefit from its hero power. Second, priests have awkward removal spells and generally have trouble sticking around for the late game where they shine brighter than almost any other class.

I've started experimenting and found that the Mana Wraith is an amazing little tool for any priest to use. You can drop it early, and it stunts a rush deck like no other. Actually, it stunts the development of most decks out there. And it happens that the priest is the only class that can keep this guy around when facing the other hero powers. The best part of this card is that it generally will need a card to be dealt with if you build your deck to suit it. And when they do, you will be the first player to start your turn without the mana penalty.

A second card I've started rating higher was the crazed alchemist. His versatility fixes your awkward removal. It can often swap a creature into the range of your Shadow words, or it can just allow one of my fat creatures to take out whatever hideously big monster my opponent dropped.

Below you will find a deck that  tries to capitalize on both and has been winning me many games this season. Thus far I've found most of my matchups favourable thanks to the early pressure I'm applying with the Mana wraith or even the Northshire cleric. The shieldbearers are a very useful tool to either get back in the game or to protect the wrath/cleric early on. The remainder of the deck is a follow-up on the early disruption that this deck often manifests. If you want, you can see more information on the deck by clicking on the name and viewing it in the deckbrowser.

The current deck is not finished at all and I'm still swapping some cards in and out, though I think most of the shell is present already. Feel free to give me feedback on the deck.

I think the statistics in the OP don't really mean anything. A percentage doesn't tell us whether the difference between the different win rates are significant at all. Furthermore, we should take in consideration how many players each class has. I intuitively would think that the priest is one of the lesser played classes out there because many people just don't know how to play the priest. And conversely, I think many people play the mage because it's shown to do well and it is the first class people learn to play.

I think an issue with that win rate is that there are many priests out there who play decks that go big or go home. Take that combo from page 1. Many priests are playing the buffing game where they try to make a single creature obscenely large with divine spirits and inner fire. I personally think this strategy of putting all your eggs is easily dealt with. A single polymorph or even silence can shut this down, and the priest had to dedicate a large part of his deck on this for the combo to be assembled in any consistent way.

I think priests are just fine the way they are. Perhaps the class will have better stats the more the game gets known in and out. I am also certain that we are nowhere close to figuring the game out completely. I'm certain that eventually we will figure out really great priest decks.

Yeah, I think this deck gets to win because it's the opposite of what people expect priests to play. They'll mulligan their anti-rush cards away. And a rush deck can run over a deck that is not prepared to face it.

I respect a wraith in a priest deck, but if you're reliant on rushing you opponent I would consider cutting it. It might also be a good idea to play some 2/3's for 2 like that Amani Berserker. Most of your guys seem unlikely candidates to get healed in time. The 3/3 raging wargen seems sweet in a rushing priest, and depending on the turn-over rate of your little guys, a flesheating ghoul could help out there as well.

I definitely like the lightwarden in this kind of deck by the way.

Hmmm, I've been getting at the very least 4 wins with any of my arena decks thus far. Luck is definitely a factor, but it isn't everything either. I have no doubt that you can improve to get at least 4 wins with any of your decks.

Also, playing a flawless game of any cardgame is a rare occurance. There must have been some things you could have sequenced differently, or times where you should have applied more pressure, or times where you played into a flamestrike. SImilarly, getting the best draft deck based on your picks is really difficult. There are many opportunities to pick a fine card that just isn't quite as synergistic as another card that you could have picked.

I think the azure drake getting replace with a dark iron dwarf is a fine plan. Priests don't really have a lot of uses for the spell power and an earlier fat creature is probably going to have a better overall value anyway.

About the engineers...I don't mind a card like that when you have a deck that just wants more consistency, but that's the thing. The two of them will make your deck 2 cards smaller for the price of 2 times 2 mana. It isn't really drawing you cards rather than replacing itself. And what you get for your troubles is an easily trumped 1/2. That can be fine on its own, but I don't recommend it unless if you have some other use for a 1/2. I would like it more in a paladin deck or any deck that has an overrun effect like a bloodlust. Now about the deck thinning: I don't think it's enough on its own. If you plan to draw a specific card, then use grimscale oracles with the cheaper power word shield. And that's only good when you know that your combination that you are looking for is really difficult to deal with. For now I don't think that's the case. Your deck is filled with plenty of okay cards and many of them are quite interchangeable. I'd rather put focus on staying alive until you get there and play another 2/3, 3/2 or holy smite.

About the mind visions: They're actually a great defensive tool. Often the best cards to use against a rusher deck is their own creatures, which are almost always better with a cleric to boost them. And I can often use it later on too, when there's a lonely deathwing or another silly card residing in their hand. Thoughtsteal however is just a way to put more gas in your hand. Both of these cards often compensate whatever your deck isn't very good at.

I don't like either card as a random inclusion in a deck. The Northshire cleric seems only really worth it if you have creatures that can use healing AKA creatures with a lot of toughness. The thoughtsteal is fine if you can afford the loss in tempo.

I think that if you have a lot of toughness amongst your creatures that the northshire cleric is a fine card, though not for drawing a card, but for dealing with early pressure. This thing shines brightly on turn one or turn two and your opponent needs to pay attention to it. And if your deck can utilize its effect this isn't even a dead card later on.

The thoughsteal is a straight card advantage effect. It's fine, but I wouldn't want to play two probably. Still, it's a fine card and you do need something in a controlling deck to provide you with more gas. Assuming that your main deck can stabilize early on of course. If not, then I wouldn't really play it.