Hearthpwn

Some of the hardest matchups for priests are freeze mages, renolocks, and anyfin paladins. Aggro shaman and midrange druids are also favored. Otk worgen decks and oil rogue are also good, and some greedy control warrior lists with gorehowl and Elise can also go toe to toe with priests as well. Dragon priests with an early velens opening is also nightmarish for priests to handle. 

Back when I started, I was in your exact position. I was deciding whether or not to dust my druid epics to make a control priest. I ended up doing it, and I generally don't regret it, since control priest is so fun to me. 

That being said, I've usually rerolled Druid quests, so I've lost 10 gold here and there. Also, midrange druid is arguably a more competitive deck, so don't dust druid because you think it's weak. I decided to dust druid because I find their gameplay boring. 

You can tech in Acidic Swamp Ooze, as well as a Shadow Word: Pain, if you encounter a lot of aggro shaman. Helps the matchup immensely. 

Hi, if you're about to start your control priest journey, I'd like to welcome you and wish you godspeed. 

Control priests have really good matchups against most variants of aggro, and this includes Secret Paladin, Zoo, Hunters etc, I'd say about 70% WR vs Secrets, maybe higher. Midrange Paladin is usually a good matchup too, unless they get a lucky Equality or if they run Justicar. Midrange Druid is a decent matchup as well. 

Current bad matchups are Renolock, Freeze Mage, and any OTK deck (Malygos Warlock, Anyfin Paladin, Oil Rogue). Deathrattle rogue is also tough since control Priest don't naturally carry silence. Handlock is also a traditionally bad matchup, but I don't see any more Handlocks on ladder so you should be ok. Aggro Shamans with perfect curves are also hard to beat. 

Before LOE, Control Warrior was a near impossible matchup. Now after Entomb, Museum Curator etc, its debatable who has the edge but I'll say the matchup is 50/50. Some say the matchup is heavily Priest favored now, but I think the jury is still out on the matter. 

If you face a lot of Paladins, I'd recommend Control Priest. If you want to have fun and enjoy combos, stealing opponents cards, and controlling the opponent's board and soul, you'll have a great time. 

Ive experimented with a deck like this, and I added molten giants, since it "synergizes" with tap, hellfire and wrathguard. Really liking the giants. I also have peddler, who can contest early minions and also provide a Power Overwhelming, and a target for power Overwhelming+Shadowflame. 

I play priest almost exclusively, and I have to say that, in my experience, laddering had never been tougher. Lots of decks do well against priest, shaman is often too fast with good reach, midrange paladin has sustained threat and equality wrecks deathlord, Renolock also is too threatening long term, rogues have oil burst and death rattle, both good vs priests. Even the occasional otk murloc deck is tough. I hate losing, but I love the diversity that's now present on ladder, it's challenging and fun again. 

If I just cared about winning, take me back a month where secret paladin and zoo were rampant, the priest feast was never better. 

Yeah I think control priest were always weak to bursts like oil, combo, malylock, and now Anyfin. Im surprised entomb hadn't helped you at all with midrange hunter though. 

Maybe Zombie chow would help you against all out aggro. But against shamans, I feel like if I don't draw Deathlord or Auchenai circle early, I'm pretty doom(hammer)ed, even with early Zombie.

Agreed. Aggro is still super present in ladder, at least for me.

Excellent, thanks for answering. You're right, this is completely hypothetical and one does not have to choose between apples and oranges when you can go to the supermarket to get both. I only pose the question this way because Zetalot replaced both of his Zombies for Curators and then pretty much claimed that this may be the new standard.

Of course, there are thousands of factors you have to consider, such as what rank you are playing at, what other cards you have in deck, what you are facing etc, and I acknowledge that these are all important parameters that will affect your answer. I'm asking for personal experience and theorycrafting opinion in judging the two, fully understanding that they are both viable answers in different situations. 

I personally like orange juice better, but apple juice is okay too. Ultimately, I might just mix the two for ultimate taste bud delight. 

Haha perhaps an easier question is, if you had to build a Control Priest deck starting with 2 Zombies or 2 Curators, which would you choose to build off of, and why? In your collection, you have every other card (which I know is impossible, since you would have to finish LOE and Naxx in order for this to happen haha). 

Additional information included: you are also the standard 2 Wild Pyros, 2 Deathlords and 2 Sludge Belchers. Holy Nova and 2 Lightbombs, one SW:D and 2 Entomb, perhaps a Sylvanas and Justicar as well. I generally try to keep questions as open as possible to invite various interpretation, but you have specifically asked. 

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 I don't really want to argue semantics and I'd much rather discuss hearthstone, but the 1 mana slot and the 2 mana slot are not the same, but they're similar right? In the sense that both are pretty early game drops?

 

 Well, not really. Zombie Chow is an obvious anti-aggro card and in a world of aggro match ups 1 mana is not even remotely close to 2 mana. It's a whole turn that can mean as 4-5 damage easily or even more if we're talking about great coin curve and it's minimum 15% of your total health.
Zombie trades down (well, I say down because he basically have 2 mana body) with two 1 mana creatures and 2 mana Curator don't even trades with other 2 mana creatures at all and can't kill some 1 mana creatures, especially popular 1/3 growing ones.

You can argue about something like Shieldmaiden being 6 or 5 mana or Dr. Boom being 7 or 8 mana (unless you ramp him of course), but difference betwen 1 mana Zombie and 2 mana Curator is ENORMOUS for aggro matchups and pretty much irrelevant in most control ones.

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I'm currently running with 2 Museum Curators and no Zombie Chows.

The way I think about it is what did I spend my turn 2 doing before Curator showed up? I healed my Zombie Chow. Now, I play the Curator instead and pick a card appropriate to the matchup. If I get to Velen's my Curator on turn 3, nice. If I don't, the aggro player just spent time hitting something else than my face and gave me more time to get to a Deathlord or that Auchenai + Circle or Pyromancer combo to do a full board clear.

Hmm so do you think that Zetalot suddenly drops both Zombies for Curators because aggro is suddenly no longer rampant in ladder? Was there a sudden dramatic drop in aggro decks after the last wing of LOE was released? If not, did he just make a terribad decision? 

Or perhaps, he is asking the same question I'm asking. Does a standard control priest have enough tools to survive early aggro without Zombies? And if the answer is no, does the curator's unique ability and flexibility make up for the loss in win rate in this meta? Or perhaps after the release of Entomb, priest no longer needs Curator for late game, and instead needs to focus harder on bringing Zombies to survive aggro.

Your comment about the flexibility of Curator to also stand against aggro was the kind of discussion I was hoping for! So you think Curators flexibility in discover can serve against aggro, thus perhaps making up for the Zombie chow in aggro matchups.

In a vacuum, two different cards like Zombie and Curator are near impossible to compare. However, in the context of what a standard control priest needs in it's toolbox in order to win effectively in the current meta, any two cards can be compared, without the fallacious cries of impossibility.

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However, they both occupy a similar mana slot, which is why I am trying to compare the two

 Except they're not.

Also, Zetalot played against CONTROL WARRIOR and the amount of Zombie Chows in that mutchup is irrelevant.