Hearthpwn

I main priest and I can tell you one thing, if you let him draw, you're dead. It's as simple as that. Always remove the clerics/acolyte or other forms of drawing mechanic. A full aggro style of play might win if the priest draw badly, midrange that is not druid is auto-win for priest. Druid is a pain, so is the new anifin paladin since it can pop more than 30 damage in a turn. Oil rogue is painful too, the new miracle is easy though.

Well  I'd be more than happy to farm this deck, faced it, easy win each time

As a dedicated priest player, I am 100% sure priest eat this deck for breakfast. I can't imagine a world where this deck can have 71% win rate against priest unless you face every noob that doesn't understand how the class works. Wild pyro, deathlord, auchenai, nova, cabal, lightbomb, justicar to over heal all damage output damn! even cleric is good since it trades with all your early game minions except juggle, survives and draw cards... Seriously, I call BS on that one!

Quote from Sisuwolf >>

Elise Starseeker is better than that.

Everyone said Reno Jackson was unplayable and only for gimmick decks. Ranking him 2/10 and whatnot. Then he comes out and everyone realizes he might be one of the best cards in the LoE set. Reno Jackson went from unplayable trash, to best card in the set, in a few days of playing him.

Elise Starseeker is the same. Everyone thinks she is bad but she is like Reno, SleeperOP.

The biggest problem I see is that people want to put her in a draw heavy deck, and get to Golden Monkey ASAP. However I don't believe this is the correct way to play her, as that is not much different from a 30 Legendary deck, which we all know is bad. You must use her for her strengths:

• In the end game of a fatigue battle she replaces your now useless cards with better ones.
• Since you will turn multiple cards into Legendary cards, it negates most of the RNG of getting bad ones.
• A 32-card deck is obviously better than 30 in a fatigue battle.
• On average, you will draw the Map to the Golden Monkey with 8 cards left in your deck + your hand, this is well past the point of not having enough mana to cycle it.
• On average, you will draw Golden Monkey with 4 cards left in your deck + your hand, which is also great 'cause you don't want to pull it earlier when you still have useful cards to play.
• The 3/5 body is great. They did right by Elise Starseeker.
• In aggro matchups, you will almost never run into the problem of the Map ruining your draw since the game should be over before you even get to the Map.
• In any other matchup, by the time you pull the Map, you will have 10 mana for an easy cycle.

If you plan on drawing the Golden Monkey early and getting all Legendary cards early, you're gonna have a bad time. Not really how it works.

Average cards left in deck when you draw:

• Elise Starseeker = 16
• Map to the Golden Monkey = 8
• Golden Monkey = 4
• Source: Reddit user simulated 1,000,000 games under "play these cards asap" conditions to see when you draw.

I have to disagree with your ranking of Elise. Yes, getting the monkey seems pretty impossible, but after some play testing I can assure you it's really not that hard. In general, I get the monkey by turn 14 which is exactly the right timing since you have used all the cards you really wanted to play and that had a lot of synergy with your deck. You can then turn the crappy useless cards in the present match up into never-ending threats. For those of you scared of getting bad legendaries, after 18 triggers of the golden monkey, I have never lost a game, and have never been disappointed in the result. Mistcaller becomes a crazy good legend since it buff every crazy threats. Finally, flame leviathan becomes "playable" it saved me a game when I drew into it against a pally that just played muster (I was playing a warrior, no it's not in my deck).

I really thought this card would be garbage like you said, but after playing with it, I have to admit she's pretty damn good in ctrl warrior and reno warlock. For warrior, you can now run a lot more early game removal against any aggro deck you face WITHOUT HURTING YOUR CONTROL MATCH UP! Just for this, Elise is amazing! Indeed, she won't win you the game against aggro. She'll be a dull 3-5 for 4 which isn't that bad. But we can say the same for ysera or nefarian that were even more useless cards in the aggro match up. So she's a win against aggro, and a win against control!

Next, I feel raven idol is kinda meh. After toying with it, I've always been disappointed. My first impression was : Wow this card is to fill the curve while being the perfect tech card since you now know what you're facing. But in practice, yes she fill the curve when you have one mana left, but damn the cards I get are almost always worst than what I would have put instead of this card. It's pretty much the opposite of Elise, in theory, Idol seems good, but in practice, it kinda sux. Discover a spell : offers you moonfire, astral communion and tree of life... like... really? The game after, discover a minion : the 4-4 giving health to a beast (while not playing any beast except druid of the claw), bloodfen raptor and millhouse manastorm... Seriously? Maybe it's just that I'm unlucky, I definitely tried it way less than Elise, but god did it feel awful. Paying one more mana to get a crappier version of a card I could have put in my deck to begin with seems bad.

Finally, Rafaam did not impress me at all, just feel like a worst version of ysera since it dies the second he see play and the card is kinda overcost for the effect unless you mirror in an empty board (which shall happen since you just spent all your mana playing Rafaam that dies instantly). Then you get brawled or hellfired or flamestriked into oblivion...

Played against a malygos druid, entomb malygos and thaurissan, thoughtsteal both moonfires, kill him with his own combo! THAT was how you play malygos XD

Yeah ok I agree people should learn deck building to improve their skill level, but you probably chose the worst example possible. Face pally has been a thing for close than 2 years now, you CAN'T make something new out of it, the core will always stay the same. Ok, you changed some tech cards, good for you, but that's definitely not what I'd call "innovating against the net decking" and not being a "sheep". Anyway, for me, based on the fact you provided, your point is invalid.

Thanks for the clarification.

Yes I agree, the game became a lot more tempoish with early board control. That's why priest is, again, in the least played class right now. I just don't think that is because of cabal's mid-late game value because cabal IS the answer to tempo plays. Yes the opponent can answer the minion you steal with cabal, but that means he used a card to answer his own minion, so one less for yours. My point is, I don't think cabal is the problem, the other cards in the deck are. Priest is a lot more reactive than any other class. So chances are your cards won't fit with the current state of the board, which is actually the real problem IMO. So many games I hoped for specific cards all game long that would immensely change the outcome but couldn't seem to draw them, instead I had the tech of another matchup... this is where priest is lacking right now. This, and the lack of other strong minion. Ever heard of midrange or aggro priest? Me neither. Only way to play midrange-style is dragon.

For the "I'd rather play mind control" I'd answer this : the problem with mind control is that you have a dead card in your hand all game long until your opponent finally play a threat decent enough to be mindcontrolled. Most aggro decks won't even have any = dead card. Midrange will have like 2-3, one of em being boom = totally useless to mindcontrol, I would almost rather steal the bombs (OP bombs always kills my minions :( ... ) the others are something between sylvanas and class legendaries. Ok, can be a good mindcontrol target. But you have SWD... Where it really shines is against control match ups. From my experience of the ladder right now, control is close to inexistent unless it's a Reno deck or warrior. The fact that you always get value with cabal is invaluable to me. Both have different goals. Cabal is more of an aggro-midrange pain while mind control is for the control matchup.

Anyway, that's how I feel ^.^

LOL that's all you took from my reply? Wow. Just do your own deck then while we still enjoy the good cards if you don't care about our opinion.

@Maximal18 :

I really do not agree, I find it fun to use different cards with the same purpose behind them, love the variety. As said above, hellfire vs demonwrath vs shadow flame. Use an actual four drop that isn't piloted shredder. Play a shit ton of legendaries cause why not? They are one of anyway. But I guess I'm just another infinite arena fan anyway. Not cool enough at the constructed table.

10 bucks OP plays face hunter and cry everytime he sees warrior heal over his steady shot. Watch out, tomorrow will be "nerf reno, should be 10 mana overload 12 cause I can't kill him if he heals".

Seriously though, if you think it's so OP, play sideshow spelleater. You'll get a 6-5 instead of a 6-3 for the same cost/effect. WATCH OUT SO OP, SO OP, NERF SIDESHOW! Then erase this thread and wipe your tears.

If you don't get/see the value of cabal, then you play priest wrong. Especially in control priest, you play the game slowly, collect a lot of cards, control the board with some combos (auchenai COH, shrink cabal, voljin nova...) Cabal doesn't only give you a "free" minion, it REMOVES IT FROM YOUR OPPONENT'S BOARD! It's a shadow word pain + mini-mindcontrol + 4-5 minion for 6... I don't see why you don't feel it's in par with other 6 drops, it's actually one of the best! Yes, you may not play it on curve since it's not an optimal play, but priest isn't looking for absolute board presence. It's a situational class waiting for big tempo swing and this card is the perfect example of it.

You say it doesn't trade with emperor? Actually it does, and even better than any other 6 since it kills emperor AND another minion.

Also, most of the lists (at least mine) does include double shrink double cabal. Again, you don't HAVE to play a minion on turn 2, shrink is another combo enabler. Yes the obvious with cabal, but also with SWP, or just trade efficiency. Can also do some cool stuff with the swap atk-health card I toyed around a little. He's INVALUABLE in mirror match, stealing ysera is the winning move. Anyway, that's just me, but I'm pretty confident about my priest play.

Finally, in dragon priest, cabal is more of a tempo card. In this deck, you DO play for board presence. Yes you might find yourself stealing some hero powers or hunted creepers and smaller minions. But the point is, the opponent's board is smaller while yours is bigger. In dragon priest, you have to know your matchups. You'll find the right moment in mirror, again stealing ysera is huge. In tempo, waiting for the walker might be good, but sometimes, especially if you have a heavy hand, stealing mad scientist to deny mirror entity might be better. In hunter, any minion is a good target since you pretty much have to kill em all anyway. Warrior, acolyte is a huge steal. Druid, you'll want to wait a little bit to combo it with shrink since most are 4 atk. Etc. etc. etc... 

Anyway, I agree to disagree. Cabal is an awesome card in any priest deck. Look at it like this : 4-5 is 4 mana right? stealing even a 1 mana creature is value since you get one and remove one from your opponent. See it however you want but I can assure you that you'll be stealing even better minions pretty much all the time.

Just play deathrattle rogue, it kicks asses and Reno isn't even enough since the board sticks heavily.. I consider it a midrange deck since you rely heavily on board control.

It's insanely fun and refreshing! GJ! I destroy everything with it, even face hunters are getting rest!

In fact, only painful match up is ctrl warrior with his insane healing capabilities...

arcane golem