Evaluating the Quests of Un'Goro in a New Meta - Awaken the Makers
Aside from the one-turn-kill Mage archetype borne out of its quest Open the Waygate, class quests have largely fallen under the towering shadows of the more popular Death Knights. A few archetypes built around the Quests enjoyed a short stint atop tier lists, like Taunt Warrior or the once overpowered Quest Rogue, but most don’t see play.
In the wake of a fresh round of nerfs and just months before an anticipated expansion, all this prompted us to wonder what might help each class quest thrive. In the first part of an ongoing series, we’ll be looking at the Priest quest Awaken the Makers.
Amara Underwhelms
Reno Jackson fans hoped Awaken the Makers and its reward, Amara, Warden of Hope, might fill the void left in their hearts when the adventurer's time was up in the Standard format. They were, in a word, disappointed.
A neutral legendary minion, Reno enjoyed the flexibility of being used by whichever class had cards to mitigate its downsides. Warlock could draw cards to improve the chances of pulling Reno out of a deck of 30 single copies, Mage and, more recently, Priest both could stall until he swung into action. Powerful cards like Ice Block, Kazakus, and Raza the Chained helped along the way.
Players quickly realized the Reno-esque Battlecry effect offered by Amara was simply too slow within the framework of a Deathrattle-focused Priest deck. I promptly built my first Wild deck after the sting of disappointment set in.
Recently, the wildly entertaining Weasel Priest archetype managed to take advantage of Awaken the Makers, in a fatigue/demoralize-your-opponent-into-submission gameplan. That’s not exactly a sustainable win condition, though.
Minion (20)
Ability (9)
Playable Hero (1)
Loading Collection
An Obvious Omission
So what does Quest Priest need?
First and foremost, Priest needs better class-specific early-game deathrattle minions. Currently, fulfilling the quest does not pressure the opponent. This makes Quest Priest vulnerable to aggro decks that want to rush us down and control decks that can out-value our 80 or 120-health hero.
Better early-game deathrattle minions would allow us to fulfill the quest without forfeiting pressure. Of course, early-game deathrattle minions can’t have good stats across classes — this should be a gift to Priest specifically, in hopes of enabling the mostly dormant quest Blizzard introduced more than a year ago. I'm not asking for another Zombie Chow, but I am advocating for a Priest equivalent.
Such an addition would serve a dual-purpose. While it would strengthen the terrible early-game offered to Quest Priests right now, it would also strengthen one of its primary win conditions: N'Zoth, the Corruptor. After committing so much of our decklist to cards that fulfill the quest and help us survive into the late game, we need win conditions that don’t require quite so many resources. The Old God N’Zoth is just that, but reviving two Crystalline Oracle, two Loot Hoarder, two Plated Beetle, and a Cairne Bloodhoof won’t compete.
Rather than ditching the Standard format for the myriad great deathrattle minions in Wild — Sylvanas Windrunner, Deathlord, Sludge Belcher, Chillmaw — Priest needs the good deathrattle cards to extend into the midgame, too. That will keep the Quest archetype if not competitive at least viable into the near future.
Reawaken the Makers
As it stands (Weasel Priest being an occasional outlier), Quest Priest results in aggro matches that end before the quest matters, or the opposing control deck functions in such a way that Amara, Warden of Hope and its effect doesn’t threaten them. In the latter, Amara only matters to an opponent short on resources and nearing fatigue (With Jade Druid rotating to Wild soon, this will be more of a consistent possibility.)
The archetype needs better early-game deathrattle minions to apply pressure and make N’Zoth better. What those minions look like, whether we’ll get them in the next expansion, whether other cards might improve the Quest Priest’s win conditions, whether the meta allows for such an archetype in the first place — all that remains to be seen. But at least we know what we need to make the quest playable.
For now, we’ll have to settle for Carnivorous Cube, Weasel Tunneler, and an abundance of memes.
What sort of deathrattle minions do you think can answer Quest Priest's woes? Let us know in the comments
I versed a weasel priest the other day. I didn't know it was a deck type so I was a bit confused.
Still beat him soundly though...
It's not a great deck, but it's great for memes. https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/4325-weasel-priest-against-all-odds
I love priest, especially this kind of archetype. But I never crafted the quest because it was so underwhelming. I'd love to see it work, to at least reach tier 3.
The biggest problem of this quest is well... That Nzoth is rotating out of Standart. In Wild,as the time goes by, there are already viable tier 2 greedy Reno Priests with Quest while in Standart, you will be looking to close the game by Shadowreaper Anduin once the rotation happens(and actually as we can see, Anduin is a pretty good card even without Raza). My final statement is that if the Standart Priest players want to make Quest viable,they will have to look for some defensive build with new Elise so they can outcontrol their opponent and that is basically what is Savjz not so meme Weasel deck doing.
Ive found that quest priest actually thrives against aggro. With drawing twilights call or shadow visions you can comfortably complete quest turn 5-6.
share it with us, mate! I've made a quest priest myself but I would like so compare it with others.
Did you do it highlander or classic?
I used this one last month, it was OK for me. Should update it but the main concept is not so bad.
https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1025852-kac-spiteful-dragon-quest-priest
well, who won the 3K packs?
wrong comment section
where is necessary?
My favorite Quests are Fire Plume's Heart and Awaken the Makers, and I'm always holding out hope that they'll receive more love. If not, then...well...it was fun while it lasted; an enjoyable day or two, to be sure lol :/
The article keeps talking about N'Zoth, the Corruptor, but he is rotating out next expansion. What's the point then? Cause in wild you do have some deathrattle cards for priest... Dark Cultist, Museum Curator. Also, Shifting Shade is not horrible but will rotate out so!
As mentioned, It's a quest which doesn't have a win condition per se. Maybe for a Corrupted Healbot combo???
It's way easier to do combo with Zombie Chow and there isn't place for minions to do quest. Even without it it's way too slow against other metadecks
Well the point is that you can keep playing it in Wild obviously.
That's exactly it! In the next expansion, Priest needs several good deathrattle minions throughout its curve to make its quest viable once N'Zoth rotates. But we can't ignore N'Zoth altogether, since there are plenty of Wild aficionados out there.
Yeah, I don't see Quests coming back. Hero cards and Legendary weapons were better in the long run. What's the problem with Quests? They require so much for one thing. You want a Quest, you gotta design your deck around that Quest. It's the same reason C'thun died after Mean Streets of Gadgetzan released.
Hero cards and Legendary weapons though are good enough to play on their own, or are more flexible, hence why the Death Knight cards are still being used. They were so good, they had to be removed from the Arena draft. Quests though only allow for one archetype.
The only quest that was competitively played was way too good and got nerfed... Need we say more? ^^
The difference is that C'Thun will never have another directly synergistic minion in wild. Quests, on the other hand, will only get better and better as time goes on. Already several quests have become far more viable with the addition of K&C (druid recruit deck, pally buffs, rogue bounce). Sure you have to design your deck around quests but that's how it works with many types of decks. Raza had the restriction of single copies, Cubelock couldn't include more than Doomguard and Voidlord, Big Priest can't run any small minions aside from Barnes, and Tempo Rogue couldn't have two drops. They are all highly successful decks and require specific deckbuilding.