They’ve hardly added any cards to Res Priest (Grave Runes, potentially). It continues to be one of two archetypes that are somewhat viable. The other one also didn’t receive any help last expansion.
The problem is that the class has very limited power cards available, Psychopomp and Mass Res. The new revealed card won’t see play on the basis that it doesn’t play nice with those cards. Which is why I’m dreaming that Galakrond Priest will become a thing and open up so much more space for deckbuilding.
Quest, Khartut, graverunes even the albatross, play nicely with a res priest battle plan.
If it was just mass res and Psychopomp, the deck wouldn’t be viable.
A fast healthy 3 drop like from the new spell already empowers classic strong priest cards like northshire.
Is it by itself enough? Obviously not, but I have some expectations for the rest of the cards that are coming (if only to finally have a not-annoying priest deck for a change).
It’s not like we haven’t known the Devs to release absolute powerhouses of a card that can make a whole archetype by themselves… Secret agent coming though
I’m not sure where you’re going with this. Those cards came out in Saviors of Uldum, and my point is that Res Priest is largely unchanged since Saviors of Uldum.
Northshire and a random 2 drop from that spell do not play nicely with Res mechanics, because Northshire is a 1/3 and that 2 drop isn’t coming back with bonus health. Res Priest needs a pool that’s loaded with minions that do something more than just have stats.
My point is that Psychopomp and Mass Res are powerful cards that require a particular build to be powerful. Few cards have been printed to support that power level, unlike a less limiting restriction like Highlander decks grow stronger as the pool of cards grows.
Galakrond and it’s support cards aren’t powerful enough. A mana discount to your hand is a power for a combo deck, which doesn’t want it’s hand full of random cards. Knowing that the Neutral Invokes are balanced around doing something additional for Tempo, the Priest Invokes needed to be very powerful and are, at best, mediocre if not bad. Many Priest minions benefit from healing synergy, and going Galakrond removes your healing hero power. It’s “designed to fail” at it’s finest.
This is the kind of thing that makes me think no one in the Blizzard office plays Priest. These are obvious problems to someone who plays the class. But Blizzard keeps printing cards for that class that don’t fit with the design of the class. Galakrond’s evolving effect being just another aoe is another letdown, like they had no other ideas for what to do with Priest.
Nonono, you’ve missed my point.
I’m not saying that the 3 cost spell is anything amazing that’ll somehow magically fix Priest.
I’m saying that it could (I’m hoping) point towards a new direction that unlocks something new.
Both it and Galakrond and its invokes are much more minion based than a Res deck. Priest already has some tools like northshire to work with.
So, with some help (possibly from the adventure) I’m hoping to see a new archetype emerge.
This expansion had a few tools for res priest, tools that allow him to control the early game easier without diluting his pool (breath), tools to capitalise on his strong res targets (runes), and even a new res target (although kinda circumstantial, still quite good in Albatross)
I want them to move away from those:
So, no new clears, removals, deathrattles, etc but more “summoned minions”, “early minions”, “buffed minions”, etc
Priest doesn’t have enough power cards to play the midrange game though. If you’re trying to say that’s the direction you think they want to go then it’s going to take a lot more than a mere 2 drop with +3 health. Right now the opposition has highly synergistic decks with strong deck cohesion and often a large amount of value generation. Rogue’s can generate more cards than they start with in their whole friggin deck, warriors can hit your face for 14 damage in a single turn, shamans can revive a full board twice, warlocks have removal that’s on par with priest’s but unlike priest they can also go face with their spells.
Priest’s midrange game is and always has been about getting minions to stick on the board, but right now that’s impossible. The only reason res priest works somewhat is because it doesn’t require you to stick a minion. Priest doesn’t have board flood available to it, and it can’t buff multiple bodies at once. The midrange game is “put a beefy body on the board, then trade an dheal it”. That does’t work against Dragonqueen alextraza, or zephyris, or Reno Relicologist, or new “poof the board” reno, or tokens that swarm faster and get buffed then out trade, or instant board of 8/8’s and an arcanite reaper to boot or… you get the idea.
Priest’s midrange game has no win condition. It’s goal is simply “put bodies on board and pray they survive long enough to connect with face”. When the other classes have both strong board presence, better tempo minions, and strong removal priest’s midrange geame wilts away. Vendetta, underbelly fence, lackeys into faceless manipulator, instant 8/8 rush, warrior’s galakrond deleting everything the priest puts down… it’s all anathema to a midrange strategy with the current pool of minions priest has available to it.
Hey look, it’s exactly what I’ve been saying.
Face Hunter is dang near non-existent the higher up you go in rank. It might be a problem at rank 20-10. But rank 5 I only ever saw 1 and legend never saw a single one.
If you want to beat priest, start running silence, hex, poly or even the 4 taunt summon 3 1-cost minions for your opponent.
Priest is easy to tech against, it’s that nobody wants to give up greedy deck space to tech.
I was forced to give up deck space in my priest deck to play albatross to tech vs highlander and other priests, why shouldn’t other classes have to do the same vs priest?
What a lot of people are doing instead is running discover options to find solutions instead of sticking in the solutions themselves. Example: Quest Shaman was never running hex. Instead, it relied on the insane card generation to discover hex and other tech options for them. You don’t need to put in tech counters when you can just rely on your already heavy card generation arsenal to do it for you. Need a board clear? Discover it! Need a removal? Discover it! Need the perfect card? Zeph it! Need options for more minions? Discover it! Lackeys and discover cards are extremely popular and work with other classes and are practically non-existent for priest due to lack of support.
that’s exactly what i’m saying.
that both the Galakrond and the new spell point towards a more minion focused theme.
we’ll have to see the rest of the adventure cards, and if there’s a really busted one it may enable it, but it can simply be something they’re working towards.
it’s not unheard from them to try to change direction for a class over multiple xpacs (or even years in case of stuff like dr rogue, treant druid, heal paladin, etc… all took a really long time to actually become playable)
Face hunter doing what he does best. He cant be nerfed thats his playstyle. Other classes need more cards to be able to deal with it without scrapping their deck too much. I like the uniqness of hunter as a aggro camp unfortunately everything is face nowadays. You can nerf facehunter yourself by adding heal in your deck but maybe you have problems vs other decks. Im not saying facehunter isnt obnoxious but he was always this way. About Priest, Priest is broken and unfun and unplayable against. Its a lost class which relies on this broken strat right now. It will be gone one day.
No it’s not. There many answers to priest, you likely just don’t want to tech against it. It’s not even a tier 1 deck. If you’re having problems vs priest then it’s likely you’re playing a deck that gets hard countered by priest (face hunter) or you’re not teching in silences and other things. Saying it’s broken and unplayable against is just false in so many ways.
It relies on the 2/6 minion who kills ANY enemy Minion and a Legendery with 8 health who spawns a dead minion every turn.
Its broken because you get punished by removing enemy minions from the board+the Legendery is a from of kheltuzad just exclusive Priest. Its broken because the class priest RELYS as a whole on those 2 cards to be anything. If you remove those 2 cards Priest would be forced to actualy play Priest again.
If you’re getting crushed by infiltrator and muerte, then you:
- aren’t teching good enough to deal with either of them (silence, hex, poly, zeph, 4-taunt summon 3 1-cost minions guy, albatross)
- You’re probably not at any significant rank to be making a claim that priest is unplayable against and broken.
Sorry.
If you think it’s so broken, might I recommend actually playing it? Is it annoying? Yeah. But so is:
Galakrond Rogue
Galakrond Warrior
Zoolock
Facehunter
literally any other deck.
Is it some super unstoppable power? Not in the slightest.
Hey, thanks for spending some time to answers people on the forum. That very nice of you ! Happy new year.
Idk the names for i play on different language than english.
Besides, you say im low rank/noob so idk what im talking about, but the whole community screams for Priest nerfs. Its not about me, its about Priest beeing op and why, stay at the topic.
Thanks for the post! Don’t get too crazy with the nerfs though. I mean it was a bit odd to get a second round of nerfs when 35 new cards are about to be added to standard. Again thanks for the response!
no a few posters dont speak for all of us
Priest is rank 1 with highest winrates. But i don’t really mind, its not like i take this game srsly.
feels like you are lying
when people claim this at least they name the deck knowing the class has more than one (and of course they link to the source )
As for rez Priest and quest Priest its obvious.
Everyone knows the stats. An entire class is reliant on 2 cards to be playable. (Plus quest ok 3 cards)
so no sources showing the deck win rate spiking after the nerfs its bad match ups dodged
and those deck had some of theirs nerfed ?
Besides the stats which you can look up yourself, the deck is extremely unfun to play against. (Talking about rez priest)
You can not tech against a certain class, you will end up with useless polys vs zoolocks and facehunters. You can only ever make a compromise. You say rez priest or quest priest is not a problem, ok but alot of people including me say otherwise. I’ve stated my reasons, in the end we all for to live with what it is, like it or not. We can choose to not play the game as well.