The deck just isn’t that good period. If anything i’d swap out incorporeal corporeal for two handmaidens then and keep the haunting nightmares. But that just clusters the 3 slot even harder. The list is one dimensional and its matchup spread is lopsided. It rolls over lateg ame slow decks, but fast board centric swarm and buff decks, OR decks that cheat massive stats early eat it alive. It’s not that good and the list is so rigid there is basically no room for further optimization.
You missed one, too. You’re a tempo oriented deck and you’re relying on an Undead dying in order for Grave Digging to be effective. You need a minion on board if you want to draw with Cathedral. They really only work if your deck is ALREADY functioning, rather than being a way to save yourself if your opening hand is bad. Like most draw in other classes. Arguably the best bonus to running Scourge Rager is being able to activate Grave Digging on your turn. Otherwise you need to set up to Dig for next turn. It’s very clunky.
I said during the reveals that I wished Grave Digging cost 3, was just an Arcane Intellect with an upside in a very specific archetype. Just look at that and look at the Rogue Concoction package and tell me which one you’d rather have.
But this isn’t actually a tempo deck. it has NO one drop minions, and the two drop is basically just mind blast. If you trade incorporeal into a minion it feels pretty miserable. All the other swarm decks are playing troggs on one, along with batty guests, arm’s dealers, sanguine soldiers, righteous protectors, flame imps, flustered librarians, and skeletal sidekicks
The only thing you have in this list to counter that stuff is shadowcloth needle. But needle’s aoe is ineffective against a trogg, and as soon as those 1 drops get buffed you’re screwed. Flustered librarian’s 3 health in particular is a problem going into a vile library play, but hunter has doggie biscuits and ramming mounts to buff his 1 drops… and paladin has…every buff under the sun along with his divine shields. The list is NOT resilient enough to be good. It’s just mediocre no matter what you do. To that end Mind Sear is actually a HUGE plus to the decks early survivability. It’s probably enough to bump it up from tier 4 to tier 3. But it’s not a list you really want to take to ladder. There are other decks doing better things.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I mean by “Tempo Oriented”. The draw is unreliable and the cards don’t have adequate value to play a long game, so you’re really lacking the resources to play a long game. The longest you want the game to go is Turn 8 or 9 and Xyrella ends it, right? Ideally you’d close out the game with a Basaleph on 5 or 6.
Do you really not want Darkbishop in there somewhere? I think you’ve only got Shadow spells.
Why do you consider Brittleskin Zombie so core to this list?
Since the Deathrattle is conditional, you rely on your opponent to kill it for you, and it does nothing when Xyrella replays it except add an additional animation.
I would like to see something like Undying disciple do damage to all enemies instead of just minions.
I think we could make a fun DR deck around that with amulet and some of the other spells.
Brittleskin is pretty core just because it adds consistency to the list. In 24% of games both copies of shadowed spirit are going to be on the bottom half of the deck, and in 10% of the games both copies will be on the bottom 10 cards. Shadowed spirit is the main “burn” minion, so if you don’t draw him you’re playing a much weaker tempo deck. Even though brittleskin doesn’t synergize with Xyrella and is strictly worse than shadowed, you still want him for the consistency.
Do you really not want Darkbishop in there somewhere? I think you’ve only got Shadow spells.
It’s possible you do, but you really don’t want to be spending two mana very often to use your hero power. Also, he feels pretty bad to just drop as a 5 mana 5/6 with the way this deck wants to play out. Since you need to cut four cards to make way for Mind Sear and Rotting necromancer, (and you definitely DO want them in your deck), then I think Darkbishop is one of the cards that gets cut.
I’ve actually been playing a fair number of variations on Undead Shadow Priest (mostly to work on various achievements), so I do understand how important Shadowed Spirit is to the deck working.
I’m more wondering why Brittleskin is automatically still in while you’re considering possibly cutting Haunting or Corporal. Those also provide bodies for consistency in extra undead bodies.
Corporal in particular might also get better if there’s a way to squeeze Whispers into the list, plus he doesn’t crowd the 3-cost slot like Brittleskin does.
(I’m personally not planning to drop Haunting Nightmares from whatever list I run, but that has nothing to do with whether it’s a good idea to run him, and everything to do with still needing to summon another 50+ spirits to complete that achievement.)
I could see cutting brittleskin for handmaiden. The list I suggested earlier has a couple minions you can toy with. Brittleskin, Haunting, and Incorporeal are the most likely tweaks. Brittleskin for handmaiden is probably the change I’d make. The deck really does need the draw consistency, and getting that handmaiden in there is definitely something I’d like to do.
I find myself pinging on Turn 2 fairly often and getting good mileage out of it. Like to nuke a Trogg of Flame Imp or something. 2 damage on a Librarian to clean it up with something else. It’s not the ideal T2 but the other versions I’ve played don’t have a lot of options, either.
This.
If charge is so toxic, why can spells have the same effect AND ignore taunts?
Seems like the opposite of what should be happening in the game. In a game that’s difficult to interact with your opponent on their turn, damage from hand should be an ultra premium resource rather than the norm, I would think.
Same ole same ole. Blizzard gives priests pieces to a bunch of half-baked ideas that only look remotely good on paper but never work well in the actual game, usually because other classes have much stronger options or can plain counter what priest is trying to do.