78% WR Big Priest

Hi Everyone,

My name is Demi and I wanted to share a list I used to easily climb to Rank 3. Although the deck is not as strong as some of the others on ladder, it has provided me a way to play priest without playing Raza. It is also a deck that all matchups feel winnable, especially with some of the tech cards I’ve included. Whether you are new or experienced to Big Priest, this guide will be helpful in refining your ability to play this deck in the current meta.

Introduction to Big Priest

    The basic strategy of this deck is to cheat out high value minions and then continue to recur them (as we say in MTG). As simple as this seems there are some important strategies and lines of play that have to be enacted in order for this to work, especially against control match ups.  

Mulligans 

• He is the best way to get the revive engine in this deck working, the one and only Mr.Barnes .  Always mulligan everything until you get it. This may seem a bit foolish since it is unlikely that you will draw it and that you’ll be throwing away other valuable cards like Shadow Essence ,Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Horror . However, with this deck it is more important to play to your out/win. With an aggressive mulligan strategy like this you stand a 25.8% (1/30 +1/29 + 1/28, etc.) of getting our win-now card in the 7 draws that occur before playing him. 

Once you have Barnes:

• Eternal Servitude is just amazing when following up Barnes. Do not waste your time keeping it without him. Although it is the highest priority with him, it is the lowest value without him.
• Shadow Visions is simply a solid card that allows you to fetch a spell that is relevant to your hand and board state, two things that can be surprisingly hard to predict by turn 2.

        If Aggro :

• Shadow Word: Pain because killing Ship's Cannon, Southsea Captain and Mana Wyrm is pretty important early.
• Shadow Word: Horror Best against Paladin, Aggro Druid and Warlock. Otherwise look for something else.

        If Control/Midrange

• Lesser Diamond Spellstone is great to start upgrading early if you have everything else.

Matchup Guidelines and Win Strategies

• Avoid playing into Sunkeep Tarim with your Lesser Diamond Spellstone which means take an active role in clearing board before you flood your own. A 3/3 The Lich King that you thought was going to protect you against a 1/1 board is always going to feel bad.
• Try and get the most value for your clear spells which sometimes means waiting for Silence,Pint-Size Potion before using Shadow Word: Horror. There gets to a certain point where Paladin cannot beat you no matter how much value their Val'anyr can get them.

• You lose this match up if you cannot play around Twisting Nether which most lists run x2 of. Try and set up a board that punishes them for doing it. This can happen when they lose a good amount of their cards as well.  Try and upgrade and go in with Lesser Diamond Spellstone on their turn 7 (assuming they don’t have coin).
• You 100% lose to this card, Azari, the Devourer which gets created from Rin, the First Disciple. Hold silence for this minion.
• There is a tendency in this match up to grind value, which Big Priest has more of than any other deck besides Jade Druid. You most certainly can play this route against Warlock and win but be wary of how to manage Voidlord and other demons being revived by Bloodreaver Guld'an and N'Zoth, The Corruptor

• If Razakus, mind your life total late game to avoid getting OTK by Prophet Velen and hero power.  Forcing them to play their Shadowreaper Anduin is an amazing way to win this matchup as well as playing yours when you have stabilized. 
• If Mid-Range Dragon Priest, good luck. It is a deck designed to counter yours with Grand Archivist +Mind Control combo and dragons that don’t die to Dragonfire Potion
• You lose to Potion of Madness just due to tilting alone. Know that you are taking a risk dropping Mr.Barnes and not playing Silence or Smite on your own minion when it is in 1/1 form.

• Can be a tough match-up since they generally run Counterspell. In order to manage this deck destroying card, I have included low cost cards like Smite and Silence to bait them out.
• Mage tries to play around Dragonfire Potion but never underestimate the value of getting an strong taunt minion on board. Unfortunately for their list, they don’t run Polymorph which is just a mistake with the amount of play and destruction Carnivorous Cube is causing right now.
• Watch your life total; sometimes using Shadow Visions to get another Greater Healing Potion is well worth it. Also know that the lifesteal and taunt on Obsidian Statue wins you this match-up. If you can be sure that you wont get burst’d down from spells, get this guy out.

• Twig-Big druid needs a substantial amount of luck to win this match-up which includes ramping to playing Twig of the World Tree into Medivh, the Guardian into Kun the Forgotten King into Ultimate Infestation. The only time I have lost to druid is when they did this. Your minions are too difficult to deal with and played at such an odd tempo for Druid to manage.
• Aggro druid wins if you use your only clear and they respond with Living Mana. Try your best to play around Savage Roar lethal because otherwise you can keep reviving taunt minions and hide/heal behind the early game damage.

Cards I Run and Don’t Run

• Psychic Scream The card is great but only in certain match ups. It either sits in your hand in aggro matchups or seriously annoys your control opponent. My one thought about this card is how amazing it is against Warlock and Paladin. However, my win rate against is Paladin is 100% and against Warlock is 82%. I honestly don’t want to play the card against the mirror since that sometimes means I lose my minions and then they have tempo for next turn. If there are a lot of Cube Locks and Mid-Range Dragon Priests Psychic Scream is a definite include over Smite.
• Smite It may seem bad but it actually allows you to get to upgrades Lesser Diamond Spellstone. In this way it can provide a way to fight early and develop into later game. It also helps against Cat Trick if you find yourself playing into that. The main reason for this include was how prevalent Mage was at the beginning of the season. As mentioned earlier, Counterspell ruins your deck so you need a way to manage it earlier on instead of wasting your later Shadow Essence/Eternal Sevitude turns
• Shadow Word: Death is good against really one card and that is Cobalt Scalebane. Anything else, your DK and board clears can manage not to mention your revived minions. 
• Circle of Healing Embrace the Shadow , yeah … just no. Separate they are horrible and together they do little more than Shadow Word: Horror does.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to hearing from people in the comment section. You can check me out playing this deck and others on Twitch.tv/OneTrueDemi