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As if Priest wasn’t powerful enough in the last expansion, it just got a whole lot better in Kobolds and Catacombs! Currently, there are many viable Priest decks that you may encounter on the ladder. As of now, the most prominent Priest decks are Spiteful Priest, Combo Priest, Control Priest, and this deck itself – Big Priest! While each deck has its own strengths and caveats, Big Priest is more beginner friendly in comparison because its game plan is somewhat linear, and the options available to you are often straightforward.
When compared to other “big decks” in the expansion such as “EZ Big EZ Druid” and Big Recruit Warrior, Big Priest has a couple of advantages over them! First, Warrior and Druid both don’t have access to the “resurrect” mechanic, therefore when their minion dies, it’s gone for good! Secondly, Priest potentially has the fastest way for bringing out a heavy hitter naturally with Barnes followed by an Eternal Servitude, as the other two classes normally don’t have Barnes in their deck, thus they often have to wait to either ramp or play Gather Your Party on turn 6. Lastly, this deck has no real “insta-lose” matchups because of its wide versatile range of reactive tools with cards such as Shadow Word: Horror and Dragonfire Potion. Since the deck utilizes the “resurrect” mechanic, it does not need as many minions as other big decks! These slots can be filled with more reactive tools to combat against aggro!
Though the deck is still somewhat volatile because of its inconsistency, where you may find yourself having dead reactive hands without certain key cards such as Barnes and Shadow Essence against control matchups, it is still by far one of the most fun decks to play on ladder! Multiple players have consistently managed to hit high legend ranks with this deck!
Update: Big Priest (April 2018 – Post Nerf)
Big Priest, while maybe not the best deck, is still a very solid ladder choice. If you have all the cards, you can still play it before the rotation – future of the deck is unknown with both Barnes and Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound rotating out.
Big Priest Card Choices
Silence – Since you can’t run minion version of Silence (like Kabal Songstealer), as it could potentially ruin your Barnes and Shadow Essence, this 0 mana spell is the best choice. You use it against buffs, minions with powerful Deathrattles (like Possessed Lackey or Taunts to get through them when you have big board).
Pint-Size Potion – A potential deadly board clear when combined with Shadow Word: Horror, allowing you to clear minions with 5 attack or less, especially useful against mid game boards, where Horror alone is not enough.
Shadow Visions – A must have in this deck due to its versatile nature. You’re able to search for your reactive spells against an aggressive deck, and against a more control deck, you’re able to get your key resurrect cards, Shadow Essence and Eternal Servitude. The amount of value you can gain is immeasurable when you discover one of your resurrect spells! Keep in mind that against against a control deck, it may be wise to save your Shadow Visions until turn 5, so that you increase your chances of discovering Shadow Essence.
Shadow Word: Pain – A staple in almost any Priest deck. There is almost a target in every deck for Pain to get value out of!
Shadow Word: Death – An efficient removal for 3 mana, particularly useful against all the decks with Corridor Creeper or Spiteful Summoner.
Barnes – Barnes on Turn 4 is insane against any deck archetype as it allows you to sometimes win the game outright! The best case scenario is pulling Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound into another minion, but even a Obsidian Statue is a strong pull on a contesting the board. Follow up with Eternal Servitude for a quick win.
Eternal Servitude – This deck wouldn’t be much of a Resurrect Priest if it couldn’t resurrect minions. After your minions have died, you can resurrect them for additional value and tempo! This card is insane in the late game, where you already have developed big minions. A 4 mana Ysera or Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is pretty good if you ask me.
Greater Healing Potion – Since you normally won’t be playing minions until the mid-late game, you are bound to take some damage. Greater Healing Potion is a great defensive mechanism to ensure that you’re alive by the time you play some minions. It can also keep you alive against high burst / combo decks in the mid/late game.
Shadow Word: Horror – A great counter to Paladin’s Call to Arms, or any aggressive deck that likes to summon a bunch of small minions. Also works as a destructive board clear in combination with Pint-Size Potion on turn 5, where you call follow it up with Shadow Essence on turn 6.
Dragonfire Potion – A staple in any Priest deck, and Aggro’s worst nightmare. This card can single-handedly clear a board. A kind reminder is that it does not affect Dragons, so if you face cards like Drakonid Operative, Twilight Drake or Cobalt Scalebane, remember that it won’t work on them. On the upside, it also doesn’t damage your Ysera and the 7/6 Dragon you can roll from her.
Shadow Essence – This may seem inferior to Warrior’s Gather Your Party as the minion summoned is only a 5/5, but it works well the overall deck archetype. Normally, it isn’t the 5/5 that applies pressure and scares your opponent – it is when you resurrect it! Rolling Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is obviously the best case scenario, as it pulls an actual minion from your deck (it can even pull the 10/10 version of Y’Shaarj).
Lesser Diamond Spellstone – If you weren’t convinced enough of the deck’s potential in the last expansion, then this new card should do the job! This card can be massive after your opponent cleared your first wave of minions, especially if it’s upgraded. Keep in mind that the resurrection only works with distinct minions.
Psychic Scream – The long-awaited “insta-clear” board wipe that works excellently no matter what the board state is! Your opponent can have 7 minions on board while you have none, and within the snap of your virtual fingers, it’s gone – poof. It was as if you had a hidden reset button all along.
Shadowreaper Anduin – A strong tempo play against high-attack minions. The damage from your hero power also allows you to additionally pressure your opponents.
The Lich King – The MVP from the Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion. The amount of value that you can gain from this card alone is immeasurable. It’s a great pull from Barnes and a terrifying resurrect target.
Obsidian Statue – A nice defensive-orientated minion that allows you regain health, and with its insta-kill deathrattle effect, this card is an auto-include. If you managed to resurrect this, most aggro decks will just concede outright because of its stat-line and invaluable deathrattle.
Ysera – If a card’s text could be rewritten with just the word “value” on it, it would be Ysera. Because of its reoccurring effect, this minion has an invisible taunt, demanding your opponent to answer it in some fashion!
Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound – Have you ever had games where your opponent played Barnes on turn 4 and it pulled Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound, subsequently pulling a 10/10 copy, and you simply thought to yourself, “Well, that’s was a fun and interactive game.” as your mouse cursor hovers the bottom right corner? Well, it’s your turn to do the same! You’ve been through enough! It’s time for you to inflict the suppressed pain you’ve been enduring all this time onto others!
Big Priest Win Rates
Winrate stats are currently unavailable for this deck at the moment!
Big Priest Mulligan Guide and Strategy
Similar to any other “big” deck in the meta, you don’t want to keep any minions in hand aside from Barnes, as it would reduce the deck’s overall effectiveness.
VS Fast Decks
Higher Priority (Keep every time)
- Barnes – Barnes always has the highest priority – getting him on Turn 4 usually results in a quick victory. If you have it, keep it 100% of the time.
- Shadow Word: Pain – Stall tool, good way to answer the early game minions of an Aggro deck. Let’s say that a single 2/3 minion might not seem threatening, but if it survives and hits you for 4 turns straight, that’s 8 damage you could have prevented with a simple Pain.
- Shadow Word: Horror – Since you can’t always guarantee a Turn 4 Barnes, you often have to survive until the mid/late game. Shadow Word: Horror is your first AoE and a great keep vs Aggro decks. Playing it on Turn 4 will usually result in at least 2-3 minions dying, possibly even a whole board.
Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)
- Pint-Size Potion – Keep with Shadow Word: Horror. Against many boards, it’s worth to wait an extra turn to get a full board clear. It’s very unlikely that an Aggro deck will drop something with more than 5 Attack.
- Eternal Servitude – Keep with Barnes, so you can revive whatever big minion you pull out. Even if you low-roll an Ysera, it’s still good to have a 4 mana 4/12 to fight for the board.
- Shadow Essence – Your second best way to get your big minion out, after Barnes. However, since Turn 6 is a long way into the game, keep it vs Aggro only if you have tools to stall/survive already – like the Pain or Horror listed above.
VS Slow Decks
Higher Priority (Keep every time)
- Barnes and Shadow Essence – Those are the cards you mulligan for against a slower deck. You don’t really need those defensive tools or board clears, as a slower deck won’t put much pressure on you anyway (healing with your Hero Power is usually good enough). So you want to hard mulligan for either of those two, as they both increase your chance to win if played on the curve (Barnes much more so, but Shadow Essence is still better than waiting until Turn 8-9 to play the actual minions from your hand).
Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)
- Eternal Servitude & Lesser Diamond Spellstone – If you already have either Barnes or Shadow Essence (or both!). Keeping Diamond Spellstone might seem weird, but it’s actually quite a solid keep vs slow decks. You can afford to have one dead card, and playing it on Turn 7 to revive 2-3 big minions is often game over.
Big Priest General Playstyle and Strategy
Vs Aggro
When you play against an Aggro deck, your main, and pretty much the only goal is to survive. Once you get the point when you drop Obsidian Statue and keep reviving it, you are guaranteed to win. The mid game also should be easy to survive, given how many AoE clears you have (not to mention that you can heal up with Greater Healing Potion in case you’re dying).
During the early turns, you want to be a little bit greedy with your removals. Aggro decks are going to drop a lot of stuff, so if you play them left and right, you will run out of ways to answer the board very quickly. For example, if it’s turn 3 and you face a 2/3 minion – do you Shadow Word: Pain it? Well, it all depends. If opponent doesn’t have a lot of pressure – you can just heal up and pass. If you have a Shadow Word: Horror in your hand, that’s another reason to not clear it, as it might die with the rest of the board next turn. At the same time, if your opponent drops a 2/3 on Turn 2, and you have no way to clear it other than Pain, just do it – it’s going to save you a lot of damage.
Overall, your goal is to survive until the mid game. In the mid game, between Pint-Size Potion + Shadow Word: Horror, Dragonfire Potion and Psychic Scream, you should have more than enough ways to clear the board.
Remember that Psychic Scream shuffles all the minions back into your opponent’s deck. Which makes it a great removal vs token-heavy decks like Dude Paladin. For example, if they go for Stand Against Darkness play, shuffling all those 1/1’s back is amazing for you. It makes the quality of their draws much lower and Call to Arms is very likely to pull out vanilla 1/1’s.
Shadow Visions is a quite important card in those matchup, but picking the right card is key. While Eternal Servitude will obviously be the best pick if you have Barnes in your hand already, that’s not always the case. If you have some mid game board clears already, but you have no way to gain health, pick Greater Healing Potion. You can also pick the second part of the Pint-Size + Horror combo if you already have one. And finally, if you have no other way to summon a big minion, picking a Shadow Essence might actually be your best bet.
Your best revive target in Aggro matchups is obviously Obsidian Statue. Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound might be even better, but only if you have no Ysera left in your deck. I’ve actually lost some games by going for Y’Shaarj instead of Obsidian Statue and pulling out the Ysera. The Lich King is also solid because of the Taunt, but the lack of Lifesteal makes it sub-optimal.
Vs Control
Against Control, your game plan is quite different. Even though your deck has tons of Control tools, you are rarely looking to win through the board control. Your best bet to win in slow matchups is putting pressure. The amount of big minions you can drop during a single game is staggering, it’s more than most of the slow decks can clear (maybe besides Big Spell Mage, but that’s an exception).
You don’t have to worry about getting rushed down and dying so much – cards like Shadow Word: Pain or Shadow Word: Horror are pretty bad. You’re mulliganing hard for your Barnes and Shadow Essence to start your revive train as soon as possible. The earlier you get your big minions out, the better, as your opponent will be more likely to have a way to answer them as the game goes by.
Even though Control decks can’t really rush you down in the early game, it’s very possible that they will do it in the mid game if you have a very slow start. For example, Mountain Giant is one of your worst enemies – if you won’t get Shadow Word: Death to answer it, it can kill you over a few turns, or at least deal enough damage that you will be forced to play defensively, which is never good.
But, getting a big minion down on the board does not necessarily mean that you win on the spot. Sometimes a single Obsidian Statue doesn’t even put that much pressure – for example if you face Priest or Warrior, they can gain 2 life per turn, and since you’re dealing only 4, it would take a LONG time to kill them. It’s important to put enough pressure on the board, but to not overextend. Two minions is usually a sweet spot – they put enough pressure, they don’t die to a single target removal, and you don’t really mind getting them AoE’d with something like Twisting Nether.
When it comes to your revive targets, the best one to revive on the empty board is Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound. It gives you enough pressure with just a single card. That said, if you already have something on the board, reviving Y’Shaarj would most likely mean overextending. If you already have something, or you’re going for a more value-oriented game, The Lich King and Ysera are your best revive targets. Because of their effects, they give you extra cards every turn, forcing your opponent to deal with them as quickly as possible.
Lesser Diamond Spellstone is a key card in slow matchups. First of all, try to get it to at least the second upgrade before using it. Second thing is that play it only on the empty board – use it as a refill after a removal, and not as a way to put more pressure, because you can get seriously punished with AoE. Spellstone is also an amazing pick from Shadow Visions – it’s really hard to lose the games in which you cast 3 or 4 Spellstones.
Besides being another AoE removal against big minions, Shadowreaper Anduin is actually your alternative win condition in slow matchups. You can’t always win with minions – they might get constantly removed, you might not draw your revives etc. Anduin gives you a way to put pressure on the opponent even if your board is empty. Generally, if you go for the Anduin route, the best way is to play 2-3 Hero Powers per turn while doing other things. For example, if your opponent develops a few minions, you can play Hero Power (on their face) + Dragonfire Potion + Hero Power. This way you clear AND deal 4 damage. You can sometimes use it 3 times if you combine it with cheaper spells like Silence, Shadow Visions etc. Of course, the best case scenario is putting pressure with both Hero Power and minions. This way your opponent has to worry about two things – clearing the board AND gaining more life. You can also gain extra burst thanks to the Ysera and The Lich King – Ysera Awakens or Death Coil both deal 5 extra damage while costing only 2 mana. It’s very common to burst your opponent down for 9 or 11 damage thanks to those cards.
Just like against Aggro, you need to remember that Psychic Scream shuffles all the minions back, so use it wisely. For example, it might be a good play against a board full of small minions, as it will stall your opponent’s draws. But shuffling back a win condition like N'Zoth, The Corruptor might not be optimal. Sometimes you actually want to clear a certain minion before shuffling the rest – e.g. if you Death the N’Zoth first and then shuffle the board, you don’t risk your opponent dropping the N’Zoth again a few turns later.
Big Priest Card Replacements
Big Priest is an expensive deck and, sadly, most of the expensive cards simply can’t be replaced. However, if you really want to test it out and you don’t mind having a lower win rate, some of the cards CAN be replaced.
Shadow Visions is great, but not absolutely necessary. It makes the deck more consistent, but doesn’t add that much power.
Dragonfire Potion – Your main AoE board clear, I’d say that at least one copy is necessary.
Psychic Scream – One copy is generally enough, so it’s fine if you don’t have second. If you don’t have any, you will have a hard time dealing with some of the boards (like Bloodreaver Gul'dan vs Warlock).
Shadowreaper Anduin – Good card, but not necessary. If you don’t have it, it won’t really affect your win rate that much.
You can fill the gaps with cards like Holy Smite, Potion of Madness, Silence or Spirit Lash.
As for your big minions, they’re all either Epic or Legendary and they’re picked carefully to provide a mix of survival and value. You COULD try to replace the ones you don’t have with other, high value minions. Ysera is the easiest one to replace, as it’s usually the worst one to get out of a bunch. If you face a lot of Aggro, even Sleepy Dragon might be a solid replacement. Other than that, you can also run Free From Amber – another way to get a good, big minion to revive. Violet Wurm might look tempting for the Barnes or Shadow Essence synergy, but then again, it really messes up with your Spellstone, so you should not play both in the same deck.
Oh, and Barnes is absolutely necessary. You can’t run the deck without it, it doesn’t make sense.
just came off playing this deck for 3 hours. I won twice. I could probably blog about the variety of ways in which I lost to the variety of decks I played. It was super consistently a stinker across a wide variety, lol.
I just wanted to drop a comment to say thanks for this particular list. It has performed better for me than any other Big Priest list I’ve played. This list feels extremely strong to me right now, as it can handle the common paladin, mage, priest, and warlock decks, which are everywhere.
I usually get to rank 5 around the end of each month, then pretty much stop there. With the ladder changes this month, I started at 9, which allowed me to get to 5 very quickly. I ran this list exclusively starting at rank 5. I have been playing since June 2015, and I’m happy to say that today, with this deck, I just reached legend for the first time.
I had a 70% winrate from rank 3 to legend. I encourage anyone else to try this while you can. I was stomping all of the other top meta decks with ridiculous consistency.
Thank you for this list!
Is this list dead next rotation?
-Minus x1 combo removal
-Minus Barnes
-Minus Y’Shaarj
It seems like it will rotate out in standard but you can always play it in wild. I would even say the deck is stronger in wild since you get ragnaros.
No decks ‘die’ after the rotation. There’s such thing as ‘wild’, which I’m wondering why it’s so unpopular…
If you guys haven’t tried it, the burn version is pretty fun with mind blast, holy smite, veleen and malygos
The problem with this deck is you can’t play it effectively until Barnes comes out. That could be turn 40 or it could be turn 4.
This simply isn’t true. You have enough removal in the deck that you can survive without playing any minions until you draw minions, and they aren’t limited to Barnes.
Drawing Barnes doesn’t decide the match. It is a catalyst. Drawing it decides whether you win fast and easy with an early highroll, or whether you have to actually try to win the game over a long period of time.
You have Shadow Essence. You have resurrect spells. And you have the minion cards themselves. You can most definitely play effectively and win without a Barnes draw.
I can’t even believe he would complain about not drawing Barnes when it’s a can’t lose when you do.
What do you guys think of Leeroy in the 5 spot?
No
Yes!
I actually went with an Anti-Lock tech version:
-2 Holy Smite
-2 Greater Healing Potion
-1 Holy Fire
For the following:
+2 Mass Dispel
+2 Mind Control
+1 Psychic Scream
It’s fun! But no.
I think 1 psychic scream is enough on this deck. I also added 2 potion of madness and silence instead of spirit lash, is very good against aggro and against the mirror.
the only problem with potion of madness is it will affect lesser diamond spellstone
Indeed too many voidlord around.
How important is Anduin in this deck? :O … He seems kinda out of his place to me…
Have been playing without Anduin for the last 150 games, currently at 62% WR. Really not a necessity, you have plenty of removal + your statues.
Haha pulled out Barnes with shadow essence and used psychic stream to hand him over to my opponent 😀 i guess thats what op removal is for
I’m playing aggro paladin and I’m skeptical that this deck has a 22% win-rate against it.
There’s very few stats at the moment unfortunately, that percentage is based on only 60 games. It should start to get more accurate soon.
I HATE this deck! turn 4 plays a 9 mana minion, and then re summon it 23857 times… it has no sense.
Thank god nobody plays this monster.
Psychic scream not good for this deck…….you dont want to give your big minions, which you have so few of.
The card is obvs used to remove your opponents minions when you have none. Use your brain please.
Thank you for uploading this deck , I have just made now from rank 15 to Legend , this is the first time hitting this rank.
I’m really grateful for this , worked very well , especially from rank 8 and below !
So glad it worked out for you! Congrats on your Legend.
thoughts on removing holy smite
(add spirit lash? open to other suggestions -holy smite hasn’t done much for me thus far; although admittedly I’ve only piloted 5 games with the deck thus far).
:: W/ shaman, rogue, mage, priest
:: L/ hunter
This deck has many regain health options (I would say insane amount of options if you compare it to other decks), you need smite to kill those 3/2 problematic minions on turn 2 and not waste your word pain too early. Smite plus reaper power is very strong play later in the game when you close to finish the game.
What you need in this deck is more consistency. If there’s no barnes in your hand (happens more often than you admit) there’s a big problem. I think free from amber should be disposed (it helps when you draw all minions from your deck – rare case) and mountain giant should be added. He could be played on turn 4 with coin (replacing barnes, but even stronger) or turn 5 without. Otherwise a lot of your matchups will be just doing nothing and watching your face being a target. What you prefer: 8 mana card that helps sometimes or 4-5 mana 8/8 that you can resurrect and gives you something very close to barnes effect? 🙂 Rhetorical question. 🙂 Regards BIGs. 🙂
THIS DECK IS A FUCKING NIGHMARE.
I just went like 7 loss in a row. even when I draw barnes…
It seems people just have strong fucking removal now days,
and It’s Only RNG, that is to say just sit for ten minutes and swallow shit.
It’s gonna give me a heart attack… there is next to NO control whatsoever.
as for litch king spells, if u get ‘army of the dead’ just never play it… Don’t know the number of times that card just Fucked me completely because i was dumb enough to play it.
I don’t know if I can take you seriously when you chose to play “Army of the Dead” when using this deck…
I am saying not to play it…
Army of Dead saved me many times against aggro. It’s best used when you’re falling behind on board and need to have something there otherwise you lose. I would only play it if I haven’t drawn any minions or just 1-2 at most.
Indeed it is a F## nightmare, especially against tempo decks.
No way you can get board control.
same over here this deck is very good but blizzard playing games with us not giving top decks to win with their magical RNG
If you dont have Barnes.. its posible to play this deck? or another minion to replace Barnes? Thanks
It’s not recommended.
Yes you can! You can run Patches in place of Barnes! Or even something like Alley Cat! Wait what?
Wow. Obsidian 5 times!! Buffed my hero right back up from early round loss. Fun.
This deck us not ez big priest rename it to Barnes RNG. Overall fun deck but boring as hell.
“fun deck but boring as hell” lol….
Loving this deck… not usually a priest player but this is right up my alley…. still learning it’s intricacies but it’s a ton of fun
Is this Deck Worth to Craft im rank 18 atm i mean does it take much time to learn or is it hard?, and is it still worth to craft?
No, it’s too dependent on RNG and Barnes is a Karazhan card.
Also it’s really expensive if you haven’t noticed.
Que gonna test this out
tried this deck and kept struggling with too many spells rendering shadow visions nearly useless and not quite enough minions plus running out of health in the early game. so swapped mass dispel for another greater healing potion and took out silence and holy smite for two blood of the ancient ones. do you realise how many ways this deck has of summoning the ancient one? lol.
trying to decide if squeezing in a pair of Mirage callers for even more ancient one plays is worth the problems it would cause with the other synergies. so far I have decided not to risk it but it could be fun.
That’s fun! I’m skeptical that it would be more competitive than the regular version, but who knows? Way to innovate
decided to go for it and replace the two potions of madness but decided although Mirage callers are cheaper, faceless manipulators are more versatile. don’t know if the deck is better than the original but it is definitely fun.
ok, play tested it some more and realized 1) Shadowreaper Anduin just sits dead in my hand most of the time as it will do more harm to me than to my opponent. 2) free from amber is a luxury but not a necessity. and 3) with all the taunts, buffs, bubbles, and death rattles being played you were right about mass dispel. took out Shadowreaper Anduin and free from amber, put in two copies of mass dispel and it works much better now.
I have considered this deck, but cant afford lich king, or the dk, are they a must for the deck, or could i replace it with a mind control or second free from amber?
DK is not necessary, but a nice to have against control decks. Lich King is the same. You are already heavily favoured against control anyway so it does not matter that much. If you try to improve your aggro/midrange match-ups I would advise to replace Lich King and DK with Smite and maybe another big taunt that can be pulled with Barnes and Shadow Essence.
Sry for late response, but thx alot, have had a lot of succes with the deck recently (Y)
Been playing for years and this was the first deck I’ve been able to make legend with. Went from 5 to 1 in one night. thanks for the awesome guide and deck!
Congrats!
Hello,
Why you don’t play Rezza? She has Combo with Anduin
I assume you mean Raza? That card only works in highlander decks that contain 1 of each card.
Replacement for Ysera? I have medivh and prophet velen but they haven’t seemed to work to well.
Velen could work but he’s kinda niche, only effective with healing, Holy Smite, DK Hero Power or Dragonfire Potion. However, this could be helpful against decks like Jade Druid where a resurrected Velen using Eternal Servitude + DF Potion is a 10 mana clear board of most Jades, or even a 24 health Greater Healing Potion if you need that one extra turn against your opponent. I’d say put Velen in and if he’s not working then replace him with another big minion or a Thoughtsteal.
Best replacement for Ysera is def The Lich King
Another fun swap out is Gruul – he can be fun when pulled out of Barnes of Shadow Essence
Devour mind is absolutely useless in this deck. There is never enough room to use it for card draw.
Me and a couple of friends have replaced Devour Mind and Lich King with Charged Devilsaur. Getting it from Shadow Essence gives you a 5/5 with charge that can hit face or attack a minion. Also I’ve ended games by attacking with Devilsaur, using shadow word: death on it, then using Eternal Servitude to attack again.
So far we are liking the switch, my friends are sitting at rank 8 & 7 at the moment ( im at 14 cause i’m not as good as they are).
That’s actually really cool!
yeah, give it a try and if you think its worthy enough, you could add it to substitutions.
One of the worst decks i ever crafted. Everyone even on rank 15 shit on me. cause u do NOTHING for maybe ~ 7 turns….thats ridiculous. no barnes = u lost. cause u cant do shit.
I’ve just hit rank 3 with this deck, one of the strongest decks in current meta
but if u used to play sham u need to look for some easier deck
Yeah, I experienced that quite a bit so I decided to tech in mountain giants into the list.
That way, in the event that you draw them early but have no meaningful plays, at least they can get discounted very quickly for a turn 4-5 (depending) 8/8 drop.
Just a thought.
Tried this deck several times. Low winrate against fast decks like pirate warrior.
I just won a game against pirate warrior, you really need to get the Obsidian Statue, and focus all your resources on that.
Replacement for obsidian statue and shadowreaper anduin?
Any of the cards from the substitution section would be good, but it’s hard to justify playing the deck without Obsidian Statue; aggro matchups will be hard. You could try the Velen/Malygos version if you have those cards.
Hi guys any advice against, quest mage? Usually get the iceblock 1HP and then rape me with quest completed. I assume not enought pressure early game.
Just try to be as aggressive as possible. The only real way to increase your chances of winning that matchup would be to add Eater of Secrets to your deck, which would ruin your consistency against other decks.
I am running a modified version of this deck – instead of DK Anduin, I have Blood of the Ancient One, which can create some hilarious outcomes, especially against Jade Druid, which I seem to be facing a lot. I climbed from rank 15 to 12 with it – the only real trouble comes from quest mage and getting a dead draw or getting stuffed with a Barnes draw on Shadow Essence.
Tons of fun.
Feels like you’re eating crap for the first 4-5 turns, but Obsidians just swing the game in your favour so hard, especially against aggro, which in turn, feels SO good.
I’ve played 8 games with this deck. Barnes has been the last minion in my deck 8 times.
Anduin or nzoth? Which one is better in this deck
You don’t want any Battlecry minions in this deck. N’Zoth is just a very weak minion if you don’t play it from hand.
The whining is epic.
No chance against Jade Druid.
I did beat a Jade Druid with it. But he dragged me to the point where he had no more cards and used the jade spell to refill…
And thats why you run shulking gesist
I just won against a druid by resurrecting Ysera. He conceded turn 5
İs anduin dk good in this deck? I have it but ı think play with nzoth instead
What a BS pay to win deck. There’s almost nothing you can do against this deck except get lucky AF with an aggro deck. Way to go blizzard.
That’s why you see this deck in every tournament line-up. Because it is very strong and consistent.
As I don’t have Y’shaarj I added Nzoth to my list. I would greatly recommend adding him to the substations list cause getting 5 statues from Nzoth is incredible. Amazing deck dude, thanks for posting it. +1
http://imgur.com/a/ZMk3X. – Nzoth bringing back 6 Obsidion Statues
Nope, Yshaarj is definitely needed in this deck. Helps you snowball
I’ve been playing this deck for a bit. At first it was very difficult to win with, but last night it brought me from rank 8 to rank 3. No losses the entire way. I kept telling myself I would go to sleep as soon as I lost, but it just never happened. Maybe it was the night time meta. Maybe this deck is just amazing. I’m even missing one gargoyle and running prophet velan instead, which definitely feels subpar. Was awesome though!
Replacement for Barnes?
Barnes is very important for this deck, without him you’re relying solely on Shadow Essence to cheat out your big minions, and best case scenario you’re only accelerating them by a turn or two. You could try running it without him, any of the cards listed in the substitution section would be suitable enough.
why not silence
Silence is good, it’s listed in the substitution section. To put in a silence card I would take out Spirit Lash or the second copy of Potion of Madness.
I don’t get Devour Mind – I don’t think it’s ever helped me – it either pollutes my deck with low cost shitty minions that I don’t want to play in case they are killed, or it gives me junk spells. I rarely need card advantage, I just don’t get it. I’m also not a fan of running Free from Amber – again it pollutes your ‘death pool’ and is just too random.
It’s a card for value control matchups that go into fatigue. It’s not going to be a good card to play versus aggro or midrange decks.
I agree a 100% with both. Devour Mind never felt needed or useful and the Amber just brings randomness at the end of the curve. I run Holy Smite, Divine Spirit and Inner Fire. Gives a huge boost on Ysera or the statues. Also pumps the 5/5 copies so they don’t die right away…
Agree with Devour Mind. I’m sometimes burning cards I’ve got so many. Last thing I want is 3 more of god knows what to confuse the deck. Love Free from Amber in this deck though. The amount of times I’ve drawn Obsidian from each of them in the same game makes them impossible to not have.
You mention that DK Anduin is replacable. With what could I replace him?
You could replace it with any of the cards listed in the substitution section.
can lyra fit in this deck?
Lyra is much better with Radiant Elemental, and Radiant Elemental ruin Barnes and Shadow Essence. This deck is also missing Power Word: Shield and other spells that enable Lyra cheaply.
It’s cancer deck right now. You have control up to 4 drop. On that turn barns decides either this Priest will finish you off quickly or you have 6-7 rounds of total counter from your opponent. Do you have any deck that counters this riddiculus deck ?
It’s hilarious how whenever there’s a slightly popular deck, someone decides to call it ‘cancer’. This deck is not cancer – it is the complete opposite. It requires a fair bit of skill to pilot properly and can easily go horribly wrong. Pirate Warrior is the only deck that can (still) be considered cancer – it requires almost no skill on the part of the player, can very rarely go wrong and is insanely powerful. Big Priest is nothing like that.
It’s cancer cause Barnes at 4 drop(3 with coin) can give you 1/1 Y’shaarj which will give you with a bit of luck another y’shaarj but this time it’s normal 10/10. And if you can kill that off which I doubt at that turn your oponent cancer priest will respawn this with 4 cost spell. You can still missplay this priest like everything in this game. Even warrior pirate is missplayed a lot of times. You can get with it to legend but guess what- not many can!
Totally agree, in addition the pirate warrior can be fighted against with some taunt minions, cheap removal or mid game minions. Turn 4 barnes-ysharj-ysharj/lich king… that its the 90% times that i faced this cancer deck. How the fuck you can deal with that?? and if u kill the threats… i dont know… maybe magically or with some satan’s pact they will revive them with eternal servitude and holy shit you can surrender right now. Come on, a monkey can play this, dont say “this deck needs skill to be played”.I think Barnes must go with Azure Drake as soon as possible. Its impossible to face it for the 90% of the meta decks.
Having played this deck myself, as well as pretty much every other priest deck out there, I can tell you these kinda decks aren’t easy to pilot.
If you are a good priest player, they are, but thats the point, you have to be good.
Also, your “90%” claim ist totally outrageous. The situation you proclaimed happening 9 out of 10 times actually happens 1 out of 10 times, maybe less.
There are also very convenient ways to out-control this deck. If you are good at piloting control-heavy decks.
Sit down and play, learn to read turns and plan yours accordingly.
When you play against a noob pirat warrior you feel it. So it also takes some skill, if he trades a lot… or wrong it could cost him the match on close battles.
Everybody loves winning. So it only makes sense they craft the stronger decks. It’s not like this game is free or anything… if you have ~6000 dust, you can craft 1 deck each purchase…
well, pirates warrior is not anymore a noob deck, maybe is strong against “big priest” but right now there are stronger aggro decks, and a lot of new control, midrange and Tempo.
Pirates Warrior right now is a tier 3 deck. Zoo and aggro paladin is more dangerous right now, so stop talking about other player skills and focus on yours (if you still consider Pirates an issue we have a problem here:). Peace.
I hate this deck, but for now is not so popular to justify you calling it “cancer” (i hate this word in relation to Ccg game but hey I don’t make the rules) Jades were much more problematics and we survived right? well if you are matching a lot of these Jades are pretty effective but also Rin Warlock is, and actually, i don’t have any problems also with the tempo rogue. Losing against this deck is one of the most frustrating experiences in Hearthstone because you feel impotent. The deck destroy your early game, dominate the mid and crush you in the late game but if you use your removal too early you lose. If you summon the wrong minion you lose (for ex: Barnes>Ysera against aggro) if you don’t find a way to do the right amount of damage against other control decks you lose, is not an easy deck to manage.