Our Budget Combo Dragon Priest deck list guide for the Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion will teach you how to play this Combo Priest list. This Budget Dragon Priest guide includes Mulligans, Gameplay Strategy, Card Substitutions, and Combos/Synergies!
Introduction to Budget Combo Dragon Priest
Combo Dragon Priest got pretty popular in the Kobolds and Catacomb meta. While we had seen Silence versions of Priest that operated under a similar principal, we had not seen the archetype reach the heights it had towards the end of the Year of the Mammoth.
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Rastakhan’s Rumble Update
The list doesn’t change much with Rastakhan’s Rumble, but it does gain an interesting early-game synergy card: Firetree Witchdoctor! This card replaces the clunky Shadow Ascendant, giving you can early play that can often Discover additional combo pieces!
Budget Combo Dragon Priest Mulligan Guide
The best cards you can get in your early mulligan are Northshire Cleric, Radiant Elemental, and Power Word: Shield. If you have one of these minions, you can keep some of your higher cost ones like Firetree Witchdoctor, Tar Creeper, or Duskbreaker (particularly if you know it’s a board flood deck). If you have Radiant and Shield you can also keep Divine Spirit or Inner Fire (probably better because you can play the same turn as you Shield) which can win you the game if your opponent can’t deal with it.
Budget Combo Dragon Priest Play Strategy
The combo from which this deck gets its name is Inner Fire plus Divine Spirit. Divine Spirit doubles a minion’s health, and Inner Fire changes the minion’s attack to be equal to its health. If you have a minion with, for example, 5 health on the board, playing two copies of Divine Spirit and then targeting it with Inner Fire will increase its stats to 20/20! In a perfect world you would save the combo for when you can use it to destroy the enemy hero in one turn.
Radiant Elemental and Power Word: Shield is one of your best early game starters. If you can follow this up with a Tar Creeper to protect the Elemental you will be in a really good spot.
Firetree Witchdoctor can grab you removal or additional combo pieces. Consider your hand and what you’re up against when picking which spell to Discover, but Shadow Visions and Divine Spirit are your best targets in a vacuum.
Sometimes you just have to throw down your Northshire Cleric and hope that they can’t kill it. You won’t always get a draw, but maintaining some semblance of a board is very important. This is especially relevant against aggressive decks, and ones that play a lot of 1-attack minions will have to alter their strategy or give you a free draw a lot of the time.
Against aggressive decks Duskbreaker is a real all-star. Dealing three damage to the whole board and leaving a 3/3 body behind is ridiculously powerful for four mana.
Your main targets for buffs are going to be your higher health minions. If it’s early against an aggressive or midrange class that doesn’t run cheap removal like Hunter, Paladin, or Rogue you can be more aggressive with Inner Fire. Making a large minion early in the game can be an effective way to get significant advantage if your opponent is unlikely to have an answer for it for a couple turns. Keep in mind how likely it might be that your opponent has a way to Silence your minion before you commit to this.
This being the Dragon version means you aren’t fully reliant on your combo to win games. You have late game power with Bone Drake, Nightscale Matriarch, and Wyrmguard. This deck also has some snowball potential in Shadow Ascendant and Cobalt Scalebane.
Future Card Replacements for Budget Combo Dragon Priest
The Dragon package isn’t as strong as it once was when it had Drakonid Operative, so this deck doesn’t really turn into a meta deck. Combo Priest without the Dragon package looks like it will have its place in the meta. The first and most important thing you need for that version of the deck, or even just a better version of this one, is Shadow Visions. This is the card that took Inner Fire Priest from a meme to a real competitor. Shadow Visions fills in the holes of your combo, and can function as additional copies of Divine Spirit. If you craft Shadow Visions, you can take out a lot of the late game minions (Cobalt Scalebane, Bone Drake, Wyrmguard) in favor of removal cards like Mass Hysteria.
You could try taking out Bone Drake and Tar Creeper to add Wild Pyromancer and Acolyte of Pain if you want to invest more in the combo side of this deck. Wild Pyromancer strengthens the Northshire Cleric/Nightscale Matriarch plus Circle of Healing synergy of the deck, and combos well with Acolyte of Pain to draw into things faster.
General Replacements
If you have these then you might want to slot them into the deck, but because this doesn’t evolve into a meta deck I’m not recommending you craft any of them unless you think you’ll use them in another list.
- Lyra the Sunshard – A very solid minion to target with the buffs or just start cycling your cards with.
- Primordial Drake – Strong late game sweeper that has taunt and is great for receiving buffs from your combo pieces.
- Ysera – If you happen to have it then it can fit in the deck, but it’s pretty slow and can weigh down your hand quite a bit if you get it in the early game.
- Crowd Roaster – Decent stats for a removal minion.
I’m kinda debating on putting in thought steal to help my Twilight Drake. But now I’m wondering if I should put in the coin dragons, it has more attack and about the same amount of health my T D has and is rather immune to silence. Same cost as well.
posso trocar draco osseo por dragonete mecanico e ascedente sombria por dragoleta ??
posso trocar draco osseo por dragonete mecanico e ascedente sombria por dragoleta
Could Alexstrasza fit in this deck in any way?
Yeah for sure dude! synergiese with dragon package and gives you a life extention OR lowers their enough for a next turn otk 🙂
the greatest budget deck i ever used love you
😀
What should I swap out for Ysera if I run it?
One of the 7-mana cards.
Hey I have Cabal Shadow Priest does this have any place in the deck?
Sure, you could take out Bone Drake or Wyrmguard
does scaleworm work in this deck? if yes what shld i replace it with
Could be okay, this deck is about high health so I’m not sure. You could try taking out some of the high cost things.
Does DK Anduin have a place in this deck
Sure, your minions kind of curve into it. Just try not to blow up your own board when you play him.
Will this deck still be viable when Shadow Visions rotate out?
Depends what gets printed before that happens, but I do think shadow visions is a large part of what makes it strong.
the what should I remove to add shadow visions
Your choice of any two things that cost 7 mana.
so do i remove 1 of each 7 drop or both of 1 7 drop. thx for the deck btw
You’re welcome! If you’re missing two of them then don’t craft them, otherwise it’s dealers choice really. If it were me I’d probably take out both Wyrmguard. It can be nifty for comboing off of but at 7 mana it’s unlikely to make it back to your turn unscathed, and Matriarch has good synergy with Circle of Healing.
actually I removed a shadow ascendant and a northshire cleric and it worked really well but do you think I should swap something else
I wouldn’t recommend removing Northshire Cleric, one of the best cards in the deck.
tysm
What do you think of exchanging the circle of healing and spirit lash for two holy novas? It plays better with your healing mechanic and lowers the amount of spells you can discover to get your combo.
What would you take out of this deck to substitute Primordial Drake? Thanks for the deck! Fun to play!
For what should I replace the Lyra?
What about removing two Shadow Word: Death for two Spellbreakers? Sometimes i combo a minion, my oponent is in lethal damage with i could directly attavk him, but Void Lord gets in the way. Silence looks pretty strong in this season. What you guys think?
@Correction: if i could attack him directly.*
I have shadowreaper anduin, who i know is a very powerful card. Any card I can replace for him?
Don’t know if this helps still but I’m using this deck with both shadow visions replacements and instead of two twilight acolyte replacements I only have one and then shadowreaper. This deck laddered me to rank 15 on a 7 game winstreak today! Very happy with it.
Any room for Prophet Velen or Chameleos in this deck? They’re like my only 2 legendaries and I’m dying to use them.
Take out the silence and 1 circle of healing
Wow. Thanks for the deck!! It is very useful. I change the two bone drakes for 1 cobalt scale and the legendary y lady in white (that was my free legendary) . First, I think that it would not work with twilight drake but not always someone has a lady in white in the early phase of the game so it was a normal game with a situational buff of lady in white that is really amazing with wyrmguard and nightscale matriarch. I wil put “like”
should i take out 2 nightscale for 2 primordal drake?
Which card should I take out for ysera?
Yah would like to know as well
just take the sleepy guy out
same cost ysera is just better
oops wrong deck
I’d cut a Nightscale Matriarch.
You can take out a wyrm guard
So…I got the witchwood legendary lady in white and …. I was just wondering if anyone would know a budget version of lady in white deck
I think you could cut a Bone Drake and it could work in this deck.
As a Wild payer, I included the Shadow Visions, removed Wyrmguard for Drakonid Operative (didn’t open any), and took out one Bone Drake for Lady in White.
Works great!
Nice!
However after the meta settled, the deck seems to be close to tier 3-4…
Yet still good, however Baku (Odd) Paladin is a better option with approx. The same cost.
deck is actualy pretty decent.
check out my twitch channel to see this deck in action. i made a few adjustments. swapped out 1 tar creeper, 1 shadow word death, silence and 1 acolyte for 2 mindvisions, 1 thought steal and spellstealer. deck is so far working great with these changes at least at low ladder level. you can use the elixir to bypass the 2 less minions by crossing ffingers hoping you get “summon a 1/1 copy” though admittedly this seems to pop up at quite a resonable rate (higher than life steal and deathrattle effect) in fact got 2 “summon 1/1” in one match TWICE. this is a great low budget priest deck for climbing ladder (with these changes). hard to get used to it, but perhaps if you watch my channel you can see for yourself just how awesome it is.
https://www.twitch.tv/hinotoumei
Hi!
I like this deck, seems good. Should i add DK Priest?
I don’t think it really fits in this deck.
hey man dirt rat i should replace him with what card plz
I’d probably swap out Shellraiser.
What cards could I take out for corridor creeper?
I’m also wondering this
Shellraiser, Shadow Ascendant, or Unidentified Elixir.
i just replaced the neutrals with power word tentacles, lightspawn and deathwing now it’s over powered and is sombody wants to vs me my name is Cameronv0011 and battle numbers are #1428
Is Marin the Fox useful here? Idk, maybe making a budget version of a deck like this:
http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/senfglas-marin-fox-miracle-combo-priest-november-2017/
I think it’s worth mentioning that without Lyra and Shadow Visions the deck would be a lot less consistent, but this Inner Fire deck isn’t especially consistent you know.
Just wondering.
I don’t think it’d work very well, it’s really just a 6/6 minion and you can’t guarantee that you can kill the chest. I did talk about Shadow Visions in the gameplay and replacement section.
Marin the FOX,
Next turn potion of madness, 2x divine spirit, 1x inner fire
A very good budget deck for beginners, using it and it seems to work out. I was lucky enough to get 2 legendary cards and an epic and I had enough dust to make it.
So, it good when i replace the defender of argus and power word tentacles with the cards you suggested?
Been playing this deck on a new account and the fact that i managed to beat Jade Druid with it really stands testament to the power of the deck and is a relatively easy to play deck for newer players trying to scrape together some gold for the more expensive meta decks so thankyou Rogue Zebra for sharing it with us. I can’t help but share my experience with the deck in case some fellow new players decided to pick it up and take it for a spin.
At the moment i’m using the budget version of the deck but swapped out the Acolyte of Agony’s with Tar Creeper’s since they have the benefit of both being a 3/5 taunt for 3 mana, a solid target for the Inner Fire combo but most importantly i noticed that players tend to avoid attacking into it and either A) burning removal on it or B) avoiding attacking it entirely unless they have a minion that will survive the 3 damage recoil. This allows you to play them when the enemy doesn’t have a beefy minion on the board and most likely you will have a target for the Inner Fire combo (Power Word Tentacles, Divine Spirit, Divine Spirit, Inner Fire for 44 damage at 10 mana) on the next turn.
I’m looking forward to crafting a Lyra to replace the Defender of Argus and 2 x Priest of the Feast’s which i will probably replace the Night Howler’s with since they feel like a “win more” card and the deck overall struggles to play from behind rather than maintain their winning position in my opinion.
I climbed from rank 20 to rank 15 with the cheap silence version quite easily. Now it feels like this deck runs out of value… Lyra would be so nice 😀 I once had the coin, silence, 2 mana silent minion and the puffing spells. Ended up with turn 3 20/20 😀
Why not Hozen Healer instead of Night Howler?
Nice Deck! Keen to try it out! I couldn’t really interpret your substitution section, um, what would an ideal / meta inner fire priest look like at the moment if you don’t mind? Sorry, I am illiterate xD
i have a hard time with this deck cause i play against agro hunter so the lack of minions is rly bad
I’ve been running a similar deck for about a month now, thanks for the tips.
A strong (but pricey, and about to phase out) addition to this type of deck is a Faceless Shambler. Essentially, any point from turn 7 on, you DS/IF your ??? (Humongous Razorleaf usually being my favorite) then toss down a shambler. Two 16/16’s, one with Taunt, is often enough to end the game outright. Faceless Manipulator is another, less attractive option.
can i replace night howler with gurubashi berserker?
Hello. I always have the difficulty on drawing minions. Maybe this deck should have more minions?
What’s your opinion on this?
Thanks.
It is a tough line to walk, Carlos. We want minions that stick around while also not diluting the combo aspect of the deck too much. One of the big losses to the budget version is not having Priest of the Feast. That would be my first go-to minion. The hope is that if we have our card draw engine going like we want, then we can get the requisite body for our combo.
Let me know if you have any suggestions for card substitutions, I’d be happy to try them out!