[GUIDE] Dragon Egg Priest

[GUIDE] Dragon Egg Priest

INTRODUCTION:

This is an updated variation on a Priest Control deck originally piloted to Legend by pro player Yagut.  His deck runs a dragon package and usually builds to a large inner fire or anduin win condition.  The main update here is to include an egg package to give better mid game and targets for the inner fire/topsy turvy win.  With the other innovations, I think that this deck has transformed into something even better.

I really believe after tuning and testing on the ladder that this current version has a real chance at being a sleeper Tier 1 deck.  I don’t say this lightly.  It’s very strong against hunter, priest, & mage, has enough reach to beat armored warrior on an OTK, and doesn’t fall to rogue nearly as easily as the other control priests that I’ve played.

DECK LIST:

2x Topsy Turvy

2x Northshire Cleric

2x Power Word: Shield

2x Divine Spirit

2x Firetree Witchdoctor

2x Shadow Visions

1x Spirit Lash

2x Sunfury Protector

2x Devilsaur Egg

2x Duskbreaker

1x Mass Dispel

2x Twilight Drake

2x Carnivorous Cube

2x Cobalt Scalebane

2x Reckless Experimenter

2x Mountain Giant

DECK CODE:  AAECAa0GAtYK8M8CDuUE+wbhB40I0QryDNHBAqvCAsrLAovhAsvmAtD+AoiCA+iJAwA=

MULLIGANS:

Keep 1-2 Northshire Cleric, 1 Power Word: Shield (only if keeping 1-2 Cleric or Witchdoctor), 1 Firetree Witchdoctor (only if keeping 1+ dragons), 1 Spirit Lash (only vs Paladin), 1 Sunfury Protector (only if keeping Drake or Mountain Giant), 1-2 Twilight Drake, 1-2 Duskbreakers (if the opponent’s class mains important minions that have <=3 health), 1 Cobalt Scalebane (only if keeping Duskbreaker and 0 Twilight Drake), 1-2 Mountain Giant

As you can see, there are many paths to an acceptable opening.  This increases playable draws tremendously and there are surprising synergies to be had between all of the pieces at play.

The reason we don’t keep our OTK Divine Spirit or Topsy Turvy pieces is because having Divine Spirit in the deck allows us to copy them more easily with Shadow Visions and Topsy Turvy is a mostly dead card until our OTK turn.

GENERAL STRATEGY:

The deck fights off early small minions with Cleric, Witchdoctor, and Duskbreaker.  Don’t forget to trade health and heal the Cleric for extra cards.  And don’t play Witchdoctor or Duskbreaker without a dragon in hand.  Don’t be too concerned if turns 1-3 end up being draw – hero power – pass.  The big stuff and OTK are on the way.  Use this time to Shadow Visions or make a plan for the mid game.

In the mid game, look for Twilight Drakes, Mountain Giants, and Reckless Experimenter.  It’s usually worth saving the coin for a turn 4 Reckless Experimenter and immediate Devilsaur Egg unless very good value is to be had by using it early.  A Devilsaur Egg can be played turn 3 if you happen to have two Topsy Turvy in hand since the spare copy can be used to crack the egg immediately.  Cubes can break eggs, but are better used on large minions because the raw eggs it produces will require you to jump through more hoops to utilize.  Cubes are also great when targeted at a Reckless Experimenter in play.  It costs 2 mana and will trigger at end of turn to give you 2 Recless Experimenters.  Don’t forget that Cube kills the current Experimenter immediately.

Whenever you fish for spells, Divine Spirit is the pick unless you already have 2-3 and need a Topsy Turvy or Inner Fire.  The exception is when you really need to pick a solution to something that will kill you in 1-2 turns.

Keep watching their health total and the number of Divine Spirit doublings you can put on your highest health minion.  When you can OTK with a combination of health buffs and Divine Spirits into Topsy Turvy, you win.  IMHO, it’s not worth going for less than an OTK because there are too many ways to remove the powered up minions and winning games can be easily thrown.

Against decks with strong taunts, try to hold onto Mass Dispel until the OTK turn.  It’s much easier to force your high toughness OTK guy through the defensive taunt line after a mass silence.

SUBSTITUTIONS:

If you can believe it, this deck has NO LEGENDS.  This isn’t for lack of budget.  I’ve tried it all and this build is currently the most consistent.  By all means, experiment yourself.  However, if you choose to substitute some cards, be prepared to lose some synergy or consistency.  That said, I welcome innovation and would love to hear your input.  (If I add your idea to the updates, I’ll be sure to give you credit for them)

DECK SPECIFIC ADVICE:

vs Hunter:  Don’t bother attacking into unknown secrets in the early game.  Also, save a duskbreaker as a response to spellstone.  You’ll thank me later.  Keep track of which secrets are revealed.  Most tier 1 decks only use 1 of each copy so that they can be repeated with Zul’jin.  Also watch how many cards you play per turn.  Rat trap gives them a 6/6 if you play 3 cards from hand.

vs Priest:  Your OTK combo and board pressure are earlier and stronger.  Try to win faster rather than later because they will eventually drop their own OTK from nowhere.

vs Paladin:  Surviving the early game is the first challenge.  They tend to flood the board then buff the whole team.  Pace your board clear and try to outsize their minions a couple at a time.  If you play your whole hand’s medium size minions at once, they’re likely to have a board wipe ready for you.  Spirit Lash is great here.  Don’t forget that it’s sometimes worth copying Spirit Lash with Shadow Visions if early in this game.  Lean toward being ready with that and Dusk Breaker.  After a few early to mid game board clears, paladin will usually fold.  They usually have an OTK win condition in the form of Shirvalla or Uther of the Ebon Hand that will play out if you let them get anywhere near the bottom of their deck.  Midgame is your friend.

vs Rogue:  There have been two main rogue decks in the meta lately.  The first is good old Odd Rogue.  The primary win conditions here are Vicious Fledgling and Henchclan Thug.  Remove those ASAP.  The second deck is a OTK Malygos deck.  That one is not very interactive, but has a less than ideal overall win rate because it’s highly draw dependent.  All you can do is try to get to your win condition before they do, but don’t feel bad if you get blown out.  It was never about you and most decks couldn’t have stopped it anyway.

vs Warrior:  We have more reach than the typical aggro deck the Warrior tier 1 was built to stop.  Focus on collecting enough Divine Spirits to blow em out despite their armor and keep hitting with those mid size minions.  Don’t flood the board more than necessary because they always seem to be itching to use Brawl.  Save Mass Dispel for the OTK turn here if at all possible.  They run so many taunts that it will be difficult to find an opening for the OTK otherwise.

vs Shaman:  I think the best Shaman deck currently is the Even Shaman build.  It needs the neighbor buffing wolf or totem to fight in the early game, so those are primary removal targets.  In the late game, it builds big elementals and uses Hagatha for some board clear, so watch out for those.  I don’t think there’s any specific strategy to fight this deck other than the normal precautions.  If you still see a shudderwock deck strat building, try to finish early before they go off (though honestly, i’ve only seen shudderwock once since the nerf)

vs Warlock:  There are a few different decks I’ve seen on the ladder lately.  Even Warlock has many of the same mid range big minions that we do, but lacks our OTK and Egg package.  Trade with them aggressively and put together the OTK when you can.  Classic Cube Warlock’s biggest advantage vs our deck is Voidlord.  It’s sometimes worth taking the 0 mana silence from Witchdoctor or the copy of Mass Dispel from Shadow Visions in this matchup.  Getting them and their spawn out of the way on the OTK turn is vital.  There are also a couple of off beat Warlock decks on the ladder at the moment.  One uses cauldron, spiteful, and keleseth to build a wide board that keeps recurring spells, minions, and board clear.  I have a feeling that this deck is about as consistent as the OTK Malygos Rogue deck and has a similar profile.  I’ve lost to it, but won against it just as often when it doesn’t gel.  Another deck I’ve seen is the Egg Warlock deck, which takes small eggs and knife jugglers and self minion sacrifice and tries to win board early.  Our board clear and larger minions usually makes this an easy enough win.

vs Mage:  I think Tempo Mage variants are the current leader on the ladder here.  They usually play some secrets, hero power a bunch, have large board clearing spells, and then transition into a Jaina win.  The focus has to be to win before Jaina.  Our odds of being able to OTK go way down once Jaina hits the board due to her ability to make Elementals with the hero power and her built in lifesteal.  Build tall, but narrow in the mid game.  Don’t be surprised to lose mountain giants to polymorph.  Try to knock some life out of the mage and get to a point where you can use a relatively smallish OTK ASAP.

vs Everything Else:  The meta is still evolving in surprising ways.  Feel free to contact me if I missed anything.  I’ll try to keep this updated as we go.

NOTE:

Thanks for reading this guide.  I hope it’s an interesting and fun alternative for those stuck in a meta rut like I was.  If you find this guide useful, please consider an upvote or a quick hello on twitter.  Good luck on the ladder.

UPDATE LOG:

1/23/19 – tuned deck as follows: -2 Seance, -1 Extra Arms, -1 Primordial Drake, -1 Lich King, +1 Spirit Lash, +2 Sunfury Protector, +2 Mountain Giant.  Updated and fleshed out mulligans and strategies and added Warlock and Mage VS advice.

-BunnyData

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