Lady in White Control Priest Deck List Guide – The Witchwood – April 2018

Class: Priest - Format: raven - Type: control

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Deck Import

Our Lady in White Control Priest deck list guide will go through the ins-and-outs of the potentially viable deck from the The Witchwood Expansion! This guide will teach you how to mulligan, pilot, and substitute cards for this archetype! For now the deck guide is theorycraft, but as soon as the expansion goes live we will start updating it right away!

Introduction

Even though Priest was dominating the meta through a significant part of the Year of the Mammooth, we can’t just assume that the trend will continue. Year of the Raven takes away a lot of Priest tools. Starting with one of the most powerful cards ever printed, Drakonid Operative, two very strong board clears (Dragonfire Potion and Shadow Word: Horror), as well as multiple anti-Aggro and combo tools – e.g. Potion of MadnessKabal Talonpriest and Priest of the Feast. Losing so many powerful card will have a huge impact on the class overall.

However, one of the Priest cards from The Witchwood caught my attention – Lady in White. I’ve seen lots of theorycrafting trying to build entire deck around it, but I think that’s a wrong approach, because in that case, your entire deck will be rather weak in case you don’t draw her. Instead, I’ve tried to build a more classic Control Priest shell with an addition of Lady in White. Not every card benefits from her – for example, Duskbreaker or Elise the Trailblazer will have the same stats after Lady in White, but most importantly, no minion will get weaker, and lots of them will get stronger. Main advantage of Lady in White is that after you play her, most of the minions you draw will be better. 3/3 Northshire Clerics, 8/8 Primordial Drakes and 5/5 Tar Creeper should be very useful.

While this might not be the best build available, and I’m quite sure that we’ll need to optimize it a lot, it feels like a good starting point.

Mulligan

Since it’s just a theorycraft, I won’t post a precise mulligan guide, just some guidelines. Probably the most important question is – do you always keep Lady in White? In slow matchups, yes, you do. But against Aggro, you want to mulligan her away. Not only having a 6 mana card in your opening hand is bad, but Lady in White has no immediate impact at all. It’s a 6 mana 5/5 that might take a few turns to pay herself off, which is way too slow against Aggro.

Northshire Cleric and Radiant Elemental are the obvious package you always want to keep (+Power Word: Shield if you have a nearly game minion too). Stonehill Defender is a solid keep in any matchup too, while Tar Creeper is a good keep vs Aggro.

Against Aggro, you also want to keep one of your AoEs – Duskbreaker should be a great keep. Auchenai SoulpriestCircle of Healing is also a great combo to keep vs Aggro, however, it’s hard to say whether you should keep individual pieces. I’d say that unless you play against a deck where you absolutely need to AoE it on Turn 4 (e.g. Murloc Paladin) or else they snowball hard, you want to keep one of the combo pieces and hope to draw the other one.

General Strategy

This is a Control deck, so your general strategy is to control the board and try to go for the late game, where you can outvalue your opponent.

Against Aggro decks, your general game plan is to simply survive. The deck runs lots of anti-Aggro tools in form of AoE clears, Taunts etc. Those cards are usually very efficient – they can clear 2-3 cards for the cost of one, so you will eventually start gaining card advantage. Once you either stabilize on the board, or you run an Aggro deck out of cards, you should win the game. One card I want to highlight is Witchwood Grizzly. Unless you face an Aggro Paladin that will get a great Divine Favor right before Turn 5, Grizzly should drop as something like a 3/9 or 3/10 on average.

In Aggro matchups, Lady in White is mostly useless. If you’re ahead and you can afford to spend 6 mana playing her, go ahead and do it, but she will rarely win you the game. When you’re in a comfortable position like that, you’re usually ahead and you’re most likely winning the game anyway, even without her.

As you can see, the deck is heavily anti-Aggro – with majority of the early and mid game cards made to fight off a fast deck. So how do you win against another slow deck? Unlike against Aggro, in case of Control decks, Lady in White is going to be your main (but not only) win condition.

After dropping Lady in White, a big chunk of your deck is going to get significantly stronger. In this specific build, there are 17 minions that are going to benefit from her in some way, and that’s already a really good win condition. Remember that Control decks run a limited number of removal cards, and if you turn over half of your deck into significant threats, then it might be hard for your opponent to keep up.

Just to give you an example – if you play a Control deck and your opponent drops a Tar Creeper, you can often just ignore it. It’s going to hit you for 1 per turn, which is pretty much nothing. However, if that Tar Creeper was a 5/5, you’d have to kill it right away. That’s the main strength of Lady in White. It turns lots of cards that are normally anti-Aggro into big threats vs Control. Another great example is Witchwood Grizzly. It might seem like the card is just bad against Control, and you’d be right. It’s often going to be a 5 mana 3/5 or something (assuming 7 cards in your opponent’s hand). However, after you’ve already played Lady in White, its attack jumps up to 12, meaning that you can drop it as a 12/5. Your opponent will absolutely have to clear it right away now.

However, Lady in White is only a single card in your deck, so you won’t always draw it. The deck has some other win conditions, other ways to gain value in the late game. There’s the good old Elise the Trailblazer, which shuffles an Un’Goro pack into your deck. Thanks to Shadow Visions, you might be able to pull out multiple copies of those pack (up to two extra copies, but even one is great) – that’s a lot of extra value in total. Then, the deck also runs Ysera, which, if not removed, can gain lots of value. Similarly, the new Nightscale Matriarch can be a pain in the neck if it stays on the board. Stonehill Defenders can pull some big Taunts, possibly even something like The Lich King. And finally, Shadowreaper Anduin is a sort of a win condition by himself too. If you face a deck with limited amounts of healing, you should be able to deal 2-6 damage per turn to your opponent, or you can just use it to control the board.

Depending on the meta, you will obviously be able to run some tech cards. For example, if you need to add another anti-Control win condition, running Mind Control might be correct. You could also tech in Silence or weapon destruction if the meta demands it. However, I didn’t want to put any of those tech cards yet, because it’s hard to predict how the meta is going to shape.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

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41 Comments

Discuss This Deck
  1. Atom
    May 11, 2018 at 6:12 AM

    I was level 7 at the beginning of the month, dropped to 14 using Odd Paladin. Tried this deck and I am .500 at best. Dropped to 15. Definitely needs to be improved somehow.

  2. Schinkenbaum
    April 19, 2018 at 11:58 AM

    Guys and about the discussion in elise, if your enemy really removes all your strong minions like 12/12 ysera you can play her and discover ungoro pack trough shadow visions because there are not much spells in the deck which is really op to get some other cards except of priest and high minions

  3. Schinkenbaum
    April 19, 2018 at 11:55 AM

    So acutally i won 10 out of 10 in low ranked(20-15) well its a good deck even if you dont have lady in white and if you draw her at turn 6 its mostly games, i dod wyrmguard except of shadowreaper anduin in the deck is anduin really that good in this type of deck?

  4. Joe
    April 19, 2018 at 2:51 AM

    Sadly, this deck is trash

  5. Nick Fisher
    April 16, 2018 at 3:57 PM

    I thought this was a pretty good build to the deck but what do y’all think about taking out Ysera, physic scream, and Elise the trailblazer for Prophet Velen and two mind blasts if you didn’t want to craft them?

  6. Cheese
    April 13, 2018 at 10:35 PM

    Is it really worth it to craft this deck?

    • Sandrock
      April 14, 2018 at 10:45 AM

      Nothing is worth crafting at this moment. give it a week or 2 before you craft anything. the meta is so new that its possible this deck is good now but wont be in 2 weeks.

      • Samwheelie
        April 17, 2018 at 12:17 AM

        Except cube lock lmao

  7. Defrag
    April 13, 2018 at 9:50 PM

    Been having a lot of this deck, i’m a free to player so i haven’t crafted the two bears because i know ill get them eventually and i don’t have elise because i don’t feel like crafting her, so instead i have two cobalt scale banes and a gurubashi berserker and a obsidian statue instead of a matriarch. really the deck by itself has enough value to win without lady in white, i haven’t drawn her in the last like 4 games but i still win thanks to the scalebanes and stone hill defenders. don’t get me wrong, drawing lady in white is an insta win pretty much, the sheer value of all those extra stats is insane, but im saying even if you don’t draw her it’s a great deck

  8. Uriel
    April 13, 2018 at 6:04 AM

    I’ve had pretty good success with it so far. 11-4 not too bad.

    • Matt
      April 16, 2018 at 7:17 AM

      i always draw lady in white when i have 10 or less cars it’s a bit annoying but nightscale matriarch and shadowreaper anduin helps me win the games.

  9. Damjane
    April 12, 2018 at 1:13 PM

    is there any substitution to elise?

    • Leonhp95
      April 12, 2018 at 9:38 PM

      Same question. I think maybe a twilight drake will fit this deck.

      • Gaven
        April 12, 2018 at 10:28 PM

        whats so bad about elise

        • Daniel
          April 13, 2018 at 1:24 AM

          xD, I think not all people has elise (like me).

        • Dust
          April 13, 2018 at 2:18 AM

          Not everyone has the dust to waste on a minion which might not be used in control priest.

      • Volin
        April 13, 2018 at 5:10 AM

        The drake sucks a lot afther lady in white

      • Woodsy
        April 18, 2018 at 4:08 PM

        I don’t think twilight drake will work because she affects cards in your deck. This would make it have 1 attack instead of 4

    • Goliad
      April 13, 2018 at 6:34 AM

      I think Cobalt Scalebane is a good option but you’d want to make a few additional changes to the deck. This deck really struggles to apply pressure if you don’t draw Lady in White and Scalebane helps snowball high health boards. I personally run 2 Scalebanes and have found them to be one of the most useful cards against control decks plus they make your duskbreakers more consistant.

  10. Scry
    April 12, 2018 at 1:04 PM

    It’s utter shit. I just went 0-5 with this in casual mode. Everything else seems to be able to draw into its gas easier.

    • Penny
      April 12, 2018 at 6:51 PM

      Priest has been completely gutted. I have only won 3 games of about 20 tonight. My best survival games so far has been Quest Priest.

      • 2Khajit2Quit
        April 14, 2018 at 7:32 AM

        Quest priest is so good right now. My only losses are to combo priest, odd hunters, and shuddercocks.

    • Goliad
      April 13, 2018 at 6:36 AM

      Try adding spirit lash. It combos with Cleric and Circle to give a more reliable draw engine which I think this deck needs.

  11. Thraun
    April 12, 2018 at 7:59 AM

    I like the deck idea but not a big fan of the radiant elementals, not too many spells that benefit from them. Think i’d rather run pyros in those spots for extra board clear or possible circle combos.

    • Goliad
      April 13, 2018 at 6:41 AM

      I agree with both points. I don’t think radiant elementals do enough in this deck. I made a version without them that has been doing well for me so far. I think circle combos are a must in a deck like this because you need to draw Lady in White and the buffed minions but I went with Spirit Lash instead of Pryo.

  12. Masaka
    April 11, 2018 at 1:57 PM

    What about Mossy Horror? Its a 2/7 (7/7 with the lady) and adds removal against Spreading Plague and aggro.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      April 11, 2018 at 11:51 PM

      Yep, I was considering this card and it’s definitely a viable choice, but it’s also a tech card. Spreading Plague won’t be a thing if Druid won’t take off, and right things don’t look great for the Druid class.

      Like, if Dude Paladin was still a thing, it might also be good (e.g. to counter Stand Against Darkness), but some key cards are rotating out for that deck and it might not be viable in the current form, it might look different.

      So we’ll see – if there will be decks that consistently flood the board with 2 or less attack minions in the mid game, then Mossy Horror will be a right card to add.

    • MarQ
      April 14, 2018 at 8:15 PM

      Mossy Horror is a must. I destroy aggro decks and shuderwock with my Lady deck. I run alexstrasza for shudderwocks. 7 out of 10 decks I play are shaman.

      ### Mother of Dragons
      # Class: Priest
      # Format: Standard
      # Year of the Raven
      #
      # 2x (1) Inner Fire
      # 1x (2) Divine Hymn
      # 1x (2) Shadow Visions
      # 1x (2) Spirit Lash
      # 1x (3) Shadow Word: Death
      # 2x (3) Stonehill Defender
      # 2x (4) Duskbreaker
      # 1x (4) Felsoul Inquisitor
      # 1x (4) Mass Dispel
      # 1x (4) Shadow Madness
      # 1x (5) Holy Nova
      # 1x (5) Holy Water
      # 1x (5) Lyra the Sunshard
      # 1x (5) Witchwood Grizzly
      # 1x (6) Hungry Ettin
      # 1x (6) Lady in White
      # 2x (6) Mossy Horror
      # 1x (7) Lesser Diamond Spellstone
      # 2x (7) Nightscale Matriarch
      # 1x (7) Psychic Scream
      # 1x (8) Free From Amber
      # 1x (8) Grand Archivist
      # 1x (9) Alexstrasza
      # 1x (9) Obsidian Statue
      # 1x (10) Mind Control
      #
      AAECAa0GFAjcAcUEyQbTCtYK0cECmcgCvsgC5swC8M8C6NAC0OcCgugC4+kC5uwCj+8C8vECvfMCsPsCBfgCm8ICy+YCy+wCju4CAA==
      #
      # To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

  13. Onestunr
    April 11, 2018 at 8:04 AM

    I don’t think witchwood grizzly can be healed up to 12. I think its max health stays at whatever health it dropped onto the board as. This is according to the hearthstone wiki.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      April 11, 2018 at 9:32 AM

      I actually didn’t think about it… But you’re right, Mike Donais confirmed that it loses max health. Going to change that part, thanks.

      • Advocaat
        April 12, 2018 at 3:04 AM

        Yea, the same mechanic like with Twilight Drake

    • Slonik
      April 12, 2018 at 12:01 PM

      But the attack remains 12

  14. Syrea
    April 11, 2018 at 4:50 AM

    I really like your idea. I thought lady in white would have had more use in a deck that does not revolve around her 🙂 I hope such a deck is viable because I’d play lots of it

  15. Irenicus
    April 11, 2018 at 4:19 AM

    The Radiant Elementals baffle me in this deck as it’s not running a lot of spells. It’s a good early play with power word: shield, but what is their purpose if you don’t manage that play? Without Lyra I see them as being wasted cards in the deck.

    • Syrea
      April 11, 2018 at 4:51 AM

      It’s an amazing card on its own, you don’t necessarily need it for combos and it is even a good t2 play. Lyra could be added but i think it should replace elise in that case. Waiting for his reply :p

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      April 11, 2018 at 5:10 AM

      Priest’s early game is very weak – the class has pretty much no good 1-2 mana minions. Radiant helps with that, even without lots of spells. You need to run some 2-drop, and other options aren’t any better.

      Radiant is still great with PW:S on the curve (2 mana 2/5 with an upside of discounting your future spells), or you can use it on Turn 3 with Shadow Visions if you’re looking for something specific (e.g. SW:D to answer a Giant, or maybe Circle of Healing if you have Auchenai in your hand already).

      This is also just a rough draft – the final deck might have more spells. E.g. SW: Pain is a solid consideration, maybe another SW:D, maybe Mind Control, maybe even Divine Hymn in case more healing is needed. But even with the current amount of spells, I’d keep Radiant Elemental in it.

      • Mill shama
        April 11, 2018 at 8:00 AM

        I think if you want to give this deck a better early game you’re probably better off adding more dragons to increase the chance of triggering duskbreaker. Or adding an acolyte of pain for more consistent draw. Or you could run shadow word pain for removal.

        Its not that radiant elemental is a bad card, but in a deck that isnt spell heavy there itsnt much difference between radiant elemental and river croc.

        • Goliad
          April 13, 2018 at 6:51 AM

          I agree. My version of this deck runs more dragons and no radiant elementals. I think Cobalt Scalebane and Spirit Lash are both pretty core for this deck.

      • Cruxkid
        April 11, 2018 at 12:17 PM

        Did someone say 7/7 Doomsayer??

  16. Guyopt
    April 11, 2018 at 2:21 AM

    i think its better use in spiteful deck which is minion heavy.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      April 11, 2018 at 3:51 AM

      On the one hand, running her in Spiteful makes more sense, because the deck is more minion-based.

      On the other hand, her effect is stronger the longer the game goes – after all, she’s initially a tempo loss and it might take a few turns before you draw the right minions and play them. Spiteful Priest is a pretty heavy tempo deck by its nature, and usually wants to close out the games pretty quickly if possible.

      That’s why I’ve decided to go with the Control build instead for this theorycraft. But I’ll definitely test her out in many different builds!