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Mulligans
General Mulligans
As in any zoo, it's important to get off to a good start. You're looking for your quest, premium 1 drops and Magic Carpet.
Activate the Obelisk is your win condition. Argent Squire is sticky. Crystallizer is premium stats plus quest application. Lightwarden is excellent in Priest. Northshire Cleric is arguably the best 1 drop in the game and works well with your goal of Activating the Obelisk. Magic Carpet is an incredibly strong 3 drop that is difficult to remove and backbreaking for your opponent.
Aggro Mulligans
As a zoo deck, you'll be looking to win trades. Beaming Sidekick is a great choice to couple with a premium 1 drop on turn 2, because it develops a body while improving the existing board. Also can be great on turn 1 going second with The Coin. Power Word: Shield will provide a flagging minion with extra health and draws 1. Dire Wolf Alpha will help you to trade up and deal additional chip damage against the enemy hero. Extra Arms is arguably the strongest buff in the game and will help you to snowball early board states by winning value trades and creating deadly threats early.
Control Mulligans
Against control you want to find your major threats and complete the quest quickly. To do that, Potion Vendor is an inspired choice coupled with Northshire Cleric. Dead Ringer tutors SN1P-SN4P and Zilliax, two of the best cards in the game. Questing Explorer draws 1 while putting a 2/3 in play. High Priest Amet is incredible coupled with so many cards on this list and could very well be game-winning if it cannot be dealt with quickly. Also insane when coupled with Magic Carpet.
This Priest zoo deck is built around Magic Carpet. It utilizes one drops that the class prefers like Northshire Cleric and Lightwarden, and couples them with powerful buffs like Beaming Sidekick, Power Word: Shield, and Extra Arms. Notably, when taking this approach Bwonsamdi, the Dead becomes a powerful refill mechanic for late game pushes alongside Activate the Obelisk and High Priest Amet. Also, this deck incorporates Questing Explorer alongside Power Word: Shield and Dead Ringer for the draw needed to fuel the archetype. Additionally, Dead Ringer works as a tutor in the deck for SN1P-SN4P or Zilliax, which is powerful.
I really dig this list. One of the best theorycrafts I have seen for priest thus far.
that being said, dead ringer only pulls sn1p-sn4p as zilliax isn’t a deathrattle minion. any thoughts as to a replacement for dead ringer?
Thanks! Yeah, I didn’t notice that problem until I got to see it in action. There’s a couple solutions that I’ll be testing. Initial thoughts are to replace Argent Squire w/ 2x Mecharoo and the Ritualist w/Dead Ringer #2. It was actually that way before, but I changed it to the tutor idea. Draw is of the utmost importance, so you really want everything which makes sense. I’m probably going to look at a tech card (SH: P #2, Spellbreaker, or Ooze) or maybe Forbidden Words, Shadow Word: Pain for early removal. Penance is also an interesting card to try. I’ll let you know what works!
Thanks to u/mr10123 on Reddit for helping me to refine this list.