Priest Spiteful Mediveh Dragon Control Deck – post Feb Nerf

OK, since Witchwood expansion this is only usable in Wild…

This Spiteful Summoner  Deck has a few useful twists to help survive the Feb Nerf. 

While many decks have substituted smaller minions post the February nerf, I’ve found Medivh a very useful minion for those big spells once they end up in the hand (where the Summoner can’t pick them up). Casting Mind Control after Medivh has saved quite a few games for me, sometimes even grabbing low stat minions just for the Medivh generate extra minion effect.  

 In addition to the usual Mind Control and Free From Amber big spells, I’ve added one Dragonfire Potion. This still usually results in a reasonable minion when using the Summoner and also provides clearance of minions (except dragons) when facing more aggressive decks.

Priest Spiteful Mediveh Dragon Control Deck Strategy & Mulligan Guide

Priority Keeps (any deck)

• Netherspite Historian – needs a dragon to be an effective play, but gives you another dragon back. Against control / slower decks keep the Drakonid Operative for useful cards and insight against the other deck.  For faster decks, keep Duskbreaker or Book Wyrm to get rid of pesky enemy minions. 
• Northshire Cleric – I tend to play this early only against fast decks, but she’s very useful and with damaged minions and only 3 mana left that gives you a guaranteed extra card.
• One dragon – even if not handy now, keeping one dragon can be either played later or used to trigger the battlecry of the other cards.  If you have a Duskbreaker it’s probably worth dropping anything except a Netherspite Historian and trying to mulligan another dragon.

Priority against control / slower decks

• Spiteful Summoner is playable on turn 6 (or 5 with a coin), you get a bonus 6+ cost minion (yes, it’s random).  If you are lucky it quickly becomes game over, and even if not your 2 minions for the price of one have to be dealt with.
• Drakonid Operative  provides exceptional intelligence into your opponents deck. You get to see 3 cards and choose the one that best suits your likely immediate or future need.  Against other “big spell” decks you also get an extra card to trigger Medivh’s Atiesh staff and generate a high cost extra minion that would never be usable by the Summoner.

Priority against fast / aggressive decks

• Duskbreaker provides some useful minion clearance.  If possible, leverage your  Netherspite Historian to generate another one or two of these, to survive future waves.  This only works of course if you held onto another dragon (or one turned up).
• Tar Creeper has good defensive stats unless silenced, which is particularly useful in the early game.  Offence is weak, but can be buffed up nicely with a Cobalt Scalebane. 
• Dragonfire Potion is a maybe keep card if you don’t have either of the above, especially if you have the coin. 

Always Replace

• Any of the big spells (Mind Control and Free From Amber). With fast decks you are unlikely to use them unless you have already survived the initial onslaught, and you want the Spiteful Summoner to trigger a big minion early .  With control decks you might get a chance for a triple benefit:  1st with Spiteful Summoner, 2nd with Medivh, the Guardian , plus 3rd the actual effect of the cast itself.

Card Substitutions

Removing Medivh, the Guardian means you are turning this into any other Summoner Deck. If that’s what you want, go ahead, but try it with first 😀

Dragonfire Potion could be replaced with an additional Twilight Acolyte or Curious Glimmerroot , or indeed any of those can be swapped for one more of the other.

Spellbreaker and Kabal Songstealer provide a useful silencing service, but as a priest you could keep a free silence spell which provides earlier use at the expense of not leaving a minion behind to mop up.

Shadowreaper Anduin without Raza and cheap spells is really useful only to eliminate high attack minions and to buff armour (once).  It has saved my bacon enough times for me to keep it in this deck, but you might prefer to add Ysera and have a few dream cards or perhaps Lich King.  Or one of the smaller minions – useful when playing Rogue Mill or similar where your cards are too large and deck gets too full.

Confession

I’m not a Legend player, and don’t aspire to play enough games to get there.  You might have other ideas, and I do believe this deck will get you there with the usual caveats (time, talent).