Shadow Priest Returns: What’s the History of the Archetype and What to Expect From It in United in Stormwind?

Priests’ dual identity of shadow and light is a cornerstone of their class identity in WoW but it hasn’t really come into play the same way throughout Hearthstone’s history. Here’s what it’s been like in the past, how it was reformed when the Core set came to be, and what it may bring to the table in the United in Stormwind expansion.

Classical Shadows

Priest and Paladin were two of the weakest classes in the early days of Hearthstone, mostly because of the hodgepodge nature of their class cards. Neither had the minion presence required to tempo out on the board but were also lacking strong and reliable board clears (something Priests would become notorious of as new and new options were printed with every rotation from Lightbomb to Shadow Word: Ruin), limiting their options. This was especially egregious in the case of Priest, a class whose many “light-affiliated” tools would have revolved around sticking a minion to the board and buffing it.

Shadow cards in the Classic set were mostly about removal options: Shadow Word: Pain and Shadow Word: Death established Priest as the class that’s deathly scared of the number four, with Shadow Madness serving as a potentially perfect but inflexible anti-aggro tool alongside Cabal Shadow Priest. Shadowform, while awesome as a concept, was just simply never worth playing, and it’s no wonder it was reworked for the Core set today. Really, the only way the fantasy of transforming heals into damage came into play was the Auchenai Soulpriest+Circle of Healing niftiness, and even that was about board control, not all-out attacking.

Priestly Aggression

Board-based aggression for Priests always had the promise of an insane finisher in the form of Mind Blast, and the occasional cards that sort of supported these game plans always seemed tantalizingly close to something special. Shadowbomber and Velen's Chosen in Goblins versus Gnomes ultimately weren’t enough to push past much more efficient tempo decks, and neither was Spawn of Shadows from TGT enough to blow out enemies, though it would later become part of the occasional OTK deck, mostly in Wild. There just wasn’t enough support overall

Really, the first Priest deck to support a consistent board-based tempo presence was Dragon Priest, supercharged by the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan set, where literally every Priest card would see competitive play. Still, it wasn’t shadowy and damage-throwing and purple: something Shadowreaper Anduin would change soon enough.

The Rise of Razakus

Arguably the most brutal and relentless deck in Hearthstone history, a highlander deck built around the combination of Raza the Chained and the class’ Death Knight from Knights of the Frozen Throne, Shadowreaper Anduin, Razakus Priest served as the high point of Anduin’s power level in Standard.

Turns out a 0-mana Hero Power that deals 2 damage and gets refreshed every time you play a card is a pretty good way to close out games, and there’s a reason why the deck was “affectionately” nicknamed as “machine gun Priest”. Assembling your weapon did take quite a while though and you essentially played a control deck up until that point, meaning it was still only a partial fulfillment of the dream of a Shadow archetype. Not much came close since, either: Dragons, resource generation, healing and resurrection (plus some pseudo-Inner Fire shenanigans) were the facets of class identity explored in the intervening years.

United in Stormwind might be the difference-maker, and the reason why Shadowform was reworked rather than removed from the Core Set like many have predicted. At the end of the day, the fantasy of a “Shadow Priest” deck in Hearthstone revolves around playing with a Hunter’s playstyle as Anduin: efficient early-game minions followed by direct damage either via Shadowform or some dedicated burn spells. As we’ve seen, it’s really tough to print any of the latter for the class without risking the emergence of disgusting OTK options for combo archetypes at the other end of the spectrum – just think back to the many varieties of the janky “Freeze Priest” archetype which aimed to finish you off with Mind Blast and Holy Smite without the eventual machine gun attachment.

United in Stormwind Shadow Priest Archetype: Theorycraft and Suggestions

“Search for ‘Shadow’ in you collection and dump in all the cards you find” seems to be the baseline approach for a potential Shadow Priest build, but that still leaves you a lot of room to figure out how aggressively you want to contest the board along the way. Will it be more of a burn deck or a tempo deck at the end of the initial formation of the metagame?

Shadowburn baby, burn

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