As already said in other comments, Mind Blast Priest is still a good deck to ladder with.

You have been naming almost all bad matchups, but remember, those matchups have been unfavored last season as well. The main problem is that Priest’s good matchups, Aggro Paladin and Control Warlock, have been nerfed, so you won’t play these highly favored matchups that often.

This deck will adapt to the meta as much as it can, as the inclusion of Holy Fire and Cabal Shadow Priest shows. The surge of Hunter and Even Shaman is still a problem for Priest, so right now it’s a lot harder to climb with the deck compared to last season. It has to be said though that this deck was a piece of cake to ladder with before the nerfs, especially because Paladin and Warlock dominated the tier lists.

To increase your win rate you have to know your win condition in every matchup, even if it’s a bad one. You also have to accept the fact that decks like Shudderwock Shaman are way less reliant compared to this deck because they have way less card draw. Losing against Shudderwock feels uncomparably bad, and that is why players feel like their matchup against them is “unwinnable”, I know that feeling first hand, but in reality Even Shaman is the way better Shaman deck to play right now.

Try to get to your win condition at any cost against Shudderwock, and that refers to other Control matchups as well. Control decks try not to win, they want that their opponents to lose. We have as much time with Priest, so try to go for the long haul combined with two burst turns.

Keeping the card draw machine in hand is vital; don’t play Cleric on 1 if you have Pyro as well. Wait for Divine Hymn and guarantee 2-3 cards drawn duing a mid game turn, that’s way better.

If you have the right hand however you can try to build up tempo. The drake package helps a lot with that, and if Shudderwock doesn’t have removal you can easily get in a lot of early damage that they need to outheal. After that you can play Alex and guarantee a good burst follow-up.

Again, what you said is not entirely false, but the amount of Control decks are not really the problem because you can still outplay opponents in longer games. The problem is Hunter and Even Shaman, against those we have to rely on Duskbreaker and Duskbreaker only, because Pyro won’t finish the job at all.

Shudderwock Shaman can be a problem; however, if you can adapt in terms of playstyle you will squeeze out a win here and there, just because Shudderwock Shaman is way more draw-dependant than our deck.

I strongly disagree on Druid being a problem. We still lose the most to Spiteful Druid. I’d say this deck definitely has a positive WR against Token Druid, and Taunt Druid is mostly an even, more skill-based matchup

The meta adapted to Mind Blast Priest as well, but the deck still peforms very well on ladder. The novelty factor surely wore off, but if you really understand this deck (which I’m pretty sure you do since you climbed from 17 to 5), you can still outplay many opponents who want to climb with less refined decks. Always keep that in mind!

Not a fan to be honest!
Your win condition revolves around spell and Hero Power damage, not Charge minions. Scaleworm wants to 2-1, and it does that almost all the time. Commander could do that as well, but it’s just a more expensive minion. Leeroy gets substantially worse if you don’t use it as a finisher, and our finisher is already HP + MB + HP + MB + HP or other variations of that.

I totally forgot to include the Spell Hunter matchup into the guide update, sorry about that! Has been added.

For a bite more detail on this matchup: I would say it’s pretty unfavored in total. You can get ahead in the mid game if you hit that crucial Duskbreaker against the Spellstones, but more often will you get into late game with a Deathstalker Rexxar ready to outvalue you in every possible way due to Build-a-Beast.

Most of these situations come down to a race, and playing greedy in those is key. Keep your Mass Dispel against Lifesteal and Taunt beasts, because the only thing Spell Hunter doesn’t have in his deck is healing. Try to get in early face damage, but KEEP Cleric and Pyro for effective board clear and draw on the same turn. Spell Hunter has no early threats, and you want to draw as much as possible.

The surge of Hunter made this deck substantially weaker on ladder, I won’t lie about that; but you can still win lots of games by knowing your exact win conditions against Spell Hunter.

This is a reasonable and swift reaction, no matter how your opinion about the actual change may look like.

Good luck!

Mind Blast Priest allows to include a lot of tech inclusions, that’s why it’s such a great deck. You can almost certainly switch out Mind Control/one Acolyte of Pain for Lyra!

Keep in mind though that this deck produces maximum value through the deck itself. Lyra can certainly be fun and produce multiple Mind Blasts for example, but you’d need to keep Power Word: Shield for example to make it worthwhile. Not having Elementals makes things more complicated as well.

However I can see a world where this serves more like a legit threat that needs to be cleared in control matchups, and that causes you to have a lot more chances to stick other minion threats on the board. In aggro matchups Lyra is kind of useless because you want to keep cheap spells and Coin for Pyromancer.

Give it a try and see if it works out for your playstyle!

Last season I went 20-12 with it, just before writing this guide. Lots of noteable streamers climbed with this deck as well. It’s hard to pilot but very rewarding, and it performs well if you believe in it and your opponent doesn’t know what he’s up against!

How about you post your replays to see if those games really were 100% losses from the very start? There are no “guaranteed” losses in this game. You only lose if you don’t try. Shudderwock Shaman for example is WAY MORE draw-dependant than our deck, and conceding instantly is just another sign of your game mentality.

The “floor” argument doesn’t really match here as well, because it’s the beginning of the new season and ex-Legend players start at low Rank 4, just where I was as well. The majority of players play these decks to climb, and if you think that Recruit Hunter is a “meme deck” then you haven’t played against it.

This is my last reply. Try and backup your points with your own data, just like I did, because otherwise you’re just being another random player who blames the game for everything instead of himself to improve his game.
And last but not least, play a freaking different deck if you don’t like Mind Blast Priest. Look up tier lists and choose the best performing deck, play it, and if you don’t climb with it in the long run you’ll see that not the deck is the problem but you.

5-2 after a short lunch break session (Rank 5 to 4): https://i.imgur.com/mk5B1Ks.png

The ladder is full of Hunter which is a pretty even matchup if it’s Spell Hunter, and unfavorable if it’s Big Hunter (see first loss although it was t2 Keleseth into double Saping Oozeling which is basically the dream mid game). The loss against Warlock came down to a Shadow Visions coin flip between Mass Dispel and Mind Blast.

Here are the replays, although I doubt you’ll look through any of them:

https://hsreplay.net/replay/KhmbihQHjSeqk6ywRNxhxe
https://hsreplay.net/replay/4BxFiiePDQ9pznndyPcFtX
https://hsreplay.net/replay/gXu6cNHx3ayuL9EjMBnn5Q
https://hsreplay.net/replay/WkmyGHKW28Q5SbFmeNN3kV
https://hsreplay.net/replay/BPkKVMLHHbWnGRz9H7ZzbK
https://hsreplay.net/replay/WUjMW4YvARNZQgmaUCWp34
https://hsreplay.net/replay/U5CVNu6PncZgG8Xm6EfLVK

I said everything about the matchups you listed. Luckily, most of these decks are not being played alot in the current meta with the exception of Token Druid, and we have a marvelous matchup against them due to Mass Dispel, Pyro and Duskbreaker. I’ll spare you with any “arbitray stats from whatever website” aka the most reliant sources to empiric Hearthstone statistics that are used by pro players, casters and Blizzard itself.

I know that feel, Ysera is awesome! I’d swap out Mind Control if you haven’t already.

StreetPiglet, the watchful reader every writer needs to have in his comment section! Thanks, corrected 🙂

Here are some stats from hsreplay.net.
They refer to the win rates and games played of the most popular Mind Blast Priest archetypes, played in the timespan between May 22nd and May 31st aka “time since the nerf”. I included every variation of the archetype that a) has the same 23-24 core cards and b) has 1000 games played or more:

Win rate / Games played

51.0 6800
53.5 6600
55.3 6500
53.1 5200
53.5 4900
51.3 4000
54.1 3500
53.3 3500
57.4 3100
54.2 2300
54.1 2300
55.0 2000
53.6 1300
52.5 1300
50.4 1200
54.0 1100
54.7 1000

There’s not a single list with negative win rate with a meaningful samplesize. A grand total of 56600 games since the last patch shows that the archetype is still doing very well. In fact, I believe that you won’t be able to find many other archetypes with such a high combined win rate over so many different lists; you may not be aware of, but that’s a great sign of a deck archetype that does well including dozens of different tech cards.

I won’t try to get out the exact combined win rate of all these decks, just because your continuous trolling is simply not worth my time. By the looks of it you’re between Rank 13 to 15, and sadly my hsreplay.net premium account can’t create data for that exact frame of the Hearthstone ladder.

But that doesn’t matter anyway. You want a video of someone playing this deck? You don’t need that. I have something that is worth way more than a video. I have statistics that actually prove the deck’s viability over the course of the last 10 days.

If you don’t like a list, don’t play it. You want help? I tried to help you several times, but you’re still badmouthing this guide and this list. Not able to climb with this deck between Rank 13 to 15? The deck is not the problem, you’re the problem, and that’s not offensive, that’s just a fact based on empiric evidence I have shown multiple times in this comment section.

You’re denunciating me by saying I’m lying and you “calling nonsense”, but I yet have to see your actual proof that this list performs poorly. Please stop commenting if you have absolutely nothing to contribute.

Very reasonable changes, hope you’re tearing up the ladder!

Cold Blood. Naturalize. Lesser Jasper Spellstone. Power Word Shield. Shield Slam. Hunter’s Mark. Lost in the Jungle. Arcane Missiles.

There’s still plenty of cards for Skulking Geist. Dark Pact made it a staple in every iteration of the list, but it’s still pretty vital. The surge of Taunt and Devilsaur Cube Druids alone makes Skulking Geist very valuable in the current meta-game.

Mind Control is not a mandatory inclusion, no. It’s not a win condition, but it can carry you against other control archetypes like Taunt Druid or Quest Warrior. The ability to both remove and build board presence against high priority minions like Cube, Hadronox or big Taunt minions can give you another two or three turns that you need to finish the opponent off with your Hero Power!

Psychic Scream is undoubtedly one of the best board removals in the game, especially against other control archetypes. It saves time and can weaken the enemy’s remaining deck a whole lot.

Great to hear, good luck on your Legend run!

The current decklist always represents the “most popular” based on several statistics. We’re currently working on an update for the guide to reflect the post-nerf meta and other meta-based changes throughout the last weeks.

“Bad draws” can always happen. If they happen on a regular base, you need to accept the fact that you’re just very, very unlucky. It doesn’t have to do with you not playing the deck correctly. However, it is very important to know your win condition against Paladin: Mulligan hard for early minion pressure, and don’t be afraid to initiate counter-aggression in moments of weakness.

Besides that, this matchup will become a lot easier with the nerfs. Never give up, never surrender! You can always post replays in here if you’re not sure about your moves in a specific game or matchup.

Both legendaries are absolutely mandatory; without them your results will vary a whole lot compared to deck versions that run them. If I had to choose though I’d craft Anduin instead of Alex, just because it’s your main win condition in combination with Mind Blasts, and because it’ll be a very valuable card for the rest of the Standard year.