If you are among the people who joined the game between the launch period and early 2016, you are likely to have faced Inner Fire Priest decks. If not on ladder, you may have bumped into such decklists for beating various Adventure bosses spread across pretty much all of the adventures so far. While it is definitely not a consistent way to win the game, it does feel rewarding to pull off and a lot of players have experimented with the decklists to make them more viable. One of the best Inner Fire lists I personally have played with was a Legend viable Dragon Priest deck (late 2015) that ran the combo to OTK opponents and it served as an alternate win condition but none of those lists are quite viable at the moment.
Rage_HS is one a budding deckbuilder that comes up with innovative decks and he is notable for his Blood Warriors decklist that was used by HOTMeowth at Blizzcon in the Hearthstone World Championships. Recently he came up with a decklist using some funky mechanics that has to do with some of the recently released cards in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan and Djinni of Zephyrs. A lot of streamers have been trying out the deck like Savjz and Disguised Toast. You can check out the explanation of the mechanics of the deck by Toast himself in the video below.
How it Works
There are a lot of cards in the game that have “incomplete” text. By incomplete text I do not mean it in the literal sense, but that there are hidden elements to the cards. One of the best examples from recent sets would be Kazakus. You do not know what a random potion is until you search the internet or simply play the card yourself. There are many more such examples of such cards like Ysera or all the Discover cards. You do not know what a Discover card does until you play one for the first time.
The same can be said about Potion of Madness and Shadow Madness. Both of these cards take control of enemy minions until the end of the turn. When you cast these spells you gain “Charge” on the minions you take control of. Since it is a given that if you are taking control of a minion on your turn and you should be able to attack with it, Blizzard did not include the “Charge” keyword on the text of the card. So in theory if a friendly minion duplicates the effect on itself from a minion that you cast Potion of Madness or Shadow Madness on, you should be able to attack with it too because it gains charge – correct? That is exactly what the deck tries to cash in on.
Djinni of Zephyrs is one of the most interesting cards released in the game and there are various ‘weird’ interactions that pop up when experimenting with the card that allows us to understand the ordering of interactions and effects and how the game processes things internally. The text of the card says “After you cast a spell on another friendly minion, cast a copy of it on this one.” When you cast Potion of Madness AFTER you play Djinni of Zephyrs, the spell takes control of the minions and then it gives it “Charge”. Djinni treats the minion you took control of as an ally and casts Charge on himself too. You will be able to attack with Djinni immediately once you cast Potion of Madness on a valid target. Once that’s done any buff spell that you cast on the enemy minion that you now have control of will be cast on Djinni of Zephyrs too.
So what makes the use of Djinni of Zephyrs more viable than other decks that have been tried and tested in the past with similar win conditions? The answer is flexibility. The tools that Priest has access to makes pulling off the combo a lot easier and in cases you can even OTK your opponent from an empty board. A great tool that makes all of this work out is Pint-Size Potion, it enables you to drop down the attack of minions so that you can cast Potion of Madness on them. You have a substantial amount of AoE tools and removals to keep the board clean and also a good amount of card draw to ensure you are able to pull off crazy combos very consistently.
When it comes to viability, the deck has been played with positive winrates on high Legend ranks by various streamers. It is definitely not a deck you want to climb with unless fun overtakes your desire to win because it is not as consistent as other meta decks that can help you quickly breeze up the ladder. But if you love flashy wins and fun games then this is definitely a deck you should try. With all of this out-of-the-way, let’s head straight into the card choices.
Card Choices
Circle of Healing: One of the most powerful early board clears that Priest has access to is the ‘Circle of Killing’ combo of Auchenai Soulpriest and Circle of Healing, which allows you to develop a 4/1 minion on board and wipe out anything that has 4 or less health on the board. You can also use the card to heal up your minions if you need to as well if it allows you to get a lot more value out of your minions or get a lot more trades out of your injured minions.
Inner Fire: One of the combo pieces of the deck, which allows you to buff up the attack of high HP minions that you can develop using Divine Spirit and other buffs that you have access to in the deck. You need only one to win and we have two in the deck for consistency’s sake to ensure you draw one time more often than not.
Northshire Cleric: A card that has gone in and out of the meta a lot and with so many 1 HP minions being prevalent, Northshire Cleric shines right now in any Priest deck. If you are facing aggressive decks it is very likely to churn out a considerable amount of value and the ability to take out multiple tokens in the early game is valuable for preventing any considerable amount of face damage.
Pint-Size Potion: One of the tools that allows you to enable combos with Potion of Madness. It’s not always that you will have Potion of Madness targets on the board, which leads to the inclusion of this card. You can use two of these to take control of extremely hefty and impactful minions.
Potion of Madness: The one card that enables it all, you take control of a minion with your Djinni on board and then follow-up with some buffs to get a ton of damage. Just like a lot of other combo pieces, you only need one to win and you can freely use one of them to clear minions off and stabilize the board state.
Power Word: Shield: One of the few tools that Priest has access to for card draw in the class card set. It helps you keep your minions alive and also gets some trades out. It’s a very efficient card to use with Wild Pyromancer for clearing out minions and in combination with a chain of spells you can clear the board quite handily. The deck would be a lot more powerful if we had more card draw for Priest, but as of now we have to rely on class options that we have access to along with tried and tested neutral options.
Confuse: It is a very interesting addition to the deck and it enables a lot of sick combos that you can make with the deck. One of the best things about the card is that you can combo Pint-Size Potion and wipe out entire boards. It is also a replacement for Inner Fire in some cases if you do not have it. Instead of requiring Inner Fire to work, you can just buff up the health of a minion and Confuse to swap the stats and dish out incredible amounts of damage to finish off the game.
Divine Spirit: You want to take control of a low attack minion with your Djinni on board and then buff up its health with Divine Spirit, followed by Inner Fire or Confuse to buff up the damage on your board and instantly kill your opponent.
Kabal Talonpriest: It is another buff card for the deck that allows you to make big minions to finish off your opponent. Kabal Talonpriest is a great minion for keeping your minions alive and getting extra value out of their effects or simply getting some extra trades in. Even if you do not get the Battlecry off on a friendly minion, you will still get a standard statline for just 3 mana that’s good enough to kill multiple small minions.
Auchenai Soulpriest: One of the most powerful cards that Priest has access to for AoE clears, it allows you to pull off some incredible board clears with Circle of Healing and the fact that you can wipe out boards as early as turn 4(or earlier with the coin) makes it very valuable. You can also combine healing effect spells or even your hero power to clear minions or to deal damage to your opponent if needed.
Doomsayer: Since you do not have spot removals in the deck, you have to rely on Doomsayer to do the dirty work in the early game. It is a great minion to get some early game board advantage and a turn 2 Doomsayer is exceptionally powerful in the current metagame. It is also a great way to follow-up on AoE board clears to ensure you shut down any form of board advantage for your opponent and helps you get more time to put together your combo pieces.
Loot Hoarder: A simple card draw tool from the classic set to help you draw cards from your deck very quickly and get to your combo. The stat line might seem weak but it’s good enough to take out small minions to clear up tokens and 1 HP minions that are more common in this meta than ever before.
Wild Pyromancer: One of my most absolute favorite cards in the game, it allows you to pull off a variety of complex and satisfying turns with the deck and it offers a ton of value when it comes to take out small minions. In case you already went through the whole decklist, you will notice that we do not have spot removals due to the need for aggressive card draw. You will need to focus on clearing out minions with Wild Pyromancer and Auchenai Soulpriest more aggressively to keep your health pool up to enable you to put together your combo pieces.
Acolyte of Pain: Since Priest as a class does not have enough powerful card draw tools, we have to rely on good old Acolyte of Pain to do some work. With so many 1 HP minions floating around, Acolyte of Pain has the potential to draw you 2 cards at the very least against any aggressive deck and you can milk some extra value if you go all in on the card draw with things like Wild Pyromancer for forcing card draw from Acolyte. Managing your hand size is also something that needs to be taken care of, you might have a lot of situations where you have too many cards and you should try to dispose of card draw minions by using as many cards as you can without losing any of your win condition cards. You should also avoid the odds of your opponent trying to mill your hand by forcing in trades every now and then with Acolyte of Pain.
Djinni of Zephyrs: The card that the deck is named after; it is one of the most interesting cards in the game and it allows you to pull off some really cool combos off. The deck focuses on utilizing the game mechanics that can do some crazy things when put together. You need only one Djinni to pull the combos off so you can get around by playing one of these on the board as a minion for board control.
Emperor Thaurissan: You do not necessarily need a discount for pulling off the crazy combos that can be pulled off with the deck but being able to pull them off earlier than turn 10 makes the inclusion of the card feasible. The earliest winning combo I have been able to pull off myself was with a turn 5 Emperor Thaurissan with the coin into a turn 6 lethal.
The Combos
Here are some generic combos that you can pull off with the deck:
Djinni of Zephyrs + Pint-Size Potion (1-2) + Potion of Madness + Divine Spirit (1-2) + Inner Fire: The amount of damage that the combo can kill off is very variable but it is very likely to kill your opponent since you are going to dish out 24 damage at least from the Djinni alone.
Djinni of Zephyrs + Pint-Size Potion (1-2) + Potion of Madness + Divine Spirit (1-2) + Confuse: Another combo that’s just an alternate version of the one above, but it uses Confuse instead of Inner Fire if you do not draw it.
Pint-Size Potion + Confuse: You can use this combo for clearing off boards by setting the attack of minions to 0 and simply flipping the stats over to instantly kill them.
There are many variations to these combos and you can add and remove pieces depending on how much mana you have access to and the amount of damage you need to win the game. Do not shy away from using some of the combo pieces to clear out minions or sustain board control but you should never lose sight of your win condition and have at least enough damage output to end the game with a OTK turn.
Mulligan
Versus Aggro
- Wild Pyromancer
- Power Word: Shield
- Northshire Cleric
- Auchenai Soulpriest + Circle of Healing
- Loot Hoarder
- Doomsayer
Versus Control
- Acolyte of Pain
- Power Word: Shield
- Northshire Cleric
- Loot Hoarder
Conclusion
Hope you guys have fun with the deck and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below. I’ve had a lot of fun with the deck and being able to pull of some absurd turns that your opponents won’t even see coming makes the deck very fun to play and you should definitely give it a shot. It is a slow combo deck and understanding your win condition is extremely important. While you will be able to evade a lot of scary incoming turns by using some of the combo pieces, winning with your combo is pretty much the only way to win and the linear win condition that you have makes it a really high risk and high reward deck.
Published: Feb 6, 2017 07:28 am