Introduction
So we come to this. The last part of this series is upon us, and while I would like to thank you for coming this far, reading my stuff and helping me testing it, it’s not over yet. We still need to introduce the final version of my theory crafting – Control Priest.
Priest has been getting a lot of upgrades since the first week of Naxxramas Launch Event, even if not directly (in the form of cards) at first – the new cards were all weak against Priest’s already existing mechanics.
I think that was Blizzard’s idea all along: making priest viable. Then, in the last 2 weeks we got some big cards that affected priest directly, and today we are getting the last piece for a competitive Tier 1 priest deck: The dark-cultist.
The card is huge, not only the best 3-drop in the game, it also fix priest’s early game and sets up for a more stable mid game and helps building up the late. It also has synergy with some priest cards, which is huge. And while we still completely don’t know how the final form of the Priest Control deck is going to be, we can start working on it, right now!
Priest Control
I thought about ways to start working on this deck, and though the sunfury protector approach seems to be a really good one, I decided to take a slightly less “theory” approach and instead update last week’s legendary rank 1 deck in the NA ladder.
Last week, the card that gave priest such a high boost was deathlord, every top 100 priest deck had it, as far as I know. And while Deathlord is indeed big for priests, we can not deny how dark-cultist is plain better: yes, it does not have taunt and instead it have a slightly weaker body. But it not only does more damage, it also has no downside and instead, has an upside which is the buff element of his Deathrattle, that even when not being activated, it should be played around and presents no negative random effect like the Deathlord.
I decided to add taunts to that deck as well: the list I saw last week used azure-drake, and while the card is indeed good, I belive its draw effect is irrelevant due to the fact you already have 4 card-advantage mechanics in the deck: 2x northshire-cleric and 2xthoughtsteal.
Therefore, I think the addition of sludge-belcher is more than justified, given the fact you took out your taunting power in the form of deathlord.
So, the testing deck is complete. This deck can, for sure, bring you to legend rank if you are a good enough player. Keep in mind priest is an extremely hard class to play, and it takes a lot of games to be really good at it. S
Sometimes over 200 games, sometimes even more, due to the fact of its particular card synergy and hidden interactions, I might make an article about the updated final version of this deck later together with some hints on how to play priests in general.
Priest is a new class to the meta, never before it was playable (as much as the other deck types), so it might take some time until people realise it. Meanwhile, I suggest you to try to get good with it if its your aim, due to the fact a good priest will -always- win a game against a slightly worse priest, and on a priest meta, the better player will always shine, instead of the luckier one!
Update: Playtesting Results
So far, I made some small changes to the deck. Firstly, Zombie Chow is simply a beast in priests, it has helped me a lot in the past games, and its now a must have 2-of in my deck.
I did more testing with some other cards such as sunfury protector but in the end the card did not seem necessary at all! This is the list I came up with, so far:
Hope you guys appreciate the update!
Conclusion
It is over. This was the last part, of the last pre-Naxxramas theorycrafting article series I will probably make, since I belive next week’s cards are not good enough (neither of them) to deserve a big meta-shift as the previous ones released in Naxxramas. Now don’t get me wrong, I do think avenge has some value, I just don’t think its worth a whole series for it. Maybe we will be seeing one article about Paladin next week but that is all about it.
In the meantime, I believe you guys have enough decks to playtest and upgrade thru the next months, which was my aim for these series: try to give people the best options to start Naxxramas’ new meta with.
I hope you all enjoyed what you saw, and I also hope to see you all in the next articles I make!
Cuddles,
Nuba
Wanna find me somewhere else other than this website? Here are some links!
 /TheNubaHSÂ
