Introduction
This is the matchup analysis of Fatigue Warrior versus Priest.
Sample Decklist
We’re using this decklist as a basis. Keep in mind there are decklists with slight variations, each one tweaked to the player’s own taste and the meta they’re facing.
Mulligans
Cards To Keep
Execute Shield Slam Fiery War Axe Slam Bash Bouncing Blade Death’s BiteSituational Keep
Shield Block – with Shield Slam
Justicar Trueheart – with some early game removal or if you know that you face Control Priest
Priest Meta Decks
As you can see, you generally want to keep EVERY low mana removal against the Priest. Against Control Priest you won’t likely need that many, because he won’t put the pressure. But since TGT, Dragon Priest is the most popular build and it’s much harder and high tempo than Control build.
Control Priest
When it comes to Control Priest, that’s a pretty easy matchup. They don’t play too many threats in the early game. Most of their minions are rather low on attack and high on health, but they’re not serious threats.
Armor up as much as you can in the early game, in case they have good curve, e.g. Northshire Cleric into Wild Pyromancer into Injured Blademaster they’re going to put a little pressure, but it’s rarely something you can’t deal with.
A lot of Control builds run the Deathlord, which is fine for you. Not only you can ignore it for some time if you can’t kill it (2 damage per turn is not a lot), but if you have Bouncing Blade or something like Slam + Execute you can just instantly kill it. You don’t really want to get some of your minions from it, but you don’t mind.
You have a total of 10 minions and the only one you really don’t want to get out without the Battlecry value is Justicar Trueheart. In the best case scenario you get out a Grommash Hellscream, which they can’t kill, because it’s a 4/9 minion.
You’re most likely going to kill something with it before they can actually kill it (once you Enrage it they can use Shadow Word: Death). The mid game and late game is pretty easy. Priest can’t really do any tempo moves. They usually drop one bigger or two smaller minions and that’s it. Their deck is really reactive – they have a lot of removals and stuff, which are, well, pretty useless against you.
Cabal Shadow Priest is nearly useless – they need to combo it with Shrinkmeister to even steal anything from you. And if they do, you don’t care that much, because they just play into Brawl this way. Generally just continue with slow, grindy game plan and get the game to fatigue. Then you just win, because they are at 30 health and you should have way over that. Even if they run Justicar Trueheart too, they can’t heal above 30, giving you a big advantage in the fatigue game.
Dragon Priest
Dragon Priest is a harder matchup, because they can bombard you with minions every turn. If they have a perfect curve it’s REALLY HARD to catch up with them.
For example, Twilight Whelp -> Wyrmrest Agent -> Dark Cultist -> Twilight Guardian. If they get such a start, it’s really possible that you’re just going to lose. THIS is the matchup where you need all the low cost removals, you need to catch up with what they do and don’t fall back.
If you survive the early onslaught or they start with bad curve, you should win. In the mid game they can’t flood the board anymore because of the Brawl and you can easily deal with their single threats. Just keep one big removal for the Ysera and you should be fine.
Game against Dragon Priest won’t likely go to the fatigue, the deck runs a lot less removals and answers, so once they run out of cards and you stabilize, you can grind them out with your minions. But even in case of fatigue game, you have a great advantage in the long run with your armor, so don’t worry.
One thing you need to have in mind is that a lot of Priests are running the Divine Spirit + Inner Fire combo right now. So try to remove EVERYTHING they play in the later game. I mean, they can do that as early as turn 5, but it’s quite unlikely that they have combo pieces by then.
If they run the combo they can cheese out the win by OTKing you, but on the other hand, if you don’t let their minions stay on the board, they have a few dead cards in their deck, which is very good for you.
One of my most salty loses with this deck was against this kind of Priest. He had a single 2/3 on the board, I was at around 50 health so I’ve decided to not remove it in order to get Brawl value. Earlier he had played Ysera, so got one card from her. On the 2/3, he played Power Word: Shield (5 health), Velen’s Chosen (9 health), Nightmare (14 health), Divine Spirit (28 health), Divine Spirit (56 health), Inner Fire and just one-shotted me. It’s obviously not something you ever play around, but keep those combos in mind, especially if you aren’t at 50 health. With proper cards and minion on the board Priest can get ~30 damage burst pretty easily.
Resources
- For the deck overview, check out this guide.
- For alternate and tech cards, visit this guide.
- For other guides and matchup analysis of Fatigue Warrior, visit its meta deck section.
- For other popular meta decks, visit the meta decks page – it’s updated on a weekly basis.
