How to beat Quest Priest

Priest players, can you inform me how you beat Quest decks?

I'm a reasonable new player, but I managed to get rank 13 last season (second season of play). I face multiple tier 1 decks, and I know how to play against them, but Priest is always a problem (I'm currently 3-25 against the control variants with Quest and resurrect shenannigans). I can't seem to beat them by SMOrcing, but outvalueing the late-game is also not possible. These are the decks I have available (standard versions unless mentioned):

- Quest Paladin

- Galakrond ZooLock (without Sea Giants)

- Combo Priest, the Amet Inner Fire version

- SMOrc Hunter

- Quest Malygos Druid (with some cheap replacements like Novice Engineer > Crystal Merchant)

- Budget Galakrond Tempo Rogue (no Flik Skyshiv)

What is a way to beat Priest?

I've not played much standard and don't know the answer.

But +1 for a constructive polite non salty post asking for guidance.

Best deck I see in your collection for taking out Quest Priest would probably be the Malygos Quest Druid. Your best bet with that deck is basically to control the board when possible, but try to never leave damaged minions if you can. If you can delay them completing their quest, that'll buy you more time to set up your OTK. Also, don't go face unless you can do a lot of damage at once, and only later in the game. Focus mainly on draw, ramp, and armor gain. If you can hold out until you can complete your OTK, you should be fine.Priest has no Quest Priest runs no armor normally and you can do 44 damage to face from your hand once you get your combo. Only problem is that you're probably gonna be stomped by most of the aggro decks floating around like Face Hunter and Pirate Warrior.

Zoolock is favored vs Quest Priest

Most Highlander lists are favored as well

Combo is the best option, Holy Wrath Paladin, or your Maly Druid as EpicHercules already discussed.

You won't be able to smorc them down unless you have god draws. The Quest Priest deck became popular as a direct response to Face Hunter. 

What is your Rogue list you are using? Rogue is sitting as the best class to counter Priest according to the stats on hsreplay. Rogue's worst deck vs quest priest is deathrattle, which Priest only wins 47% of the time (as of this writing) Maly OTK Rogue is the hardest Priest counter (32% winrate for Priest). 

hsreplay.net quest resurrect priest

I can help you with Quest paladin. Its unfavored, but not impossible. You just have to time your eggs and whelps so they can only silence one copy each time. Most quest priest decks play a total of 4 silences, and Mass Dispel will only get rid of the deathrattle, not the minion. Just make it so its always awkward for them to use Mass Dispel and Plague of Death. The match will almost always end in fatigue, so don't draw too many cards if you can help it. Just do it so you can complete the quest. Don't attack face and spam hero power. Eventually they will need to plop minions on board that don't progress their quest. You greatly out value them as long as you dont over extend.

In general against quest priest:-

- If your win condition is combo, never strike their face. Not even when they are not displaying their quest on turn 1. Your combo should kill them from 30 in one turn.

- If youre playing as aggro. Its massively unfavored. Play your cards and pray they don't have answers. Quest priest dont draw easily so hand reading is reasonably easy. If youre playing face hunter, just concede and move on.

-  If youre playing mid range, dont strike face until late game but develop a board. Your opponent may make the mistake of playing their heal minions too early. In general you cannot out value your opponent, so you got to play your minions and time attacks. You only need to dodge Mass Hysteria most of the time to get it right.

Quest priest draws very poorly. Hand reading is essential to beat them.

I also think that your Combo-Druid should be pretty good against Quest-Priest, as long as you don't attack Face. These are the Things that I think you should consider against them:

- Try to bait out their board clears or make it very inconvenient for them to use it. Usually, having 2-3 medium sized Minions is enough. 

- Use your Minions as Removal. Save the big clears for Mass Resurrection. Make also sure that they can't heal your Minions.

- They are a reactive Deck, so if you can allow it, do Nothing. At some Point, they have to use a Card, even if it is extremly inconvenient.

- This game will go to Fatigue, so don't draw more than your Opponent (Unless you're a Combo-Deck). 

- Always remove Catrina Muerte. If you don't take care of her, your Opponent will get out of this with a free win. Archmage Vargoth might also be annoying, but his only purpose in this Deck is to get summoned by Mass Resurrection and cast another one. A few more Minions usually make no Difference when you're clearing the Board anyway.

- For Highlander-Decks: Try to get Hex from Zephrys the Great and hit Catrina Muerte with it. 

One way to beat Quest Priest is to build a board and DON'T attack right away.  Most of the time the Quest Priests don't have any early game other than healing, so if you wait until you can deal a larger amount of damage in a turn you can stall out their plan and rush them down.

ZooLock is one deck that can do this as Invoke effects help build a board quickly.  Then you can use things like Grim Rally and other buffs to build attack power up and start beating them down.  If you craft the Sea Giants that is another way to quickly build a board with high attack power.

I personaly would say from the list of decks you've listed your best 2 bets would be

Zoolock or Maly-Druid. I would prefer the Zoolock - the Invoke Cards will always give you board - try to put on pressure by building a good board on almost every turn. Do not attack the first few turns because of the Quest. The longer you can stall the quest the better. Build a board, buff up your minions and SMORC :)

Same goes for the Maly Druid. Stall the quest, fight for board and finish him with the OTK. 

The Combo Priest only works if you have all the OTK Pieces at the right moment : Divine Spirit & Inner Fire to set up a OTK with a minion. 

I am a die hard Warlock player and I can say the EASIEST way to beat the Quest Priest deck is to not do ANY damage to your opponent until you have a substantial amount of damage on the board.  With the Galakrond Zoo deck, I wait until I have a number of minions on the board and drop a buff to do a good 10-15 damage in a turn.  From that point, it is really hard for Priest to come back.  Even if they start bringing out the control parts of the deck that that wanna be Obsidian Statue, having a number of minions on board minimalizes the damage done to your board. 

Also, I prefer to run the Jumbo Imps over Sea Giants because you almost always lose your imps and other demons to taunt minions. Doing this makes sure that the Priest players will use their mass removals on the weenee minions you have out, thus reducing the cost of your big guys and won't be as impactful as when you drop your Sea Giant when you have  full board just to have it mass removed. 

You do NOT attack them, they got 2 karthut defenders, a zilliax, 2 water bearers, and hero power they heal face really quickly and even from low hp they suddenly burst heal..

so you should build a board and fight for it, don't overextend save value as much as possible they will eventually start playing stuff kill everything you see with the minions on board.

control normally wins against quest priest since it got limited value as long as you don't hit them in the face.

I always lost when I hit them in the face for low amounts of damage, you only hit them when they already completed the quest, or when you have 2 turn or same turn lethal.

it's a slow game vs any deck.

oh and if you are face hunter.. well good luck 20% chance to win.. play normally and hope they don't draw their healing cards.

Also if you are using a deck that is weak to 1 specific match-up, it's often not worth it to make changes to the deck. You might make this single one better, but it will probably come at the cost from other match-ups. Just take the loss and win the next two games ;)

Quote From og0

I've not played much standard and don't know the answer.

But +1 for a constructive polite non salty post asking for guidance.

Not the answer I was expecting, but thanks for the kind words :)

And thanks for the responses everyone else, I'll try to look into them!