Hearthstone
A Custom Fix for the Priest's Basic and Classic Sets
Hello!
Recently, over on our Discord we had a discussion about the Priest class, and how its Basic and Classic sets just kind of suck. It's even been mentioned by the Devs before that 'fixing' the Priest class may involve an overhaul of their Basic and Classic sets, rather than just some balance tweaks.
This is my take on that overhaul.
I wasn't sure how to format this at first, but I think I'll tackle this in three parts: first, I'll show you the cards that I'll be removing completely from the Basic and Classic sets, with reasoning; second, I'll show off my revised Basic set and walk you through the changes; third, I'll show you my revised Classic set, also walking you through the changes.
For some card replacements, I created entirely new cards; some cards have instead been plucked from previous expansions.
Part 1: Those We Left Behind
Now, a lot of people are going to look at that list and scream "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" - which, first of all, rude, and second of all, fair. There's a lot of tried and true Priest cards on that list, many of which people don't really complain about. I'll go through them one by one.
Radiance - This is a bad card. An aggressively bad card. Priests do not need this aggressively bad card. They need a better card.
Northshire Cleric - The Cleric is a strong, strong card. It's one of the last unnerfed powerful 1-drops from the early days of Hearthstone. I don't want to take this card away from Wild players by nerfing it, which is what I would do were I to keep it. I'm introducing a different kind of draw card that plays more into the style of gameplay I want to encourage from Priest - a style of gameplay that I fear would allow an unnerfed Cleric to be too strong.
Mind Vision - I'm replacing this with a different card that I think can be expanded upon better. This is a fairly bad card - and to be honest, so is the replacement - but that's ok. I just want a different bad card in its place.
Holy Smite - Not a fan of positioning Priest as a spell-burst combo class. Play with that in Wild; this Priest is doing something different.
Divine Spirit - Haha this would be kind of nuts with some of the stuff I'm giving them. As one half of one of the most tired combos in the game, this card can go.
Holy Nova - This is a bad board clear. They deserve a better one, and they don't need this one sitting there looking ass.
Inner Fire - Oh hey, the other half of the combo! This card can also leave, thank you. Attack buffing is not something I think Priest should have - I'd rather they just get minions with some more Attack than rely on cards like this.
Lightspawn - It just doesn't really fit the theme much anymore. I could honestly have kept it, and it was touch and go for a while, but in the end I decided to include more changes.
Lightwell - Bad card, didn't want it in my set, simple as that.
Auchenai Soulpriest - I don't like that this is a permanent shift as long as she remains on the board. I've replaced it with a different card which grants the effect for a turn, so the combo with Circle of Healing remains, but I just prefer it not be on a body like this.
Shadowform - It's just a bad card. I'm sorry. I want it to work too, but I'm not buffing it or putting synergy for it in Basic or Classic, so it can leave.
Mindgames - Bad, weird card. We have plenty of representation of their thieving abilities, we can do better than this.
Prophet Velen - Hot take: I removed a bunch of the direct face damaging cards (and Blizzard already started this by chucking Mind Blast) so the original point of Velen is kind of lost in this new redesign. Tear up Wild with your combo decks, but he's not needed here anymore.
Part 2: Back to Basics
While you look at that, I suppose I should explain my vision for the Priest Class. I imagine a Priest Class who is the king of the board - they have big minions which they can beef up or protect, which they then use to knock out your minions and slowly chip away at your health. They can also get tricksy, stealing or outright destroying their enemy's minions. This is not a class of waiting to draw into your combo pieces - it's a class of outliving and outlasting the opponent, of answering their threats and whittling them down.
Now, some card explanations!
Holy Alignment - Oh look! A replacement for Holy Smite! This one doesn't do face damage, but offers the versatility of healing a friendly minion by a small amount if that is needed to help a favourable trade.
Power Word: Shield - Strong card, follows what I want from the class. I see this as an absolute win.
Battle Medic - A Vanilla 2/4 for (2)? Blasphemy! This is the sort of card I think Priest can safely have when they're not hampered by silly things like Divine Spirit or Inner Fire. Is this strictly better than Nat, the Darkfisher? Yes. Do I care? No.
Meeting of Minds - Remember that Mind Vision replacement I talked about? Uh… here. I don't think this is particularly good, but it shows a mechanical idea - of gaining knowledge from the opponent directly, of choosing cards to take - that I'd quite like to see more of.
Shadow Word: Pain - Good card. Solid stay.
Prosper in Peace - It's Reverse Battle Rage! Priest needed some more card draw since I denied them Northshire Cleric, and this feels appropriate for what I want their gameplan to be. Stay healthy, get wealthy!
Shadow Word: Death - Good card. Solid stay.
Power Word: Barrier - Ah, a new(ish) mechanic! Being able to reduce the damage dealt to their minions (and even themselves) feels very appropriately Priest. In some cases, it might simply work like a single-turn Immunity for the characters that it covers, which is why this is costed so conservatively - it could save a large board for you to swing with.
Soul Survivor - Another reliable minion that Priest can get when not hampered by the dreaded combo. This is actually weaker than Ancient of War, but I think given the class tools available to Priest, and of course the rarity difference, the difference in mana costs is appropriate.
Mind Control - It's Mind Control. It's iconic. It's not always very good, but it sets the stage for similar effects.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Balance changes - Meeting of Minds increased to (3), from (2); Prosper in Peace increased to (5), from (3); Power Word: Barrier decreased to (6), from (7), and now only affects friendly minions instead of characters.
Part 3: Classical Conditioning
Circle of Healing - A strong card by itself which also has combo potential. Works well with the plan to overwhelm on board by sheer bulk.
Silence - Strong tech card on occasion. Leads into later silence-related gameplay well.
Penance - Our first borrowed card. This is a simple, strong piece of minion control that I think would be well-suited to the Classic set. Not much more to say, beyond mentioning that I think including things like Lifesteal or Discover in the Classic set is fine - we already have Poisonous.
Thoughtsteal - Is it good? Not really. Does it represent a mechanic I like and would enjoy seeing more of in future expansions? Absolutely. Not every card needs to be a 10/10 hit.
Darkshire Alchemist - Strong single target heal. Again, it can be comboed to deal damage, but in general it just works with my outlasting gameplay I want to encourage.
Temple Enforcer - Simple health buff. Not too strong, but reliable and emblematic of something I want to see.
Barrier Priest - An expansion on the Barrier concept. Can be used to potentially save a single minion for a turn; to defend your hero in a pinch; or to hide behind a Taunt in the hopes of no targeted removal. I even let it target enemy characters for some sort of nonsense - make 'em overdraw a ton with their Acolyte of Pain or something =P
Mass Dispel - Solid area silence. Little bit of additional draw. Nothing fancy, but a solid card.
Shadow Madness - An expansion on the stealing concept that works quite nicely, I feel. Didn't see a need to remove it, but not one I'm particularly attached to either.
Mass Hysteria - The replacement for Holy Nova, so that Priest doesn't need to keep getting strong board clear after strong board clear. Plays well with the idea that you would have high Health minions. I changed the art because it felt quite expansion-specific, but really it doesn't need it.
Holy Fire - Technically a small buff here, but I figured if we were adding Penance we may as well. A little bit of reach or some more minion damage, as needed.
Embrace the Shadow - Combo time! This feels much better as a Classic card than Auchenai Soulpriest to me. It's more obviously a combo piece, rather than a weird inbetween, and its lower cost allows you more flexibility in how you play afterwards.
Holy Guardian - Strong Health gaining target, like a reverse Holy Champion. As I said, I prefer Health buffs than Attack buffs in Priest, which is why I made this card instead of just taking Champion in. Could maybe use a numbers tweak, but the overall design is one I'm pleased with.
Cabal Shadow Priest - More stealing, more fun! Solid card with an interesting effect to get players excited to pull of a weird play with it.
Alonsus Faol - I thought long and hard about the Legendary to include in the Classic set. It needed to be something that was 'game-ending' - something that represented a power-spike when it entered, rather than a combo piece or simple good card. I almost went with Catrina Muerte, to give Resurrect some representation in basically its most balanced card, but the flavour isn't quite right. No other existing cards felt right, so I had to make one up; using a prominent lore character, we get an extremely strong heal which can allow you to wipe a board favourably and then remain completely healthy afterwards. Not your traditional game-ender, but then, Priest isn't trying to win in a traditional way.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Balance changes - Barrier Priest can now only target minions instead of characters.
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Hello!
Recently, over on our Discord we had a discussion about the Priest class, and how its Basic and Classic sets just kind of suck. It's even been mentioned by the Devs before that 'fixing' the Priest class may involve an overhaul of their Basic and Classic sets, rather than just some balance tweaks.
This is my take on that overhaul.
I wasn't sure how to format this at first, but I think I'll tackle this in three parts: first, I'll show you the cards that I'll be removing completely from the Basic and Classic sets, with reasoning; second, I'll show off my revised Basic set and walk you through the changes; third, I'll show you my revised Classic set, also walking you through the changes.
For some card replacements, I created entirely new cards; some cards have instead been plucked from previous expansions.
Part 1: Those We Left Behind
Now, a lot of people are going to look at that list and scream "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" - which, first of all, rude, and second of all, fair. There's a lot of tried and true Priest cards on that list, many of which people don't really complain about. I'll go through them one by one.
Radiance - This is a bad card. An aggressively bad card. Priests do not need this aggressively bad card. They need a better card.
Northshire Cleric - The Cleric is a strong, strong card. It's one of the last unnerfed powerful 1-drops from the early days of Hearthstone. I don't want to take this card away from Wild players by nerfing it, which is what I would do were I to keep it. I'm introducing a different kind of draw card that plays more into the style of gameplay I want to encourage from Priest - a style of gameplay that I fear would allow an unnerfed Cleric to be too strong.
Mind Vision - I'm replacing this with a different card that I think can be expanded upon better. This is a fairly bad card - and to be honest, so is the replacement - but that's ok. I just want a different bad card in its place.
Holy Smite - Not a fan of positioning Priest as a spell-burst combo class. Play with that in Wild; this Priest is doing something different.
Divine Spirit - Haha this would be kind of nuts with some of the stuff I'm giving them. As one half of one of the most tired combos in the game, this card can go.
Holy Nova - This is a bad board clear. They deserve a better one, and they don't need this one sitting there looking ass.
Inner Fire - Oh hey, the other half of the combo! This card can also leave, thank you. Attack buffing is not something I think Priest should have - I'd rather they just get minions with some more Attack than rely on cards like this.
Lightspawn - It just doesn't really fit the theme much anymore. I could honestly have kept it, and it was touch and go for a while, but in the end I decided to include more changes.
Lightwell - Bad card, didn't want it in my set, simple as that.
Auchenai Soulpriest - I don't like that this is a permanent shift as long as she remains on the board. I've replaced it with a different card which grants the effect for a turn, so the combo with Circle of Healing remains, but I just prefer it not be on a body like this.
Shadowform - It's just a bad card. I'm sorry. I want it to work too, but I'm not buffing it or putting synergy for it in Basic or Classic, so it can leave.
Mindgames - Bad, weird card. We have plenty of representation of their thieving abilities, we can do better than this.
Prophet Velen - Hot take: I removed a bunch of the direct face damaging cards (and Blizzard already started this by chucking Mind Blast) so the original point of Velen is kind of lost in this new redesign. Tear up Wild with your combo decks, but he's not needed here anymore.
Part 2: Back to Basics
While you look at that, I suppose I should explain my vision for the Priest Class. I imagine a Priest Class who is the king of the board - they have big minions which they can beef up or protect, which they then use to knock out your minions and slowly chip away at your health. They can also get tricksy, stealing or outright destroying their enemy's minions. This is not a class of waiting to draw into your combo pieces - it's a class of outliving and outlasting the opponent, of answering their threats and whittling them down.
Now, some card explanations!
Holy Alignment - Oh look! A replacement for Holy Smite! This one doesn't do face damage, but offers the versatility of healing a friendly minion by a small amount if that is needed to help a favourable trade.
Power Word: Shield - Strong card, follows what I want from the class. I see this as an absolute win.
Battle Medic - A Vanilla 2/4 for (2)? Blasphemy! This is the sort of card I think Priest can safely have when they're not hampered by silly things like Divine Spirit or Inner Fire. Is this strictly better than Nat, the Darkfisher? Yes. Do I care? No.
Meeting of Minds - Remember that Mind Vision replacement I talked about? Uh… here. I don't think this is particularly good, but it shows a mechanical idea - of gaining knowledge from the opponent directly, of choosing cards to take - that I'd quite like to see more of.
Shadow Word: Pain - Good card. Solid stay.
Prosper in Peace - It's Reverse Battle Rage! Priest needed some more card draw since I denied them Northshire Cleric, and this feels appropriate for what I want their gameplan to be. Stay healthy, get wealthy!
Shadow Word: Death - Good card. Solid stay.
Power Word: Barrier - Ah, a new(ish) mechanic! Being able to reduce the damage dealt to their minions (and even themselves) feels very appropriately Priest. In some cases, it might simply work like a single-turn Immunity for the characters that it covers, which is why this is costed so conservatively - it could save a large board for you to swing with.
Soul Survivor - Another reliable minion that Priest can get when not hampered by the dreaded combo. This is actually weaker than Ancient of War, but I think given the class tools available to Priest, and of course the rarity difference, the difference in mana costs is appropriate.
Mind Control - It's Mind Control. It's iconic. It's not always very good, but it sets the stage for similar effects.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Balance changes - Meeting of Minds increased to (3), from (2); Prosper in Peace increased to (5), from (3); Power Word: Barrier decreased to (6), from (7), and now only affects friendly minions instead of characters.
Part 3: Classical Conditioning
Circle of Healing - A strong card by itself which also has combo potential. Works well with the plan to overwhelm on board by sheer bulk.
Silence - Strong tech card on occasion. Leads into later silence-related gameplay well.
Penance - Our first borrowed card. This is a simple, strong piece of minion control that I think would be well-suited to the Classic set. Not much more to say, beyond mentioning that I think including things like Lifesteal or Discover in the Classic set is fine - we already have Poisonous.
Thoughtsteal - Is it good? Not really. Does it represent a mechanic I like and would enjoy seeing more of in future expansions? Absolutely. Not every card needs to be a 10/10 hit.
Darkshire Alchemist - Strong single target heal. Again, it can be comboed to deal damage, but in general it just works with my outlasting gameplay I want to encourage.
Temple Enforcer - Simple health buff. Not too strong, but reliable and emblematic of something I want to see.
Barrier Priest - An expansion on the Barrier concept. Can be used to potentially save a single minion for a turn; to defend your hero in a pinch; or to hide behind a Taunt in the hopes of no targeted removal. I even let it target enemy characters for some sort of nonsense - make 'em overdraw a ton with their Acolyte of Pain or something =P
Mass Dispel - Solid area silence. Little bit of additional draw. Nothing fancy, but a solid card.
Shadow Madness - An expansion on the stealing concept that works quite nicely, I feel. Didn't see a need to remove it, but not one I'm particularly attached to either.
Mass Hysteria - The replacement for Holy Nova, so that Priest doesn't need to keep getting strong board clear after strong board clear. Plays well with the idea that you would have high Health minions. I changed the art because it felt quite expansion-specific, but really it doesn't need it.
Holy Fire - Technically a small buff here, but I figured if we were adding Penance we may as well. A little bit of reach or some more minion damage, as needed.
Embrace the Shadow - Combo time! This feels much better as a Classic card than Auchenai Soulpriest to me. It's more obviously a combo piece, rather than a weird inbetween, and its lower cost allows you more flexibility in how you play afterwards.
Holy Guardian - Strong Health gaining target, like a reverse Holy Champion. As I said, I prefer Health buffs than Attack buffs in Priest, which is why I made this card instead of just taking Champion in. Could maybe use a numbers tweak, but the overall design is one I'm pleased with.
Cabal Shadow Priest - More stealing, more fun! Solid card with an interesting effect to get players excited to pull of a weird play with it.
Alonsus Faol - I thought long and hard about the Legendary to include in the Classic set. It needed to be something that was 'game-ending' - something that represented a power-spike when it entered, rather than a combo piece or simple good card. I almost went with Catrina Muerte, to give Resurrect some representation in basically its most balanced card, but the flavour isn't quite right. No other existing cards felt right, so I had to make one up; using a prominent lore character, we get an extremely strong heal which can allow you to wipe a board favourably and then remain completely healthy afterwards. Not your traditional game-ender, but then, Priest isn't trying to win in a traditional way.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Balance changes - Barrier Priest can now only target minions instead of characters.
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I like the cards, but I think we can straight up ditch the 'copy X card from your opponent' mechanic. Its just one too many for a basic set.
A few observations;
Meeting of minds is straight up busted. It essentially allows you complete information of your opponent's hand AND your choice of a card.
Prosper in peace is interesting and kinda a nice spin, but since its condition for draw affects both sides, it punishes your opponent for having a board, making this almost broken in both aggro and control decks (essentially any deck). I would either raise its mana cost to 4-5, or straight up only allow draws on characters on your side, not the opponents.
I'm a little torn over the barrier concept. Its very powerful, almost close to ice block levels of denial but without the 2 card restriction per deck. And this applies to both face and minions. I think restricting this to minions is a better idea.
I really like the battle medic, to be honest, and hope to see it one day in standard for priest.
I really like your design about healing and protecting (so far, played Priest cards are always about Shadow, Madness and Necroing... to the point i absolutely dislike the class), and I absolutely love Faol being there (although i think he should either cost (7) or have 9/10 health).
The only thing i deem to be out of place is the new Vision card: showing full hand is too much, and visually complicated. [i](from up to 4 cards)[/i] should be added to the text.
Most of the other cards are great, although maybe the protecting cards need some testing to be properly valued about their cost.
Information of your opponent's hand is a bit overrated as a mechanic. Madame Lazul never saw any play, and she has a very similar effect also attached to a 3/2 body for only 1 more mana. I don't think being able to run a second copy makes it hugely better, and that's basically what this is. Not even any board presence as Lazul does.
Card is fine in my opinion.
I agree that Madame Lazul have been hyped to high heaven as was Chameleos. But in both instance, they only allowed a glimpse, not the entire hand. I think its fair to say that being able to switch gears or strats mid game is not to be underestimated.
I would also argue that the reason both are not as popular is because priest does not have a proper mid range deck that could use a value generator (not to mention information of the opponent's hand). We've seen this in spiteful priest, where one of the best card (aside from Spiteful Summoner herself) was Drakonid Operative and not always because of the 5/6 body.
Also, this not only provides information, but it allows you your choice of a card. Its not even random. Essentially it means I will almost always have my opponent's hero card, or finisher, or at very worst a tech card or spell. In most mid-range and control games, this may well be the decider where games go from then. (As a spiteful priest player myself, I can't say how many countless times games was decided by merely discovering dk guldan off drakonid)
Meeting of Minds is pretty OP as already said. This is way better than Madame Lazul because not only do you see entire hand and not only 3 cards, but you also get to pick from the whole selection. You can easilly pick the best card in hand and have exact info about the stage of the game at the moment.
Imho it needs to cost at least 3,more so since it is a basic card.
Other cards seem like an interesting direction for priest. Tho i dont like removal of Auchenai, too iconic and Embrace is in no way a suitable replacement for what it provided, it wasnt only the CoH combo, but a decent 4-drop and the potential to control the board with her, which ironically, is the direction you want to go in 🙂
Also Mass Hysteria in Classic is a bit too much lol.
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Curious Glimmerroot used to have its place in Reno Priest.
Madame Lazul is currently unplayed simply because she has anti-synergy with Resurrection Priest, which has been the only viable Priest archetype for ages now. Not because she's not worth it.
Ok, so Priest-Main here.
The Class is infamous for relying too much on current Expansions and having no real win-condition. I, like probably most of the Priest players, would love to see a big overhaul of their base Cards to change that. And seeing Things like this thread are great for this! It can give the Devs some more Insight on what the Players think about a class as well as give some new Ideas, so thank you.
That being said, I don't like this overhaul overall, but there are some changes I completely agree with. Here are some of my thoughts/questions about this:
Prophet Velen: Why remove him? Cards you've added/changed are reason enough to keep him around. Penance alone would be „2 Mana deal 6 to a Minion and gain 12 Health" and this version of Holy Fire would be a „deal 10, heal 20". I see no reason to replace him with a Legendary that has, at best, a mediocre effect compared to him.
The whole Barrier-Thing: Remember Ice Block? It allows Mage to win games they shouldn't have and straight up kills Combo-Decks. So why give Priest, a Class that can (unlike Mage) heal out of Lethal range, 2 Versions of it? Someone before commented that this effect would be healthier if it was restricted to Minions only, and I agree with that.
Battle Medic/Inner Fire and Divine Spirit: I personally think it's in the wrong Class. Tempo-Priest was a Meme up until SoU, and without Inner Fire it's not even that. Speaking of: As much as I hate Inner Fire/Divine Spirit, I have to admit that these 2 Cards give the whole Healthbuffing Priest has a Payoff. I'd rather see Inner Fire being changed or replaced by another Payoff than ditching both Cards.
Meeting of Minds and Prosper in Peace: Straight up busted. Madame Lazul might not be great, but I don't think you should give Priest a permanent Card like this. And the other Card is just to good of a draw in a Class that is supposed to have limited Draw (I can get behind the Idea of HoF'ing Cleric).
Changes I like: adding more heal to the base sets (Holy Alignment would be a great Card), giving Priest a better AoE and changing Auchenai Soulpriest for Embrace the Shadow. Oh, and getting rid of Inner Fire. I know I said it already, but really, I hate this Card!
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I 100% agree with everything you have said here.
Meeting of Minds is busted. It is better than Madame Lazul by a long shot. It is a spell and it is cheaper so it is way better for control priest who doesn't want to play a 3/2 minion but would rather play larger minions which are better for resurrecting. And being able to choose any card and see the entire hand is far better than only being able to see 3 cards. I think changing meeting of minds to discover a card instead of seeing the entire hand would make it a lot better.
Prosper in peace doesn't care about your opponent's board, it already only draws a card for each friendly caracter. I think maybe you misread the card or maybe I am just misunderstanding you.
And I also agree that the barrier mechanic should not be able to hit face. Ice Block maybe isn't a fair comparison though, I think something like Evasion or Time Out! would be better. But those are expansion cards which will rotate out of standard, this is something that will be in standard forever. And Ice Block got Hall of Famed not necessarily because it was super OP, but because it was always going to be in just about every mage deck every for all time. I think Barrier Priest might suffer the same fate.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
This was also my first impression, but the issue with priest is that it is a control class, and as such it needs a good board clear. Right now there is no good board clear in the basic/classic set, so priest needs to get a new board clear every expansion. So instead of giving priest a new board clear every set, why not just give them a good board clear in the classic set?
Although I don't think Mass Hysteria would be my board clear of choice to add to the classic set. I would have gone with something simpler, more reliable, and slightly less powerful. I think something more along the lines of Dragonfire Potion would be better. We need a board wipe for priest that plays a similar role as Flamestrike in mage. Flamestrike is not an OP card, and it is not always going to be a must-have in control mages, but it is always there if there isn't anything better.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
Thanks for all the thoughts!
I'll get working on some revisions of the cards.
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Power Word: Barrier and Meeting of Minds are way too complicated for the Basic Set.
This is in reply to the comment above the one this is replied under I think something went wrong with the placement.
In terms of Board Clears, couldn’t Priest also get Excavated Evil back? It doesn’t really fit into the themes you’re going for but it’s a cool card. Also, you could buff Holy Nova to 6 Mana “Deal 3 Damage to all enemy Characters and restore 3 Health to all friendly characters”. I feel this might be better than Mass Hysteria because I think that Holy Nova is a very thematically priest card (just horribly underpowered)
Do you mind expanding on why you think that? I don't think either of them are particularly difficult mechanics to understand.
Barrier is a simple AoE buff. Meeting of Minds is no more complex than something like Tracking - it'd give you more options, sure, but I don't see why that makes it that much more complex.
Animal Companion is a way more complex card than either of them, imo, with three tokens that you have no way of finding out about before playing the card (at least in-game).
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What if Inner Fire was changed to “Give a minion ‘After this attacks, set its Attack equal to its Health’”? That way it would still be an Attack payoff card but it couldn’t be part of an OTK when you have a high health minion on the board. Alternatively, it could become “Destroy a minion. Summon a minion for its owner with Attack and Health equal to the chosen minion’s health” for a similar effect
Excavated Evil I ruled out for a similar reason as Psychic Scream - mechanically, the shuffling aspect of it felt weird to me to include in the Classic set.
I was trying to avoid buffing or nerfing cards as much as possible when doing this, because I understand that people like cards as they are in many cases and I didn't want to completely remove anything from the game. I'm not against buffing Holy Nova like that though. I didn't think it would fill the board clear slot of the class well, but perhaps in the new style of gameplay they'd more frequently be able to make favourable trades and clean up with it, while healing their own board back up. Something to think on.
I'm just not a fan of extreme Attack buffs like that in Priest. I don't mind incidental or small symmetrical ones like Power Word: Tentacles or Unidentified Elixir, but ones that can vastly pump the Attack stat I don't like.
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If Warrior gets to lean on Brawl from here on to perpetuity and still gets decent board clears on top of that I don't see why Priest shouldn't have Mass Hysteria in its evergreen set. As a control class Priest still has a natural disadvantage compared to Warrior in that it can't use the HP proactively to stack up defense, that's enough of a handicap without arbitrarily making the class cards weaker as well.
As for the other changes, the only one i really disagree with is removing Velen, as far as I'm concerned the card isn't a threat unless a substantive amount of healing/damage spells AND mana discount mechanics exist in standard, and it's pretty easy to design the former around Velen so long as you don't have too much of the latter. I don't think I've seen a Velen in standard since Radiant Elemental rotated out.
Kinda sure I saw undamaged character instead of undamaged friendly character.
Oh well, guess I made a mistake :p
Nobody flip at me, but what if Priest had a Resurrect-type card in Classic/Basic? It's one of Priest's defining core mechanics, and it has to keep getting bumped along by expansions.
I'm not talking about something like Mass Res or even actual Res being around forever. Something like a re-flavoured Onyx Bishop would be perfect. It's a bad card for Big Priest since it comes out quite late and has a crappy body, and doesn't have anywhere near the highroll potential of [Hearthstone Card (Pyschopomp) Not Found]. However, it really communicates that aspect of the class.
A man is lying on the street, some punks chopped off his head
I'm the only one who stops to see if he's dead.
Hmm. Turns out he's dead.
I don't get why you put both Penance and Holy Fire into the same set? They are both identical in term of effect and function.
Redundancy of effects =P
Penance also only hits minions, but is still a far better card than Holy Fire. Having both cards in a Core Set is good to teach players about how damage scales, as well as what makes one better than the other.
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I don't know if it's a coincidence, but I've also been working on a custom revamp of the Priest core set (I'm revamping core sets for all the classes + the neutral ones, and Priest is the first class I finished). In my opinion it is Paladin that has the worst core sets, but Priest is a decent 8th place in this area. Priest's flavor has been refined throughout HS history so it's easy to change it in retrospect. Paladin doesn't have this chance.
As a general critic: The new arts you used don't fit into HS art style.