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Hearthstone | Posted by | 6 years, 8 months ago
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Calling All Big Priests!

I don't want this to just be another Big Priest bitching thread. Complaining about Big Priest has done nothing to make Blizzard understand what the problem is. 

Instead, I want to hear from people who play Big Priest, and hear why they enjoy playing it.

Let me explain:

In the recent Developers AMA. This was said by Iksar about Big Priest:

"Statistically speaking, Big Priest is pretty average. However, it's one of the most played decks. One of the easiest explanations for this is that players like playing the deck."

I personally consider this statement to be completely out of touch with the community. From everything I've ever seen in discussions with Big Priest, even Priest players hate the deck. 

So I want anyone who plays Big Priest, to just post why they play it. I want to get an idea if Blizzard is correct in saying that players like playing it, or if there are other reasons that Blizz is oblivious to for why people play it. 

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  • I don't want this to just be another Big Priest bitching thread. Complaining about Big Priest has done nothing to make Blizzard understand what the problem is. 

    Instead, I want to hear from people who play Big Priest, and hear why they enjoy playing it.

    Let me explain:

    In the recent Developers AMA. This was said by Iksar about Big Priest:

    "Statistically speaking, Big Priest is pretty average. However, it's one of the most played decks. One of the easiest explanations for this is that players like playing the deck."

    I personally consider this statement to be completely out of touch with the community. From everything I've ever seen in discussions with Big Priest, even Priest players hate the deck. 

    So I want anyone who plays Big Priest, to just post why they play it. I want to get an idea if Blizzard is correct in saying that players like playing it, or if there are other reasons that Blizz is oblivious to for why people play it. 

  • I think the dev is probably right. In Magic the Gathering, the developers have three basic player profiles that they use to design cards for: Timmy, Johnny and Spike. Spike represents competitive players who value winning above all else, Johnnies like combos and weird card interactions and Timmies, well, they like to play big stuff and win massively, even if they end up losing more often than not.

     

    If we apply these player profiles to HS, I think it's pretty clear that Priest as a class would primarily appeal to Johnnies, whereas the big priest deck is clearly every Timmy's wet dream. And since there are staggeringly few decks where putting a bunch of 8+ mana minions in your deck results in any wins at all, it makes sense that this deck in particular would attract players who otherwise don't care for the priest class.

     

    And this brings us to why Blizzard has been so reluctant to address BP: for every two wild players who hate the deck there's probably a BP fanboy who only plays wild because the deck exists. They can't please everybody. The best way to defuse the situation, IMO, would involve introducing new cards that counter resurrection (to a degree) as well as promoting new archetypes that appeal to this player type. If you just hose BP into the dirt a lot of players will be furious and some number of them might quit the game, or at least loudly declare that they will.

  • I think the deck seems fun at first cause u get a massive board and yada yada, good removal AOEs etc. Ultimately it feels empty to play it cause there is no decision making. ive played it and played odd paladin odd rogue, all the memes the greedy one the face cancer decks and the Big Priest. the one that had least decision making was Big Priest followed by Odd Paladin

  • I absolutely hate the deck and priest in general. I have a big collection and play many different decks. I do play big dumb priest in wild sometimes. And No I do not enjoy playing it or against it. I play it mostly to find out what beats it. Why blizzard is taking so fucking long to correct this is beyond me. 

  • The "Big priest is balanced and is just fun to play" felt like another "Don't you guys have phones?" to me.. I'm not asking for an utter deck demolition.. just print some options, some techs, that would give the opponent a way out. All they've done so far is strengthen the deck with Catrina and (indirectly) vargoth. Just print an anti Big Priest Geist and it can live on. 

    P.s. Barnes is not Big Priest btw - Barnes is probably the only minion in there that the priest don't want to resurrect.. 

  • I'm probably out of touch with the current state of "Big Priest".  I played it when Banes first went into Wild and there were a lot of crazy interactions and fun combos to pull off. It's fun to make huge impact plays and swing the game state dramatically. Big Priest does just that.

    Wild meta is... well it isn't very balanced most of the time except that hopefully there are lots of imbalanced decks running around that can counteract one another. If you really hate it you can target it and likely beat it consistently. 

  • The thing is that the majority of big priest players don't visit any forums because they most likely don't know how to read. So good luck getting an answer from them.

    • Quote From iWatchUSleep

      The thing is that the majority of big priest players don't visit any forums because they most likely don't know how to read. So good luck getting an answer from them.

      Lol.

      As i akready wrote tons of times, i am pretty sure the main traits loved by BP players are:

      1) extreme abuse of synergies, to the point of the feeling of cheating.

      2)connected to #1, knowing you are playing a deck that upsets people: it's like trolling in a forum.

      3)almost no decision making in key moves: the player is never really responsible of their losses. Highroll is.

      If one likes BP, they like at least one of the above traits, more probably all of them. None of them is virtuous. All of them are toxic. Even in Wild.

      None of the above justifies the deck staying at average winrates.

      ALL of the above are normally the definition of MEME DECK (t4 in the very best case).

      • Quote From RavenSunHS
        Quote From iWatchUSleep

        The thing is that the majority of big priest players don't visit any forums because they most likely don't know how to read. So good luck getting an answer from them.

        Lol.

        As i akready wrote tons of times, i am pretty sure the main traits loved by BP players are:

        1) extreme abuse of synergies, to the point of the feeling of cheating.

        2)connected to #1, knowing you are playing a deck that upsets people: it's like trolling in a forum.

        3)almost no decision making in key moves: the player is never really responsible of their losses. Highroll is.

        If one likes BP, they like at least one of the above traits, more probably all of them. None of them is virtuous. All of them are toxic. Even in Wild.

        None of the above justifies the deck staying at average winrates.

        ALL of the above are normally the definition of MEME DECK (t4 in the very best case).

        So now you can judge how much a deck should win based on moral? 

        While I not think it should be left untouched your post is more toxic than any big priest player.

         

  • It's the easy deck to play to rank in Wild: you have almost no thinking involved and a decent winrate. It reminds me of old Pirate Warrior in its shiny days: give it to a bot and just wait to recieve your rewards after it plays hundreds of game untill statistically it will reach Legend.

    Those who wants an easy ride on Ladder just go with Big Priest and on top of that they may also find it entertaining and fun to win slappaing your opponent with absurd board each time (if you're lucky enough to high roll).

    • Quote From Lightspoon

      It's the easy deck to play to rank in Wild: you have almost no thinking involved and a decent winrate. It reminds me of old Pirate Warrior in its shiny days: give it to a bot and just wait the recieve your rewards after it plays hundreds of game untill statistically it will reach Legend.

      Those who wants an easy ride on Ladder just go with Big Priest and on top of that they may also find it entertaining and fun to win slappaing your opponent with absurd board each time (if you're lucky enough to high roll).

      See the thing is that both odd paladin and even shaman require just as little thought and are far more efficient at laddering. Other than the odd Barnes on turn 3/4 bullshit big priest isn't a fast deck. Laddering up with it takes far longer than it would with even shaman and odd paladin. So I don't think that is the reason so many people flock to big priest.

  • Big Priest is necessary for completing priest quests because you can’t win 3 games with priest in standard /meme

  • I love how OP started off with "I don't want this to just be another Big Priest bitching thread..." but the comments devolved this thread into one anyway.  Reading the the "calling all big priest players" part must have been hard too because it sure sounds like at least half of you despise it enough to never touch it with a 10 foot stick

    As for me, I only play big priest when I have a priest quest because the only alternative is spending 4 hours trying to get a win with nomi priest or something.  Maybe people just want to play the class and not lose horribly?  I'm sure people who don't have the collection to support Big Priest are already having lots of fun doing these quests /s

    • Quote From NightCrawler
      As for me, I only play big priest when I have a priest quest because the only alternative is spending 4 hours trying to get a win with nomi priest or something.  Maybe people just want to play the class and not lose horribly?  I'm sure people who don't have the collection to support Big Priest are already having lots of fun doing these quests /s

      Horrible excuse that holds no water whatsoever. Read the priest section https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/wild-vs-data-reaper-report-18/

      This is what I have been saying for a while now. Big priest isn't the strongest priest deck in the game. It's the most braindead one, which is why so many people play it. You included, apparently.

    • Quote From NightCrawler 
      I'm sure people who don't have the collection to support Big Priest are already having lots of fun doing these quests /s

      Dragon Priest.

    • Quote From NightCrawler

      I love how OP started off with "I don't want this to just be another Big Priest bitching thread..." but the comments devolved this thread into one anyway. 

      Yeah... I was afraid this would happen. 

      My point was to try and conclude if Blizzard is out of touch. Like someone said, this was along the lines of "don't you guys have cell phones?" 

      It truly seems to me, that Blizzard has put no thought into why the play rate is so high. It seems they think a deck can only have a high play rate for 2 reasons (winrate, and fun). I personally think it's being played so much for a 3rd reason, and I was wanting to hear from BP players to get a sense if I was correct. Maybe it would have been better to create a poll...

      • Quote From Xarkkal

        Yeah... I was afraid this would happen. 

        My point was to try and conclude if Blizzard is out of touch. Like someone said, this was along the lines of "don't you guys have cell phones?" 

        It truly seems to me, that Blizzard has put no thought into why the play rate is so high. It seems they think a deck can only have a high play rate for 2 reasons (winrate, and fun). I personally think it's being played so much for a 3rd reason, and I was wanting to hear from BP players to get a sense if I was correct. Maybe it would have been better to create a poll...

        Sarcasm in my initial post aside, the problem with your idea is the audience which you want an answer from. The majority of people who play big priest are extremely casual players. They're not interested in participating in a Hearthstone community so the odds of them seeing your post, let alone responding to it, are extremely low. The same would most likely happen even if you try to take this discussion to a website with more traction such as Reddit or Blizzard's own forums.

        But yeah, Blizzard are completely out of touch with wild, its community and its meta. They have shown this time and time again. It took them ages to nerf Giants warlock and they decided to just butcher it completely. Meanwhile big priest has been left untouched for years. Additionally, they nerfed Quest rogue and Kingsbane rogue because of their polarizing matchups and how they invalidate control decks. Yet here we are, with big priest doing the exact same thing.

  • Tbh, big priest doesn’t matter because wild doesn’t matter 

  • Winning with big priest feels like extended BM. It pisses people off which can be funny at times. So if I felt like trolling I would take a big Priest deck for a spin. 

  • As I've said in these discussions before, I do occasionally play Big Priest.  However, I also play pretty much EVERY OTHER deck type.  Sometimes it's just fun to high roll a few wins here and there before going back to some C'Thun deck, or my Tempo Mech Rogue deck I built simply because I wanted to play Iron Sensei.

    The hatred for this deck is similar to the old Shudderwock Infinite Combo.  People absolutely hated it because when you got the combo rolling there was no way to win.  However, the deck's winrate was only about 51% on average when they nerfed SCG to stop the Shudderwock combo.  Similar to Big Priest, it feels so bad when they Barnes on 3/4 and get the nuts like Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound.  But because they don't always draw what they need quick enough they don't actually dominate in Win Rate.

    Which brings up an interesting question: If average 51% win rate for the Shudderwock Combo was enough reason to nerf SCG, why is an average win rate a reason to NOT nerf anything with Big Priest?  The main complaint I hear is usually "Nerf Barnes", which I'd actually be fine with.  You could keep the flavor and original intent by making him summon a 1/1 Actor token that gains an enchantment of the text from a random minion in your deck.  The only real change is silence makes the token a plain 1/1 instead of a full stated silenced minion.  And a resurrected token would also be plain 1/1 instead of a fully stated minion with it's card text.  Besides, Vargoth easily replaces the spot of Barnes if he got nerfed, and in some cases Vargoth can be much stronger in that deck than Barnes.

  • I like playing it once in a while because it lets me turn off my brain and relax. But it absolutely has been nerfed and feels like absolute nightmare to play agains. I have hit the highest of highs and lowest of lows while playing this deck, and it is just stupid how big the difference is

  • People who hate the deck just never played it, yes you can high roll but most of the time you are doing nothing around 5 turns just sitting there with a hand full of res effects and big minions with nothing to do.

    the deck isn't op just when it wins it wins hard it's much more frustrating to lose to mech hunter who rush you down in 3 turns rather than a deck that gave you 5 free turns in wild, you can't play your cutesy gimmick deck but that's true about any format.

    in wild most games are decided by turn 5~6 cause the power level is so high.

    It's a deck that a lot of the time comes back from ~10 hp which it's satisfying most of the time.

    I hope people stop bitching about decks in general, people only think about the opponent's broken deck but if you are anywhere past rank 20 you are probably playing something broken yourself.

    For example mage is now 10 times more of a solitary game than priest, it can essentially stall forever and kill you in 1 turn doesn't even need to run the quest but it's so easy to complete now and if you have vargoth it's gg.

  • Well i do not play wild so i can only speak from the experience i had when Big Priest was in Standard. 

    Priest is my main Class - i have the most played games and wins with it than any other class. It was also my first golden class. At the time Big Priest was in standard i also played it. Sure i played lots of different Priest decks but also a lot of Big Priest.

    I played it because i kinda liked the deck and the idea behind it. Sure not everyone is a fan of "Cheating" out a big minion early but it also happend that you never drew Barnes early enough - and if you had a bad start you would've lost most of the time and even tough i do not play wild im pretty sure that it`s still the same ?

    So for the time Big Priest was in Standard i kinda like playing it because i love the Huge Swing Turns you could do - but everyone should play what they like and have fun - and you should not Stop playing something you like just because other people say it´s trash or stupid!

     

  • I play(ed) BP quite a bit. My honest answer, I played it for the aforementioned reason. Cheating huge minions for minimum cost, and knowing that you're never out of match. 

    The "comebackability' Big Priest has is incredible. And honestly when you're on the ropes against an incredibly aggressive deck and comeback and win there's a certain amount of "living on the edge" feeling you get. 

    Having said that, ultimately I went away from playing BP consistently because of all the reasons. It's monotonous and there's 0 thought to mulligans, early game, mid-game, and late-game. Those facts ultimately pushed me away from continuing to play it. It's a great deck and concept, I'll play it every once in a while, but it does leave you feeling empty about it after the novelty wears off. 

    Go ahead and put me on the 2x4's now, but those are my opinions about the archetype. 

  • I've followed Big Priest for a while.

    The foundation of the deck came from Brian Kibler, who made an all-out anti-aggro priest deck that excelled against trash decks in Un'Goro era. As you may point out, this is before the rez stuff comes in Knights of the Frozen Throne and Kobolds and Catacombs, but the survival mechanics that carry the deck came here.

    Plus, it was the only thing keeping me interested in Hearthstone as Evolve Shaman was a goddamn nuisance, and I find Silence Priest too reliant on the perfect mulligan and Inner Fire combos a crap way to win for Priest.

    Big Priest is a very good deck, but it has limitations. Shaman, Quest Mage, Aggro Paladin, Mill Rogue are decks that do quite well against it IMO.

    Treachery Warlock (which is my personal favorite deck) is a fun deck to go against it, but it's maybe slightly below 50% win rate. Still, nothing like having Howlfiend, Fel Reaver and Doomsayer resurrected by your opponent, and Big Priest can be slow to deal with a turn 5/6 Rin, the First Disciple.

  • Lots of people play Big Priest...

  • Priest is my favorite class and I only play Wild but I really can't bring myself to play Big Priest in its purest form.  I'm proud to say that I have four distinct Priest decks and three of them have winning records and no resurrect mechanism whatsoever.   My Zetalot-inspired buff deck currently has a 61% win rate.  I did play a Quest Priest which included N'Zoth but with 18 deck slots I've retired the deck for a while.  Amusingly, it had a losing record.

    When I play a game and I realize I'm facing Big Priest I assess the deck I'm playing.  If I don't think the deck is capable of prevailing I usually just quit.  No reason to waste time when the odds are heavily stacked against you.

  • Every now and then I play big priest but I usually end up putting a spin on it like playing spell synergies or zerek. I think the deck actually got a lot more fun to play (and frustrating to face) once vargoth came out. It's just one of those decks that feel powerful even if it's winrate doesn't reflect it. It's very polarizing but ultimately it's like a good "timmy" deck, something that doesn't come up very often. It's like how I enjoyed playing conjurer mage early in RoS. At first you feel like "wow, it feels so strong doing these powerful plays." But it quickly gets pretty repetitive.

  • for quite awhile i didn't care about winning in hearthstone. but recently i wanted to win quite a few times so i started to play big priest and i'm having fun with it. It also helps that priest is my favorite class.

    I think why most BP players don't talk is because they know how much hate they get (i understand the hate for big priest).

  • should i try playing big priest it looks like fun