Taunt-Combo-Whatever Priest

Here's a neat little project I've been playing around with for the last two months. Probably the closest I ever got priest to play actual cards rather than generated bs with no proper win condition. Unfortunately, since that's basically what priest plays best in, I'm forced to rely on it ever so slightly, but only because I started winning more games with than without it.

All I really wanted was to play the cards I put in my deck *sob*

Readers be warned that I've only had on and off success with this deck, and its not an easy deck to play. Priest has some of the worst draw options available so I've went from 5-0 in one session only to lose my next 5 in quick succession. Its not a bad deck in my opinion, you can win games with it, but there will be times it feels utterly helpless.

Without further ado, here's a short guide.

Mulligan Guide

- Always, always mulligan for Sethekk Veilweaver. Its your only tempo option on turn 2 and there's just so many cards that do well with it. If you Power Word: Shield this on turn 2, there's very little your opponent can usually do to remove it. And not removing this card for one turn can easily just win the game for you.

- Holy Smite and Breath of the Infinite against aggro classes like rogue or druid. But everything else goes. You really just want veilweaver all the time in your hand if possible.

Short Guide on how to play

- Your primary combo would be to get Devout Pupil to 0 mana and followed up with Embalming Ritual and Psyche Split. Better if you can put Grave Rune in the mix. Most aggro classes don't tend to play cards like Sap or silence anymore, so if this happens its basically game over.

- Even if you can't pull this combo, you can easily get more devout pupils from raise dead, so don't hesitate to play him unless you suspect your opponent is capable of transforming it. This is especially crucial because you're basically going to play from behind 50-70% of the time, so don't bother keeping a card only to die the next turn. Your knowledge of the game would come in handy here.

- As mentioned, Sethekk Veilweaver is the number 1 card in this deck. Against some classes, there's just no way of removing something with 5 health on turn 2, so if you can put vielweaver on two with power word: shield, the game might as well be over from there.

- Outside of vielweaver, there's also Nazmani Bloodweaver, no slouch on snowballing herself. Lots of cheap spells + vielweaver and bloodweaver means your opponent might as well concede. Unlike the Cthun miracle priest, this deck can actually just kill you with stuff like devout pupil, far faster than any cthun shenanigans.

- The proper way to play Mindrender Illucia is to empty your hand and force a skip turn from your opponent. I'm not joking. Aside from mozaki mage and certain druids, there's literally no other way you can play Illucia without screwing yourself. Its just there because otherwise you'd just auto concede to nearly every other combo deck around.

- Don't bother corrupting Insight if you've better cards to play that turn. Basically drawing at all is a blessing because this deck runs out of options really fast once vielweaver is dead or you haven't drawn it. Drawing any minions, even without the buff, is still okay by my book.

FAQ, without the 'frequent'

Why is Bloodmage Thalnos in the deck?

- Because Breath of the Infinite is too predictable so all druids play around it. This guy, however, not just throws a wrench in that plan, but also draws you a card.

I keep getting beaten by everything, its my 4th losing streak. Am I bad at the game?

- No, no. I assure you I have experienced even worse. But then there's also those times when I just seem unbeatable. Priest can't draw for shit, and I'm attempting a deck that wins by tempo. Nuff said.

How often DO* you managed to put out that devout pupil combo?

- Not as often as I'd like. The win condition of this deck is either generating cards from vielweaver, or you basically walled your opponents to death with devout pupil. You don't have* to assemble the combo to win. Most of the time just pupil with reborn is enough to scare the shit out of your opponents that they throw everything they have to get rid of it.

Your deck sucks, you suck, I hate you, and I've just lost all my stars because of you.

- Play another deck. Its priest. What'd you expect? Give it a go because like me you love to play off-meta decks. If you're gunning for legend, this is one deck that's not for you.

Some card considerations

- Galakrond is only there because without it you'd lose to other priest decks, like hard. Warlock isn't exactly popular at the moment, so galakrond is a better choice than Archivist Elysiana (no joke Ive actually won matches with her). But this is basically the weakest link here. Feel free to change this for, maybe ooze, or perhaps even Cobalt Spellkin

- Why no Alura? Well, because soul mirror is broken as hell. And you don't want Alura to waste something you'd rather have for pupil.

- You don't really need both thalnos and illucia. They're there because it provides better options. You can easily replace thalnos with loot hoader, and Illucia with maybe Vol'jin (Devout pupil can be 0 mana too, and Vol'jin can be a last ditch disruption tool).

Okay, so go have some fun with this deck. I certainly did. Feel free to ask any questions.