Plaguespreader Priest

I got incredibly sick of just endless Druid and other uninteractive decks that just durdle then eventually say "whoops your dead". However, Blood Deathknight still feels like it struggles with clearing all the random combo garbage in Renathal Druid. Because of that, I've resorted to Plaguespreader, a cute little innocuous 4 mana 4/4 with the ability to replace minions in the opponents hand, forcing them to topdeck combo pieces if they want to have any hope of winning.

The Gameplan

This deck has two main win conditions, beyond just bricking every creature the opponent ever draws. The first comes in the form of Mi'da, Pure Light and its interaction with cards such as Amulet of Undying and Xyrella, the Devout. It is very reasonable for our board to wind up being a bunch of unkillable 4/6 lifesteals due to how fast the deck is able to cycle through cards in the late game. The second win condition comes in the form of Sister Svalna, Animate Dead, and Radiant Elemental. It is very easy to throw a Radiant Elemental out in the early game for a little bit of value, but most importantly it becomes the only card Animate Dead can revive. Because of this, after Sister Salvana is played, both two animate deads can be cast to cause Vision of Darkness to cost 1 mana, often resulting in being able to find the third animate dead and generating infinite shadow spells, usually aiming for stuff like Amulet of Undying to create a larger board or Void Shard to both remove a threat/burn the opponent and pad our life total.

Matchups

This deck is an absolute fever dream fueled by me being upset about Druid existing, and as one would expect, the deck has a pretty good matchup against both 30 card and 40 card ramp druids, assuming you draw the plaguespreaders and can revive them once or twice. Eventually the opponent is forced into a position where any creature left in hand becomes a plaguespreader and thus dump their hand for at least a little bit of value. This same scenario can be said about most combo matchups as well as control matchups. Blood Deathknight and the Shockspitter hunter deck both can get absolutely rolled by a 3-4 plaguespreaders removing their main win conditions. 

As for aggressive matchups, the script becomes flipped and instead relies a lot on being able to resolve a Spirit Guide to ensure we have enough removal and clears for whatever reload the opponent has. Aggro druid is dead in the water if they lose the board, but unfortunately Imp Warlock does have a bit of reach if they are playing an Abyssal Curse variant. The best option for that matchup is to just shut down their board early and either try to combo off with Sister Svalna as soon as possible (which coincidentally also helps you fill your hand to avoid curses), or convert Minion Tamsin and the Abyssal Curse minions into Plaguespreaders.

Substitions/Tech Spots

As one might expect from a deck called Plaguespreader Priest, both copies of Plaguespreader are irreplaceable for the deck. I would say that Sister Svalna is also vital as she just provides such inevitability and helps both stabilize and win games. As for the other cards...

Gift of the Naaru is a great card for padding our life, cycling through the deck, and powering up Xyrella. Because of this, it depends on what type of decks your facing the most to find a good substitute. Desperate Prayer is great for helping us survive and powering up Xyrella, and if you want to cycle through the deck faster, Shard of the Naaru also is great.

Condemn (Rank 1) is a great card for coming shutting down aggro, but can reasonably be replaced with either another Holy Smite or Holy Nova.

Xyrella is an absurdly good card since it very easily becomes a 4-5 mana board clear. However, it could be replaced with an Undying Disciple, though it is much worse than Xyrella is.

Mi'da, Pure Light is also a very difficult card to replace. There are very few cards with as big of an inevitability factor that also works with the deck having a lot of minions also converted into Plaguespreaders due to the nature of the card. Because of this, the best option would be a slow, greedy card like The Sunwell or just focus on more aggressive matchups by loading up on more removal.

Xyrella, the Devout is a 1 card hand nuke, refill, mass resurrection, and eventually several Mi'da as well. There is quite frankly no card that fits the bill to replace it, so similar to Mi'da, I would suggest either just a greedy option or just working on making the aggro matchup better.

Some Things to Keep in Mind

• Plaguespreader will eventually also nuke our hand, if your planning on winning with Mi'da or Svalna, make sure you resolve them before the game devolves into a 4/4 slogfest. That being said....
• Don't be afraid of having some of your minions turn into plaguespreaders. This just means that we get to attack our opponents hand more and in the long run we can beat our opponent in that type of game.
• Spirit Guide and Sister Svalna are both undead, so keep that in mind when playing with Bonecaller. Holding it back a turn to have a Spirit Guide die, allowing us to pretty much have a 4 mana 7/9 in two bodies that also draws 2 spells is absurdly good against aggro.
• The Light! It Burns! is a great way to kill our own Plaguespreaders for when the opponent won't kill it. The same can be said about an infused Clean the Scene

Why Play this Deck?

In my totally non-biased opinion as the president of the Druid Hate Club, that class sucks to play against and it feels like uninteractive combos are at a relative high right now. Cards like Alexandros Mograine, when resolved, just slowly win with essentially 0 counterplay beyond hoping the opponent doesn't have it. This deck just helps a little bit more to make sure the opponent never gets to pull off their zany combo that you've probably seen go off several times in the last 10 games.

Also theres something very satisfying seeing the opponent mouse over plaguespreader when its played, only to then have half the minions for the rest of the game also just be plaguespreaders.

Thanks for reading! This deck is still rough around the edges and I am planning on refining if the meta does end up stabilizing around creature combos. If you have any suggestions, feel free to drop 'em in the comments!