Budget Deck of the Week #2: Free to Play Priest
by JR Cook - 10 years ago show comments
You’re new to Hearthstone, you don’t have all of the cards yet and you’re trying to figure out a way to be competitive. You just start assuming this game is pay to win and blame your losses on the fact that everyone you’re playing has legendary cards and you don’t. You curse at Blizzard for making this game so that you have to pay money in order to win. You go onto the Hearthstone forums, youtube, facebook, etc. and you start complaining that the only way you can win this game is by paying real money and you somehow have it in your head that you’d be legendary by next week if you just had $500 to plop down on this game.
Well, first of all, you’re wrong. The reason you’re losing is because you haven’t put in the practice yet. Those players beating you – are more than likely beating you because of experience and not because of how much money they have. As a new player, the first thing to do is to learn the game. Learn how cards interact with each other. Learn how to respond to certain scenarios. Learn to predict what your opponent isn’t just going to do next turn, but several turns from now and foil his future moves.
However, you still have one problem and that’s deck building. Every single top tier deck you’re finding has multiple rares, epics, and legendary cards and you’re just not there yet. Did you know though that you can easily win and compete on the ladder with free to play decks? They may take longer to get to legendary, but if you’re a card player with your weight in salt, then this deck is for you.
Last week we took a look at the Trump Warlock Zoo deck that he took to legendary. This week, we’re going to take a look at a deck that is a lot lesser known. The deck is known as Doctor Draw – it’s a completely free to play Priest deck using just basic cards and this week I played it on my brand new account and hit rank 10 with it since the 2nd season started. No one sees it coming and you keep your opponent guessing.
Here is the deck list:
Doctor Draw by warbaker
Class: Priest
Cards sorted by Low Cost
Neutral (18)
- Acidic Swamp Ooze x2
- River Crocolisk x2
- Ironfur Grizzly x2
- Shattered Sun Cleric x2
- Chillwind Yeti x2
- Ogre Magi x2
- Sen’jin Shieldmasta x2
- Darkscale Healer x2
- Boulderfist Ogre x2 – Beefy target for heals
Priest (12)
- Holy Smite x2
- Power Word: Shield x2 – Play this pretty aggressively, and favor high-attack minions. Unlike most buffs, there’s no card disadvantage if your target gets removed.
- Northshire Cleric x2 – The centerpiece of the deck. Play her only when you can benefit right away.
- Shadow Word: Pain x2 – Great solution to the ever-popular Sen’jin Shieldmasta.
- Shadow Word: Death x2 – The most mana-efficient single-target spell in the game.
- Holy Nova x2
This deck is all about getting out some efficient minions with high health with some decent damage on them. That’s why you’ll see some arena favorites like Chillwind Yeti and Boulderfist Ogre. The real gem piece of this deck though is Northshire Cleric. Do not play the cleric on turn one. I repeat, DO NOT PLAY THE CLERIC ON TURN ONE. What makes this deck tick is the card draw. Get out your small cost creatures, move on up to your bigger dudes and once you feel your cleric is protected, play her and then heal up and drawn some cards. She’s to be used for card advantage and the only way you’ll get it is when you play her when you can actually use her. In fact, by the time you bring her out, your opponent will be freaking out about your bigger creatures that she’ll just continue providing value for you.
Make sure you’re aggressive with your removal spells and just continue controlling the board, hitting your opponent in the face, and healing up your guys. This deck is a slow win but it will eventually wear your opponent down.
I’ve found this deck favors pretty well against the current hunter and warlock meta, but is not favorable against the current druid meta.
Since this is a free to play deck, feel free to start adding cards to it as you see fit based on what you have in your collection. For example, I would possibly recommend playing a Black Knight and a Big Game Hunter in place of the Darkscale Healer.
If you decide to give this deck a try, let us know how it works for you! If you have any requests for next week’s budget deck of the week let us know in the comments below and we’ll try to get one for you for that hero to highlight next week.
Every single Priest I play against always plays Northshire Cleric on turn one.
Every. Single. One.
That’s a very common thing that sets apart good players from bad players. Just because you can play something, doesn’t mean you should.
I’d argue there’s a lot of value to it, though. If you can’t deal with Northshire Cleric, you often just play nothing until turn three or four giving the Priest time to set up. It’s great if the Priest has Thoughtsteal and can capitalize on slow turns.
I’m in agreement here. I main Priest at this point and despite hearing this advice, I’ve found that more often than not, I can get away with snowballing some games with a turn 1 Cleric, especially if I get a nice opening hand/early game. Although, I will say I feel more comfortable knowing I back up the strategy with Gadgetzan, but sometimes I’ve drawn myself out by the beginning of the late game due to early Clerics.
Not for this deck. The northshire cleric is what makes this deck and the card draw is what it’s centered around. If you fail at doing this then chances are the deck won’t be successful.
Northshire Cleric has 1/3 for 1 and is a removal-magnet. thats great value on turn one and buys time for the late game priests wanna lurk around. sure, you throw away the possibility to draw 5 cards with it, but more often than not your first 3 turns make or break the game vs rush. In addtion, as an 1/5 with (Coin) PW:Shield its one of the most annoying early game cards i know.
THANK you. No one seems to get that.
Cleric in turn one makes sense in some builds. Cleric+coin+ Shield is already a guaranteed drawing machine. Clerick backed by holy smite or Pain guarantees that no turn 2 3-2 will kill her and will give you the tempo advantage.
And in general terms against a rush deck who has played one or two 1 mana minions cleric is not just a possibility but mostly a “must do”. Unless you have a perfect starting hand that will guarantee that you can regain tempo and get some board control before turn 4. In fact if you have a cleric in your starting hand and you don’t play it against zoo or shockading you’re pretty much going to lose. Unless you’re insanely lucky in your draws.
(Btw I’m not saying cleric in turn one is a good play even if you have a smite or pain in your hand. I’m saying that in some cases and depending on what you have in your hand, it might be a sensible choice… except against zoo or shockadin. Vs those is pretty much a must play)