Ultimate God Priest Deck List and Guide - Memes and Dreams #18

Hearthstone at its core is a game that people should have fun with, but that can get bogged down in the pursuit of competitive meta strategies. Thus, I humbly present Memes and Dreams, a series on Out of Cards looking to bring some good ol' memey fun into people's Hearthstone experiences. Each week we will do a deep dive on a different 'for fun' deck, discussing the basic ideas of the deck, what makes it tick, and roughly how to pilot it. This week we take an older concept and slap it into a very expensive Priest package!

The Secret Ingredient is G'huun

A while back, I made Quad God Warrior for the express purpose of slamming all the Old Gods from Madness at the Darkmoon Faire into a single, janky control package. However, I made a critical error in doing so. While there are technically the four OG Old Gods, a new Old God was revealed in the past few years, G'huun the Blood God. Since Priest is the only class that can use actually all "five" Old Gods, I took the Neutral chassis from the Warrior deck and applied it here. Priest thankfully also has much better ways to utilize Y'Shaarj, the Defiler compared to Warrior, so this one may be a bit more successful in that regard as well.

The Meme - Play some good ol' fashioned Control Priest and stall until you can win the game through pure attrition, or potentially with the late-game power of C'Thun, the Shattered. 

The Dream - Thwart all enemy attempts to develop a board, heal up and survive to the late game to play all five Old Gods in a game and show your opponent your complete dedication to the Old Gods! 

Key Cards

Since this deck doesn't really have an particular plan or combo in mind, the most essential card is technically G'huun the Blood God since he is the fifth Old God and what enables Priest to be more Old God than any other class. He is also nice as some of Priest's only card draw avenues and lets you plan the drawn cards immediately, albeit sometimes at a hefty health cost.

C'Thun, the Shattered returns as a key card from the Warrior variant due to his satus as a win-condition and ability to enable most of the other Old Gods. C'thun provides spell fodder for Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate and his 5-cost spells are also perfect for corrupting most of the Corrupt cards in the deck.

Insight is another method Priest has to draw cards and checks two boxes by being both a spell and a Corrupt card. Auspicious Spirits also checks these boxes, but Insight's ability to draw and reduce the cost of the handful of minions in the deck is invaluable and tricky to replace. 

Honorable Mentions

Dark Inquisitor Xanesh is the ultimate Corrupt synergy card, making all Corrupt cards both easier to corrupt and easier to play. It's only really essential to discount Fleethoof Pearltusk since 5-mana is an awkward spot to try to Corrupt, but it can be very nice for enabling a big turn of playing many cheap Corrupt minions.

Draconic Studies might seem like a strange Honorable Mention, but it is exceptionally good at several things. Firstly, its a spell, which is always a plus. Secondly, it creates a Dragon for N'Zoth, God of the Deep to resurrect. Thirdly the quality of expensive Dragons went up drastically with the Core set and it's not unlikely that you generate another card to Corrupt your other cards with. It's very efficient and one of Priest's better cards at the moment.

Budget / Alternate Options

Replacing legendaries for this deck is tricky, since the deck primarily revolves around them as meme-y novelty. Dark Inquisitor Xanesh and Soul Mirror are both good cards in the deck, but should be the first ones cut since they don't fulfill the full Old God idea of the deck. Even if you're trimming down on Old Gods in your deck, the best cards to add are the ones that can support the remaining Old Gods. The ideal mana cost for replacements are things that cost 4+ mana since they will be able to Corrupt most of the cards that need Corrupting, even without Xanesh. Cards like Holy Nova are great at this since it also helps the Control themes of the deck. Fleethoof Pearltusk is only a one-off in the deck since it's kind of tricky to Corrupt, but you could add another if you're confident. With Pearltusk, you could also add Blademaster Samuro and Apotheosis since Apotheosis combines with either to provide am immense amount of healing.

Since there are literally no epics in the deck to discuss replacing, I will instead go over more generically good replacements, if there is anything else you'd like to replace. Armor Vendor will always be good as a tool for slower decks to combat faster decks. Similarly, Death's Head Cultist is very nice at slowing down aggro, but is also relevant later as a target for N'Zoth, God of the Deep.

If you're finding youself low on Old Gods, then Silas Darkmoon is a decent flavor replacement. He's not a win condition, nor is he intrinsicly tied to the Old Gods, but he runs the Darkmoon Faire where all the new Old Gods come to party, so he fits in alright. You could also add more Old God related cards such as Horrendous Growth. Priest makes the best use of Growth by far since they have access to Xanesh, who can reduce Growth's cost to 0 and make almost any other card Corrupt it. The best card to replace for Nozdormu the Eternal might be Dark Inquisitor Xanesh. Yes there is a lot of syngery with Xanesh and the deck, but she's already kind of slow and most of the cards can be corrupted somewhat easily. 

Strengths

This deck is especially good in grindier games against other Control decks, particularly Warrior or Priest. Priest pretty innately has a lot of card generation ability and can create enough resources to outlast some of its Control competitors. It gets a bit tricky since this deck does lack a few tools other Priests might have, namely Venomous Scorpid and board clear options of Xyrella and Blademaster Samuro + Apotheosis. However, the inclusion of all Old Gods means that you have a mean late-game and a slew of threats your opponent will have to face. The deck is also quite good stalling from the mid-game onward. Most of the Corrupt cards should be Corrupted by this point, greatly increasing the deck's ability to stabilize. Lightshower Elemental is also fantastic at stalling against Face Hunter in particular, blocking both Trampling Rhino and Piercing Shot.

Weaknesses

Unlike some other Control decks, Aggro isn't a very good matchup. The deck's early-game tools are quite limited and there isn't a very good board clearing option until Hysteria. Post-Hysteria (or any 4+ cost card for that matter) stabilization gets a bit better since most of the Corrupt cards in your hand should be online. However, the aforementioned loss of Apotheosis + Samuro does lose a major health swing, which is especially painful given the deck's lack of on-command healing. As with most other Control Priests, Warlock is also quite an issue. You might be able to grind through with resource generation, but you're just really hoping to draw well and that their busted Control cards (Tickatus and Lord Jaraxxus) are near the bottom of their deck.

Conclusion

This deck is certainly a very pricy endeavor, but one that is arguably worth it. You get to carry a feeling of superiority as the only class with the ability to play every single Old God (yes, we are of course counting G'huun). All other classes can try their best to play the four big Old Gods, but literally no one else can claim to play all five. Also, I feel the need to apologize for the shoddy release schedule lately. IRL stuff is piling and this summer is gonna be a bit scuffed. I might be moving to a bi-weekly release schedule or just release whenever I can get the motivation and time to do so. It's gonna be a rough time moving forward, but I still look forward to bringing you all a slew of meme-y deck ideas.

What is your meme deck of choice? Do you try different ones for each expansion or do you try to evolve old ones with new cards? Do you have any meme dream stories? Tell us in the comments below!