New Priest Minion - Darkbishop Benedictus

Finally some shadow priest support. Makes it so you technically don't really need to run Shadowform anymore. However it does need some more support. Shadow priest seems like more of a aggresive deck because of the hero power, but the current shadow spells are a lot more control focused. So i wouldn't be surprised if some kind of control shadow priest shows up that either kills their opponent with the hero power, or uses the hero power as removal. 

In wild i think this might give rise to some shadow priest deck. Such a deck always suffered from the "darn, my Shadowforms are my last 2 cards" syndrome, so with that gone it might make the deck... semi viable? At least it buffs the deck from garbage into meme tier at the very least.

But yet again, we gotta wait for some more support for it, which im 100% sure were going to see this expansion, the HS team has already teased it a while ago AND they wouldn't print Darkbishop Benedictus without support, that would be REALLY weird. Still i'm glad we get another version of Archbishop Benedictus, considering the original Archbishop Benedictus is such a fun card.

REALLY hope his entrance line references his "Unlimited POWAH".

This is an excellent meme!

There a good reason for everyone to want this card to be good: if you ever see it, that means you're not facing bs priest

Its tailor made for aggro priest to be a thing, since essentially you're transforming your priest to hunter at no cost except to play no healing spells. Hell you can legit make a deck with nothing but Raise Dead as the only spell and this card will still work. Just add a few more damaging shadow spells and woila you've just solve the priest equation - Make a tempo priest deck that's a priest, except its not priest, because it does absolutely nothing what a typical priest would do.

I don't think that Aggro Shadow Priest is the right call, as Brandon mentioned there are a lot of control tools that are shadow. Insight, Palm Reading, Raise Dead, Soul Mirror, just to name a few. I think that Shadow Priest will instead look more along the lines of Control Mage than anything else.

Control priest is currently too dependant on Renew and Apotheosis for keeping themselves alive, both of which are Holy spells. Not only that, Draconic Studies is also in the deck to help fixing their curve.

So, while there is a chance control Priest switches to full Shadow spells (both Insight and Thrive in the Shadows, aka, their semi tutored draw engines), switching from a resource generation gameplan to a more proactive one where there is a clear win condition (like C'Thun, the Shattered), we need more support for that deck. Like I said, shadow priest loses their survivability and Palm Reading can only get you so far. Even Clown Priest, who actually uses the shadow draw engine, also includes at least Renew.

This is clearly a wait and see card, but the last two Start of Game cards that interacted with your Hero Power were deemed too strong for the game and removed from standard prematurely, which makes me very scared of Darkbishop Benedictus's ability to warp the meta.

I want this to be good. Just looks so fun to get that shadow fantasy done well. Also that art is sick. One of my favorite characters from WoW that didn't get the story or reveal he deserved. Him being the Twighlight Father was just so unimpressive. "Just here he is, kill em, get loot, next."

Also I wish Shadowformdid something. Upgrade or refresh the hero power. I hate seeing this card brought back but not useable. 

Love it!

Always liked Shadow Priest and the Idea behind it and maybe Shadow Priest can Rise once again this upcoming Meta.

Now let's hope for some new and cool Shadow Spells to support this even further.

Quote From ElSabidon

Control priest is currently too dependant on Renew and Apotheosis for keeping themselves alive, both of which are Holy spells. Not only that, Draconic Studies is also in the deck to help fixing their curve.

So, while there is a chance control Priest switches to full Shadow spells (both Insight and Thrive in the Shadows, aka, their semi tutored draw engines), switching from a resource generation gameplan to a more proactive one where there is a clear win condition (like C'Thun, the Shattered), we need more support for that deck. Like I said, shadow priest loses their survivability and Palm Reading can only get you so far. Even Clown Priest, who actually uses the shadow draw engine, also includes at least Renew.

This is clearly a wait and see card, but the last two Start of Game cards that interacted with your Hero Power were deemed too strong for the game and removed from standard prematurely, which makes me very scared of Darkbishop Benedictus's ability to warp the meta.

I guess the Priest who runs this package may like the Panda Importer (which gives you a spell which was not in your deck) to get the necessar Holy spells.

The card looks fine, but needs more support actually the standar shadow spells are controllish, just Raise Dead, Auspicious Spirits, Psyche Split, Palm Reading, Insight and Thrive in the Shadows can fit in a aggro/midrange deck, and some of them are bad or not worth cards.

I hope that the new legendary quest sinergizes with Darkbishop Benedictus in some way, could be cool!

God, I hope this ends up being viable at some point. I'm so sick of the un-proactive Priest decks were seeing in meta after meta. 

That restriction is really limiting though, considering that most of Priest's best spells are Holy. Hopefully the devs push this archetype in this expansion and introduce lots of good Shadow spells. 

Nice idea, although stolen from the contest here some weeks ago. :D

Lokks very interesting, the ability to deal 2 damage each turn without playing a card (Like Shadowform or Wildfire) is really nice. It doesn't have to be an aggro deck, maybe a control deck with less stalling/bs could use this. Will try if opened!

Realistically, this is never going to see competitive play ever. It eliminates a control approach because you can't play Control Priest without HOly Spells (not to mention you can find Shadowform in Control Priest most of the time anyways, so there's no real benefit). I really don't think we're gonna get some funky aggro Priest, at least no unless the entire set supports it.

That being said, it's still a good effect and should hopefully create some bottom tier 3 meme deck that you can maintain a 50%  winrate at ranked floors. Might also improve as time goes on since the more Shadow Spells you can choose from the better.

I hope an aggresive shadow priest deck will rise, control matches take 20+ minutes.

It's very nice they are taking the things in a different way.

This is a hard card to read right out the gate.  Priest's tool belt relies on a lot of variance with spells.  There needs to be serious Shadowform support for this

I want to like it, but I see no deck for it as of yet.

I love that this card exists. I don't play priest, but it is great to see more support for shadow priest and less support for bs control priest. I always love cards that provoke interesting deck building and even if this doesn't turn out to be very powerful, I'm just glad it exists to give priest players something fun to mess around with.

Also almost this exact card was made for the WCDC last week which is pretty funny.

Good use of the start of game mechanic. This is one of those cards that'll only get better as more and more cards get printed, making the downside more negligible. But for now, I'm not convinced. Priests are already efficient in removing minions, so a 2 damage ping isn't going to add much and going face isn't really Priest's strong suit either.

I'm not sure if Priest can entirely give up their Holy healing spells for this to work. We'll have to see what support is printed.

This is so weird since Mind Blast is no longer in standard, so making a burn deck is really difficult and the best priest cards are not shadow.
Still I love cards that do something kinda new and this is it.

I gave this 5 stars on the mere hope that it enables Shadow Priest as a viable thing. If only Day9 were still playing because I think he would love this card. I think I'll craft this one if I don't open it just to play the archetype. Hopefully this succeeds and leads to some other deck restriction cards that enable alternate hero powers.

Did anyone find an answer if it will work with C'Thun, the Shattered? I'm very curious about how the order of start of game effects is decided.

Quote From frosthearth

Did anyone find an answer if it will work with C'Thun, the Shattered? I'm very curious about how the order of start of game effects is decided.

If its the same as with the baku/genn interaction with Cthun, its entirely random.

Basically, at the start of the game both cards are shuffled in at random and the one on top would proct first. So if benedictus happen to be above Cthun in the shuffling, then his effect will happen first, followed by Cthun's.

Quote From dapperdog

Quote From frosthearth

Did anyone find an answer if it will work with C'Thun, the Shattered? I'm very curious about how the order of start of game effects is decided.

If its the same as with the baku/genn interaction with Cthun, its entirely random.

Basically, at the start of the game both cards are shuffled in at random and the one on top would proct first. So if benedictus happen to be above Cthun in the shuffling, then his effect will happen first, followed by Cthun's.

Oh I didn't know about that, it never crossed my mind to try C'thun with Baku or Genn. That is one of the dumbest interactions I have ever heard of.

I'm excited to see what I can do with this card (in Wild).

Quote From Pezman

I am so ready for this! I'm also really glad he costs 5, because this would be REALLY problematic with Genn Greymane.

It would be problematic if Shadowform were the 'Starting Hero Power', but it isn't. So Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater doesn't interact with Darkbishop Benedictus.

Maybe this will work, but hard to say

I tried making an aggressive deck for this and with what we have there's just nothing unfair enough to compete with other aggressive decks.

Let's cross our fingers for some support

While I don't have the specific quote at disposal, Celestalon stated that at least two other Priest cards will fit nicely into the Shadow archetype: this without considering Neutrals and already existing support (in the end, we know that Shadow Priest is an aggressive deck, but we have little to no idea about how it will look like).

Hmmm this card wants Priest to become aggro but how much better is Priest better at aggro than Hunter. Just play Hunter instead.

3 stars just in case

I have been dreaming of a card like this since I have played my first Priest game.
2021, actual support for Shadowform !!

Really cool card, you don't even need to run many spells, just make sure the only spells you do run are shadow ones. Might this be the time for an aggressive, tempo-oriented priest list which doesn't have games drag out to thirty minutes?

This doesn't even need to be great to be awesome - basically turns Priest into a better Hunter at start of game, finally making Shadow Priest a reasonable archetype.

Not a lot of support for him so far but will be good eventually.

I want this to work so much! Love start of the game effects.

I love the diamond version although obtaining it will be hard

the diamond art from him is beautiful 

Full Thief Priest in wild, and don't care about your hp, just care about randomness.

YES. 100% Yes. I don't give a shit whether this is Top-Tier, or some Meme trash, Shadow Priest looks fun. Day 1 craft!

Oh how I want this to be good. I always tried making shadowpriest work in the past, (not death knight, but an agressive priest with shadowbomber and mindblast).

The card that enables a new Shadow Priest archetype. This will be the first thing I will try out on launch day. Love the fact that it will be a diamond card as well.

In looking around for shadow Priest theory crafts it seems like the thinking is it gets support in the mini set as the archetype is incomplete. Will probably get another star or 2 then. 

one of the most interesting cards. At least when we see a priest we will have some fun!

Super interesting card, finally making Shadow Priest a real deck. We need more cards like this one, with great flavor and enabling totally different deck types

Well, changing your Hero Power at the start of the game is one way to make Shadowform work, I guess. There are actually a lot of really good Shadow spells, so while losing out on Holy spells does hurt I think this could be quite fun at least.

This card did not receive good support so it's actually trash.