Alright, just so we're clear on this, this is AWFUL design, quite possibly the worst Exodia they've printed so far, not because of it's powerlevel, but simply because of the fact that this is the first time in a while that Priest gets an actual win condition, but the gameplan is just "stay alive until you play enough cards to win"
However, I don't actually believe this card will see play...like...at all (outside of maybe Tournaments as a specific counter for the mirror).
The main thing about it is that you are now required to run SPECIFIC cards of particular costs, quite possibly multiple copies.
You can technically get away with running a single 8-drop because of Taelan, but you're gonna need at least two 7-drops (one will be Mutanus, but the other might be more difficult to find).
8-drops are the most difficult part here. You can try and run Natalie to have an actual proactive 8-drop. G'huun will probably just get you killed (or just burns two cards basically).
Basically you'll have to pollute your deck with pretty bad cards to autowin the control matchup but the amount of bad cards you'll likely have to run (+ the initial -1 in hand) will probably make you useless against aggro (at least any currently existing decks).
On the flipside the control matchup is far from guaranteed (even if it is generally in your favour). Currently, unless the quest ignores discounts and counts cards on their base cost, there is no way to finish the Quest and play Xyrella on the same turn. this means she is incredibly vulnerable to Mutanus the Devourer who is already a Control staple and will continue to be. There's also the Warlock matchup where Tickatus can either burn the Shard (although you can usually avoid that by using one of the many spell tutors) or burn your 7- or 8-drops and render the quest useless, although that'S far from likely unless Altar of Fire is also involved.
The issue here is that the Control matchup will basically always turn into a coinflip. They can't kill you before you finish your quest so their only chance is to wait it out and then haily Mary the Mutanus.
Awful quest, terrible to play against, probably even worse to play. Pretty sure we'll never see this after the first two weeks and grindy "discover your win condition" Priest will still be better, UNLESS Warrior or Warlock become so dominant that the only way to beat them is this broken piece of shit.
I find it hilarious that Priest is basically just Warlock with this. You have to gimp your deck to the point where aggro just runs you down, but no control deck can beat you.
It's just terrible design and I have no idea why they keep pushing this sort of stuff.
It's kind of slow but also technically one of the better removal spells Druid has. It's basically 8 damage you can trade with and doubles as reach. The only issue might be having something to attach this to.
See the thing is Mutanus is inherently RNG. Sure, you can basically guarantee to play him the turn Xyrella enters the hand, but it still ends up being a coin toss.
Tickatus also doesn't work because Priest has 3 (!) spell tutors that they can play alongside Xyrella so you will never get the chance to actually burn the Shard. At best you can hope to burn their quest requirements so they can't actually finish.
Honestly I feel like this is an insanley underrated card for Control decks.
Been using him for a while now in my post-nerf Priest deck and he literally autowins certain matchups if he comes down 3. Healing for 10 on a delay is actually extremely powerful because it allows you to play greedy for the next 2 turns (assuming you're not striaght up dead) and just shrug off most of the progress which allows you to be greedy with stuff like Hysteria or other AoEs.
If Control Warlock becomes a real deck in the next expansion it will probably do really well with this.
Too bad he gets worse as the game progresses and ends up being a rather terrible topdeck. Still worth it for the early game potential though.
Gotcha! Makes sense. I might reinstall and try your list plus N'Zoth--I've always run him primarily to get an extra Lightshower Elemental (kinda like DH uses him mainly to get a third Illidari Inquisitor), which can be really big sometimes, but he definitely does end up dead in your hand other times. Thanks for the list and the explanation!
Just to let you know, I've actually included N'zoth now because I realised that the 2nd Dungeoneer is way too clunky most of the time and N'zoth adds a valuable last ditch effort to hold off tempo decks in the lategame.
There might also be an argument to replace the other Dungeoneer with a single Apotheosis since that extra bit of healing can come in clutch, although I'm not sure if it doesn't end up being a dead draw in a lot of situations.
How can you even beat such an aggressively condescending line. It is reserved for only the scummiest of topdeckers who you still end up beating after they've RNGd their way out of sticky situations multiple times a game.
This was completed thanks to a Wild Spreading Plague and some cheap ODD attack minions like Armor Vendor, Venomous Scorpid and 2 mana Ooze (from my hand\deck)
I mean, I can try but you'd have to specifc which achievements in particular you have issues with because I'M not gonna come up with Standard-only decks for all of these right off the bat (even though I'll keep it in mind for the next set)
Curious as to the omission of N'Zoth, the Corruptor, since HSReplay stats peg it as the third-highest-winrate card in pre-nerf Control Priest. Is it a question of diminished value (I noticed the pirates are omitted too), or is it just too slow without pre-nerf Blademaster Samuro + Apotheosis?
I'll be real here. I have never liked N'zoth and always thought it being shoehorned into Priest.
Realistically, you can probably run N'zoth in this deck even without Southsea Scoundrel and get good results (in fact it might actually be better since LIghtshower has been difficult to justify without additional synergy) but I personally just don't see the point given how our win condition is outgrinding the opponent instead of trying to beat them on board (and Flesh Giants are usually enough swing pressure).
Maybe if Libram Paladin was more prevalent it would be worth running, but against something like Shaman and Demon Hunter N'zoth won't help you early and might just end up being a dead draw when you don't want it.
If you want to run it you can probably cut one Devout Dungeoneer, since Cleric does most of the heavy lifting in terms of draw anyways
The same as any other Priest deck. Don't die and win because you have more cards than your opponent.
Except ypu have this card draw so you will not have that much card
you still have boatloads of card generation and can run your opponent out of ressources before they run out of cards.
Yes, you still can't beat Warlock and hard Control Warrior will probably beat you...but all of that happened before as well. The meta is almost entirely aggro to midrange at this point and you do not win by just having more stuff, you win by staying alive until they can no longer kill you at which point a single big minion carries you to victory.
I'M honestly predicting that Fire Spell support will make Hero Power Mage playable sooner than it will enable the quest.
I don't understand how we've somehow regressed in terms of Quest design. Uldum did a decent job by not making you actually play the reward after finishing it and encouraging slower decks with an actual long term win conditions (instead of tempo decks that instantly lose because they skip turn one with -1 card)
Now we've returned to Quests that are somehow even slower than Uldum, require multiple conditions that give you, let's be honest, laughable mini-rewards and still make you play a 5-cost card that doesn't immediately impact the game (at least not the ones so far).
Mage will never be able to play this quest unless they literally get Headcrack, which would then lead into the whole "inevitable win condition that cannot be avoided meaning you can only beat the deck with hard aggro, and then the only way the deck ever appears in the meta if Mage gets the tools to play control and then god help us all because then you'd wish they nerfed Incanter's Flow to 4-mana.
Meanwhile Warlock could be balanced around the fact that control decks get a chance to just kill you because of how much damage you need to take, but if that's the case that just means Warlock doesn't have enough healing which means they can't win against aggro and remain in garbage tier.
The Demon Seed coming for Warlock doesn't necessarily mean we are going to see even more strong healing options for the class. The dev team is wary of instances where it might become too much.
Then why do you keep printing inevitable win conditions for Warlock when they're not allowed to actually heal back damage?
People keep going on about how Warlock is always OP when they have enough healing, but that's just not true. It just happens that whenever they have decent healing they also have some unavoidable win condition so they automatically end up in top tier. That's what happened with Cubelock, Controllock and is what would happen with Tickatus if the deck was any good. Just print some Big Demon synergy to add alongside Jaraxxus and we have a decent lategame win plan that doesn't just fold to aggro and midrange because they just lose more health than they can heal.
I think you're missing an essential element which is the fact that it is both lifegain and removal at the same time. This is precisely what made Samuro + Apotheosis so strong and the entire reason why Warlock clearing your entire board multiple times in a row doesn't make much of a difference if they don't have time to heal themselves inbetween.
This makes it so you can do both at the same time which makes surviving a lot easier.
Just think of the Hunter matchup if they start out with an intrepid Initiate. Sure, you can play Armor Vendor to heal for 4, but the Vendor won't trade into that and you're just gonna eat 3 damage again. Meanwhile, with this you can both kill the Initiate and heal off any damage it might have done.
Not to mention that Warlock has plenty of damage dealing spells that can set this up so you will be very rarely in a situation where you have to use the card without getting the heal (if 2 damage isn't enough to kill what's in front of you you're already in a bad spot anyways, so it wouln't matter)
I really hope that we'll eventually have enough healing to just ditch the Soul Fragment package entirely. I really hate having to gamble on whether I stay or live or die each turn.
Now give me some big demons and make Willo a real card.
This is pretty great for Control Warlock and might actually help that deck out of the dumpster. Removal + Heal is always good and it combos with Tamsin Roame as well.
Make no mistake, the only reason why Warlock is trash right now is because they just don't have enough efficient lifegain to survive the midrange onslaught of decks like Demon Hunter and Warrior because Soul Frags are just so slow. This adds (potentially) up to 16 health per game and it we also got the Spicebread gal for even more healing if needed. Warlock has wiin conditions out the ass at this point, so there is basically downside to just filling the rest of your deck with removal and healing.
Nature Studies isn't limited to Nature spells so you will see it occasionally
just realized how good this is combined with Lake Thresher.
Maybe Midrange Beast Druid will be a thing, since you can discount the thresher with the Snake guy from Wailing Caverns
Alright, just so we're clear on this, this is AWFUL design, quite possibly the worst Exodia they've printed so far, not because of it's powerlevel, but simply because of the fact that this is the first time in a while that Priest gets an actual win condition, but the gameplan is just "stay alive until you play enough cards to win"
However, I don't actually believe this card will see play...like...at all (outside of maybe Tournaments as a specific counter for the mirror).
The main thing about it is that you are now required to run SPECIFIC cards of particular costs, quite possibly multiple copies.
You can technically get away with running a single 8-drop because of Taelan, but you're gonna need at least two 7-drops (one will be Mutanus, but the other might be more difficult to find).
8-drops are the most difficult part here. You can try and run Natalie to have an actual proactive 8-drop. G'huun will probably just get you killed (or just burns two cards basically).
Basically you'll have to pollute your deck with pretty bad cards to autowin the control matchup but the amount of bad cards you'll likely have to run (+ the initial -1 in hand) will probably make you useless against aggro (at least any currently existing decks).
On the flipside the control matchup is far from guaranteed (even if it is generally in your favour). Currently, unless the quest ignores discounts and counts cards on their base cost, there is no way to finish the Quest and play Xyrella on the same turn. this means she is incredibly vulnerable to Mutanus the Devourer who is already a Control staple and will continue to be. There's also the Warlock matchup where Tickatus can either burn the Shard (although you can usually avoid that by using one of the many spell tutors) or burn your 7- or 8-drops and render the quest useless, although that'S far from likely unless Altar of Fire is also involved.
The issue here is that the Control matchup will basically always turn into a coinflip. They can't kill you before you finish your quest so their only chance is to wait it out and then haily Mary the Mutanus.
Awful quest, terrible to play against, probably even worse to play. Pretty sure we'll never see this after the first two weeks and grindy "discover your win condition" Priest will still be better, UNLESS Warrior or Warlock become so dominant that the only way to beat them is this broken piece of shit.
Thrive in the Shadows, Cleric of An'she, Devout Dungeoneer.
Getting the shard after shuffling it will not be the issue.
I find it hilarious that Priest is basically just Warlock with this. You have to gimp your deck to the point where aggro just runs you down, but no control deck can beat you.
It's just terrible design and I have no idea why they keep pushing this sort of stuff.
It's kind of slow but also technically one of the better removal spells Druid has. It's basically 8 damage you can trade with and doubles as reach. The only issue might be having something to attach this to.
I guess this is what removal for Druid looks like now.
See the thing is Mutanus is inherently RNG. Sure, you can basically guarantee to play him the turn Xyrella enters the hand, but it still ends up being a coin toss.
Tickatus also doesn't work because Priest has 3 (!) spell tutors that they can play alongside Xyrella so you will never get the chance to actually burn the Shard. At best you can hope to burn their quest requirements so they can't actually finish.
Honestly I feel like this is an insanley underrated card for Control decks.
Been using him for a while now in my post-nerf Priest deck and he literally autowins certain matchups if he comes down 3. Healing for 10 on a delay is actually extremely powerful because it allows you to play greedy for the next 2 turns (assuming you're not striaght up dead) and just shrug off most of the progress which allows you to be greedy with stuff like Hysteria or other AoEs.
If Control Warlock becomes a real deck in the next expansion it will probably do really well with this.
Too bad he gets worse as the game progresses and ends up being a rather terrible topdeck. Still worth it for the early game potential though.
Just to let you know, I've actually included N'zoth now because I realised that the 2nd Dungeoneer is way too clunky most of the time and N'zoth adds a valuable last ditch effort to hold off tempo decks in the lategame.
There might also be an argument to replace the other Dungeoneer with a single Apotheosis since that extra bit of healing can come in clutch, although I'm not sure if it doesn't end up being a dead draw in a lot of situations.
"Truly we live in an age of wonder."
How can you even beat such an aggressively condescending line. It is reserved for only the scummiest of topdeckers who you still end up beating after they've RNGd their way out of sticky situations multiple times a game.
I mean, I can try but you'd have to specifc which achievements in particular you have issues with because I'M not gonna come up with Standard-only decks for all of these right off the bat (even though I'll keep it in mind for the next set)
I'll be real here. I have never liked N'zoth and always thought it being shoehorned into Priest.
Realistically, you can probably run N'zoth in this deck even without Southsea Scoundrel and get good results (in fact it might actually be better since LIghtshower has been difficult to justify without additional synergy) but I personally just don't see the point given how our win condition is outgrinding the opponent instead of trying to beat them on board (and Flesh Giants are usually enough swing pressure).
Maybe if Libram Paladin was more prevalent it would be worth running, but against something like Shaman and Demon Hunter N'zoth won't help you early and might just end up being a dead draw when you don't want it.
If you want to run it you can probably cut one Devout Dungeoneer, since Cleric does most of the heavy lifting in terms of draw anyways
you still have boatloads of card generation and can run your opponent out of ressources before they run out of cards.
Yes, you still can't beat Warlock and hard Control Warrior will probably beat you...but all of that happened before as well. The meta is almost entirely aggro to midrange at this point and you do not win by just having more stuff, you win by staying alive until they can no longer kill you at which point a single big minion carries you to victory.
I'M honestly predicting that Fire Spell support will make Hero Power Mage playable sooner than it will enable the quest.
I don't understand how we've somehow regressed in terms of Quest design. Uldum did a decent job by not making you actually play the reward after finishing it and encouraging slower decks with an actual long term win conditions (instead of tempo decks that instantly lose because they skip turn one with -1 card)
Now we've returned to Quests that are somehow even slower than Uldum, require multiple conditions that give you, let's be honest, laughable mini-rewards and still make you play a 5-cost card that doesn't immediately impact the game (at least not the ones so far).
Mage will never be able to play this quest unless they literally get Headcrack, which would then lead into the whole "inevitable win condition that cannot be avoided meaning you can only beat the deck with hard aggro, and then the only way the deck ever appears in the meta if Mage gets the tools to play control and then god help us all because then you'd wish they nerfed Incanter's Flow to 4-mana.
Meanwhile Warlock could be balanced around the fact that control decks get a chance to just kill you because of how much damage you need to take, but if that's the case that just means Warlock doesn't have enough healing which means they can't win against aggro and remain in garbage tier.
Then why do you keep printing inevitable win conditions for Warlock when they're not allowed to actually heal back damage?
People keep going on about how Warlock is always OP when they have enough healing, but that's just not true. It just happens that whenever they have decent healing they also have some unavoidable win condition so they automatically end up in top tier. That's what happened with Cubelock, Controllock and is what would happen with Tickatus if the deck was any good. Just print some Big Demon synergy to add alongside Jaraxxus and we have a decent lategame win plan that doesn't just fold to aggro and midrange because they just lose more health than they can heal.
I think you're missing an essential element which is the fact that it is both lifegain and removal at the same time. This is precisely what made Samuro + Apotheosis so strong and the entire reason why Warlock clearing your entire board multiple times in a row doesn't make much of a difference if they don't have time to heal themselves inbetween.
This makes it so you can do both at the same time which makes surviving a lot easier.
Just think of the Hunter matchup if they start out with an intrepid Initiate. Sure, you can play Armor Vendor to heal for 4, but the Vendor won't trade into that and you're just gonna eat 3 damage again. Meanwhile, with this you can both kill the Initiate and heal off any damage it might have done.
Not to mention that Warlock has plenty of damage dealing spells that can set this up so you will be very rarely in a situation where you have to use the card without getting the heal (if 2 damage isn't enough to kill what's in front of you you're already in a bad spot anyways, so it wouln't matter)
Yes, because Warlock is well known for not needing healing.
I really hope that we'll eventually have enough healing to just ditch the Soul Fragment package entirely. I really hate having to gamble on whether I stay or live or die each turn.
Now give me some big demons and make Willo a real card.
"Oh no Daddy Dreadlord, don't succ me UwU."
This is pretty great for Control Warlock and might actually help that deck out of the dumpster. Removal + Heal is always good and it combos with Tamsin Roame as well.
Make no mistake, the only reason why Warlock is trash right now is because they just don't have enough efficient lifegain to survive the midrange onslaught of decks like Demon Hunter and Warrior because Soul Frags are just so slow. This adds (potentially) up to 16 health per game and it we also got the Spicebread gal for even more healing if needed. Warlock has wiin conditions out the ass at this point, so there is basically downside to just filling the rest of your deck with removal and healing.