Has Tourist access to: Hunter
Cards can be played by: Demon Hunter
Acupuncture
This amount of damage for 1-mana is not trivial, even if it’s a symmetrical effect. In the context of this Priest set, pain is the name of the game, so it could be viewed as an upside. It’s cheap enough to activate several cards that need a self-damage trigger.
We’re not sure about a “Mind Blast” Priest deck finding success in the upcoming format, but Acupuncture has a decent chance of seeing play in Demon Hunter. The class appreciates some burst in its aggressive decks, on top of having Aranna potentially redirecting self-damage to the opponent.
By itself, this card does next to nothing, so synergy is critical for it to see play. Even Mind Blast, an arguably stronger card, needed to be backed up by a lot of support to become competitive. But once that synergy comes online, these cards become dangerous. Watch out.
Score: 3
Brain Masseuse
A 1-mana 2/4 can’t be disrespected, even if the drawback could be quite painful. This is a fantastic turn 1 play for early board control and pressure, being essentially unkillable when you go first.
In addition, its drawback can be useful for a deck that relies on self-damage triggers, such as one that runs Sauna Regular. However, if Brain Masseuse takes damage on the opponent’s turns, via trade or removal, it does not activate anything in our deck. Brain Masseuse needs to make trades on our turn.
The additional tribal tags are quite relevant. Being a pirate instantly makes it an even stronger candidate for an aggressive Demon Hunter deck. Zarimi Priest, if it opts for a pain package, will be all over this card. We suspect this will be one of the strongest 1-drops in the format. Stats matter.
Score: 4
Hot Coals
A 3-mana Consecration that deals 1 additional damage on a self-damage trigger. This AOE just sounds so cracked. We do think Hot Coals does not have a huge audience of decks waiting to run it. Defensive Priest decks won’t have the self-damage triggers they need to activate it, with Holy Nova looking like a stronger card. A deck such as Zarimi Priest already has access to a stronger AOE effect in Fly Off the Shelves, which it barely uses.
For Hot Coals to see play in Priest, we would need to see a dedicated Pain Priest emerging. Demon Hunter seems to be a more suitable home for the card thanks to the availability of early game weapons and a hero power that makes it easier to trigger self-damage cards (Quick Pick, Umberwing). Since it doesn’t hit our board and even goes face, it looks like a strong enough fit for an aggressive DH that looks to gain swing potential in faster matchups, as well as additional burn.
Score: 3
Nightshade Tea
Having access to three charges of a generic early game removal card can be quite game changing in faster matchups. Dealing 3 damage for 2 mana is the minimum standard for removal spells. With Tea having three copies of itself, a self-damage drawback is added.
We’re a bit torn on this card. We’re not too happy to run it in aggressive decks, where strict removal spells often end up as dead cards in our hand, as they don’t leverage an advantage or threaten the opponent. It’s a great enabler of Sauna Regular, but if our opponent is playing the control game and doesn’t develop a lot of minions, Nightshade Tea is a bit useless.
On the other side of it, a defensive Priest may want this card regardless of synergies, as it should be quite strong at fending off early aggression. Even if it deals 6 damage to us, we’re avoiding taking more damage from the minions we’re cleaning off the board. We think this is a sleeper hit control card.
Score: 3
Rest in Peace
A ‘symmetrical’ resurrection effect that targets the highest cost minions from each side of the board. Why would we play this card, you may ask? Because when we’re in control of when to play it, we can leverage the right timing to get a great outcome for us and provide no advantage to the opponent.
Priest has access to multiple minions it can resurrect that can deal with whatever is summoned for the opponent at a large advantage. Yogg-Saron? Get mind controlled. Aman’Thul? That enemy minion gets stricken from the history books. Gnomelia? You’re getting cleaved. Virus Zilliax? We just summoned a 9-mana card for 3 mana and only needed to pop its first shield for the instant trade.
You get the gist. It should be a great card for Reno Priest without any deckbuilding restriction imposed on it, as it helps the archetype finish turning the corner, while also potentially supporting a dedicated Resurrection archetype.
As for Demon Hunter, it can resurrect Magtheridon off a Window Shopper, which sounds gross but very unreliable since it requires us to get the right discover (and the likelihood of finding Magtheridon will decrease with more demons added to the pool). Another neat idea is to use it to resurrect Aranna to execute a big fatigue damage turn.
This card is too versatile to be left alone. It will see play and annoy opponents in typical Priest fashion.
Score: 3
Sauna Regular
The major payoff for the pain package in Priest, Sauna Regular encourages us to maximize our self-damage triggers to discount it to 0 mana as quickly as possible and outpace our opponent. Much like Thirsty Drifter, it is a taunt, so it both pressures the opponent and protects our existing board from trades.
While we do believe it’s only a matter of time until Sauna Regular becomes a dominant card in the format, we wonder about the extent of its immediate impact. Even Thirsty Drifter took some time until it became strong enough to get nerfed, spending many months on the fringes.
The reason we’re not sure is that self-damage triggers are not too prevalent in Priest. The existing package alone may not be the critical mass needed to discount Sauna Regular fast enough. This card’s best chances of having immediate impact are in Demon Hunter, where early game weapons and its 1-mana hero power make the discount effort easier. The way we see it, Sauna Regular’s competitive standing will depend on whether a self-damage package is proven to be an advantageous addition to an Aggro DH archetype.
Score: 3
Sensory Deprivation
This card is so incredibly expensive, without even having a guaranteed removal effect. Without activation of the 20-health requirement, this is a 6-mana copy effect that’s restricted to enemy minions. That is completely unplayable. But the card isn’t even that strong when it’s fully active, representing a single target Assassinate baked into the copy effect.
The copy effect isn’t strong if our opponent doesn’t have a massive minion in play, so Sensory Deprivation is reliant on getting to the later stages of the game to be useful, where big minions start dropping down, ideally with powerful static effects.
The worst part about it is that its condition is contradictory to the ability. If we’re getting gunned down by a fast, aggressive deck that manages to take down our health, this deck is not going to have a big enough minion for SD to be a worthwhile removal card to play. It’s probably more important for us to have AOE.
On the other hand, if we’re facing a slow deck with big threats, we’re probably not going to be pressured to the point our health total significantly drops. And if we try to self-damage our way to get there, we need to play a lot of cards that don’t fit a control strategy that would be interested in removal in the first place.
Peculiarly bad.
Score: 1
Twilight Medium
An interesting card for late game strategies that look to swing the game. A 6 mana 5/6 taunt is something we never want to play unless the ability consistently makes up for it, which is not as simple as running this card in a generic Control Priest deck.
Even the slowest decks in the game have a lot of cheap cards that Twilight Medium wouldn’t want to discount. Control Priest needs a lot of cheap cards, removal or other utility, to be able to survive the early game. Those cards are not good Medium targets that could lead to an improved game state if they got discounted to 1 mana. Remember that we’re paying 6 mana for a mediocre taunt.
For Medium to be effective, the deck needs to have an incredibly greedy curve to force a good outcome through a mathematical average. Alternatively, if we had a way to know which card is at the top of our deck, it would lessen that need to some degree.
It just so happens that Narain Soothfancy does provide us with that knowledge. Overplanner, a neutral 3-drop in this set, can also prepare us for the moment to play Twilight Medium.
If we build a deck that has a strong top end of Twilight Medium targets, on top of an Overplanner/Narain setup, we can do some business. But that requires a new Priest deck to emerge to outclass the established Reno build. Not an easy task.
Score: 2
Narain Soothfancy
A good comparison for this legendary is Spirit of the Badlands. Both provide additional value from our existing card pool. Narain adds two Fortune cards to our hand that transform into cards in our deck every turn, but they’re not random. They always show the top card in our deck. Another major difference is that these resources are expended when they’re played, which is understandable considering Spirit of the Badlands is a highlander payoff while Narain can be played in any deck.
Narain is a strong enabler for Twilight Medium, as it tells us whether Medium is worth playing, but it doesn’t affect the draw itself.
We expect to see Narain played in a variety of Priest decks that lean to a resource-focused game plan, but also potentially in faster decks, as it’s a generically good source of value. But it’s not infinite, nor is it reliable in giving us what we’re looking for at a critical time frame.
Score: 3
Chillin’ Vol’jin
Vol’jin is a simple card without elaborate synergies, a callback to his first iteration. It’s a 3 mana 3/3 that swaps stats of two minions, which can be considered a pseudo-removal, pseudo-buff card. It is not guaranteed to be removal, as it requires us to take another action to remove the enemy minion we’ve chosen to ‘shrink’, but it’s a setup card for it. If there’s a big threat in play, Vol’jin can help us deal with it, while potentially buffing one of our own minions.
This makes it flexible enough to be played in either an aggressive deck such as Zarimi Priest, or a defensive deck such as Reno Priest. This is important because Vol’jin’s greatest value is not what the card does by itself, but what it grants access to.
And when theorycrafting Priest decks, we simply could not help ourselves tapping into Hunter cards. As it turns out, the Hunter set has a few cards that are absolute game changers for Priest, whether we’re playing an aggressive or a defensive deck.
It is a good collaboration, so we suspect you’re going to see this card in every Priest deck, but it won’t be the main character.
Score: 3
Final Thoughts
Perils in Paradise Set Rank: 2nd
Tourist Synergy Score: B
Overall Power Ranking: 7th
This is one of the most aggressive Priest sets we’ve ever seen. The name of the game is cutthroat aggression at the cost of our own life. The collaboration with Hunter adds further ferociousness, leading us to speculate that Priest might establish one of the most successful aggressive decks in Perlis in Paradise.
It doesn’t need much to accomplish that, as Zarimi Priest is a proven archetype that has withstood multiple balance changes to remain competitive, even when it stopped being fashionable. With the potential addition of burst damage to its toolkit, it might turn heads once again.
This is important, since being aggressive might be Priest’s best chances of competing in a high-powered format, as Control Priest decks may struggle to survive the ruthless landscape. We just can’t see Priest managing a successful late game strategy when there are so many powerful win conditions, so much inevitability, available in other classes.
This isn’t one thing. It’s not one deck that might be able to OTK a passive deck on turn 6. It’s layers upon layers of inevitably that cannot be consistently managed by some Dirty Rat. Priest does gain access to Sasquawk, which is one of the best late game cards in the set. But Sasquawk enhances its current abilities of grinding opponents into submission. It doesn’t provide Priest with a true, proactive late game win condition.
Therefore, we expect Priest to play a relatively fast game plan, with Zarimi Priest looking like its most promising avenue. An Automaton angle can be attempted, thanks to various new support cards it’s receiving, but a Twilight Medium approach might be too slow.
The class should be strong. The only question is whether it will be attractive enough. Priest players want their slow control deck to be good. Well, you’ll probably have to root for every class to get nerfed to the ground (again) to reach your own Hearthstone Paradise. We don’t think this meta will reward Priest for sitting around and playing a removal card every turn.
