The Comprehensive United in Stormwind Preview

 

Shard of the Naaru

This card’s pretty good. It’s likely going to be overrated to some degree because of its effect and tradeable keyword, but it’s still a tech card. It can be a very powerful tech card, but Shard is not a card you instantly put into your deck regardless of the field you expect to run into. There are some archetypes it can be very effective against, but other opponents are not going to care about your mass silence. Decent tool for Control Priest.

Score: 2

Twilight Deceptor

A 2 mana 2/3 that tutors a spell sounds strong, but since we’re playing Priest, it’s very unlikely that Deceptor can be activated on curve. Playing this on 4 alongside a Shadowform hero power isn’t good enough. If we’re playing a reactive Priest deck, the only way we can reasonably draw with it is by playing Raise Dead, so that’s a highly situational use that’s not going to be consistent enough. If we control the board and push face damage, we’re already in a winning position. Deceptor seems designed to provide fuel for an aggressive Shadow Priest deck. We tried building it, and it looks like a pile of cards. It’s possible that we’re missing something and someone else can figure it out better, but that’s going to affect how we evaluate some of the Shadow Priest cards. An aggressive style is probably going to need some more design pushes.

Score: 1

Void Shard

This is an inefficient card, but one that can go face, which makes it stronger than the unplayable 4-mana version of Tidal Surge before it was buffed. Obviously, an aggressive Shadow Priest deck is likely to appreciate it, but we can also see other decks running it just for its defensive utility. Priest likes to have healing paired with removal, especially when it’s not board-dependent following the nerf to Apotheosis. There’s a world in which Control Priest plays Void Shard.

Score: 2

Shadowcloth Needle

This weapon’s text makes it look like one of the best cards in the set. A weapon version of Risky Skipper for Shadow spells, but it only hits the opponent and even goes face? That is a hell of a card that you want to build around. The problem is the Shadow spell pool. There are not enough cheap spells that can consistently activate Needle and that you’re super happy to run. Raise Dead may not be playable this early, and Call of the Grave is the only other option that costs 1 mana or less. The one thing Needle can do is encourage the utilization of a Palm Reading/Insight/Thrive package. We do like that idea, though it requires a different style of play than the Control Priest decks we’re currently seeing since we’re injecting quite a bit of draw into it. Miracle Priest could also strongly consider it, and this package fits the archetype better. If Needle had additional support in the form of strong 1-mana Shadow spells, we would have gone absolutely nuts for it. This feels like it’s on the brink of being beyond broken and completely shutting down a game when it’s played on 2.

Score: 4

Psyfiend

It seems easy to understand why this card is very weak when the context of the Shadow spell pool comes into play. We can’t really chain-cast Psyfiend to do any serious damage, at least not in Standard. This card has close to zero support and there is little chance any other archetype beyond Shadow Priest would consider it. It’s a Spider Tank with a highly questionable ability.

Score: 1

Elekk Mount

This buff has so much butt behind it. We’re talking about a massive 14 effective health, over two taunts to get through. If Priest connects Mount, it’s going to be tough for most decks to close the game against it. The problem, of course, is connecting it, considering its high cost and Priest’s (in)ability to stick a board compared to Paladin and Spikeridged Steed years ago. We’re curious about Miracle Priest and its excellence at discounting spells. The archetype has been running Psyche Split throughout Barrens, and Elekk Mount is a far better buff if you’re looking to stabilize. In any case, generating Elekk Mount is going to be nice. When it comes to hard running it, it’s tempting, but not guaranteed to succeed.

Score: 2

Call of the Grave

This card looks good until you dig into the Deathrattle pool and realize it’s going to be quite awkward to get the value that makes it a worthwhile inclusion. Call of the Grave is going to be quite weak in the early game. You could get lucky on turn 3 and find a decent 2-drop, but there’s a lot of garbage that’s going to clog your options. In the late game, this is weaker than Draconic Studies. The Deathrattle is more likely to activate, but it’s probably still going to be outclassed by the far higher quality of options that dragons offer. This means that Call of the Grave is only playable if you’re that desperate for Shadow spell synergies, and we’re not convinced you should be.

Score: 1

Voidtouched Attendant

This card seems decent for an aggressive Priest deck that floods the board, as Attendant provides one extra damage for any minion that hits the opponent’s face. It could also be a combo enabler for off-board burst, though that application looks exclusive for Wild. The main issue with Attendant is the deck that it belongs to. Can we really play an aggressive Shadow Priest deck that isn’t a complete pile of garbage in Standard? How much better will it be compared to playing an Arena deck, and do we have any hope of putting enough sustainable pressure on the board to make use of Attendant? These are the real questions, and since we try to avoid hedging even if it means we end up wrong in some instances down the road (you’re never wrong in card previews if you always say “oh this could see play, maybe”), we’re going to give this card the fat 1. It would probably be a 4 in other classes, such as Hunter.

Score: 1

Seek Guidance

Is this the new Tickatus Warlock? The new “control killer” some section of the player base is going to cry about despite boasting a 40%-win rate? Or Can Priest truly curve out to victory in a consistent fashion to make Quest Priest more than a meme?

The big problem with curving out is how punishing it is when you fail to get the perfect curve, and this is going to be a common occurrence considering that you start with one less card in the opening hand. Just missing a play in the first 3 turns means that your quest completion starts getting delayed and this delay can snowball further. There’s also an opponent to worry about, playing their own threats that you must deal with, and they might exploit your predictable plan and force you out of your comfort zone.

Quest completion requires you to play a greedy deck with many expensive cards, so Quest Priest is not going to be the ultra-resilient deck that the class is known to produce. The reward is obviously the strongest one out of any quest, but even when you complete the quest, you need to draw the Shard, giving your opponent more time to close the game before you find it.

We think this deck is going to be fun for casuals, but we highly doubt it’s going to be a serious player in the competitive field.

Score: 1

Darkbishop Benedictus

There are two ways to utilize Benedictus. The first is to run a deck that seems to be promoted by the set more heavily, with some sort of aggression and leveraging the hero power to close out the game in a Hunter-ish style. We think this approach looks like a pile of garbage.

And then there’s another approach, of running a Control Priest deck with a Shadow spell draw package. You still run a lot of generation and removal, but instead of dragging out the game into fatigue, you’re looking to draw, accelerate your plan and use your hero power to wither your opponent down. We think this approach could work similarly to Mind Blast Control Priest. There are some big sacrifices to be made to get it done (the big one is Xyrella), but there’s quite a bit of upside too. Your hero power is much better for early game board control, and Needle could help make up for the loss of Xyrella.

The more we’ve worked on building it, the more we liked it. Respect the Baku.

Score: 3

Final Thoughts

United in Stormwind Set Rank: 7^th

Overall Power Ranking: 6^th

Evaluating the Priest set is dependent on your perspective. If you consider Shadow Priest to be an aggressive deck that develops initiative in the early game, hits the opponent hard and fast, and uses the hero power much like Face Hunter does, you’re not going to appreciate this deck at all.

But if you take Control Priest, apply the shadowy deckbuilding restriction, and pretend you’re running Mind Blasts, things get a lot better and start making sense. It might result in discarding some of these new cards, but that’s where the approach is more likely to be successful.

Therefore, we rate Needle so highly, perhaps overly so to highlight its potential. This is Risky Skipper in a weapon. It will be busted eventually. The question is when. Imagine you’re queuing up against Priest and they equip it on turn 2. What do you even do? What is there to do other than playing right into it and praying they don’t have a Palm Reading chain backing it up? It sounds so discouraging. So effective.

Whether or not Benny becomes a staple card, Priest has a good reason to start thinking about running Shadow spells. Of course, it can always stick to its current attrition game plan, but there’s quite a bit of inevitability introduced in this set. Some of it might be hard to outlast and overcome for the current iteration of Control Priest. This might be the biggest hidden “nerf” to the class.

Then again, we still have Illucia. We still have amazing flexibility to deal with any kind of question the meta poses. We can even make a card that destroys the opponent (but we’ll probably not use it).

Priest normally does not start expansions strong. It can take a bit of time to adjust, to read the meta, before it perfects its craft. We expect the same to occur at Stormwind. It should find a way.