Hearthpwn

Hi all! This is my evil elise n'zoth control priest deckD

From the very announce of the standard format I was quite suspicios if it would really become that relief of "cancer" many people expected it to be. Obviously, at first it was pretty different experience. All those Old Gods heavy decks and OTK decks dominating the ladder... And then aggro shaman and zoo finally adapted to new environment and cancer in it's worst forms returned. What is more most of the anti-aggro tools are in naxx and are no longer available in standard.

This season I got to rank 7 in the first day or two but then some crazy sh•t started. Every opponent appeared to be the best counter for any deck I choosed to ladder with. I am fed up with all these aggro retards.

 I have already played some Wild since the update,  but now I am going to try it seriously. 

This is the deck I created combining old Excavated Evil control priest deck with new cool staff we got from the expansion. 

At first I tried traditional auchenai circle priest with just adding more deathrattle cards and N'Zoth. Many variations of that deck have abandoned pyro for the sake of more deathrattles what makes the whole pack of cleric/shield/circle/auchenai pretty inconsistent and I started to ask myself if I really needed that. 

Thats how the idea of my deck was born. This deck tries to get rid of those combo elements replacing them with cards that are cool by itself. I want to highlight especially Forbidden Shaping. It really helped me out in both super greedy value matchups and against aggro/tempo. This card is super strong and without doubt worth crafting. The most powerful minions are at the 8-mana. Ragnaroses, Tirion, Kel, Sneeds etc. In worst case u get 8/8 which is not that bad. But the chance of getting smth mindblowing is super high. More than 75%. But don't ever be greedy against fast decks and throw shaping whenever u need to fill otherwise dead turn or just for the sake of mana-efficiency which priest usually lacks.

Next card I want to mention is Doomsayer. He is awesome. He is capable of stopping early aggression, saving clear board till ur next turn after a boardclear, dealing with opponent's N'Zoth boards(just play him and death opponent's Sylvanas. Believe me, ur opponent will be furious:D). 

Deathlord may seem strange in a N'Zoth deck but he is awesome. He either buys u time to deal with aggro spam either creates fatigue advantage against control which is the only way to deal with warrior's insane armour stack. 

Shredder and Shade in my mind are competing for the same place and I don't know whom to evalue higher as shredder is good against fadt decks and is more resistant to boardclears while shade generates card advantage. Abandoned shade( I'm currently playing on not very high rankes(11-12) and meeting lots and lots of aggro and tempo. 4/3 body for 4 mana completely sux against them. And we are favored against control anyway plus curator has high chance of digging shades...

Elise Starseeker. I saw many people saying that with mr. N'Zoth u no longer need Elise and u can intomb directly the monkey if ur opponent uses elise. I disagree with that opinion as the only other powerful control deck that uses elise is control warrior who has many other better intomb targets. I don't think Elise hurts this deck and she is a backup plan if N'Zoth gets cleared.(and what is more u can afford to sacrifice N'Zoth to protect ur face instead of saving him as a win-condition). 

Harrison needs no explanation I guess. Lots of weapons in the meta. In case u dont have him use ooze or if u see not so many weapons take 5-drop u like(Loatheb for instance).

 I added two copies of Velen's Chosen because I felt that I needed some early game boost. Creating 4/12 taunt with spellpower on turn 3-4 is super powerful and can win u game against aggro by itself. Great against zoo, tempo and priest mirror as 4 attack is so difficult to deal with. Intomb? Well, why should we mind? Our Sylvanas or any other valuable deathrattles are safer then)

What is more that cool buff card allows to use curators and doomsayer if it was silenced etc.

Tech cards I am currently thinking about:

Eater of secrets/Kezan. Tempo mages are really pissing me off but I need to gain more statistics as the body is garbage and for deck with basicly no direct draw having very tech minion which is bad if opponent is non-secret class may be harmful at times.

 

Update:

- Shifting Shade, Cabal Shadow Priest

+ 2x Velen's Chosen

Mulligan

Mulligan is super important for deck like this as there is basicly no direct draw.

We are always happy to see the following cards in our opening hand:

Doomsayer, curator, deathlord, swp, shaping. Always a keep

If ur opponent might be fast deck keep evil/nova.

Swd is ok to keep against shamans(7/7 or 5/5 'balanced' guys) and druids(innervate... U know)

If the rest of your hand is ok u may keep shredder, elise, belcher, chosen(if u have curator or deathlord).

What concernes matchups.

Warrior - heavily favored(have 100% winrate so far). 

Rogue. N'Zoth favored. Haven't seen other archtypes but I think miracle might cause some problems.

Druid. Heavy - favored. Token depends fully on your draw. If u get boardclears RIP druid if not...

Warlock. Zoo depends on draw. Reno with combo unfavored.

Priest. 50/50.

Hunter. Heavily unfavored. Call of the wild is insanely strong against priest. And if he runs N'Zoth as well nothing gonna save u.

Paladin. Haven't seen many secret paladins which is a bit weird. N'Zoth control paladin - favored. Aggro shield unfavored. Thats the case where pyro would be bonkers.

Mage. Tempo 50/50. Freeze unfavored. 

Shaman. Less favored. Depends on sw and AoE draw. Harrison is a gamewinner against shaman.

Please comment and upvote if my work had at least a little use for u. See Ya!)

 Nice review of the deck by Fur0