On a stream last night, Trump (not that one, the Hearthstone streamer) ranked all of the newest Priest cards in the next expansion Journey To Un’Goro. He gave everything a one out of 10, because “Priest won’t see play.” It’s a bold statement from one of most spoken voices in the Hearthstone community, especially considering how strong Priest is in the current meta. Will we see Priest be played when the new expansion comes out, or was Trump right all along?
Priest is getting a sizable hit in the Year Of The Mammoth, losing most of the cards needed to make Dragon Priest viable. All of the drake-activated cards from the Blackrock Mountain Adventure, like Twilight Drake and Blackwing Corrupter , will be unusable. These cards form the solid backbone of Dragon Priest. Without these tempo cards, Dragon Priest just can’t keep up board control.
When all of these Dragons disappear during the Year Of The Mammoth, how is Anduin going to fare? Radiant Elemental seems like an amazing card on the surface, but what Priest spells do you really need to be cheaper? Are you going to Shadow Word: Death on turn three or come up with some awesome Power World: Shield for zero mana? They all seem so bland, which I can’t blame Blizzard for doing. Control Priest has dominated the meta before and that was before they had super strong removal cards like Entomb in their arsenal.
Blizzard has realized that Control Priest is a really strong archetype, buffing and healing your minions so that they never die can allow for games that snowball out of control really quickly. In Un’Goro , there really aren’t any cards that match a control deck’s playstyle. Many of them are just so weak and gimmicky.
I don’t think Trump is wrong here; Priest is going to struggle big time once the new expansion comes out. That doesn’t mean Anduin won’t see any play, once all the cards are released, a pro could create a broken strategy that nobody saw coming that dominates the meta. I hope that doesn’t happen because if I never see Kabal Talonpriest again, I’d be ecstatic.
