Priest deck help.

[Ramaloce]

This is the deck i'm currently trying to climb the ladder with, end up stuck around low rankings (16~14) sadly. The deck is spell heavy by design making use of teacher and auctioneer. For the most part the deck works well but has a lot more "no win scenarios" then I would like throwing my win rate in the toilet (roughly 48~51%)

I have most (not all) commons in my collection now, good amount of the rares, very few neutral epics, and for legendarys i'm currently sitting on(besides Velen): Hogger, Gelbin, Rag, Maly, and Ysera.

Now what's really throwing my deck into the toilet (besides the normal weaknesses of priest) is primarily weapons (hard to even start good trades with those out), anything more then just 1 or 2 giant like minions and a somewhat lack of early game (not having smite in my opening hand has costed me more then a few games).

So what can possibly be done to get this thing higher up on that ladder?

Things I have been considering:
Wild pyromancer (though a little less now since I got shadow madness) - to help with early 3 hp minions
Shadow word: Death - to help keep the giant problem under control
Acidic swamp Ooze - to at least help out with the weapon problem.

[Deleted]

Start with something like http://www.hearthhead.com/deckbuilde...o7zfo7zx7Miq8V

and go from there imo.

[osuracnaes]

A couple random thoughts as a fellow ranked priest player (halfway through 13 and 5 for 5 with my current deck) ...

Why the Violet Teachers? Have you got much use out of them? You have plenty of spells to create the 1/1s, but nothing to really beef them up. They work well in token druid, but I think that's because of Savage Roar and/or Power of the Wild. I haven't experimented with them though, so I might be wrong here.

What's your win condition? With the lack of big, late-game minions, it looks like you're going for a Velen + spell damage to the face wombo combo... although I guess the facelesses and mind control can grab you some big stuff? If you're mostly relying on Velen comboing with the Holy Fires, I think that's way too inconsistent for ranked play. But again, hard to say without knowing more about how you envision winning games.

Not sure how to fix the weakness against weapons (aside from throwing in an ooze or two and/or Harrison Jones), but I can see how you'd have problems against the late-game big-hitters. I use 2x SW:Death in any priest deck I play, and also tend to use Holy Fire for removal instead of damage to the hero.

Can't post links yet, but I'm running something very similar to amaz's priest deck with some of the legendaries replaced with cheaper stuff that I actually have. It has a lot of combos that aren't dependent on just one card... keeps me alive through the early and mid-game until I can throw down my big threats: ogre, temple enforcer, and whatever I can grab with mind control or thoughtsteal... and the blademasters can pack a punch as well.

[Fluorescent0]

Tried to keep your general idea.

[kaiadam]

Faerie dragon doesn't really make sense with your deck - it's great for rush, but priest decks don't rush.

Your deck has plenty of spells, but don't have enough low cost spells to combo with your creatures. You should replace Violet Teacher, auctioneer, and Prophet Velen. The general rule is to not expect any creature to survive a single turn, it's all about how much value you can get out of it the turn you play it and how much it costs the opponent to remove it.

Faceless manipulator is to match up properly against lategame big guys, but you already have a mind control, so you're cluttering your deck with 3 dead cards instead of 1 against aggro. MC is already better so these are just overkill.

Acolyte of pain also seems out of place, the northshire clerics have a ton of card draw already.

Shadowmadness is okay, but not good enough to warrant two in your hand, remove one of them imo.

Harvest golem is good value, but priests have better 3 drops.

To replace these cards, I'd suggest:

Wild Pyro - helps with aggro, but more significantly is a great card to combo with cleric and circle of healing for massive card draw.
Injured blademaster - combos with circle of healing, cleric, is a cheap big guy, etc.
Shadow word death - definitely, gets rid of a lot of major enemy threats easily
Cabal Shadow Priest - fantastic value, the body of a yeti and a mini mind control for no card and only 2 extra mana
Crazed Alchemist - for those times when you want to Cabal a wounded Cairne, or make a Ysera death-able, or instant totemslayer, etc.
Defender of Argus - helps emphasize getting good trades and helps with aggro and hunters
Thoughtsteal - one of the better card draws out there
Ooze or Harrison Jones - yep, get some form of weapon removal. More than half your matchup will be against weapon decks, might as well abuse it.

[Ramaloce]

Why the Violet Teachers? Have you got much use out of them? You have plenty of spells to create the 1/1s, but nothing to really beef them up. They work well in token druid, but I think that's because of Savage Roar and/or Power of the Wild. I haven't experimented with them though, so I might be wrong here.

Quite a bit surprisingly enough. The token swarm even without anything to buff with comes in handy, normally end up being short 1 or 2 damage of killing something and those tokens end up filling that roll. Though I'm open to any ideas for replacements.

What's your win condition? With the lack of big, late-game minions, it looks like you're going for a Velen + spell damage to the face wombo combo... although I guess the facelesses and mind control can grab you some big stuff? If you're mostly relying on Velen comboing with the Holy Fires, I think that's way too inconsistent for ranked play. But again, hard to say without knowing more about how you envision winning games.

My bad I should of stated my win condition in the OP. Basicly the Deck runs like a DoT hero damage wise, and slowly grind at the hero's face for a few damage each turn, till a kill shot is possible. I strictly reserve Holy Fires for minions and only drop it at the hero's face if it wins me the game. Velen to be honest ends up being a bullet magnet more often then not, most times I play him turn 9 and heal myself for 4 and let him eat the last poly,hex,etc. Helping soulpriest and teacher up time.

Not sure how to fix the weakness against weapons (aside from throwing in an ooze or two and/or Harrison Jones), but I can see how you'd have problems against the late-game big-hitters. I use 2x SWeath in any priest deck I play, and also tend to use Holy Fire for removal instead of damage to the hero.

That's what I was thinking to, it's just very noticeable how much slower my deck needs to go just to keep the weapon tradeing to be as ineffective as possible.

Can't post links yet, but I'm running something very similar to amaz's priest deck with some of the legendaries replaced with cheaper stuff that I actually have. It has a lot of combos that aren't dependent on just one card... keeps me alive through the early and mid-game until I can throw down my big threats: ogre, temple enforcer, and whatever I can grab with mind control or thoughtsteal... and the blademasters can pack a punch as well.

Definitely worth having a look at.

Faerie dragon doesn't really make sense with your deck - it's great for rush, but priest decks don't rush.

Hate to say it but your right, the idea behind Faerie dragon in there was to get 'some' opener damage while still having a decent minion, when facing rogue,mage,etc.

Your deck has plenty of spells, but don't have enough low cost spells to combo with your creatures. You should replace Violet Teacher, auctioneer, and Prophet Velen. The general rule is to not expect any creature to survive a single turn, it's all about how much value you can get out of it the turn you play it and how much it costs the opponent to remove it.

I have noticed this, the deck is at the very least somewhat reliant of minions surviving longer then the turn they are played on.

Faceless manipulator is to match up properly against lategame big guys, but you already have a mind control, so you're cluttering your deck with 3 dead cards instead of 1 against aggro. MC is already better so these are just overkill.

Going to have to disagree to some extent here, I have found use for Faceless manipulator even vs aggro, even if it's just slapping a teacher clone, but with the previous statement it wouldn't hurt to try other options.

Acolyte of pain also seems out of place, the northshire clerics have a ton of card draw already.

A lot of the time I end up using them both together, with Acolyte of pain running into something with <3 attack and then droping northshire cleric and healing it back up. Though it is a worry of mine if/when I remove with Acolyte of pain and auctioneer if I would end up with enough draw with just Northshire clerics.

Shadowmadness is okay, but not good enough to warrant two in your hand, remove one of them imo.

I'll give that a shot, Always have found a use for them though when not facing a mainly 4atk deck.

Harvest golem is good value, but priests have better 3 drops.

Will have a look

To replace these cards, I'd suggest:

Wild Pyro - helps with aggro, but more significantly is a great card to combo with cleric and circle of healing for massive card draw.
Injured blademaster - combos with circle of healing, cleric, is a cheap big guy, etc.
Shadow word death - definitely, gets rid of a lot of major enemy threats easily
Cabal Shadow Priest - fantastic value, the body of a yeti and a mini mind control for no card and only 2 extra mana
Crazed Alchemist - for those times when you want to Cabal a wounded Cairne, or make a Ysera death-able, or instant totemslayer, etc.
Defender of Argus - helps emphasize getting good trades and helps with aggro and hunters
Thoughtsteal - one of the better card draws out there
Ooze or Harrison Jones - yep, get some form of weapon removal. More than half your matchup will be against weapon decks, might as well abuse it.

I both love and hate Cabal Shadow Priest, Get the battle Cry off and it's amazing value, but a find that quite of bit of games that I had Cabal in my stealing gimmick deck she would sit in my hand a good portion of the time since there was nothing <3 attack to steal. Will give her a shot in this deck though.

[Deleted]

I think the deck that Adalya posted is the best priest archetype deck for climbing the ladder with solid options for early, mid and late game - which is the best recipe for successfully climbing the ladder particularly before rank 5. It's very similar to the Amaz deck which is still AFAIK the best performing priest deck for overall ladder performance.

EDIT: and I agree about the Cabal priest, as much as I love her she's a weak card that you would do well to replace, even if you get maximum value by stealing a harvest golem it's a very low-threat play for turn 6