How do you defeat a priest?

[DeicideUH]

Well, I'm just an average player and play Hearthstone rarely, but I have managed to defeat all classes except Priests, and would like some tips. (I have no fixed class, I am still training with them, thought I play best as Paladin).

My problems with Priests:

- They can copy one card from your hand
- They can copy 2 cards from your deck.
That alone makes them hard to predict, since they may have taken class-specific cards that offer great sinergy with their abilities.

- They have a card that instantly kills a minion with 3 damage or less
- They have a card that instantly kills a minion with 5 damage or more.
In other words, only minions with exactly 4 damage are safe. This makes them really hard to fight because they can instanly remove from play your big guns or the small minions that grant valuable special abilities.

- They have a card that doubles a minions health
- They have a card that adds +2 health to a minion
- They have a card that makes the damage of a minion equal to its health.
That combo is really troublesome. There were instances of priests taking fairly resilient but week minions (like the Oasis Snapjaw, with 1 damage and 7 health) and turning them into powerhouses. On one ocasion, a single minion over the course of two turns got 31 damage and finished me off. To make matters worse, since the priest can finish off my big guns quickly, it's hard to kill a high health minion before the combo is completed. How am I supposed to kill a 14 health (example) minion if whatever minion with 5 or more damage I pull out can be finished off instantly?

- They have a card that deals 2 damage to all minions while healing all of their minions by two.
- They can heal as Hero ability
- They have a card that allows them to take a card from their deck if they heal one of their minions.
Priests can replenish their hand very fast. And once again, if I put a good card on the table, they can dispose off it quickly with their spells before I can take down their important minions.

The time I almost killed a priest was when I played Mage and focused on using spells over minions. Unfortunately, we both run out of card on our decks, and since he could healhimself, I was finished off quickier by the damage caused each turn for having no more cards to draw.

So, any tips?

[Boricha]

Any kind of aggro deck is going to likely destroy a Priest as they need to get to late game to win. Go Zoo Lock or Hunter.

[Ryme]

A mage has better removal and control overall, you don't find that matchup harder?

Keep a taunter/silence/removal in your hand if you're still getting matched up against inner fire priests.

Don't put all your faith in one card past turn 8 or so, as you're asking to get wrecked by a mind control.

[Deleted]

Versus a priest you fight against the number of cards he have on hand .
Starve him on cards and he won't have answers.
Let him draw and will have answer for everything.

Second problem : don't ever let his creatures wounded on the field . He will heal them. Try always to do perfect kills. If you can't kill it , better let it at full health.
Just imagine the horror scenario : you let him have 3 hurth creature on the field . He drop two http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/600-northshire-cleric and then he do a http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/671-holy-nova. He draw 6 cards. He will destroy you with those 6 cards.

Third problem : play a lot of 4 Attack creatures. He have no answer versus those , no hard removal , he got to kill them . Yeti , Azure Drake,Twilight Drake , Gadzetan Auctioner, Sunwalker , Dark Iron Dwarf , Spellbreaker etc are your best 4 atack friends. Put 3 of those on the table and he will regret it.

4th problem : take good care , turn 10 mean Mind Controll. So please don't ever play something nasty before priest turn 10 , if you don't have answer to his posible M.Ctrl. Don't play Ragnaros turn 9 if you don't have an eventually Polymorph for turn 10.



PS

And fear the http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/192-lightspawn
The buffed Lightspawn.

[DeicideUH]

A mage has better removal and control overall, you don't find that matchup harder?

I defeat mages more often than I do priests. Actually, I think I only defeated a priest once right at the game launch, he probably was using a basic deck.

Versus a priest you fight against the number of cards he have on hand .
Starve him on cards and he won't have answers.
Let him draw and will have answer for everything.

Second problem : don't ever let his creatures wounded on the field . He will heal them. Try always to do perfect kills. If you can't kill it , better let it at full health.
Just imagine the horror scenario : you let him have 3 hurth creature on the field . He drop two http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/600-northshire-cleric and then he do a http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/671-holy-nova. He draw 6 cards. He will destroy you with those 6 cards.

Third problem : play a lot of 4 Attack creatures. He have no answer versus those , no hard removal , he got to kill them . Yeti , Azure Drake,Twilight Drake , Gadzetan Auctioner, Sunwalker , Dark Iron Dwarf , Spellbreaker etc are your best 4 atack friends. Put 3 of those on the table and he will regret it.

4th problem : take good care , turn 10 mean Mind Controll. So please don't ever play something nasty before priest turn 10 , if you don't have answer to his posible M.Ctrl. Don't play Ragnaros turn 9 if you don't have an eventually Polymorph for turn 10.

Thanks for the tips.

PS

And fear the http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/192-lightspawn
The buffed Lightspawn.

I've encountered those things before. Nasty things.

[mistahwilshire]

Any good agro deck.
Any good control deck.

That pretty much covers the entire metagame. Priests have an extremely limited set of tools that are actually good. They all do the same things in the same situations and they're very predictable. Before you play a turn just think of what every single other priest ever would likely do to react to your play.

Soon enough you'll see the reality that they're the worst class in the game.

[FobManX]

Play lots of 4 attack minions with more than 2 HP and play around Mind Control by not playing any big minions.

Or you can just aggro and blow them up. Priests are extremely slow.

[Milch]

That may have been me, yesterday I played a mage with my priest deck. Mage ran out of cards and board was cleared, I had 4 cards in deck and 2 minions. As others have said though, 4 attack minions give me the most headaches.

[Mithgroth]

Never




Underestimate

You can never let a priest have board control.
And without silences, you can't beat a priest.

[PPN]

I also thought in the start that priests are strong. But now i have a priest myself lvl 30 and they are pretty bad. If you get lucky with the cards you are awesome but else meh...

What i do when i play to priests:

1. You need to have board control
2. Put down minions which seem annoying but can be removed early in the game, so you force his SWP or SWD. If he doesnt use it, you know he doesnt have it in the hand yet.
3. You need silences or ccs. The easier for me is to win on my shaman, cause i have so many silence options. Never use silence if its not really necessary when he hasnt played yet lightspawn, or double minion HP or Inner Fire ...If you have silence rdy for this its gg.

Today i met about 4 priests in ranked and beat all on my shaman quiet easiyl. Lost to all hunters tho^^

gl

[caractacus]

- They can copy one card from your hand
- They can copy 2 cards from your deck.
That alone makes them hard to predict, since they may have taken class-specific cards that offer great sinergy with their abilities.

I think this is your first major misconception. These cards aren't bad but chances are they will grab a card that doesn't have synergy. For example a hunter uses beast cards to synergies his deck, if a priest takes just one it's not going to do much on it's own. Same with murlocs and other such things.

As for the rest of your problems silence will help you out a lot and when playing a paladin, specifically the Aldor peacekeeper, but don't use it on a Lightspawn.

Generally just keep stuff with 4 attack, be aware of a holy nova and when they get to 10 mana don't play a big minion worth over 5 mana unless you can afford for it to be mind controlled.

[DeicideUH]

Lots of good advice.

I think this is your first major misconception. These cards aren't bad but chances are they will grab a card that doesn't have synergy. For example a hunter uses beast cards to synergies his deck, if a priest takes just one it's not going to do much on it's own. Same with murlocs and other such things.

As for the rest of your problems silence will help you out a lot and when playing a paladin, specifically the Aldor peacekeeper, but don't use it on a Lightspawn.

Generally just keep stuff with 4 attack, be aware of a holy nova and when they get to 10 mana don't play a big minion worth over 5 mana unless you can afford for it to be mind controlled.

Maybe I was just unlucky. As a play Paladin mostly, and Paladin has lots of buff spells, it wasn't pretty to see him cast Blessing of Kings on his minions.

That may have been me, yesterday I played a mage with my priest deck. Mage ran out of cards and board was cleared, I had 4 cards in deck and 2 minions. As others have said though, 4 attack minions give me the most headaches.

No, it wasn't you. Both me and the priest run out of cards, but I got empty one turn before him, so I began to take damage earlier. Then he just started to heal himself with his hero ability. Since I was taking damage longer and he was healing, he was able to outlive me.

[Deleted]

Priests are not usually to bad. Must admit was a bit gutted when priests used the 2 card copy one and got 2 lightening storms grrrr

[Krommm]

Just use a bunch of 4 drops and they usually get starved. Also run 1-2 silence for constructed for silly buff combos.

[Ragnarohk]

Rush decks destroy priests, the longer the game lasts the stronger the priest gets. Also, try to save your "destroy minion" card for things like a buffed lightspawn. Once you hit 10 mana try and have minions of various sizes across the board so that MC isn't at all effective. Also try and have some card removal at the start of games to get rid of northshire cleric / lightwell

[caractacus]

Maybe I was just unlucky. As a play Paladin mostly, and Paladin has lots of buff spells, it wasn't pretty to see him cast Blessing of Kings on his minions.

Well to be fair most paladin cards are a pretty good steal for a priest. But you just have to remember that overall the cards are quite balanced as the priest is probably going to suffer stealing from other decks.

[Eon Drache]

If they play a cleric turn 1, don't play some 1 attack minion they can charge into and fuel more draws. I've even gone as far as to pass every turn until I get Hammer of Wrath or a minion with 3 attack that they can't charge into. Starve them for cards and you'll win pretty easy.

The only card a Priest wouldn't want from a Paladin is equality. That's really the only one that Paladins play that wouldn't be useful to a priest.

[Nerraw]

Stack your deck with 4-ATK minions. I have a warlock deck dedicated to this, and it absolutely wrecks them.

[Faldric]

Most things already said, I just have a question.

You mention that you have problems with their copy cards. When are they playing them? Because they are not free, they cost mana.
What are you doing while he spents this mana?

If he plays them at 10 mana its already late game and you probably lose because of Legendaries and Mindcontrol
If he plays them early he probably wont have much on the field.

What are you doing with this time?

[muto]

Seems like Priests always get my best cards when they use Mind Vision or Thoughtsteal. They always get my removal cards, or card draw cards.

- - - Updated - - -

If they play a cleric turn 1, don't play some 1 attack minion they can charge into and fuel more draws. I've even gone as far as to pass every turn until I get Hammer of Wrath or a minion with 3 attack that they can't charge into. Starve them for cards and you'll win pretty easy.

The only card a Priest wouldn't want from a Paladin is equality. That's really the only one that Paladins play that wouldn't be useful to a priest.

Uh what? Equality + Holy Nova.

I had a Pyroblast victory against a Priest today. Instead of healing himself to put him at 11 health, he mind controls my minion, and the next turn I just throw a Pyroblast in his face. He prob would have won if he healed, because he had like 4 minions on the board, and I had none.