Table of Contents
It’s a Superspreader Event!
Shadow Priests got you down? Miracle Rogues too fast for you? Do you really just love the relaxing feeling of pressing your hero power and passing on turn two rather than playing for this weird “tempo” thing that smart people keep saying you should be striving for? Well, do I have the deck for you!
Control Priest is one of those decks that goes in and out of the meta, but given many of the matchups that you’re likely to face in this final meta of the Year of the Phoenix, this deck is well situated to be able to at least have a puncher’s chance against most of what you’re likely to see. The fancy new tech in this version of the list takes inspiration from Shadow Priest’s usage of Undying Allies to multiply undead, except instead of trying to snowball board presence, we use it to extract massive value from some of the slower undead like Plaguespreader and Undying Disciple, which eventually turns Xyrella, the Devout into a value bomb in the late game.
General Gameplay
Being able to accurately identify your opponent’s game plan is key to this deck, because you end up adopting one of three fairly distinct play styles, and deciding which one is correct from the mulligan stage is crucial to be able to pilot this deck successfully. In general, you’re either playing for attrition, denying your opponent’s from-hand win condition, or winning through overwhelming value combined with fatigue damage.
Attrition is your main anti-aggro game plan, and it’s the one that most people associate with Control Priest. It can be summed up as, “Stay positive and don’t die.” In other words, if you can withstand your opponent’s early waves of threats, you can stabilize, at which point the opponent is hopefully out of damage and concedes. It’s important to remember to leverage your health total as a resource in the early game, and not to overreact to cards that aren’t actually threatening, even if that play would be mana efficient. The way you’re winning these games is by card advantage, not tempo, so recognizing when it’s correct to just take a turn to heal and/or draw in order to set up a better clear the following turn will improve your win rate with this deck substantially. That said, one thing that newer control players fail to recognize is that minions can also serve as removal; while you're not strictly playing for tempo, if playing a Plaguespreader on curve is your best play, it's still correct to do that, because that can serve to remove part of the board the following turn, which may make it easier for one of your proper removal tools to do its job.
Undying Allies: It’s not just for aggro decks anymore!
Against combo decks, you’re looking to win via hand disruption, either via a well-timed Theotar or by triggering as many Plaguespreader activations as possible. Your ideal early game would be Undying Allies on Plaguespreader on 4, into E.T.C., Bonecaller or Amulet of Undying on 5, into Theotar on 6. Once you have a few Plaguespreader activations, the Xyrella hero will hit multiple cards in the opponent’s hand and hopefully leave them without a win condition, or at least make the potential damage significantly more manageable. Once you’ve recognized you’re against combo, prioritize drawing above all else, as you’ll often need a few Plaguespreaders in order to actually defuse the time bomb in your opponent’s hand.
In the mirror and against other control decks, you’re defaulting to the fatigue/value gameplan, and the key card here is Mi’da, Pure Light. You ideally want to get Mi’da on board as close to on curve as possible, and get it to die repeatedly, so that when you ultimately play the Xyrella hero, you shuffle an army of 4/6 divine shields with lifesteal that your opponent (hopefully) can’t permanently remove. Understanding your opponent’s removal is important here, because if they have any way to stop the deathrattle from going off (Drown, Coroner, Smothering Starfish, etc.), then you may need to either bait that out before playing Mi’da, or have a way to immediately kill your own Mi’da to shuffle the Fragment into your deck; as long as you’ve gotten one deathrattle activation off, you can get more Mi’das via Xyrella, the Devout or Amulet of Undying. Note that your own fatigue can be relevant in these matchups as well (especially if you end up resurrecting a lot of Spirit Guides), so you want to make sure that you’re deliberate about when and how much you draw from your deck. You generally want to be staying roughly even with your opponent in terms of remaining cards, though it’s OK to go a bit deeper into the deck if it gets you toward your Mi’da. You also want to default to trading Amulet of Undying in these matchups rather than playing it early, as the later you go in the game, the more Mi’das you’ll have in the pool, and you’ll have more chances to summon them by upgrading Amulets. Keep in mind that you can use Sir Finley, Sea Guide in fatigue matchups to put your hand back into your deck, which can buy you several extra turns before the fatigue counter starts ticking.
A note on playing for tempo/face damage: While it's not usually what this deck wants to do naturally, it is occasionally correct to take on a beatdown role when the opportunity presents itself. Unlike Quest Priest, which has a win condition that makes the opponent's life total completely irrelevant, we do still need to reduce the opponent's life to zero if they decide not to concede. If you're faced with the decision of whether to trade with a fairly innocuous minion or to send the damage upstairs, don't just trade automatically because that's what control decks are "supposed to do". What going face can do for you in the right situation is protect the health on your minions and pressure the opponent into recovering on a shorter time frame, which also may influence their decision to concede, or can change fatigue math enough to end the game a turn or two earlier in your favor later on. There are also some situations, particularly against decks doing damage from hand, where the only way you have left after your hand disruption plan fails is to remove their damage by removing their face.
(Also, don't throw.)
Deck Code
AAECAa0GCNTtA+iLBNSsBNasBOWwBKi2BJfvBP3EBRCZ6wOa6wOH9wOMgQSFowSIowSKowT52wS63AT48QSGgwWlkQWJkwX4lgWGpAXgpAUA The list I’m featuring was originally developed by TicTac, though I’ve made some swaps to make the deck better outside top 100 legend where the meta differs. As always with control decks, you’ll experience the best results if you’re evaluating what you’re seeing most often and tweaking accordingly to optimize for your local meta.
Card Inclusions
You’ve probably seen the absurd value that Undying Allies can provide in Shadow Priest, but it’s actually busted here too. Being able to double Plaguespreader activations, draw four cards from Spirit Guide, or do 6 AoE damage from Undying Disciple can be a game-swinging turn. Keep in mind that using Undying Allies will tilt your resurrect pool in that minion’s favor, so be sure you want more of it later on.
We run Xyrella, so we run Desperate Prayer.
This is one of Priest’s most efficient removals; keep in mind that you can use Cathedral of Atonement to nudge minions into range of the Light when necessary.
Finley serves as both an anti-fatigue tool (as mentioned in Gameplay) as well as a “break glass in case of emergency” card to find answers when your hand refuses to cooperate.
Enough decks rely on card text and deathrattles for value in this meta that Shard of the Naaru is an easy inclusion.
We like drawing through our 40 card deck, and we like healing.
If you’re taking him out, you need to find nine other cards to cut.
Cathedral helps us draw through our deck, plus it has synergy with effects that do damage based on attack (The Light! It Burns!, Lightbomb, and Undying Disciple). It can also provide extra healing from our lifesteal minions in a pinch.
We’re a deathrattle based deck, so we run double Amulet of Undying.
Xyrella is our first real board clear, as it can come online as early as turn 4. Just make sure to check your life total, as well as that of your opponent and minions on board, depending on what you’re using to heal with; if your health is full, Xyrella isn’t going to count the wasted healing.
Our primary hand disruption mechanic, see Gameplay above for more details.
We only run one copy, because Netherdrake is the epitome of situational cards, but when it’s good, it’s often great. If you have Netherdrake, make sure to consider that before trading an Amulet of Undying or using a Gift of the Naaru to draw; it may end up being more efficient to hold those until after you’ve gotten Netherdrake to clear an early board.
There are surprisingly many good targets for Drown in the current meta. It defuses reborn undead from Shadow Priest, takes opposing Mi’das in the mirror, denies card draw from Death Knight, and generally just acts as unconditional single target removal when needed.
There are a lot of big butts in this meta, and Cannibalize turns them into healing. Remember that you can target your own minions with it, which can be relevant when you need to trigger a deathrattle or just need emergency healing.
What’s the only thing better than Undead deathrattles? More Undead deathrattles!
Given that we have three distinct game plans, E.T.C. fits our deck perfectly, because it gives us one powerful tech card for each, and there’s rarely overlap between them. For attrition, we have Acidic Swamp Ooze, specifically for Miracle Rogue, but also useful against other aggressive decks like Shadow Priest and Enrage Warrior. For hand disruption, we can move Theotar in, since it’s often underwhelming except in matchups where it’s borderline mandatory. Finally, for value matchups we include Sister Svalna, who is **way too slow in any non control matchup, but extremely powerful against opponents who are equally as slow as we are.
Spirit Guide with Undying Allies on it draws you four spells, which is some of the most efficient card draw this side of Rogue. Crucially, Fragment of Mi’da is a Holy spell, so Spirit Guide can draw that for you as well. Just be careful about how many of these you put in your dead pool; Xyrella hero will trigger all of them, and that could lead you to burn cards and/or draw deeper into fatigue than your opponent in slower matchups.
This is one of your main anti-aggro tools, and tends to get better when paired with Shard of the Naaru to neutralize any buffs on enemy minions first. Undying Allies also helps to get Clean the Scene infused faster, which makes it much more effective.
Undying Disciple’s been a fairly unassuming control tool over the time it’s been in Standard, but Undying Allies really takes it to another level, and loading up enough deathrattles into your pool turns Xyrella the Devout into a full board wipe. It’s easy to get in the habit of just thinking of each deathrattle as a 3 damage AoE, but make sure to pay attention to the actual card text, because buffing its attack (like with Cathedral of Atonement) also boosts the damage its deathrattle does, which can make the difference between clearing and not.
Your win condition against other control decks. See Gameplay section above.
Do you like healing and also taunting? If you’ve read this far, I’d be willing to bet you do!
Lightbomb is better than Shadow Word Ruin for the decks we’re targeting, since it also cleans up the smaller aggressively statted minions from decks like Miracle Rogue and Shadow Priest, at the expense of two more mana.
Our best buddy just wants dry hugs. Behemoth is our biggest single card heal, so make sure that you’re saving this for when you’re going to get value out of the lifesteal.
Xyrella hero can be a bomb that swings games, but make sure you know what you’ll expect to get out of it when you play it. Multiple Undying Disciples can represent a full board clear, Spirit Guides represent reload, Lightshower Elemental represents burst heal, Plaguespreader represents mass hand disruption, Bonecaller represents board presence, and Mi’da represents additional Fragments of Mi’da in your deck.
Notable Exclusions / Tech Choices
If your opponent is playing rush or taunt minions, Najak Hexxen is better than Drown, but if they’re not, most opponents can deal with the 1/4 reasonably easily. Plus it’s a huge bummer when you need a taunt to save you, and from Amulet of Undying gives you a vanilla 1/4.
Mind Eater was in very early builds of the deck, as a way to get more value from Undying Allies and deathrattle synergies. Not only is there plenty of value without Mind Eater, but if you end up resurrecting it enough, it can actually cause you to burn Fragments of Mi’da when you play Xyrella hero, because it fills up your hand into the Spirit Guide activations.
If Miracle Rogue were the primary deck you were facing, Ruin would be reasonable to include. However, it turns out that against most of the aggressive decks in the format (including Miracle Rogue!), Lightbomb is just as effective and usually does a better job of clearing out the smaller minions as well.
Basaleph is commonly included in the deck; I ended up taking it out mainly because it felt too situational to have in addition to the Undying Allies, which also can sit in your hand for a while. If you want to try it, swap out one copy of Drown for it.
Mulligans
Always keep:
Amulet of Undying (to trade on turn 1), Undying Allies with a copy of the undead you want in the matchup on coin
Against aggro:
Undying Disciple or Spirit Guide, Xyrella, The Light it Burns, Shard of the Naaru, Clean the Scene
Against slower decks:
Plaguespreader, ETC, Mi’da, Bonecaller (with Plaguespreader)
Matchups
Archetype names link to highlights of games against that deck from my stream.
Death Knight
Unholy Death Knight - Favored; Game plan: Attrition
We have enough board wipes to keep Unholy Death Knight off the board, and if they can’t stick a board, they can’t win the game. Once they have five corpses, make sure to do Grave Strength math (total power on board + 3*number of minions + 4 for the hero power) to determine how urgently you need to address any given board; without Grave Strength, the only burst this deck has available is from random Nerubian Vizier discovers. Make sure you’re getting value out of Shard of the Naaru; you ideally want to be hitting a board that has Hawkstrider Rancher on it when you use it, though it can be fine to wait a turn and silence the buffed minions at the same time. As you get to their 8 mana turn, you need to have a plan for Lord Marrowgar; that answer will usually be Lightbomb, but note that silence will defuse the raised minions in a pinch, and you won’t have to worry about a Grave Strength follow up because they’ll have spent all their corpses, as long as you have an answer for the 9/7.
Frost Death Knight - Favored; Game plan: Attrition
The plan for Frost is similar to that of Unholy, though you’re generally looking to silence their card draw rather than Hawkstrider Rancher, and they have more ability to burst from hand. Otherwise, just keep their board reasonably clear and keep your health total out of burst range and you should be just fine.
Blood Death Knight - Even; Game plan: Value
You’re generally looking to win through fatigue against Blood Death Knight, which means that the main threat from them is Mograine. One Mograine is usually manageable, but if they discover multiple or get one down with Brann, the pressure can be too much. Otherwise, you need to prioritize playing Mi’da and making sure the deathrattle triggers. If you have it in your opening hand, it needs to be played on curve so it isn’t vulnerable to Patchwerk, and if you don’t have it but do have Finley, it’s worth playing Finley early to try to find Mi’da in case it’s chilling at the bottom of your deck. Blood Death Knight can pressure you, but you usually have more liberty than it may seem to just play Mi’da on curve when you do find it.
The ideal board state against Blood Death Knight.
Demon Hunter
Relic Demon Hunter - Unfavored; Game plan: Hand disruption
The main threat from Relic Demon Hunter is Jace, and to a lesser extent Kurtrus; the phantasms are spooky but you generally have enough tools to deal with them. You’re looking to Plaguespreader early and often to ideally hit Jace, but neutralizing S’theno, Brann or Apprentice is fine too. (You’d also like to hit Guild Trader, but those will just get traded back into the deck immediately.) You’re looking to get a few Plaguespreaders dead by the time they start playing Relic of Dimensions, so that you can respond with Xyrella hero to hit the cards they just drew but couldn’t play immediately. You’re not going to know if you were successful until the end of the game, so make sure to heal aggressively to stay out of lethal range in case your Plaguespreader RNG is bad.
Druid
Quest/Ramp Druid - Unfavored; Game plan: Hand disruption
We’re trying to do the same thing as against Relic Demon Hunter (except trying to hit Brann, Astalor, and Anub’rekhan), but we’re under a lot more time pressure to do so. Hard mulligan for Plaguespreader and ETC because those are the only cards that matter in the matchup. Unlike Relic DH, your health total doesn’t matter unless you’re dead to the board plus a Feral Rage or Pounce and Rake, since the full combo will do 56 damage.
Mage
Aggro Mage - Favored; Game plan: Attrition
The main threat here is Aegwynn, so keep Shard of the Naaru or Drown in the mulligan. You want to allow them build wide boards when your health total is high and then clear more than three minions at once, so they waste infuses that would go to Frozen Touch. Stealing a Frozen Touch with Theotar also goes a long way to cutting their damage output. Remember to be mindful of their burst from hand in the late game; you should be factoring in any generated Arcane Bolts as well as both infused and uninfused copies of Frozen Touch when deciding how to prioritize healing.
This is how wide you want to let the Aggro Mage boards get when you start to clear them.
Ping Mage - Even; Game plan: Value
Unless your opponent plays an early Wildfire, you’ll probably be playing the first few turns against Ping Mage assuming they’re Aggro Mage. Once they show their true colors, you want to find Mi’da, because that’s your eventual path to victory. Yes, the Mi’das will get frozen a lot, but the mage will run out of freezes eventually, and you’ll need the recurring lifesteal to cancel out the damage from their hero power.
Big Spell Mage - Unfavored; Game plan: Hand Disruption
The problem with the Big Spell Mage matchup is that you want to play it like a value matchup, but they get their value online way faster than most value matchups. Try to dump your cheap spells before turn 6, but don’t wreck your long term game plan to do so. Plaguespreaders can do some work, especially if they hit a Grey Sage Parrot, Balinda or Barbaric Sorceress, but their deck runs so many minions that it can be hard to hit those. If you find ETC early, get Theotar and hold it for after the Balinda or Sorceress turn to take one of their newly cheap spells, ideally Rune of the Archmage.
Paladin
Pure Paladin - Favored; Game plan: Attrition
Pure Paladin generally wants to chip your health down and then finish you off with The Countess, so as long as you can manage the board for the first six turns and keep your health total up, the random legendaries shouldn't be enough to get them over the line, and they don't typically have enough damage to end the game once you've dealt with that.
Priest
Shadow Priest - Favored; Game plan: Attrition
This is the deck Control Priest feasts on when played correctly. Make sure not to overreact to individual threats; the way we lose is by getting caught without answers, and nearly all of our answers get better when addressing multiple threats at once. That particularly goes for Shard of the Naaru, which is one of our best tools in the matchup, but only when it hits a wide board. Drowning a reborn undead can be a huge board swing in your favor as well. Just be careful to mind your life total; Shadow Priest can easily burst you down from 15 to 20 health if you’re not paying attention.
Control/Quest Priest - Even; Game plan: Value
The mirror is all about Mi’da; you want to have Shard of the Naaru or Drown to answer theirs, and you want to have a way to immediately clear yours to get the initial deathrattle to go off. Try to hold off on playing Xyrella hero as much as possible to maximize the number of Fragments that get shuffled into your deck; someone’s going to run out of removals first and you don’t want it to be you.
Svalna Priest - Even; Game plan: Hand Disruption
You only really have two win conditions against Svalna Priest. Prior to them playing Svalna, if you can Plaguespreader it, the game ends immediately. You’ll want to look out for Switcheroo; their deck only runs five minions, so you have at minimum a 40% chance of Svalna being in their hand after they play it. If they get Svalna down, your other play is to Theotar their Vision of Darkness and hope they can’t get it back with Identity Theft.
Rogue
Miracle Rogue - Favored; Game plan: Attrition
Your removal lines up really well against the big Miracle Rogue swing turns, so as long as they’re not able to do all the things at once, you should be OK. You want to mulligan for Lightbomb and ETC (for Acidic Swamp Ooze) in addition to the other anti-aggro tools, and you can trade Shard of the Naaru in order to help find it if necessary. If you’re on coin, preserve it if at all possible in case you need to play a Lightbomb on turn 5.
Thief Rogue - Even; Game plan: Hand disruption and Value
Get comfy, because you’re going to be here for a while. This is easily the grindiest matchup you’ll face, more so than even the mirror. You want to Plaguespreader early and often, because if you can plague Tess, you’ll have a much easier time. Otherwise, you’re playing toward Mi’da and fatigue as a win condition, but you can generally draw fairly liberally as long as they aren’t also playing Renethal.
Warlock
Mine Warlock - Unfavored; Game plan: Hand disruption
You’re on the usual hand disruption game plan for Mine Warlock, but even if you get everything to go right, they can still get enough damage out of their combo unless you hit multiple pieces. Drown the Mines, Plaguespreader liberally, and try to get Theotar to hit Phylactery. If you can do all that, you might just get there.
Conclusion
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