Introduction

I haven't seen any good priest decks posted besides the DA quest deck. I Think they are the strongest decks with the fewest weaknesses and since none have been posted, I wanted to post this one.

My current tournament record with this deck is 18-2, and it could have easily been 19-1, as in the last tournament I got FloggingmollyLA down to 1 life the turn before I died, and he/she went first. I went 5-0 in my first two tournaments, and placed 5th in the last tournament.

The Deck

Avatar

The avatar's ability is weak, and you may never use it. The avatar is still good because of the 3 defense and 11 life.

Quests

• Forging Stormhealer Armor
• Collecting Gnoll Bounty
• Vengeful Musicians
• Beware of Ogres

You will never complete the last two quests, but if they somehow get played, they will help you more than your opponent.

Abilities (16)

• Cannibalize x3
• Courage x3
• Enduring Breath x4
• Reclaim x4
• Disable x2

Tactics (11)

• Hammer of Wrath x4
• Smite x2
• Blindside x2
• Pierce x2
• Improvise x1

Blindside and Improvise can be omitted for 2 Sidestep and 1 more Pierce. The deck plays the same either way.

Items (3)

• Steel Dagger x3

Units (20)

• Furious Berserker x4
• Galebreaker Maiden x3
• Giant Field Rat x4
• Chipped Bone Skeleton x4
• Gnoll Soothsayer x2
• Orc Fanatic x3

Strategy

First turn, get a level 1 ability out. It is important to take advantage of Forging Stormhealer Armor quest to get card advantage, even if you are discarding. If your opponent goes first and gets a level 1 ability out, two things you can do to prevent him from getting the card advantage: Disable his ability, or play a Gnoll Soothsayer at the quest.

Your next priority after protecting your Forging Stormhealer Armor quest is to complete it or, if that is impossible, complete the other level 2 quest and get your Collecting Gnoll Bounty Quest on the table. While you are doing this, which hopefully takes 2 turns, attack your opponent with Furious Berserkers and Giant Field Rats in a combo. Play them at the quest you dont plan on completing, because Furious Berserkers rarely need the attack bonus from Gnoll Bounty, and Rats get no bonus damage from it. After Collecting Gnoll Bounty is on the table, your ideal move is to get a Galebreaker Maiden and a Chipped Bone Skeleton attacking in combo at that quest. The maiden will have 5 attack (+2 for the quest, and +2 for attacking with a dark unit), and the Chipped Bone Skeleton will have +3 dmg. This is a pretty lethal pair and is the way you will kill opponents 2/3 of the time.

Use your Hammer of Wrath cards wisely. Save them for your opponent's avatar unless if, during the quest phase, you need to use a hammer to clear units and do more damage. It is all about damaging your opponents avatar and killing it. If using a hammer on units will help you kill him faster, then do it, otherwise, kill his units with your units/avatar and save the hammers till you have an open shot on his avatar.

Save your Courages to heal your Chipped Bone Skeleton, or if you have extra and need to play an ability (you need one out every turn), second best choice is healing a Gnoll Soothsayer. Then again, if your opponent is playing the ping Ogre, then healing a damaged Giant Field Rat is not a bad idea either.

It is very important to have an unexerted ability at the start of your quest phase every turn if your opponent is playing units, which nearly every deck does. Questing with Steel Dagger is your main method of clearing opposing units. If you have no unexerted ability, you cannot quest, and you also cannot play your Hammer of Wrath. Orc Fanatics also help against units with 3 life. I picked units with 2-3 life for just that purpose. They are hard to kill. Your opponent will be wasting a lot of his attack and damage to try to clear your units and that is good because that means he wont be using them on your avatar. The units are very cheap, as all of them cost just 2 power except the Giant Field Rats which are 1 and the Chipped Bone Skeleton which is 3.

Try not to go light or dark. Your Giant Field Rats will lose their effectiveness and you will start taking damage from playing your units. It is actually very hard to go light or dark unless you get a very bad draw, but it happened to me when I wasn't paying attention.

Anyway, that is the deck. I have experimented with other cards like Divine Aura, Heroic Bond, Grand Shield of Faith (to get life back while questing), Slow Healing, Stein of Moggok, Thought Defilers, and Bracers of Forbidden Rites. All are very good cards if used sparingly. Adding Thought Defilers and taking out the Chipped Bone Skeleton actually slows the deck down, and adding them and taking out Light units may make the deck too dark aligned. Grand Shield of Faith is a great item, but one thing about items, if you get more than 1 they are pointless unless they are hidden or you are sacking them to play Improvise. Bracers of Forbidden Rites is a very cheap way to get health back after about your 4th or 5th turn if you want to try that. Slow Healing is also good, but at 2 cost it may not be worth the power.

Lastly, I am attempting to try the wood elf avatar with 2 defense which gains one dmg for each exerted ability. Combined with a few Assaults it will make kills even faster. Attacking with Assault and exerting your abilities with Hammer of Wrath can be even more deadly than the Chipped Bone Skeleton at the Collecting Gnoll Bounty quest. The problem is a 2 defense Avatar is much more vulnerable than a 3 defense Avatar. All 0 power tactics which buff attack, like Sap and Pierce, buff up to 2 attack. The first turn kills all require a 2 defense Avatar. It is a risk...you will kill your opponent faster but he will kill you faster also, especially if you do not go first. I am going to do more tests with this build and add (2) Bracers of Forbidden Rites, (1) Improvise, and (2-3) Assaults. Either way, if you like playing a Priest Deck and want to be competitive in the tournaments and just haven't found a good build, this deck will work great.

This Article has also been posted in the SOE Forums.