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Deathrattle Priest deck list guide - Rise of Shadows - Hearthstone (April 2019)

Our guide to getting started with Deathrattle Priest in the Rise of Shadows meta.

Deathrattle Priest is a Hearthstone deck that's likely to see some play in the new Rise of Shadows expansion, thanks to some new cards that significantly empower previous attempts at making this kind of archetype work.

The general strategy involves building a wide, stubborn and sticky board that the opponent will struggle to stay on top of. Between taking charge of the board and chipping away at the opponent's health, you hope to maintain control of proceedings until you can absolutely obliterate them.

In our Deathrattle Priest deck guide we've highlighted a solid deck list for the start of the new meta, and provided a basic overview of the strategy involved. This will be expanded on considerably if the deck takes off, but in the meantime you can find an overview of every card combo at the bottom of the article.

UPDATE - RISE OF SHADOWS LAUNCH

Deathrattle Priest is making a return in Rise of Shadows, and we wanted to bring you an early version of the deck that makes use of the new cards!

PriestNeutral
2 x Circle of Healing1 x Zilliax
1 x Silence2 x Mechanical Whelp
2 x Northshire Cleric1 x Da Undatakah
2 x Power Word: Shield
2 x EVIL Conscripter
2 x Shadowy Figure
2 x Auchenai Phantasm
2 x Dead Ringer
1 x Madame Lazul
2 x Shadow Word: Death
1 x Extra Arms
2 x Hench-Clan Shadequill
2 x Auchenai Soulpriest
1 x Convincing Infiltrator
2 x Coffin Crasher

Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.

Deck Import ID: AAECAa0GBqUJ5fcCoIADi4oDgpQD65sDDO0B5QTSCtMK8gzc9QK09gKh/gLriAPvkgODlAONlwMA

More great Priest guides:

Note that the rest of this article refers to an earlier version of the deck. It’ll take us a while to get the whole site up to speed with all the changes, but you should still find the general advice useful!

Deathrattle Priest deck list and strategy

This version of Deathrattle Priest was created by Haze for the launch of the Boomsday expansion. All theorycrafted deck lists go through a lot of change quickly, so be careful what you craft in the early days if you don't have much dust to play around with.

PriestNeutral
2 x Circle of Healing2 x Wild Pyromancer
1 x Silence2 x Devilsaur Egg
2 x Inner Fire2 x Meat Wagon
2 x Northshire Cleric2 x Unpowered Steambot
2 x Power Word: Shield
2 x Dead Ringer
2 x Divine Spirit
2 x Radiant Elemental
2 x Shadow Ascendant
2 x Shadow Visions
1 x Lyra the Sunshard
2 x Reckless Experimenter

Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.

Deck Import ID: AAECAa0GAqUJvsgCDvgC5QT2B9EK0gryDNHBAtjBAqvCAs7MAqvQApf2AqH+AoiCAwA=

We'll have detailed strategy advice for you after the expansion goes live, and if Deathrattle Priest proves competitive.

Put simply though, your objective is to build a massive minion capable of inflicting huge burst damage using cards like Divine Spirit and Inner Fire. You also have Deathrattle effects to play with, most notably using cards like Devilsaur Egg to build a meaty board.

Until the meta has settled and we can provide more specific advice, take a look at the combo section at the bottom of the page. This contains all of the card synergies you need to know about when you actually pilot the deck for yourself.

Deathrattle Priest Mulligan guide

We'll update this section with Mulligan advice once the Boomsday Project meta is under way.

Deathrattle Priest tips, combos and synergies

Here's a breakdown of the most important combos that exist in this exact version of Deathrattle Priest. Whenever we tweak the deck list, we'll make sure that those changes are taken into account in this section:

- Divine Spirit / Inner Fire is your classic combo for massively empowering a minion, with Unpowered Steambot being the prime candidate in this version of the deck. You can also use Power Word: Shield to push those stats even higher.

- Any time a minion is healed on both sides of the board, Northshire Cleric will draw a card from your deck and put it in your hand. If you can inflict partial damage on many minions and then play Circle of Healing, you've the potential to draw into a lot of options.

- New card Dead Ringer adds a Deathrattle card to your hand when it dies. Cards that synergise in this context are Devilsaur Egg, Meat Wagon and Reckless Experimenter.

- As long as Radiant Elemental is active on the board, your spells will cost one Mana less. This can be a big part of your combo build, and has further synergy with Lyra the Sunshard who gifts you a random Priest spell every time you play a spell from your hand.

- Shadow Ascendant grants another friendly minion +1 / +1 of stats when you hit End Turn. The target is randomly chosen.

- Reckless Experimenter is a new card that reduces the cost of your Deathrattle minions by three Mana, but they die at the end of the turn. The good news is that for cards like Devilsaur Egg this is very much a good thing!

- Cast a spell and Wild Pyromancer will inflict one point of damage to both friendly and enemy minions. Note that that this damage occurs after the effects of the spell have been applied.

- Meat Wagon is guaranteed to pull either Unpowered Steambot or Devilsaur Egg, as these are the only qualifying candidates in the deck.

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John Bedford avatar

John Bedford

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John is Metabomb's Editor in Chief and looks after the day to day running of the site when he's not writing about Hearthstone.

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