With this version of the deck, your aim is to supersize a single minion by buffing its Health to a massive number with Divine Spirit, and then its Attack to match its Health with Inner Fire. Executed correctly, you’ll have a minion with attack power well into the double digits that can usually defeat your opponent outright and in a single blow. In this edition of our Combo Priest guide, we’re highlighting the most competitive version of the deck that’s seeing play right now. We’ve also added in loads of strategy and Mulligan advice to help you pilot the deck to your best ability. If this one continues to be popular, we’ll continue updating this article! UPDATE - December 2019 With the release of Descent of Dragons, we’ve got a new version of Combo Priest to show you. High Priest Amet has brought this deck into the spotlight, as well as new cards like Injured Tol’vir and Psychopomp offering this archetype a fair few backup plans.
Combo Priest deck list and strategy
Here is the version of Combo Priest seeing the most play in the current stage of the Descent of Dragons meta. We’ll update our recommendations as the meta evolves over time. Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game. Deck Import ID: AAECAa0GBqUJ+wzl9wLQ/gKnhwOppQMM+ALlBPYH1QjRCtIK8gz3DK+lA9KlA/2nA4SoAwA= General strategy
- Best Budget Decks - Hearthstone: Best Budget Decks 2. Tier List - Hearthstone deck tier list (Ashes of Outland) 3. Resurrect Priest - Resurrect Priest deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 4. Albatross Priest - Albatross Priest deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 5. Highlander Priest - Highlander Priest deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 6. Quest Resurrect Priest - Quest Resurrect Priest deck list guide (Ashes of Outland) 7. Quest Priest - Quest Priest deck list guide (Ashes of Outland)
Combo Priest is all about building to that one moment in a game when you have all the pieces you need in hand to create one giant minion with a ludicrous attack value that can kill your opponent in a single hit. That’s the dream scenario, so to get there you’ll want to play the slow and steady control game Priest is known for, while drawing through your deck to find the cards you need. While the concept of the deck has remained the same between expansions. Cards from the Year of the Dragon have helped this deck on its way though. High Priest Amet is the clear star of the show, offering any minion summoned alongside it a health bonus to a whopping 7. As well as this, you have access to Psychopomp, a persistent chap who’ll revive your dead minions and give them Reborn, something that’ll make them stickier. They also synergise excellently with High Priest Amet who will raise their health from 1 to a big 7. Early game: Your early turns are all about card draw and control. Try and orchestrate a situation where you’ve got Northshire Cleric on the board, and use it to draw cards with your Hero Power. You can buff its Health with Power Word: Shield, or even use one copy of Divine Spirit to give it survivability so you can kickstart your card draw engine if needed. Wild Pyromancer combined with many of your cheap spells is a good way to maintain board control as well, while the area of effect damage can trigger card draws from Acolyte of Pain. Mid game: Continue maintaining board control and drawing through your deck as you head into the mid game. If there’s a chance for an early victory, take it. Opponents might not deal with your early Northshire Cleric, and after a couple of Power Word: Shields and Extra Arms, you might be able to sneak in a Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo to close the game out early. Of course, this isn’t your primary plan, but it works wonders on occasion - Murloc Paladin for example has very few ways to deal with a big minion if they don’t draw Toxfin early. Late game: At this point, you should have completed all the setup and have all the cards you need to pull off the combo. If you have a high-health minion on board then chuck it out there, and if High Priest Amet is serving you well you can summon a whole bunch of high-health minions that your opponent will struggle to clear. Sand Drudge can get you a board of 1/7s quickly, and Psychopomp’s revives and Reborns benefit from this too. Stormwind Knight is present as a Charge minion you can get a combo from too, doubling its health and hitting face for big damage. Regardless, you should hopefully have enough in your arsenal to find a way to deal lethal damage, be it through Amet’s health buffs or your Reborn minions healing up over time. Topsy Turvy is in this deck too, in order to make absolutely sure you draw enough for this combo to work properly - a solid alternative to Inner Fire for a finisher, it swaps attack and health rather than changing one to match the other. Aggro opponents Some important things to keep in mind when against aggro decks:
- A big weakness of Combo Priest is fast decks, as they have the potential to burn you down before you’ve gathered all the pieces you need. 2. Card draw is definitely one of your priorities, but it may be wise to focus on minion removal against aggro so you don’t get overwhelmed. 3. Powering up a Wild Pyromancer with additional Health can be worthwhile so it stays alive against multiple area of effect damage triggers, and you can - hopefully - clear the board repeatedly. 4. Aggro decks will often try to charge you down and eventually concede once they’re out of fuel. Sometimes, it’s best not to worry about saving up for the combo and focus on self preservation. Even so, some aggressive decks will be reckless with their health and clearing your minions, so it’s not rare to find yourself with a surprise Divine Spirit / Inner Fire lethal opportunity.
Control opponents Here are a few tips when facing control opponents on ladder:
- It should be much easier to focus on card draw in this match-up as you’ll be under less pressure from slower opponents. 2. If you’re concerned a giant Taunt minion is going to block the way for your hit of lethal damage, make sure you have Silence saved in hand to clear the way. 3. In absolutely desperate times, you can cast Power Word: Shield on one of your opponent’s minions if you really need the card draw. 4. You’ll want to watch out for control decks that run cards that can interfere with your hand. Unseen Saboteur and the like can ruin your combo easily.
Combo Priest Mulligan guide
In the Mulligan phase you’ll want to emphasise card draw so you can gather all the necessary combo pieces together.
- Northshire Cleric: The perfect way to start drawing through your deck in the early game. 2. Power Word: Shield: Works as more card draw while also offering the potential to gain a little more value out of your early game minions. 3. Acolyte of Pain: More early game card draw.
Combo Priest tips, combos and synergies
We’ve already outlined your game-winning combo elsewhere in this guide, but here are the other card synergies you need to be aware of when playing this list:
- Power Word: Shield provides more Health for its target and also draws you a card in the process.
- Injured Tol’vir stalls the enemy whilst simultaneously offering a reasonably big body for Psychopomp to resurrect.
- When you cast Divine Spirit on a minion its Health is immediately doubled from whatever value it is currently on, not its maximum Health.
- As the key combo of the deck, Inner Fire can be applied on a minion you’ve buffed with Divine Spirit to set their Attack to be equal to their Health. The damage potential with this can be monstrous.
- You can combine Northshire Cleric with the healing from your Hero Power to draw additional cards, or use cheap spells such as Circle of Healing to restore the Health of multiple creatures and draw many more cards at once.
- Sand Drudge’s 1/1 Zombies with Taunt benefit from High Priest Amet’s ability, and have their health raised when they are summoned.
- When you cast a Spell with Wild Pyromancer on the board it’ll trigger an effect that deals one damage to all minions. You can exploit this as a way to clear the board of your opponent’s creatures, but be careful as it can kill off your own minions too!
Card choices and substitutions
There are some very key cards that are essential for making Combo Priest priest. We’ve listed all the important ones you need to know about below:
Northshire Cleric: Is reliable for a lot of your card draw in the early game and can get out
of hand if your opponent doesn’t deal with it quickly. Sometimes it can even be the minion you cast the combo on to kill your foe! Divine Spirit: Doubles the Health of the target minion. You can create extra copies with Shadow Visions, should you want to guarantee the minion you choose has enough Health to be converted into Attack as well for the killing blow. Inner Fire: This is the spell that will take your chosen minion’s Health and set its Attack value to be equal to it. With all the Health-increasing possibilities in the deck, you can create a single seriously powerful creature. Injured Blademaster: Reasonably high attack for a 3 cost minion, and also dies quickly which allows Psychopomp to revive it at full health. Silence: Enormously important for clearing Taunt minions in the way of your combo for 0 mana. Wild Pyromancer: Serves as an important area of effect removal tool in the deck when combined with all the cheap spells you’ll find in the list. Extra Arms: After this card’s buff during the Rise of the Mech, players began to realise that a more flexible Blessing of Kings is actually really powerful, not to mention the excellent flavour of the card. Throw some literal extra arms on your poor minions and they’ll contest the board far better, especially against more aggressive opponents.
