It's not often a class that causes debates, but lately the Priest class has been mentioned a lot in the Hearthstone community - especially by the pros. The Saviors of Uldum expansion blessed Priest with a couple of powerful cards such as High Priest Amet and Psychopomp. Combined with new Neutral minions like Injured Tol'vir and Neferset Ritualist, OTK Priest was born.
The concept of the deck is quite simple: You stick a minion with a large amount of health on the board. Then you buff it a couple of extra times with Power Word: Shield, for example. To pull the trigger, simply play Divine Spirit, and then play Inner Fire or Topsy Turvy to turn a beefy minion into something with the force of a nuclear weapon.
When yesterday caster Simon "Sottle" Welch, who has to deal with many Priests players in Hearthstone Grandmasters posted a Tweet showing he had gone 20-0 on Hearthstone's Ladder with OTK Priest, Senior Game Designer Dean "iksar" Ayala responded with some of his thoughts on the subject.
The discussion between Sottle and Iksar side tracks into a comparison with Patron Warrior, and more people join the discussion to share their thoughts. Iksar argues that Priest only seems to be an issue among the best Hearthstone players in the worlds, but that those players would perform well with virtually any deck. In the end however he agrees that it's not ideal that the deck's core cards, Divine Spirit and Inner Fire, will stick around forever.
As it stands, both Inner Fire and Divine Spirit are part of the evergreen Classic and Basic sets though; they won't ever rotate. But Iksar shows a tip of a hypothetical iceberg of changes, saying Divine Spirit is in Blizzard's crosshairs. Players will have to wait to find out more though, if the plans continue at all.
Set rotation occurs generally around April. Perhaps though, by that time another class reigns supreme among the top players.
- Tom Matthiesen
- Email : TomM@invenglobal.com
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