As you may have noticed from my last few articles, control is back in a big way. We’ve seen strategies from Rogue, Warlock, Mage, and Paladin that aim to lock down the late game. This week, it’s time to put Priest control in the spotlight. What follows is a deceptively simple-looking decklist, one with a lot of power and a narrow-minded end game. The Troll’s day has come!
 

Basem Alsalah

First Place, Realm Qualifier - Kalamazoo, Michigan

February 9, 2008

Hero: Mojo Mender Ja’nah

Allies

4 The Abominable Greench

4 Mias the Putrid

4 Guardian Steelhorn

4 One-Thousand-Battles

4 Doshura Risestrider

Abilities

4 Greater Heal

4 Touch of Darkness

4 Mental Anguish

4 Mind Spike

4 Soul Rend

Equipment

4 The Bringer of Death

Quests

4 The Root of All Evil

4 Gahz'ridian

4 Thwarting Kolkar Aggression

4 Chasing A-Me 01

Side Deck

4 Absorb Magic

4 Twist of Faith

2 Nyn’jah

Holy 4-ofs, Batman! This deck isn’t messing around with tech or tricky 2-ofs; it’s aiming straight for the throat from the get-go. The list starts with an ally lineup that came straight from I Hate Beatdown 101. Apprentice Merry and crew have nothing on One-Thousand-Battles and friends. It only gets better from there. The early-game defensive-ally lineup and the straight-for-the-dome (or hand) approach give this deck a feeling of complete control. Ending the game with The Abominable Greench is almost an afterthought when your opponent has no hand, no face-up quests, and no allies on board—lucky for us, this scenario presents itself quite often. Oh, and if things are getting out of control, The Bringer of Death should corral them in nicely.

This deck differs from the other control decks in that it attacks the hand extremely aggressively, something Priest excels at. While Rogue has cards like Purloin and Pick Pocket and Warlock has Eye of Kilrogg, Priest’s stable of abilities runs much deeper.

Starting as early as a turn 1 Touch of Darkness, Mojo can try to empty an opponent’s hand as quickly and efficiently as possible. Moving up the food chain is the always-powerful (and underrated) Mind Spike. The ability to take down a Magister Ashi and work toward an empty-handed opponent gives the card tremendous versatility. It can put any opponent’s 1-drop plan on the back-burner in a hurry.

Moving onto phase 2 of the Priest’s grand discard plan, we find yet another newcomer to the discard block: Mental Anguish. A simple and elegant 2-for-1, it may not be card advantage you can see on the board, but it still hits home in the power department. As is usually the case with straight discard abilities, the slower the opponent, the better the card. Aggressive decks tend to empty their controllers’ hands early, so you might find yourself drawing dead Mental Anguishes as a result; however, by then, the damage should already be done. Against slower control decks, it’s as good as gold. Oftentimes, you can manage a giant turn of discard in which your opponent will end up cardless. This is usually thanks to Mental Anguish. It’s just a great new utility card for Priest that is simple and can get the job done.

This leaves us with Soul Rend. While not a pure discard ability, in a deck like this, it’s effectively a non-targeting Vanquish. Your opponent will rarely have a second ally out due to the nature of the defensive ally base in this list. Even if they do decide to keep it back in the grip, you are still setting them back a turn and working yet another card toward the “Look, Ma! No hand!” scenario.

However, all of this vigorous hand destruction comes at a price. There are times when you may draw too much hand disruption and not enough protectors, leaving you wide open to an aggressive attack. If you don’t do something before turn 8, it may be too late. What’s a Troll to do? Well, heal ’er up, of course! To the tune of 14 health—free of charge. Okay, it’s not really free of charge, as it costs 4 resources, but as far as removing damage from your hero, there isn’t a stronger card than Greater Heal. It can erase a lot of early-game damage that may have sneaked through, and with only 26 health, this is often a must for getting to your turn 8 The Bringer of Death and turn 9 The Abominable Greench. That’s seven attacks from an Apprentice Merry completely negated all in one fell swoop. Not bad at all!

Moving on to the ally portion of the deck, we find that there are a couple of choices that stick out and are unique to this build. One of them is the inclusion of Mias the Putrid. I’ve always loved Mias the Putrid for her amazing utility against aggressive decks. Aggressive decks tend to run out of cards quickly, and Mias can help move along that process. She also has the benefit of being a natural enemy of any 2 / 1s in the format, including the untargetable variety. These two qualities, backed up by an already strong anti-aggro main deck, make her a genuine all-star in the deck. She does have the slight drawback of being less than stellar against a lot of control decks, but she is still a 1-for-1 any way you look at it, and sometimes you just really need another card that says “Discard!”

One subject of much debate is choosing One-Thousand-Battles over Sus’vayin in the 3-drop slot. Why oh why did Fires of Outland have to give us such a tough choice? On the one hand, you have an absolute wall of a protector. On turn 3, 3 / 5 stats are huge, and there isn’t much that’s going to make an even trade with him, but he has the disadvantage of sitting there and letting your opponent act first. Sus’vayin, on the other hand, can usually get in there and mix things up right away; however, there is the drawback of Sus’vayin being unable to deal reliably with Bloodsoul and Kagella Shadowmark. Both cards’ pros and cons are definitely factors when choosing which of the two is the better card. For this deck, though, I think One-Thousand-Battles has a bit of an edge. He still has the protector keyword, and in this deck, it’s all about buying turns. While Sus’vayin could potentially do so, One-Thousand-Battles can defend against solo decks as well, plus he’s just a better defensive ally against the field in general.

The quests are what we have come to expect from control decks these days. The Root of All Evil is always welcome in a deck full of discard abilities. It functions as another discard power for all intents and purposes. You are investing 1 resource now to prevent the opponent from drawing one, two, or more cards later on. Quite the deal, especially when printed on a resource. Continuing with this theme is Thwarting Kolkar Aggression, a great quest that hasn’t seen much play until recently. It provides redundancy for the quest-destruction theme that started with The Root of All Evil and draws you a card all at the same time. It has the drawback of not targeting quests like Root does, but your opponent will rarely have more than one resource face up against this deck anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

The side deck, like everything else in this deck, is rather straightforward. The incredibly powerful Twist of Faith leads things off. It’s a card that many other controlling classes wish they had, but only Priests get it. Steal an Ishanah, High Priestess of the Aldor or a Varimathras for brownie points, but it works well on smaller drops as well. Your opponent may start the game with answers to it, but if you wait for your opponent’s desperate, last-ditch effort at a fatty with an empty hand, you’re golden.

Absorb Magic has basically eclipsed Dispel Magic when it comes to ability removal. There are a lot of nasty targets floating around these days—Shadow Weaving, Blessing of Wisdom, and Drain Mana all immediately come to mind. Absorb helps to stall as well, and 1 resource more is a small price to pay for the powerful built-in healing effect.

While most people have viewed Priest as a purely aggressive class in the past, the age of control is upon us and Priest wants its fair share too. Discard Priest as a theme has always been around, but the introduction of some powerful new cards in March of the Legion has really put it on the map. Could this set’s additions be the straw that breaks the metagame’s back in Orlando? We’ll find out next week when this year’s premier events start off with a bang.