Hearthstone: An In-Depth look at the Priest class experience

Every class in Hearthstone has its own unique core mechanic which is the basis for the design of its class cards. Druid players get the ability to choose between two different and very effective choices. Warlocks have extremely powerful cards that are balanced behind very poor battle cries and sometimes detrimental effects to your own board. Shamans have their overload, and the list goes on. Priests also have their own unique mechanic that they bring into Hearthstone, which is the mechanic of stealing cards, and using the very cards that your opponent owns against them. Now when one thinks of a Priest, it’s unlikely your first thoughts would be words like ‘stealing’ and ‘thievery’, but regardless it makes Priests a very unique class to experience. This experience, however, is very bipolar in its nature largely due to their mechanic being so intrusive to play against, yet instinctively fun to play as.

With very few exceptions, most people would argue that playing a Priest is probably the class that you can have the most fun with. They have very unique and interesting combos that they can pull off, and being able to use your opponents’ cards against them is, in all honesty, fun to do. In polls conducted on websites like the Hearthstone subreddit, the majority tend to agree that the class they have the most fun playing as is Priest. It’s a very dirty pleasure to be able to use Thoughtsteal and come up with some of their big legendaries which inevitably bolsters your late game power. Likewise, getting a thoughtstolen Big Game Hunter to deal with their big minion feels so rewarding despite the very luck based nature of using the card. With that being said, you still have other cards which allow you to get extremely good value out of your opponents' cards. Shadow Madness and Cabal Shadow Priest let you pick up high value deathrattle cards like Bloodmage Thalnos, Loot Hoarder, Harvest Golem – and the list could go on from there.

Truthfully, it seems weird that the class based around stealing and manipulating the usage of your opponents’ cards is the most fun class to play. However, it might be linked to the fact that you’re essentially playing with cards you didn’t start with in your own deck. Although I’m sure there are people who enjoy the very bandit-style nature that is Priest, it might be more of the fact that the class can lead to very exciting and unique plays that differ from most other classes.

Now this might just be me fueling an unnecessary rant about the Priest class, but I have to say that playing against a Priest is probably one of the most frustrating experiences in Hearthstone. With any other class you can expect to either face against any neutral cards + their class cards. Priests have the ability to play with the cards in your deck as well, which can turn favourable positions into a trap hole you now have to dig yourself out of.

It’s incredibly annoying to have to play around what is essentially two decks, because you’re never quite sure what the Priest might have as an answer to your hand and cards. They’ve got fairly strong removal for anything that isn’t a four attack monster, and if they do manage to pull a Hex/Polymorph/Deadly Shot from your deck, they get a huge swing in momentum going their way under the right circumstances. Certainly there are archetypal decks out there that everyone absolutely hates. Decks like Zoo, Face Hunter and a few other rush decks are hated because of how cheesy it feels to go against them. Yet at least in these cases, you know what cards to expect. It’s possible to say that you should expect a Priest to play a Mind Control, Cabal Shadow Priest and similar minded cards, but it comes off as incredibly inefficient if you choose to hold back on playing a big minion, because you don’t have an answer for your own card just in case he does have Mind Control ready.

The Verdict

I think in the long run we’ll continue to see Priests maintain this bipolar nature of theirs because as new expansions and card sets are released, more valuable cards will be in a players’ deck. Cards like Mind Control will always be powerful as long as there are mid-range or control decks out there. Without a major overhaul of the core mechanic the class is based on, it’s unlikely to see either end of the spectrum change for Priest players. They’ll always continue to be an extremely fun class to play as because of their mechanic and just as equally resentful class to play against.