hearthstone Vivid Velen: An In-Depth Guide

[Aleco 252]

Vivid Nightmare is an essential card for the Prophet Velen combo deck. Learn more in our guide!

Vivid Nightmare is the next card in a long line of new combo cards for Priest, and it's the linchpin of a powerful new Prophet Velen combo deck.

I've been drawn to combo decks for as long as I can remember. Dating as far back as my elementary school days, when all the boys in my class would play Magic: the Gathering together at lunch, I was that annoying kid who who played combo decks whenever my classmates would allow me to. Sure, my friends only enjoyed playing against me when they won, but that's only because I was the best. Or so I told myself, but that's not important.

With every new Hearthstone expansion, the first decks I look to practice and tune are always combo decks. I've tested just about every combo which has been posted on either HS Pro Deck Feed or /r/CompetitiveHS, which is where I found a post titled "An OTK with Short Animations?! (4 to Legend Velen Priest Guide)" by reddit user itsonfosho. It was a guide for an OTK deck which was built around a new Witchwood card in Vivid Nightmare, a card I had already crafted to test out a failed Stormwind Knight/Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo.

Excited to try the deck for myself, I began playing Vivid Velen around rank 3000 Legend. Here's what happened next:

 

 

 

I started off on an absolute heater. I climbed from the 3000's to peak in the 600's, at one point boasting a 25-7 record after winning 14 out of 15 games. In hindsight I had pretty good luck throughout this streak, but wouldn't that be true of any 14/15 winstreak in a game with as much variance as Hearthstone?

Regardless, I've never come anywhere close to a streak like this while playing in Legend. As much as I'd like to believe that I magically became a better Hearthstone player overnight, I think that a hot streak such as this one is more indicative of a deck which is well-positioned for the current meta than a sudden spike in skill level.

 

 

I finished 7-7 with Vivid Velen and settled on a 66% winrate after 50 games. I didn't change a single card in all 50 games (which is almost certainly incorrect), though I plan on making some minor adjustments to the list going forward. Here's the decklist I was working with, which is exactly the same as the one posted by itsonfosho:

 

Deck Code: AAECAa0GBAntBbTOApDTAg37AaEE5QTJBtMK1grRwQLYwQLwzwLo0AKp4gLj6QKC9wIA

 

Beyond all the numbers, the deck feels right. Once you get a sense for all of the different situations where you can OTK out of seemingly nowhere, it starts to feel a lot like an early version of Cubelock or Highlander Priest. I'm not saying this deck is as strong as either of those decks are, only that it's just as intricate and difficult to play as Cubelock or Highlander Priest. Vivid Velen has provided me with some of the most fun and challenging Hearthstone games I've ever played, and I'd expect the same to be true for any true fan of combo decks.

 

Deck Overview

 

How does this deck kill?

Though a lot of this was covered in itsonfosho's guide, I'll repeat it here for clarity. Here's how a typical OTK looks:

1. Have Prophet Velen and Radiant Elemental die at any point in the game.
2. Use a Diamond Spellstone to resurrect them both (3 Mana left).
3. Use Vivid Nightmare on Radiant Elemental (1 Mana left).
4. Use Vivid Nightmare on Prophet Velen (0 Mana left).
5. Mind Blast twice for 40 damage.

Steps one and two of this combo are fairly non-negotiable, but steps three through five are flexible and highly dependent on the game at hand. After steps one and two, you can kill opponents who dip down to 20 life (which is very relevant against Warlock) with just two cards: a Mind Blast and a Vivid Nightmare, or two Mind Blasts and no Vivid Nightmares. Adding a Bloodmage Thalnos to the death pool bumps that up to 24 damage, which is frequently enough to kill Rogues. 24 turns into 48 with an additional copy of Mind Blast or Vivid Nightmare, which is a bit more than 30. With an extra Radiant Elemental or a third copy of Vivid Nightmare off Shadow Visions, you can make three Velens to Mind Blast blast for 48, which should be more than enough to slug through high armor decks such as Taunt Druid, Big Spells Mage, and Odd Warrior.

Barring the rare games where your opponent leaves your Prophet Velen alive (allowing you to kill without a combination of Mind Blasts and Vivid Nightmares), you'll almost always have an upgraded Diamond Spellstone and a dead Prophet Velen to be able to OTK. The other combo pieces are surprisingly flexible. Playing an extra Radiant Elemental from hand before playing Spellstone essentially buys you an extra Vivid Nightmare, allowing you to combo with one fewer card than normal. A lingering Radiant Elemental allows you to use both Vivid Nightmares on Prophet Velen, setting up an OTK with a single Mind Blast for 40.

Each copy of Mind Blast, Vivid Nightmare, and Radiant Elemental beyond the first is essentially interchangeable. You'll need at least one copy of each card to pull to off an OTK, but it's important to remember that two Vivid Nightmares and one Mind Blast typically does the same amount of damage as one Vivid Nightmare and two Mind Blasts. Keeping in mind that a Radiant Elemental in hand as good as a Vivid Nightmare from hand, four is the magic number of Vivid Nightmares/Mind Blasts we need to deal 40 or 48 damage, and three is the number we need for 20 or 24.

Shadowreaper Anduin is this deck's backup win condition in case Prophet Velen is Polymorphed or buried on the bottom of our deck. We know from our days with Highlander Priest that double Mind Blast with an Anduin in play is 16 damage and triple Mind Blast is 19, which is often enough damage to close out games against control decks. Anduin also does double duty as a defensive tool with its board clear, its 5 Armor gain, and the hero power which can target minions.

 

What's up with the Twilight's Call/Deathrattle package?

The restriction on Lesser Diamond Spellstone means we can play no more than 4 unique minions in our deck. Prophet Velen and Radiant Elemental are necessary, which means we only have room for two more minions in the entire deck. As much as I'd love to play some kind of Dragon package with Duskbreaker in it, that just isn't feasible. Diamond Spellstone is the reason this deck works, so 4 minions is what we get. This basically rules out Northshire Cleric as our tool for card draw, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

With Bloodmage Thalnos and Loot Hoarder as our only Deathrattle minions, Twilight's Call does a great impression of Arcane Intellect in the late game, and plays excellently with Spirit Lash as tool for gaining Reno-esque amounts of life with Bloodmage Thalnos. Combo decks need card draw, and this Twilight's Call package is about as effective at drawing cards as any Northshire Cleric/Wild Pyromancer package is. Don't be surprised to see a few more combo decks crop up in this Standard year with Twilight's Call as it's card draw tool of choice, even if the deck isn't built around a Diamond Spellstone combo. The Twilight's Call package is lean, it plays to the board, and it's effective at churning through your deck to find missing combo pieces.

 

The Matchups

 

Warlock, Druid, and Paladin:

Seeing as Warlock, Druid, and Paladin are the three most popular classes in the early Witchwood meta, Vivid Velen finds itself in an excellent spot. I had a 7-5 record against Warlock (Cube and Control), a 9-3 record against Druid (Spiteful and Taunt), and a 5-1 record against Paladin (Odd, Even, and Midrange).

Cubelock and Spiteful Druid are two of the most played decks right now, and they are both very winnable matchups. Though both decks are capable of nut draws which can Vivid Velen before it has a chance to OTK, smart play and a a good hand of your own can easily counteract their fast starts. I'd estimate that Vivid Velen is a 60-40 favorite against both Spiteful Druid and Cubelock.

Odd/Even Pally, Control Warlock, and Taunt Druid are very favorable matchups. Aggro Pally has a rough time getting a board through all of our board wipes, while Control Warlock and Taunt Druid are far too slow to kill you before you can Psychic Scream them back to the stone age while setting up your OTK. Mind Blast couldn't care less about Voidlord or Hadronox.

 

Hunter and Rogue:

The worst matchups for Vivid Velen are Odd Rogue, Quest Rogue, and Odd Hunter. Though I finished with a 3-2 record against Rogues, it sure seems as though Rogue decks are capable of too much burst damage for Psychic Scream to stabilize the game until we can OTK. I'd expect that Odd and Quest Rogue are at least 60-40 in Rogue's favor, while the Tempo and Mircale Rogue matchups are closer to even.

Odd Hunter is the biggest threat to this deck by far. I went 0-4 against Hunters, with two games against Odd Hunter and against Midrange Hunter. A couple of these games were winnable, but I'm not really sure how Vivid Velen beats an Odd Hunter nut draw. An early Radiant Elemental into Power Word: Shield start with Bloodmage Thalnos into Spirit Lash could probably beat some of Odd Hunters average draws, but the issue with the matchup is that they deal way too much face damage for your Psychic Screams to ever be relevant. Midrange/Secret Hunter is also a bit problematic, as there are few ways for Vivid Velen to beat a turn 5 Greater Emerald Spellstone. You have to have some combination of Bloodmage Thalnos, Holy Nova, and Spirit Lash to have a chance against that card, as Psychic Scream will come down a turn too late to keep you alive. I'd estimate that Odd Hunter is a 70-30 favorite over Vivid Velen, while Midrange/Spell/Secret Hunters are closer to 60-40 favorites.

 

Priest, Shaman, Warrior, and Mage:

• Priest: 3-1
• Shaman: 1-0
• Warrior 2-1
• Mage: 3-0

Priest, Shaman, Warrior, and Mage were the least popular classes on my climb, and I don't believe that these classes have any popular decks which pose a threat to Vivid Velen. My two losses were to Control Warrior and Spiteful Priest, and they were 100% my own fault. I would have won both games if I had used Shadow Word: Death on my Prophet Velen, but I instead opted to heal face for 4 and got Tinkmaster Oversparked and Mind Controlled, respectively.

I probably should have seen more Spiteful Priest than I did, but I'd expect that matchup to be about as favorable as the Spiteful Druid matchup. They typically can't pressure us as fast as the Spiteful Druid decks can, but they do have Mind Control for our Prophet Velen if we can't find play him early enough. That's hardly the end of the world, as we should always be able to save a Shadow Word: Death for our Prophet Velen against Priests who are likely to be running Mind Control, but it's still something that can lose us a game if we don't plan accordingly. 

As for the rest of these decks, Shudderwock Shaman is significantly slower and clunkier than we are, Tempo Warrior can't really deal enough burst damage to fight through Psychic Scream, and Control Mage/Priest/Warrior are exactly the kind of decks we are hoping to prey on. Tempo/Aggro Mage might be a bit problematic, but I did beat the deck the one time I played against it. I would actually highly recommend watching that match if you're interested in seeing just how resilient Vivid Velen can be, as I ended up wining the game fatigue after having my Prophet Velen burned by overdraw. You can watch the whole game right here. It was played against Sonecarox (whose name I recognized from the Coffin Crasher card reveal) while he was streaming, so I was able to find the VOD on Twitch after the game was over. If anyone reading this speaks Brazilian, I'd love to hear what he had to say about the game!

 

The Mulligans

 

The Mulligans with this deck are surprisingly straightforward:

 

• Always keep: Loot Hoarder, Bloodmage Thalnos, Radiant Elemental and Power Word: Shield with Radiant Elemental
• Always mull: Vivid Nightmare, Mind Blast, Shadowreaper Anduin
• Often correct to keep: Power Word: Shield, Lesser Diamond Spellstone, Prophet Velen, Psychic Scream, Shadow Word: Death, Spirit Lash 
• Often incorrect to keep: Shadow Visions, Twilight's Call

 

The two drops minions are the best possible keeps, without question. They play to the board and draw us cards at the same time, and else really needs to be said about that. Turn 1 Coin into Radiant Elemental + Power Word: Shield is just as good in this deck as it is in other combo decks, and I don't believe I've ever passed up an opportunity to do so with this deck.

After the two drops, we're looking for the most relevant interaction possible for our opponent. Against decks with Mountain Giant, Doomguard, and Carnivorous Cube in them (you know who you are), the best interaction we can possibly find is Shadow Word: Death. Try to play Shadow Word: Death immediately on Mountain Giants and Doomguards in order to play around Carnivorous Cube.

When facing aggro and midrange decks, Spirit Lash, Holy Nova, and Psychic Scream become the most important cards in your deck. It is often correct to keep these cards (Psychic Scream is excellent against Spiteful Summoner decks in particular), as you can easily get run over by minions if you fail to keep the board clear. Against faster decks, I recommend mulling away everything that's not a 2 drop in order to dig for these board wipes.

Against control decks, I think you always want to keep Prophet Velen and sometimes want to keep the first copy of Lesser Diamond Spellstone. Having Velen on the bottom of our deck or being forced to spend 4 turns upgrading a late Spellstone is one of the ways we can actually lose to control. It's probably not always correct to keep a Spellstone, but if you have something like Radiant Elemental + Power Word: Shield in hand I think its unlikely you'll mull into a better card. I'm also keen on keeping Velen against other combo decks (such as Shudderwock Shaman or Quest Rogue), as these matchups quickly devolve into races to see who can combo first.

One thing that stands out to me about the mulligans with Vivid Velen is that I rarely keep Shadow Visions. Though it's an insta-keep in most Combo Priest decks, it just isn't that great here. The deck has 12 different spells which Shadow Visions can pull from, making the card horribly inconsistently at finding the exact card you need in the early and mid game. Think of Shadow Visions as more a tool for finding missing combo pieces in the late game (typically Vivid Nightmare and Mind Blast) than a tool find fighting aggression.

Mulligans are more of an art than a science, but I think the mulligans for Vivid Velen are relatively clear and easy to understand. Keep 2 drops, mull Vivid Nightmare and Mind Blast, consider keeping board clears and removal spells against board-oriented decks, and consider keeping Prophet Velen and Lesser Diamond Spellstone against slower decks.

 

Tips and Tricks

 

1. One of the easiest ways to lose with this deck is to play your Prophet Velen into an effect which prevents it from dying. Against decks which might be running Polymorph, Hex, Mind Control, or Tinkmaster Overspark, hold on to your Velen until you can safely play him and Shadow Word: Death on the same turn. Smart opponents will hold onto these cards for as long as possible, but that isn't exactly a winning fight for them if you can find a Shadow Word: Death. Dumb opponents will play their Doomsayers to keep their hand size low, which is a free invitation to add Velen to your death pool or to draw cards with Twilight's Call.
2. Try not to overreact in the early game with Spirit Lash. In many matchups, you'll need at least one massive burst of healing from Spirit Lash + Velen or Spirit Lash + Bloodmage Thalnos to get out of burst damage range. In these matchups it's best to not play your second Spirit Lash (and sometimes your first) unless its a true life or death situation. Spiteful Summoner decks and Carnivorous Cube decks stand out as matchups where you'll likely need to use Spirit Lash as a mini Reno Jackson.
3. Vivid Velen is capable of clearing board after board against most decks, but it can't sit back and clear boards all day against token style decks which have pack boards than we have board wipes. Eventually, these decks will run us out of resources and we'll never get the opportunity to play a Velen without dying. In these matchups (Dude Paladins, Hand/Token Druids), try to play Velen at the first viable opportunity, as you may never get a second opportunity to do so.
4. With thoughtful play, you should rarely lose because your Diamond Spellstone wasn't upgraded enough. I punted one game away game because I didn't Shadow Word: Death my opponent's Alexstrasza before Psychic Screaming away the rest of his board. I ended up one spell short on the following turn of a fully upgraded Spellstone and missed on Velen when I cast Diamond Spellstone for 3. Situations such as this one can often be prevented by playing spells like Holy Nova or Twilight's Call for no value whenever the extra Mana presents itself, especially against control decks. Vivid Velen often struggles to keep its hand size low, and it is frequently correct to play spells for little or no value to free up space for future draws.
5. You can cheat a bit on upgrading your Spellstone if you don't play a Bloodmage Thalnos or a Loot Hoarder. You may also need to do this if one of your non-Velen gets Polymorph or Hexed, as the beast will be added to your dead minion pool for Spellstone.
6. You need to cycle through quite a few card to assemble your combo, so don't be afraid to play Power Word: Shield on your opponent's minions or to play Mass Dispel into an empty board. This is especially true if you already have a Spellstone in hand.
7. If you're in a pinch, Spellstone into Spirit Lash can be used as an emergency button to go back to full health and clear the board, even if it doesn't set up an OTK. This sucks if you have to build up a second Spellstone to OTK again, but at least you'll live to fight another day and can try to kill with Shadowreaper Anduin as a backup plan.
8. It feels like a majority of my games come down to whether or not I choose the correct card off Shadow Visions. I've roped many times on Shadow Visions decisions in the early game, because you get these super difficult choices between card draw, board clears, and combo pieces in a time where it's difficult to say what you'll need most. Though I won't say you should never play Shadow Visions in the early game, I will say that the longer the game goes on, the easier it is to make correct Shadow Visions choices. Unless you're in dire need of a specific board clear to stay alive or a specific combo piece to end the game, it might be smarter to hold onto your Shadow Visions until such a situation arises.
9. I haven't talked at all about Shadow Essence, partly because I have mixed feelings on the card. It seems to have won me about as many games as it has lost me, though its hard say for certain. The card is excellent when you can't find that missing Velen or Radiant Elemental buried at the bottom of your deck, and it's a really strong play on turn 5 off The Coin or a Radiant Elemental which survived the early game. However, Shadow Essence has a nasty tendency to sit around in my hand and be totally useless when I'm behind on board. If I were to make any changes to this deck, I might consider cutting the Shadow Essence for a Holy Smite. 
10. One tough decision which comes up very is often is whether or not you should use a Vivid Nightmare to copy one of the Deathrattle minions, especially to set up a stronger Twilight's Call. Though this is the correct play on occasion, I'd suspect that this is the incorrect line more often than not. Sure, the Vivid Nightmare will typically generate you 2 extra in these situations, but expending a Vivid Nightmare as a card draw tool also means that you'll likely need to draw one more Mind Blast/Radiant Elemental than you would have had to draw previously. It's difficult to say when the extra card draw is better and when the extra combo piece is better, so you'll need to make that judgement call on a case by case basis. Generally speaking, I'd be more inclined to use my Vivid Nightmares on Deathrattle minions if I had a healthy number of total Mind Blast/Radiant Elemental/Vivid Nightmares in hand and needed to dig for Prophet Velen, and would be less inclined to use Vivid Nightmare on Deathrattle minions if I already had Prophet Velen in hand.

 

Combo Priest in The Year of the Raven

 

Priest rotated more playable cards than any other class when The Year of the Raven began. They lost Drakonid Operative, Dragonfire Potion, Kabal Talonpriest, Potion of Madness, Priest of the Feast, Pint-Size Potion, and Shadow Word: Horror to name a few, in addition to a number of key Neutral minions which were the backbone of the Dragon Priest and Big Priest archetypes.

Despite these losses, Combo Priests were left largely unscathed by the set rotation. Divine Spirit/Inner Fire decks lost Potion of Madness and Kabal Talonpriest, but the numerous combo cards which were added during The Year of the Mammoth are here to stay. Journey to Un'Goro brought Radiant Elemental, Shadow Visions, and Lyra the Sunshard, Knights of the Frozen Throne added Eternal Servitude and Shadow Essence, and Shadowreaper Anduin, and Kobolds & Catacombs tacked on Lesser Diamond Spellstone and Twilight's Call. This puts Combo Priests (as nebulous a term as that is) in a great position to start The Year of the Raven. Combo Priest have already picked up Vivid Nightmare from The Witchwood, and will almost certainly pick up additional tools in future expansions.

The Twilight's Call/Diamond Spellstone synergy at the heart of Vivid Velen still has plenty of room for innovation and new decks. Any number of potential OTKS could slot into the Vivid Velen shell in place of Radiant Elemental, Prophet Velen, and Mind Blast. Perhaps a better deck builder than myself will be able to find a new OTK with Twilight's Call/Diamond Spellstone? We're less than a week from the release of The Witchwood, and there is still plenty of time to test new decks on the ladder before the meta fully settles in.

For now, Vivid Velen certainly seems to be a like strong choice for the current meta. It's extremely difficult to play it optimally, but that's true for all the best combo decks. It's a fun, it's challenging, and it has positive matchups against the three most popular classes in the game. What more could you ask for?

[Caldyrvan 377]

It seems I found an issue here, I can't hit the "like" button twice.

This is amazing, not just because of the deck and the work you've put in to make this post with very clear and thorough explanations, but also because I was toying around with something similar including Vivid Nightmare and Twilight's Call but using Clockwork Automaton and Malygos.

This deck looks so damn close to the one I created (only a handful of cards are different) but this one is obviously better designed.

What I like the most about your post is the tips about mistakes. Even though I did not pay as much attention to it as I should have I noticed myself that Shadow Visions isn't as great in the early game as it is later. Thanks for making this part very clear for me :)

Edited April 18, 2018 by Caldyrvan

[dukepuccini 1]

the deck's great and really fun! so far it's kind of an obscure OTK deck so most people are not expecting the horror about to hit them lol. thanks for the awesome and detailed guide!

[Synesthesy 114]

First, thank you for the guide, and congratulations for the idea!

Do you think that this deck could work in wild too (with appropriate changes)?

[TheSerafan 0]

I may not have understood something basic, but I have now played four games and clearly lost them all. 

I really like these kinds of decks and I'm certainly not a good player, but I'm a little disappointed now or did I just never have the right cards in my hand?

Here are the four replays, maybe someone will take a look at them.

https://hsreplay.net/replay/QEEXDLgWczv8daKvazCYLi

https://hsreplay.net/replay/PXGTVTTxAFCwGyan3qMCek

https://hsreplay.net/replay/L9Qkc4MBpUbiHQWzzXtqWf

https://hsreplay.net/replay/KsHUvCaau7VfDp3xrXqkPa

[asdsafasdfadsvsdf 2]

8 hours ago, TheSerafan said:

I may not have understood something basic, but I have now played four games and clearly lost them all. 

I really like these kinds of decks and I'm certainly not a good player, but I'm a little disappointed now or did I just never have the right cards in my hand?

Here are the four replays, maybe someone will take a look at them.

 

Game 1: Play your Radiant Elemental on curve.  That way he can soak some damage and contest the board rather than sitting in your hand until it's so late that the mage is ignoring him in order to go face.

Game 2: So you had a rough draw here, but you did yourself no favours playing either.  Again, play the Elemental on curve. Yes it will die, but it's contesting the board and it's taking damage rather than you. Also, you played your spirit lash too early. 2 mana and a card to kill nothing and heal for three is not good value. I think you were trying to set up for possibly top-decking holy nova, but Thalnos is a better card to dream about, so hope for him instead.

Game 3: Do not keep a diamond spellstone against Paladin. You've got a million spells in the deck, and need to get very very unlucky to draw spellstone late enough to really screw you. Maybe keep that PW:S you threw away, but definitely don't keep the Spellstone.  You keep Spellstone against Shaman or Priest, against Paladin you need minions and board clears. Also play your Radiant Elemental when you draw it. It was probably to late to matter, but it can't help you if it's sitting in your hand.

Game 4: Don't keep a Diamond Spellstone against Rogue.  Like, if you've got a Radiant  and PW:S and the coin and Thalnos, then maybe you keep the Spellstone, but otherwise you need to go digging for stuff that will help you not die.  Also, do not coin out Thalnos. A hypothetical Thalnos + Spirit Lash is really strong here, don't throw it away. Finally, on turn 2 you played Loot Hoarder (which the rogue could kill with their weapon) instead of Radiant Elemental (which the rogue couldn't). If you'd played Radiant, you would have been able to clear their board on 3. Instead, the Deckhand went on to deal 8 more damage and you had to play Mass Dispell on 4 rather than say, healing for 2 and playing a Loot Hoarder.  Playing Loot Hoarder instead of Radiant cost you 10 damage.  And when the Rogue played all their cards you were only at -5.

Overall you had some rough luck with the draws, this deck struggles when it doesn't get it's deathrattle minions early, but you need to be less greedy on the mulligan. The Diamond Spellstone isn't going to win you the game if you don't live long enough to use it. And play your Radiant Elementals. They are the best statted minions you have. Treat them like it.

 

Edited April 19, 2018 by asdsafasdfadsvsdf

[zendrin 9]

Great deck and a great guide. I have only played 4 matches, but man its a fun deck to play. Just thinking about my opponents face when i do 40 hp of dmg in a turn makes me giggle. 

[TheSerafan 0]

13 hours ago, asdsafasdfadsvsdf said:

Overall you had some rough luck with the draws, this deck struggles when it doesn't get it's deathrattle minions early, but you need to be less greedy on the mulligan. The Diamond Spellstone isn't going to win you the game if you don't live long enough to use it. And play your Radiant Elementals. They are the best statted minions you have. Treat them like it.

 

Thank you for your advice. I'll check the replays again. As I said, I like such decks a lot, but somehow I really felt "destroyed". But apparently there are still some things to improve, which I simply did not recognize.

[Caldyrvan 377]

I think Aleco is a really good player but he must also been damn lucky with card draw in his favor. The deck has a good chance of drawing bad and that very often. And that sucks especially when your opponent plays straight on curve.while still managing their resources well and not committing too much to the board.

Even though I like the deck, the games go on too long. After a few games, even with wins it feels like I wasted my time just to get the 2 seconds of glory during the OTK :D

[Seksi 208]

On 4/18/2018 at 7:30 AM, Aleco said:

You can watch the whole game right here. It was played against Sonecarox (whose name I recognized from the Coffin Crasher card reveal) while he was streaming, so I was able to find the VOD on Twitch after the game was over. If anyone reading this speaks Brazilian, I'd love to hear what he had to say about the game!

Brazillian doesn't exist, he speaks Portuguese :) luckily I can help with that!

He's mostly talking Summoner Wars early on (game on window in bottom left) and only starts actually talking about the game when he topdecks Aluneth just in time to stay in the game and cheers for that moment!

Then he comments when shit happens for Aleco: "Geez he just burned Prophet Velen!" and a bit later "This is going to be a good day!".

Shortly afterwards you turn the game with that huge spirit lash: "Damn he just gained a ton of life, WOW". And "Can't believe" just before he concedes. He actually swears at you after haha :D then moves on to next game and that's all folks, GG!

Edited April 19, 2018 by Seksi

[enviousmtg 21]

Played 10 matches with this deck today, really enjoyed it. Went 7-3 at rank 5 and still learning. Two of the games that I lost, I couldn't quite stabilize against aggro, but there were other games against aggro where it felt like it was just impossible to lose, I think on the whole the MU is good. One game I bricked pretty hard. I'm not sure if I was particularly lucky, but the deck didn't feel like it drew badly - to me it felt like it had plenty of ways to dig and stall. 

If someone's having problems with the deck I would suggest reading through Aleco's post again and try to keep in your head the matchups and mulligan advice. I would have gone 3-7 instead of 7-3 if I hadn't paid attention to the mulligan decisions. 

The advice relating to Shadow Visions was particularly good. From playing Raza priest I was somewhat comfortable with not playing Visions on 2, but this deck really seems to want to hold it. I was often casting it with ~7 cards left in deck for extra mind blasts or Vivid Nightmares. As someone who was used to playing Raza OTK decks and not Inner Fire decks, it wasn't intuitive for me to run out Radiant Elemental on curve either, but for this deck it's a plus if it dies (although in most of my games I held the second copy once I drew it for the combo turn). 

Anyways, I'm not a stellar player and my sample size was small, but those were my initial observations. Oh, and it feels really bad to play Holy Nova in 2018 but in a world of Paladins it seems like a necessary evil. 

Another bonus was that I only had to craft the Visions, since I already had everything else from playing every broken priest archetype from the past 3 or so metas. 

[Whisla 76]

I really like the concept of this deck, but i feel it really struggles against the card draw. like if you dont get valen until the end the whole thing falls apart. When it works, it feels great, but when it doesnt you can feel helpless. Went a few games where I didnt draw a single minion by turn 6 which just left me sol against the ramp.

[Caldyrvan 377]

It's certainly a challenging deck and important things to point out (imo) are:

• Be patient
• Don't over react
• Get used to a board state that looks bad for you
  • and be patient
  • and don't over react :D
• Don't play this deck when you are in a hurry/short on time.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Caldyrvan

[Bozonik 94]

On 18/04/2018 at 9:44 PM, TheSerafan said:

I may not have understood something basic, but I have now played four games and clearly lost them all. 

Combo decks take a while to get the hang of. I’ve played a lot of wild combo malygos druid in the last few months. The first few days I played it I was losing like crazy, and even after a couple of weeks I was still seeing situations where I would or might have won had I made a different choice (or not roped). But that’s the beauty of a good deck imo, if most of the games you’re losing are down to your mistakes, once you eliminate those mistakes you’re going to be doing great. And, whilst I dare say I still make some mistakes, they’re much rarer and I’ve climbed very near the top of Legend with it on a few occasions.

I thought I’d give Vivid Velen a go this afternoon.... I’m currently 1-9 with it hehe. A lot of that stat line was down to me making mistakes - after a while you know the combo calculations by heart whereas right now I’m often spending most of my turn on key decisions doing sums rather than strategy. Does seem a bit vulnerable to aggro/tempo though.

[datstrong 0]

On 4/19/2018 at 11:52 PM, Whisla said:

I really like the concept of this deck, but i feel it really struggles against the card draw. like if you dont get valen until the end the whole thing falls apart. When it works, it feels great, but when it doesnt you can feel helpless. Went a few games where I didnt draw a single minion by turn 6 which just left me sol against the ramp.

pretty much this.  If velen bottom of deck whole thing falls apart

[Bozonik 94]

Well, Aleco made it pretty high Legend with it so clearly it can work, but I’m still struggling with it too. The only matchup (that I’m encountering) that I’m confident in really is paladins. I can’t replicate Aleco’s results against druid at all, think I’ve lost every game. It seems very hard to ever get the velen down because they can just keep pressuring you, and at a pinch when you do armour up like crazy and hope you can’t get enough damage.

[FenryrMKIII 0]

On my side, I don’t draw the necessary pieces most of the time. I am turn 10 with missing velen or another piece.

[Bozonik 94]

I gave up hehe, never stopped the carnage.

Doing much better with this control/dragon priest with Alexstrazsa/mind blast/DK as a finishing option. https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1095576-theos-1-legend-mind-blast-priest-guide (I swapped out ooze for chameleos to try him out, and dispel for Geist to help with the warlocks and wreck the hadronoxes).

[Caldyrvan 377]

Same here, even though I had a few very nice moments with this deck, they have been too few.

I really tried to fully concentrate on the games, think hard about my mulligans and every turn before I chose what I do but my win rate got worse and worse. Maybe I am just too dumb to play it correctly, who knows, but the time it consumes in comparison to the rewards is too low. Too point out reasons I lost, and I see nothing I could do about that by "playing better":

• Simply couldn't manage to get the combo pieces.
• Got the combo but no (not enough) removal to stay alive.
• Got my deathrattle minions but no Twilight's Call or the other way around, or had to play a Call for just one deathrattle to be returned which feels really awkward.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Caldyrvan

[Whisla 76]

Ill do a follow up now that iv played maybe 50+ games with this deck.

 

Being patient is an understatement. Where this deck shines is when you know how close your enemy is to killing you then just stopping it. You have got to keep yourself from burning cards bc your hand size gets too big but the deck itself has a lot of ways to get your combo without actually drawing all the cards.

I learned that unless you really have to get something else out, Shadow reaper is almost always the right play. It will drastically increase you board clear and could even put you in kill range without needing the full combo.

i still really like it, but its really easy to lose against an aggro deck if you dont get a semi decent draw.

[abcPIPPO 0]

I tried this deck for weeks now and unfortunately I can assure it's plainly unplayable. Maybe the meta shifted, but it has almost 0% winrate against more than 90% of the decks out there and it's still pretty hard against the decks it's supposed to counter.

Odd paladins have just disappeared form the meta and even paladin is an insta concede, I'm seeing less and less warlocks, warriors and druids. Right now big spell mage is the only comfortable matchup. The meta has become way too much aggressive for a deck with only 4 minions and that 4 games out of 5 requires you to draw at least 27 cards to win.

It's very very fun to use, but it just can't be played in ranked. I can bet that next season even OP won't make it to legend with this deck only.

[SirSlapzAlot 28]

So I've been playing it almost none stop now and I really at a stale mate lol.

Paladins, warlock and shamans are no problem at all, priests and druids usually turn out pretty great too.

I think the most problems I have is witch aggro secret mage, odd hunter and odd rogue.

To summarise:

slow decks, low health minion decks = easy

aggro spell decks = rough