Prophet Velen

Hi,

(I’m Blindbulls, i’ve been playing Hearthstone since the Pandaria season now (no idea when that was at this time in the morning), and was languishing around rank 10/9 last rank, playing mainly control paladin since i was luck enough to unwrap my golden Tirion.)

Since the ladder reset i’ve been playing a midrange/control Priest deck, loosely based on what Kolento played in the Blizzcon Qualifiers, with a few changes: i swapped out the Cairne and Sylvanas (i don’t own them) for a Velen and a Mindblast. The deck doesn’t play anything bigger than that other than a Mind Control, and i don’t have any big neutral legendaries aside from Kel’Thuzad, which is meh in priest.

I never really intended for the deck to be extremely viable, but i really love Velen as a card.
However, the deck is working quite well to my surprise, and i was wondering if the Meta-shift towards slower, taunt heavier decks might have made Velen a much stronger Priest finisher.
It seems especially good against handlock, and Giants Mage (provided there is no Iceblock), as they tend to rely on taunted giants to mitigate their weak life totals in the late game.

Against Aggro/faster decks, it doesn’t really matter that much which finisher you run. The only risk is the mind blast getting stuck in your hand early, but honestly the same thing can happen with Rag and Ysera, and everyone plays them as well.

I believe the main reason for not playing Velen was the inconsistency issues of Priest in general Pre-Naxx, but priest has gained some cards to stabilize easily against aggro decks (Deathlord, Dark Cultist, Sludge Belcher), and put more pressure on Control decks (mainly Dark Cultist). This alleviates the combo dependancy of most Priest decks, and makes the early game more consistent, making the chances you’ll live to surprise your opponent with 10 damage to the noggin’ on turn 9 much larger, and if you’re the aggressor, you might have been able to pull off enough damage to finish that pesky Handlock by the same turn 9.

I’d really like to know the experience of more experienced players with Velen in a metagame like this, because i think he is underrated right now as an alternative finisher to Ragnaros.

TL;DR: I think velen is good now to surprise kill slow decks like handlock, instead of Rag/Ysera. Discuss.