Hello, Coldhands and I have played more of this deck than is healthy and we feel we can contribute to the discussion about it.
Intro
The Divine Spirit/Inner Fire combo is as old as the game itself, but has only risen to competitive prominence with the printing of Shadow Visions and Radiant Elemental. The added flexibility, along with the raw power of the dragon package make it, in my opinion, the best deck in the game right now.
It was a strong option before the nerfs, being one of the few natural counters to Highlander Priest but Bonemare and Corridor Creeper often proved troublesome to deal with. In the current, post-nerf meta, the bad matchups are few, and rarely do games feel unwinnable. Combo Priest is insanely consistent, albeit somewhat hard to play. It's very reminiscent of how Patron Warrior used to feel. You aren't unhappy to see any given class.
The deck is flexible, and doesn't always win the same way. I feel this is important to mention, even if it may seem "obvious". A common mistake is playing Shadow Visions early like in Highlander or Big Priest, but it can be difficult to identify which combo pieces you'll need later on. People who haven't played Combo Pirest before often either play it as too much of a midrange deck, tossing their minions out very liberally, or as too much of a combo deck, saving cards turn after turn in order to Twilight Acolyte, Potion of Madness etc. to kill their opponent. Some games you make an 8/8 beater and kill them with it; some games you win through minions like Drakonid Operative pressuring your opponent; some games you Twilight Acolyte to steal their guy to kill them with it; some games you steal Voidlords and Operative their Gul'Dan and Rin and then Fatigue them. It's a versatile deck.
This is the list I believe to be the best right now. I've been tinkering with cutting Mass Dispel for a 2nd Twilight Drake but it's not necessary.
Deck code: AAECAa0GAo0I1goO+ALlBNEK8gyqsgKCtQK1uwK6uwLwuwLRwQLYwQLKwwLL5gL86gIA
Card discussion
This + 2 bad dragons = core
Twilight Drake - used to be the default bad dragon due to being good against Highlander Priest but has fallen out of favor recently. Still fine in general, especially against slow Warlocks.
Book Wyrm - the more popular of the bad dragons currently. It's good in the mirror and vs other types of Priest. The more people play Book Wyrm the better it gets, since you get to Book Wyrm other people's Book Wyrms.
Shadow Ascendant - it's been getting more popular recently, with a fair number of pro players putting it in their decks, but whenever I've tried it it's felt underwhelming and I honestly can't even tell which matchups it's particularly good in. Wouldn't recommend.
Tar Creeper - a natural fit for the deck. It has high health, so you can make a big guy out of it reasonably often, and it's good at defending your other minions which can be pretty fragile. It's also good in the mirror, as it doesn't die to Duskbreaker, and cannot be stolen with Twilight Acolyte + Potion of Madness.
Mass Dispel - the more expensive of the silence options but better against late game Voidlord boards. I've recently tried running neither silence card in my deck and it felt fine, as I was mostly seeing Priests at Legend, but I'd probably recommend having at least one of them in your deck for general laddering.
Silence - the more versatile of the silence options but weaker against Warlock, the matchup we're running silence for in the first place.
Crazed Alchemist - an anti Geist tech. It feels good to have an out in every situation, but the deck is more consistent without Alchemist in it. I would only run it if I kept running into Geists, otherwise it's not worth it, since it doesn't happen often enough to justify having a "bad" card in your deck.
Lyra - an alternative way to win the game. A lot of people like it, but I don't. I don't think it's good enough of a Plan B to dilute your Plan A for, since the deck already runs a pretty small number of minions. When I did have it in the deck I didn't find it winning games often enough to justify having it over another midrange minion I can kill people with. It's good vs Priest but is getting worse as more people play Book Wyrm.
Circle of Healing - a decent option, run in combination with Wild Pyromancer. The issue is that Wild Pyro is an anti aggro card you don't want to keep against aggro, since duskbreaker is so much better, so we don't really want to run it. Additionally, we save our spells to combo with fairly often, so we don't really want to be tossing out much more than a PW:S. Circle is decent on its own but often not good enough. It's not dissimilar to Slam in Warrior. It's never explicitly bad, or awkward. There are simply better cards to run.
Wild Pyromancer - covered above.
Unidentified Elixir - a cool card, for sure, if somewhat inconsistent. The issue I found with it is that it dilutes the Shadow Visions pool, which can be game losing at times. It's fun for a while but I wouldn't recommend it.
Curious Glimmerroot - decent, but it dies to Duskbreaker, Hellfire etc. and its health is often too low to combo elegantly with, as it costs 3. The card you get from it is often mostly useless, too.
Stormwind Knight - used to be okay, since it was good against Highlander Priest, but it's not really needed anymore. Not having it in your deck makes the Kingsbane Rogue matchup painful to play, but what can you do.
Scalebane - a decent dragon, but it interferes with our Operative turn and is usually worse than Twilight Drake and Book Wyrm.
Primordial Drake - expensive and slow, this card doesn't belong in Combo Priest.
Ysera - more expensive and slower, this card doesn't belong in Combo Priest.
Matchup and mulligan discussion
Warlock:
Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, Radiant. Talonpriest and Shield if you already have a minion to play, any Dragon if you need an Activator. Going 2nd, you can consider keeping Inner Fire if you already have an early curve. Never keep Visions.
Usual gameplan - pressure
Go face whenever you can, unless you're enabling a Defile clear, or to protect one of your higher value minions. Most warlock games end in the first 6 or 7 turns, where you make a big guy and punch them a few times and they die. If you suspect they might be running Geist, it's often a good idea to buff a guy on turn 5, even if it's slightly smaller than you maybe would have liked. If the pressure plan doesn't seem like it's going to work out, you simply hope that he doesn't have Geist and wait to steal his Voidlord and kill him with it. Cubelocks won't be running Geist, so you can reliably save the Twilight Acolyte + Potion of Madness combo for Voidlords.
Priest:
At lower ranks, assume Spiteful, at higher ranks, assume Combo or Control
Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, Radiant. Talonpriest and Shield if you already have a minion to play. Duskbreaker is a fine keep, but it's slightly better going first than second. Usually you both make some semi-threatening x/3s, then he plays coin Dusk, then you play Dusk, then he plays Twilight Drake and we're very sad, but people don't really play Drake anymore so it's better now than it used to be. Nice keep either way. Drak Op is a decent keep with an early curve, too. If you have reason to believe it's spiteful priest, Twilight Acolyte could be a consideration.
Usual gameplan - pressure or OTK combo
Vs Spiteful Priest - we want to do as much damage as we can early, as our early game is better than his, but we also don't want to play into Duskbreaker too much. It's a fine line, and it can occasionally be difficult to identify whether you should be going face or not. Going in on 1 guy early on can be bad, as they run Twilight Acolyte and occasionally some form of silence, and later on in the game they could Mind Control it away and you're very sad. I've found that a lot of times I'll deal some damage to them early, then they'll summon a big guy from Spiteful Summoner and I'll steal it and kill them with it. Not an ideal matchup, for sure. Vs Combo Priest - this matchup can be an intricate dance of playing big-but-not-too-big minions and Tar Creepers so that neither of you can steal a guy and combo each other out, but it often devolves into "who can play more Operatives". Pressure is key here, as our deck (and by extension, theirs) thrives on time. Having time to draw all the combo pieces and just kill you is what they'll try to do, so don't let them. Remember not to leave high health guys up on either side of the board if you can help it, you're only making it easier for him to combo you out. Don't buff a guy if you aren't killing him with it unless absolutely necessary.
Vs Control Priest - the matchup is similar to Combo Priest except he can't steal your guy and combo you with it so you don't have to be scared of that. Don't overcommit into board clears (since literally all of our minions die to Pint Size + Horror), don't make a single big guy unless necessary since they can Acolyte + Cabal it. All of our minions are very scary, so you can usually take it somewhat slow, go face a bunch and let him trade into your guys.
Paladin:
Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, Radiant. Talonpriest and Shield if you already have a minion to play. Tar Creeper can be decent, especially going 2nd. Always keep Duskbreaker. Potion of Madness can be a consideration with Dusk or Radiant in hand. You should mulligan a bit more aggressively in this matchup, to give yourself more chances to draw Dusk.
Usual gameplan - board control
The plan doesn't change very much vs Murloc and Dude pally. You try to control the board as best you can until you stabilise, at which point you still clear fairly aggressively (to play around Tarim or Megasaur or Lightfused Stegodon) but can be fairly liberal with your cards and combo pieces in order to make your minions stick and play around divine favor. I like making a big minion and being more aggressive against dude pally specifically because winning on board against their refill can be very difficult. Be as greedy with Duskbreaker as you can. If you have the read that he doesn't have, say, Coldlight Seer, you can probably hold it for an extra turn. Of course, if him having Megasaur or Seer is an instant loss, you still play it but in situations where he has a card on turn 4 he held in the mulligan, you can pretty safely assume it's Call to Arms and then you hold the Duskbreaker. Murloc Pally is around 50/50, since they don't really have significant reload, Dude Pally is the worst matchup in the meta (aside from Control Mage which nobody is playing) since they flood the board over and over and we can only play so many Duskbreakers.
Mage:
Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, Radiant. Talonpriest and Shield if you already have a minion to play. Tar Creeper can be decent, especially going 2nd. Always keep Duskbreaker. Keeping a dragon to active a Historian can be a consideration, but usually you don't do that. I don't keep Potion of Madness because the targets aren't great.
Usual gameplan - board control
This is a good matchup for us. All of their early game dies to Duskbreaker. Our 5 drops match up well against Crystal Runners, and we can Twilight Acolyte them if we need to. If he doesn't have Aluneth on 6, we usually win. If he does, we can still control the board and try to go face enough that he dies to fatigue damage from his own weapon. Stealing a Block with Operative is usually a win. Playing around secrets can be a pain, but we usually have something to proc Counterspell, which is nice. Unfortunately, Runes proves to be troublesome to deal with, as it kills every single minion in our deck. I try to play 2 creatures on the Runes turn, to maintain some semblance of board position but it doesn't always work out too well. Remember, battlecries trigger before Runes does, so Talonpriest will still buff a guy, Operative will still steal a card etc. This makes duskbreaker another good option into explosive runes.
Hunter:
Assume Spell Hunter
Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, Radiant. Talonpriest and Shield if you already have a minion to play. Always keep Duskbreaker, and 1 Twilight Acolyte. The ways we lose to them are not being able to deal with Spellstone and Barnes on 4. Duskbreaker deals with one, Acolyte deals with the other. Usual gameplan - pressure and a big combo
Don't attack into Wandering Monster, nobody's forcing you to, however juicy it may seem. I also find that you can proc Cat Trick on a duskbreaker turn so they don't keep the minion. Don't go all in on one guy without it being lethal damage, as they run Hunter's Mark in their deck. Prioritise other dragons over Drakonid Operative as most of the cards in their deck are cards we don't want to play. They don't play too many minions so we don't really want board control tools (we already have Dusk); we don't have spellstones so secrets are kinda crap most of the time. Bow can be nice for racing, though.
Rogue:
Assume Kingsbane
Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, occasionally radiant. Talonpriest with a minion.
Usual gameplan - early blowout or late game combo.
This isn't a very good matchup. They have Vanish and Sap, which generally match up really well against what we're trying to do. I've found the games usually go 1 of 4 ways.
*We blow them out early and win on the spot. This is great because we win.
*They have the nuts and we lose immediately because we can't stick a guy to the board and die very quickly.
*We identify that the early blowout plan probably won't work but still try to win through minion pressure. I've literally never had this work.
*The combo plan. Their minions' health caps out at 4, but if we hold our Power Word: Shields instead of playing them, we can steal his guy and kill them with it. Don't use it to cycle liberally. Hold it, and try to kill them with their own guy. Either that or copying extra Divine Spirits from your deck with Visions, but I've found holding Shield works better. 4 health guy with 2 shields, 2 spirits, inner fire is 32 damage. Talonpriest and shield instead of 2 shields is 36. 3 divine spirits is 32. You can also sometimes kill them with a doomsayer but this doesn't happen very often.
Druid:
Assume Jade
Mulligan - Mulligan - keep Cleric, Historian, Radiant. Talonpriest and Shield if you already have a minion to play. Operative can be a fine keep. Inner fire is a strong consideration and almost always a keep with early minions.
Usual gameplan - pressure
Druids are notoriously bad at dealing with big minions, and our deck has an ability to make big minions very early on. You usually make an 8/8 or 10/10 beater in the first few turns and just punch them in the face a few times. If that doesn't work, the Operatives generally kill them. Rarely do games go long, but when they do it usually ends with you sticking a minion and Mass Dispelling a board of plague tokens.
Thanks for reading. I encourage you all to post replays and tough turns here or in the CompHS discord for further discussion. Good luck on ladder.
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