3 priests?!?

Discussion in 'Deck Building' started by Sir Kookus, May 29, 2018.

?

Have you created a succesfull three priest team?

Poll closed Dec 15, 2018.
  1. yes

    9 vote(s)
    56.3%
  2. no

    7 vote(s)
    43.8%
  1. Sir Kookus

    Sir Kookus Mushroom Warrior

    I have tried a lot to get three priests to work, but none of them have really done that great. If you have any advice for how to build a three priest team or how to play a three priest team please comment. Also please post your 3 priest builds espiecally if they did well. I am working on a three priest team that I will post soon.
     
  2. Scarponi

    Scarponi Moderator

    One of the best teams I ever made was a 3 priest team (though it got nerfed when Savage Curse was reduced), and have certainly had some other good ones as well.
     
  3. Pyrious

    Pyrious Hydra

    3 priest teams are my thing. Keep in mind that priests, in their natural state, are more limited in movement and damage than warriors, so you need to stuff some extra attack and movement cards somewhere. I usually designate one priest as a support priest and two priests as aggro priests. The support priest doesn't have to make room for extra movement and damage, but the aggro priests should have movement, damage, and most importantly, parries! Priests have lower HP than warriors, but they take on the same close-quarters fighting risk.
     
  4. Sir Kookus

    Sir Kookus Mushroom Warrior

    Thanks for the comments. One of my priests is a support priest and the other two are aggro, but I have some trouble getting my dwarf aggro into the battle. I have made some modifications and ill see how it does next time. What do you guys think are the best items for a three priest team?
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2018
  5. Happenstance

    Happenstance Thaumaturge

    Have you tried three humans with vanguard? Subtle positioning is arguably the best tokenless skill in the game, but of course it doesn't synergise as well as having it on wars packed with step moves.
     
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  6. Sir Veza

    Sir Veza Farming Deity

    Yes, but not in PvP. I ran the entire campaign (pre-AotA) with a 3 dwarf priest team just to see if I could. Kinda slow, though.
    Subterranean Ferocity is another interesting tokenless skill I exploit daily in the campaign. It might prove useful in PvP, but I doubt I'll test it there.
    <sigh> There is just something about slaughter priests that feels so right, and twisted, at the same time. :D
     
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  7. Pyrious

    Pyrious Hydra

    I don't know if it's just me, but my favorite item in the whole game is Dark Drewg's Mace. I completely recommend it as a secondary weapon for an aggro priest: it gives you four attacks that are worth holding on to (8 damage is worth holding on to in a triple priest team that has fewer and weaker attacks than teams with warriors, and usually you'll be buffing +2 or +4) and two Unholy Frenzy buffs (complementing the Mass Frenzy found on many popular priest items) for no power tokens. I have even found double Drewg to be a competitive strategy, giving you enough raw damage to be aggro while allowing you to allocate a power token to every other item slot.

    Another great item is Huetotl's Firebrand. Armor removal, range 2 damage, and some altruism folly from two Mass Frenzy buffs and Triple Heals with incredible potential value.

    Hawkwind's Moccasins is great for hidden movement.
     
  8. Sir Kookus

    Sir Kookus Mushroom Warrior

    I wish I had dark drewg's mace...
     
  9. Taudis

    Taudis Kobold

    Generic Cleric
    Level 22 Human Priest

    Creature Preacher
    Level 11 Elf Priest

    Beast Priest
    Level 22 Human Priest

    This took me from the 900s to 1400s (and then back down to 1300 as the meta shifted and I failed to adapt). The basic premise is to drop an Unholy Wellspring on a Talented Healer vampire, then Quick Run up to someone to cantrip kill them. You can also just play Delegate , that card is nuts. I got a few extra items on my way up the ranks, but it's also ultimately a fairly cheap build to set up. It obviously has a hard time with armor and block cards - it's a combo build that relies on either winning or severely crippling an opponent before they can draw answers or figure out what you're doing. I tried running it with a control wizard as well (basically Gusting Feystaff and Sensate's Ring) but found my vampire would die too often and then I'd be trying to fight off opposing warriors with Stab and Little Zap.

    The build is very effective against any build that relies heavily on a support character whether it's a priest or wizard, as it's fairly easy to focus down on them before they can react and then you can eke out VP points while waiting for another combo to form to take down one of their attacking characters. It's less effective, but still favored when your opponent relies heavily on a single attacking character - Unholy Wellspring makes dwarves look like elves. It definitely thrives when you can approach to within Quick Run distance while avoiding line of sight.


    The build pretty much auto-loses to Vengeance, as it both allows your prey to disengage and punishes you for running Nightling. If I recall correctly, I did manage to peak just above 1500 but I think I just had a lucky streak. Due to the abundance of Vengeance-based builds in the higher tiers this is solidly just a quick way to jump up through the low tiers (or play for fun if you like combo decks). You can beat Vengeance with Vampire's Kiss, though. If I had more copies, I'd run Vampire's Teeth in the place of the Nightsucker's Goblet on Beast Priest and test a copy on Creature Preacher in the place of Hand Of Melvelous. Hand Of Melvelous having more Range 2 attacks can be relevant and Creature Preacher's Elf health makes Loner into a real drawback sometimes, so it's not as much of a clear upgrade.

    It similarly has difficulty with any card that triggers on a hit. The EttSC armors give the vampires fits, but sometimes you can just cantrip your way past Martyr's Blessing and Elven Maneuvers.

    I did really like familiarizing myself with MP with this deck, since you can pretty much always pass and watch where opponents position themselves. You're trying to build a combo, so a finished round means you see more cards to build a combo with, and see more of their discard to figure out which character to target (I had one player tell me that they didn't play Volcano when I passed through like 4 rounds before either of us made a move). You get to see a lot of how different builds are played.

    ---

    I sometimes run the deck through SP, too. Nightsucker's Goblet and Vampire's Blade come up a lot when farming for low-level items, so it's pretty easy to set up tokenless vampires. I run it with Dwarfs instead for SP, as Delegate isn't available for most of the campaign and Dwarven Battle Cry does a good imitation.

    Leliana
    Level 20 Dwarf Priest

    Morgana
    Level 20 Dwarf Priest

    Generic Cleric
    Level 22 Human Priest

    Unholy Wellspring is kind of overkill in SP, and a Mass Frenzy'd Enervating Touch one shots a trog, so the Outcast's Relics become Shuddering Relics. Vollmond Boots and Subtle Positioning are very helpful for when you do have to chase something down. Vulnerable is also a very nice deck thinner in SP, since it isn't the auto-invitation to destroy your relatively non-mobile Priest that it is in MP.

    The first upgrades as you pick up tokens are generally Diamond Moccasins for the vampires and Focused Piety or Focused Positioning for the Generic Cleric. Moccasins help you get behind armored trogs and approach imps, and Generic Cleric loves a tiny deck. As more tokens become available, the Generic Cleric slowly switches her weapons to St. Olf's Fiery Pike and as enemies get more health, she also switches back to Outcast's Relic. The vampires grab St. Forgue's Sword or Xipe's Maquah as the situation calls for. They'll eventually also get Manifold Healer back in their deck. I don't use Bynzer's Black Spear as much in SP, since you're less reliant on Talented Healer combos - they're pretty much just for killing opponents who might run. Up until you get major tokens, they'll often have leftovers, as they really don't need a lot.

    There isn't a single adventure in the 2-17 range that this team can't clear with relative ease (with the exception of the AI (hard) adventures). I haven't tried it for the higher level stuff, since those and the AI adventures require more specific builds. I did beat the CM stuff with 2 Warrior/1 Priest, which this build is similar to, so it might do OK. You'd probably have to overlevel so you could load up on Invigorating Touch and use the Generic Cleric for Impenetrable Nimbus cheese instead of buffs.
     
  10. Sir Kookus

    Sir Kookus Mushroom Warrior

    Thanks for sharing, I will try these builds soon. Thanks!!
     
  11. Dwarfilon

    Dwarfilon Kobold

    Pyrious, Dark Drewg’s Mace is not an effective weapon against the warriors of babistan without a substantial power up. You have to utilize the double XP power boost in order to truly use Dark Drewg’s Mace to its full potential. Thoughts?
     
  12. ma.xiping

    ma.xiping Kobold

    Have you heard of Sirius III?
     
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  13. Farbs

    Farbs Blue Manchu Staff Member

    In the early days of Card Hunter - I think during the Beta? - I successfully built a three priest infinite draw team. But yeah we figured we shouldn't allow that and new rules were introduced :)
     
  14. Sir Kookus

    Sir Kookus Mushroom Warrior

    Yes, Sirius III was the nimbus spammer in the 1600s. Usually beat him :).
     
  15. Sir Kookus

    Sir Kookus Mushroom Warrior

    So I have been thinking about some new teams to make and I just got deadly, deadly, staff. Some of my Ideas are a 2 priest- 1 wizard, 3 wizard or a 2 priest- 1 fighter. Any suggestions? (Black Void Death and Sasoo I am expecting answers)
     
  16. Sasoo8

    Sasoo8 Guild Leader

    Oh gosh, i took a 2 month break from CH back in July--- so I didn't really get a chance to reply and check forums until now. Sorry!

    I do have a three priest team that I used in the past few months to secure 20+ streaks and 1800+ Elo. If you're interested I can send that to you, but I don't want to make it public because it's unique and kind of broken on certain maps, and I would rather not have to play against my build.

    As for your other team compositions (if you want specific builds or want me to check your build/ give suggestions, again PM me):

    -------------------------------------
    (A) 2 Priest, 1 Warrior--- That's actually the composition I play the most, if the maps are melee friendly. There are many ways to make this work and I have several versions of this build
    The most important piece of the puzzle is finding the right balance of movement, defense, and damage for the warrior, AKA proper weapon choices. You want enough movement to catch wizards or to escape when things go south, enough defense for your one warrior to survive 2 or 3 warriors, and also enough damage to kill any tanky teams that rely on armor/ blocks to control victory points. For example, a combination like Howling pain, Double edged sword, and Stolen torch has high damage and movement, but is lacking a bit on the defense department (so putting a major token in cushioning armor or monster hides may help), whereas a combination like Snitrick's Last stand, Bejeweled short sword, and Eixocl's hammer has high damage, good defense, but lacks a bit in movement (so putting minor tokens in team movement and good boots may help, or put team moves on your priests).

    The other things to consider for the team are your two priests. There are also several archetypes here too:
    (1) 2 Supports--- This is debatable, but a good number to aim for is 3 blesses, 4 mass frenzies, 4 or more greater heals, and 4 or more martyrs, and the rest is gravy (extra frenzies, additional card draw, purges, delegate, etc)
    (2) 1 Support, 1 vampire--- Ideally, make sure the vampire has one or two swarm of bats so he can swoop in for an instant-wizard kill if you set it up correctly (or at least a healing dash, quick run, or flank move)
    (3) 2 Vampires -- this is the weakest archetype in my opinion, because vampires need to engage to be effective (so is weak to control). Also it's very easy to isolate and kill unsupported vampires one at a time.

    -------------------------------------
    (B) 2 Priests, 1 Wizard--- Dangerous if played correctly
    (1) The most common archetype is having one wizard with burst spells (searing pain, blue destruction, staff of million embers, etc), and the 2 priests being unholy wellspring, draw, and delegate focused. Throw in some defender blocks to block purges and you should be fine.

    (2) A less common archetype, but one that i find fun, is to stack control with deadly deadly staves onto the wizard, do a bunch of card draw, and arrange all your opponents into a line, then zap away. Of course, vengeance or sparkling cloth armor throws a wrench into that sort of a gimmicky build, but i'm sure you can shoehorn a few entangling roots into your build or something!

    -------------------------------------
    (C) 3 Wizards--- Somewhat common composition, but it really depends on item availability (legendary staffs, asmods, you name it). The problem with 3 wizards is that you need to include a certain number of illusory barriers in your builds (4 or 5 is good in a wizard-lite meta, and i've seen up to 14 in wizard heavy metas) so you don't die to other wizard teams who may be sacrificing control or punishes to pack higher damage into their builds, or bursty cold wizard teams that can out-range you.

    Good combinations are:
    (1) Fire, Electric/ Punish, and Control/ Armor removal
    Fire forces your enemy to rush you, or stack armor, which your control wizard can deal with. Fire also forces your enemy to delegate and martyr if those are available, so your punish wizard comes in handy here.

    (2) 3 Cold wizards
    The idea here is to stack 6 instant snowmen (epic-ly expensive), or to do something like 1 instant snowman + 1 staff of winter on each wizard, so you can keep the enemy team constantly encumbered, poke for blocks/ armor with cold snap, and then focus fire one enemy at a time at range 8 once you have a critical mass of cooling lasers. This is particularly devastating on wide open maps like Forest or Bridge.
    -------------------------------------

    And lastly, for three priest teams, probably the most common and effective way to play it is to have two card draw/ frenzy/ defender's block priest supporting one super-vampire. The super-vampire should ideally have a variety of movement options, such as quick run, healing dash, flank moves, swarm of bats, dodges, and energizing move.

    Another effective team type, if items are willing, is having one or two rad bomb priests, and a support priest who has unholy wellsprings and inquisitor strikes.

    Good luck!
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2018
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