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Surrender Priest deck list guide - Hearthstone (Rastakhan's Rumble)

A starter guide for playing the new archetype in Rastakhan's Rumble.

James Pickard avatar
Guide by James Pickard Contributor
Published on

Surrender Priest is a Hearthstone deck built around the new Priest spell from Rastakhan’s Rumble, Surrender to Madness. Although it looks like a mess of random cards, the concept of the deck is to fill your draw pile with one-cost minions using the effect from Spirit of the Dead, buff them using Surrender to Madness and then draw all of them using Bwonsamdi, the Dead. You’ll then have a barrage of buffed, one-mana minions you can unleash upon your opponent!

It sounds excellent in theory, although trying to execute that plan is another thing entirely, given how much set up is required and how much you need to sacrifice in order to reach the deck’s win-condition. By that point, there’s a strong chance your opponent will already have secured the win, or be well on their way to doing so.

Nevertheless, it’s a new potential deck archetype that’s emerged for Rastakhan’s Rumble, so we would be remiss if we didn’t cover it. Who knows, over the coming weeks we may even find further optimisations that make this deck somewhat more viable to play. For now, we’ve got a basic deck list to get you started, plus some tips and tricks if you’re bold enough to play it on launch.

UPDATE - RASTAKHAN'S RUMBLE LAUNCH

It’ll take a little while to update all of the deck guides on Metabomb, but here’s a updated Surrender Priest decklist for the Rastakhan launch window:

This launch version of the deck was created by Zetalot.

Surrender Priest deck list - Rastakhan’s Rumble launch

PriestNeutral
2 x Northshire Cleric2 x Argent Squire
2 x Power Word: Shield2 x Crystallizer
2 x Radiant Elemental2 x Glacial Shard
2 x Shadow Ascendant2 x Lightwarden
2 x Shadow Visions2 x Skaterbot
1 x Extra Arms2 x Stonetusk Boar
2 x Surrender to Madness2 x Loot Hoarder
1 x Mass Hysteria1 x Mojomaster Zihi
1 x Bwonsamdi, the Dead

Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.

Deck Import ID: AAECAa0GBOX3ApeHA6eHA8CPAw37AeUEiAX1BfIM9wyXwQLRwQLYwQLOzAKf9QL6/gLqiAMA

More great Priest guides:

The rest of this guide will be updated once we have a refined version of this archetype. For now, everything below this point refers to the previous version of the deck, but contains some useful info nevertheless.

Surrender Priest deck list and strategy

This is the Surrender Priest deck list we saw during the Rastakhan’s Rumble card reveal stream. It’s very likely it hasn’t been fully optimised yet, so we’ll be updating it as and when changes are made after the launch of the new set.

PriestNeutral
2 x Northshire Cleric 1 x Glacial Shard
2 x Power Word: Shield1 x Belligerent Gnome
2 x Spirit of the Dead2 x Acolyte of Pain
1 x Auchenai Phantasm1 x Drakkari Trickster
1 x Shadow Ascendant2 x Tar Creeper
2 x Surrender to Madness1 x Arena Fanatic
1 x Tortollan Shellraiser2 x Saronite Chain Gang
1 x Mass Hysteria2 x Dragonmaw Scorcher
1 x Bwonsamdi, the Dead1 x Mojomaster Zihi
1 x Psychic Scream2 x Rabble Bouncer
1 x Mosh'ogg Enforcer

Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.

Deck Import ID: AAECAa0GDJfBAgAAzswCAADcwQIAAADo0AIACfIM5QQA+wwAysMCm8sCAAAA

More great Priest guides:

Surrender Priest tips, combos and synergies

Here are some of the possible card combos that exist in this version of Surrender Priest. Keep these in mind when playing the deck and you’ll be sure to have greater success with it.

- Surrender to Madness destroys three of your mana crystals but gives every minion in your deck a +2/+2 bonus. You’ll want to use it as early in the game as possible in order to hit the most cards, or wait until after you’ve re-filled your deck with one-cost minions so you can play many of them on a single turn.

- When a friendly minion dies with Spirit of the Dead on the board, a one-cost copy of that creature will be shuffled back into your deck. For that reason, it’s best to save the Spirit and play it when you have a wide board of creatures you’re about to trade in. Playing it on an empty board risks it dying without having any impact.

- Auchenai Phantasm converts your healing sources into damage, but only for the turn in question. It doesn't persist, even if the minion stays alive for another turn.

- At the end of each turn, Shadow Ascendant will choose a friendly target at random and gift it an extra +1 / +1 of stats. She can't buff herself though, so you need another minion in play.

- Tortollan Shellraiser is another card that buffs a friendly minion, but only when the Shellraiser is eliminated by the opponent.

- Remember that Psychic Scream shuffles every minion on the board into the opponent's deck. Trade off anything you don't want them to potentially draw into from your deck!

- Whenever Acolyte of Pain takes even a single point of damage you'll draw into an extra card. Try to get a couple of uses out of this guy if you can.

- When new card Arena Fanatic is put into play, every minion currently in your hand gains an extra +1 / +1 of stats.

- Once you’ve loaded your deck with one-cost minions, Bwonsamdi, the Dead can then draw all of them for you very easily, thus setting up a huge tempo play on your next turn if you decide to summon them all.

- Surrender Priest contains many other cards that can buff your minions. Shadow Ascendant and Tortollan Shellraiser will buff minions already on the board, whereas Arena Fanatic will hit every minion in your hand with a +1/+1 buff.

- Mojomaster Zihi is a fascinating and unique new card that resets both player’s mana crystals to five. For maximum effectiveness, wait until your opponent has reached the upper ends of their mana count, or use it the turn before you expect they’re going to make a big combo play to really disrupt their plans.

- Mass Hysteria is a new Priest removal card in Rastakhan’s Rumble that forces each minion to attack another random one. Streamer Trump has run the numbers and worked out it's most valuable when played against a board of four or more minions. Ensure they have decent attack values, though, or the impact will be extremely minimal.

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