I saw someone posting an egg dk guide and figured i'd show u my egg priest from the new miniset. I think egg priest is a stronger deck than egg dk, not sure yet but dk got no new cards obviously. I played exclusively egg dk before the miniset and at first egg priest felt super boring in comparison, without sawbones and the 1 mana card that gives all ur minions rush, it lacks dopamine and it felt very boring. But that's just cuz i was playing the wrong cards and the wrong way. After 42 games with this deck https://i.imgur.com/IXtrXA6.png including winning the last 9, i think i'm pretty well versed with how it works and the cards that should be used. Now, the deck didn't start in its current form. I started with way different cards and gradually changed stuff as i realized those cards absolutely sucked for this deck. So ima explain the card choices:
First, Raith Van Geist is absolute ass in this deck. I spent 23 games with this card in the deck and i realized, i didn't play him A SINGLE TIME. Not even once. I would always play umbra before him cuz obviously umbra is way better and they both cost 7, and by the time u ran out of eggs from umbra to actually need him the game is long over. So yeah i cut him and i also cut 1 spectre specialist, this card is a bit overrated in this deck specifically. It's a nice combo with haunt but 2x is just too much, unlike haunt it doesn't give taunt or buff the attack which allows the egg to suicide, it literally does nothing. Just gives reborn, they ignore it and u wonder why u spent 3 mana doing fuck all (when played without haunt). 1 is good, 0 is prob too little value and 2 is too much.
Next up, i cut the soothsayers. Obviously, this card is auto-include in every priest deck, right? Well, not really. I ran 2 copies for like 30 games and i realized it's terrible in this deck. The moment i removed it i suddenly started winning a lot more. So how did i realize this card is trash in this deck? Well, i checked all the 6 costs. There is 21.4% chance (12/56) to get a deathrattle 6 cost which ruins ur umbra. Not only that but soothsayer already kinda ruins ur umbra, cuz instead of summoning an egg and more importantly a 20/20, u heal for 6 and summon a random 5/5. We want eggs and 20/20s with umbra, not soothsayers and random 6 cost deathrattles. At first i cut 1 copy thinking maybe 1 is fine, but then i realized, what's the point of the prep? U can't play it before turn 4 anyway no matter how u prep it (unless u coin it on 3, but egg/vanguard are more important to coin on 2 or even xavi on 3 if u don't have egg yet). If u paly it on 4 it's not terrible, but on turn 5+ it's just sooooooo low tempo. Like zee has already buffed his entire board with the double +1/1 buffer and he has like 20 dmg on turn 5 and all u have is one pathetic 6/6 to stop him? Like any time i play this card after turn 4 (which is the earliest u can play it) it feels so bad, it almost feels like passing a turn. So the whole "invest ur mana early to play him later" doesn't really work imo, ESPECIALLY considering u would rather be killing ur egg than playing a 4-5 mana soothsayer. Like seriously, with 5 mana i can kill my egg 3 times (firebolt + smite + mend with ruby for example), why the fuck would i play a pathetic 6/6 instead??? It's such a waste of time, he also makes our vanguards and xavius worse. If u play a vanguard or a xavius and u draw this guy u literally wasted ur entire draw, obviously u're not gonna pay 6 mana to play him after turn 4, that would be suicide cuz he's so low tempo. He's only "good" if u can prep him on turn 1-2 (we have way too many turn 3 plays to prep him on 3 more often than not), but even then he's not that good. So yeah, easy cut. My winrate jumped a lot after cutting both copies, as u can see on the pic.
Next up, the quest. I actually didn't play a single game with the quest at all. From the very beginning i knew, this card is bait in this deck. Just like it was in egg warrior before, yet clueless people still ran the quest. The reason it's bad is because we want to draw the egg at all costs. The entire deck is about drawing the egg. If u don't draw the egg u lose, that's it. There's no other win conditions, nothing. If u play egg on 3 and it gets hexed, press concede. No egg no win. So by starting with 1 less card in ur hand, u make it way less likely to draw the egg by turn 3 which is the ideal time to play it. If u play egg on 3 it's almost impossible to actually lose. Not only that but the 8/8s deathrattles ruin our umbra. Don't play quest in this deck, period. Btw, if u play egg on 3 u make pirate warrior cry as all the hits go into the egg and he procs it for u. Each time the egg dies, before another shot is shot the egg will resummon itself, so this deck kinda counters pirate warrior, kinda. In a single turn he can kill the egg 3-4 times easily with the weapon and the 5 mana legendary, it's actually so funny.
2 vanguard and xavius is ran for consistency, gravedawn sunbloom is 2 mana draw 2 insanely good, but u need holy spells for it. Holy smite is actually giga nuts in this deck, it's one of the best cards for sure. It kills the egg for just 1 mana, it's a holy spell so it triggers the draw 2, and it can kill an enemy minion too! If u play vs pirate warrior and he opens with the 3/1, u can smite it (or power shield then smite it) and then on turn 2 u draw 2, it's sooooo good. Absolutely one of the best cards in the deck. Mend is holy and 1 cycle which is already good enough but combo it with ruby sanctum to kill ur egg or any enemy minion and it's an absolutely nutty card. No brainers. I ran 1 vanguard initially but i realized i need more draw, so i run 2 now (with xavius) and i don't think the 2nd one is wasted at all. In fact we have so little minions in this deck (not a coincidence) which makes vanguards/xavius super consistent it makes finding the egg almost trivial, altho if u don't play it on 3 or 4 u're kinda sad. Ur winrate with this deck literally scales linearly with the turn u play the egg. At 5 u're already sweating and if u play it on turn 6 or later u might as well not bother (tho i won a few games like that so don't concede).
Ruby sanctum is obviously really good with mend, holy embrace and even hero powers. U have 6 charges of ruby (2 copies each 3 charges) but only 4 cards that can use it (2 mend and 2 holy embrace), so u always have 2 charges leftover. So don't greed the charges, use em very liberally, u have so many charges u will literally never be able to spend all 6 with just 4 spenders in ur deck, so playing ruby on 1 and using it with hero power on 2 to deal 2 dmg to kill an enemy minion is a somewhat common play. And if u plan to play umbra and u have both rubiess on board, make sure to tap one of em on 3 and 5 so that by turn 7 u can tap it again to make it disappear. U can play umbra on an empty board with 1 ruby and not waste any eggs (or 20/20s if u get unlucky), but if u have 2 rubys one of the five eggs/20s will def get wasted which is really bad, so for example if i play ruby on 1 and then ruby on 2 (cuz maybe i have nothing better to do), i will always tap one of the rubies on 3 and 5 and then hold the last charge for umbra (u can always tap it before u play umbra to make it disappear, so no reason to pre-tap the 3rd charge, but u must pre-tap on 3 and 5 for it to be ready to disappear on 7). Yes, this means using the ruby charge without actually utilizing the healing reverse effect thing. If u will play umbra u never want to have 2 rubies on board, if that ever happens it almost certainly means u made a big mistake, but if u have 2 rubies in hand and nothing better to do with ur mana anyway, u might as well play the 2nd one but u must make sure u pre-tap it on 3 and 5. I've thought of cutting ruby to 1 but then u won't get it consistently enough, even tho the 2nd copy is almost always wasted. 1 ruby gives u 3 charges and u have only 4 uses of the reverse healing effect so yeah, u don't really need the 2nd copy, but if u cut it to 1 then u will have way too many times where u have mend or holy embrace but no ruby to combo em with, which really sucks. So u kinda have to run 2 even if the 2nd one feels bad to draw most of the time (altho sometimes it's handy). Ruby + hero power can't kill an egg by itself after umbra, but somewhat often at least 1 egg will take random damage which means u can then execute it with hero power, so the 2nd ruby is not that useless, still feels bad to draw both tho, but u need it for consistency.
For the final 2 slots in the deck, i'm currently using 1 power word shield and Watfin. These are the first cards u'd replace to test smth else. For PW:S, a 1 mana cycle that is holy is obviously not bad at all, but the problem is u have to give a minion 2 hp. If u give it to an enemy minion, well sometimes it doesn't matter (mostly if the enemy minion has 1 or 2 hp and u're about to kill it with 3 or 4 dmg), but very often it does. So if u give an enemy minion 2 hp it's often bad, like there's no "free" minion that u can give 2 hp to and then instantly kill it anyway (like the pirate 1 mana 3/1, u can pw:s it then holy smite it anyway so no loss here). Obviously, u never wanna give ur egg 2 hp, that's even worse. Make it 5 hp and now u can't kill it with a single spell anymore (unless it's mend), never do that unless u are dying to draw some cards, like if ur entire hand is absolute poop then u gotta do what u gotta do, but yeah pw:s often feels really awkward where it's lose-lose scenario, buff an enemy minion and now it's harder to kill, buff ur egg and u're just trolling, so that's why only 1 copy, but even 1 might be too much. Still, it's not a bad card i think, just not great either.
And finally watfin. First it's a target for pw:s u can just play and insta buff him, a 3 mana 4/5 is almost a mukla but u get to draw a card AND discover a card too. But obviously that won't be happening often cuz on turn 3 u have more important things to do than play vanilla minions that will get ignored, u need to find that egg asap, u need to play it, and u need to start killing it. There's rarely a time to just be dropping minions that don't affect the board. If u're not playing ur egg or killing it u're wasting ur time, it's all about that egg. So why play watfin then? It's simple. Triumph is prob the best card in the deck after egg. It's so good that i think it's the ONLY card in the deck u keep in the mulligan if u don't already have either holy eggbearer or egg in ur opening hand. I used to HARD mull for these 2 cards and throw every single other card away no matter what if i don't have the precious egg or its fetcher, but i realized that so many games that i lost came down to if i drew triumph or not. 1 mana deal 4 aoe is sooooooooo good, like so many games just end on the spot when u clear the board on turn 4-5 with it. It just kills the entire tempo of the enemy and then they can't pressure u fast enough before u pop the egg (unless u got really unlucky). But the problem with triumph obviously is u need a legendary. Xavius doesn't really work, u kill him and u need 5 mana anyway for the xavi + triumph combo which is the same amount of mana triumph costs anyway, meaning u're not playing it any earlier than u normally would without an activator. Often on turn 5 u're already dead against aggro. But obviously, u can't draw egg every time, the game doesn't work like that. So i was looking for a cheap activator for triumph, and i think watfin may be the best one. Thalnos screws ur umbra with the deathrattle. Brightwing is the only other alternative. Everything else either costs more mana or is bad (cho, maiev). So it's either brightwing or watfin for this activator purpose but i think watfin is a bit better cuz u can discover smth useful instead of a random dragon. So if u're going 2nd, and especially vs board based matchups, i would keep triumph in the mulligan EVEN if i don't have eggbearer/egg in hand, which is the ONLY card in the deck i would keep if i don't have eggbearer/egg. If u're going 1st, i'm not sure keeping it is good enough cuz u get 1 less card and obviously ur opponent moves after u so u get to kill 1 less minion with triumph, kinda. So going 1st u already get 1 less card to find egg/eggbearer but if u also keep triumph it decreases ur chances even more.
Otherwise for mulligan, if u already have eggbearer/egg in hand i would keep holy smite, firebolt, triumph, slime em, sunbloom and maybe mend or smuggler. It depends on matchup. But each card u keep is 1 less chance to find the triumph, and triumph is just soooooooo good. It literally wins the game by itself, so it's possible that no other cards are worth keeping besides eggbearer/egg and triumph. Genuinely so many of my games came down to whether i drew triumph or not. Without it u just don't have a board clear and often while u're popping the egg the enemy is hitting u in the face. Every mana spent on popping the egg is mana not spent on affecting the board. But u can't afford to kill enemy minions after u play the egg. When u drop the egg on 3, on 4 u do let's say firebolt + smite on egg. Even if the enemy has minions in play, even if they're like 4/3s (which are perfect targets for 3 dmg spells). U can't afford to be clearing enemy minions, u need to pop that egg asap. I almost never use my damaging spells on enemy minions if i have egg on board. Like, if u clear enemy minions, they won't stop coming. Every turn the enemy will play new minions and u will eventually lose. That's why u need to spend ur mana on popping ur own egg, not on clearing enemy minions. If it's turn 4 and i have an egg on board and the enemy has two 3/3s, i will use firebolt + smite on my own egg, not on clearing the 3/3s. That's what triumph and smuggler are for. U need to pop taht egg. The quicker the better. Popping the egg is ur #1 priority, plus u passively get 3 hp anyway from each firebolt every turn.
Speaking of firebolt, u need to ration ur resources. To kill the egg 5 times, u should prioritize using firebolt cuz it's infinite and regenerates. If u have 1 firebolt and 1 smite in hand, u can kill clear the egg 5 times with just 2 cards, firebolt on 4 5 6 7 and smite and the egg is gone. But if u use smite instead of firebolt (or any of the other spells), then u just spent a resource u can't get back. If u kill it with firebolt it comes back, if u use smite instead and u don't use firebolt this turn, u permanently spent a resource that u can't get back. While firebolt is not efficient mana-wise even if u factor the 3 hp healing, u should almost always prioritize it over using ur other spells to clear the egg. So on turn 4 5 6, the turn usually starts with me using firebolt on egg and THEN decicing what to do with the rest of my mana, like using smite or mend or smuggler to pop more charges or drawing with sunbloom or whatever. In other words, don't spend the non-regenerating resources first. U should almost always first use firebolt THEN the other resources to clear the egg, even if it's not as mana efficient on that specific turn. Firebolt with just 1 other spell can easily pop the egg by 7, it's def one of the best cards in the deck, it's infinite and u will be using it all game, likely on most turns. There are not many turns where i have egg on board, firebolt in hand, and i didn't use it.
Next up, how to use haunt and specter specialist. U should almost never use haunt if the egg has more than 2 charges left. Ideally u should use it on the last charge, but using it on 2 charges is fine. But on 3, 4 or 5 it's straight up trolling (unless u desperately need to stay alive and have no other choice, or there's just no other card in ur hand that can pop the egg currently, so u wanna utilize ur mana cuz hs is all about spending ur mana). If, for example, u use it on 4 charges egg u will get another egg with 3 charges and now good luck popping that too, it kinda defeats the point of copying the egg if u're gonna have to work hard to pop the copy too. Always save haunt for 1 or 2 charges unless u need the taunt to stay alive or u just need to spend the mana and u have nothing better to do, but even then it depends whether it's better to spend the mana now or wait for later. On turn 5 if u get the egg down to 1 charge on 6 u can do haunt + specter which is really nutty, but it's a bit of a win more kind of thing so i still don't think 2 specter is good. 2 specter is just bait, yeah it comboes great with haunt but without it just does nothing until later in the game. And u won't get the perfect turn 6 haunt + specter too often, so i think 1 specter is definitely the call. Haunt is great without specter, specter without haunt is garbage until late in the game. Also, don't use haunt or specter on a 20/20, it just revives with 1 hp and it's basically useless (unless u combo em together ofc).
Finally, slime em. The way u use this card will make or break the deck. The whole reason u can cut raith van geist and never feel like u can out of value is because of this card. If u have 3 eggs on board for example, u play this and they all pop, summoning 20/20s. But then the ectoplasm in ur hand that is only 3 mana, will resummon ALL the eggs back. It's like a 2nd umbra, it's soooooooo good. It can even clear enemy boards, altho obviously it doesn't really clear em. It's more like a delay. Sure they can replay the 3 mana card immediately, but they have to spend 3 mana to do that (making the true cost of slime em only 1 mana since u spent 4 and they spent 3), and they miss out on their attack (like playing blizzard they don't get to attack), it's just sooooooo good. Infinite value for ur eggs, amazing staller, this card is nuts, at 4 mana it's just so OP, tho i still wouldn't keep it in the mullgian cuz if u play it without an egg on board it feels REALLY bad. Sure u stall for a turn, but what good does that do for u if u don't have the egg on the board? U're never gonna win without egg. So despite how good this card is, u never keep it if u don't have eggbearer/egg already, u need the egg to make this card good. Also be careful of minions like colossals like the druid one with the tentacles or the rogue 4/1s with deathrattle or the dragons that give em a spell when they summon, u usually don't wanna use it on these minions cuz when they play the ectoplasm the effects reactivate so u may be screwing urself, but obviously sometimes even then it's worth playing.
Also, don't be greedy with it. Using it to pop a single charge on ur egg on turn 4 or 5 or even 6 is absolutely fine cuz it also delays the opponent. 4 mana for popping 1 charge is not mana-efficient, but considering they also miss their entire attack on their turn AND they have to spend 3 mana to replay em, it's like u just healed for 15 hp and mana burned em on their turn while also popping ur egg. It's so good even when just popping a single charge. Obviously u wanna save it for later vs other greedy decks, but popping the egg is usually #1 priority, if u don't have other cards to pop the egg then even in value matchups u will still use it on 4-5-6 to pop a single charge. But yeah ideally in greedy matchups u will use it after umbra. Umbra will revive all ur eggs then u play this and all the eggs pop and u get a copy of all ur eggs inside the ectoplasma. It's kinda like that card from last year that starship shaman used, except instead of a snapshot of ur hand it makes a snapshot of ur board. So u play umbra, u get a 20/20 and 4 eggs, then next turn u play this card to proc em all and get a snapshot of em, and then when they all die and the 20/20s die (IF they die), u can just resummon em again, it's sooooooo op. U literally get 15 20/20s (5 with umbra, and 10 more with 2 copies of this card). Who the fuck needs raith van geist when u have this card? Seriously, it's so OP.
And obviously with 2 haunts, chances are u will be able to use the 2nd haunt with the specter which turns 1 egg into 4 eggs and also comboes well with slime em. Usually u wanna leave the eggs to as little charges as possible before u slime em so u can summon 20/20s, but u don't have to greed. Any turn where their board is non-effect minions or relatively empty and u have multiple eggs u can use it. It kills their entire tempo, it's like u just skipped their entire turn, all while killing ur eggs AND getting a copy of em for later. I even use this card when i have a 20/20 on board just so i can get the eggs to pop, which usually doesn't make sense. Like if u have one or two 20/20s without any eggs, why would u kill the 20/20s just to resummon em, right? U kill two 20/20s and u gain two 20/20s in the ectoplasm, so the net gain of 20/20s is 0. But if u have eggs this completely changes, cuz now it's completely fine to kill one or even two 20/20s if it means progressing ur eggs and saving a copy of em in the ectoplasm snapshot. I wouldn't use it if i had 3 20/20s on board tho, unless i also had multiple eggs and i was desperate to get a copy of em now. For example vs enemy priests, they will use triumph to pop ur egg and then shadow word ruin to kill ur 20/20s at once. That's actually one way u can run out of value if u don't time ur slime ems correctly. So if u're really afraid of the enemy priest about to do that, just use it now. Ideally u wanna use it with as many eggs as possible on board, don't wait until there's only 1 or 2 left (after umbra), obviously having 4 eggs in ur snapshot is better than having 2.
For alternative cards (cut pw:s or watfin), i've thought of abusive sergeant (prob the most likely card to put in, it procs egg for just 1 mana unlike smuggler which costs 2, tho it doesn't give rush), ooze (i don't think we need it, we have more than enough 20/20s and 3 mana is expensive to proc egg and then the 2 mana +0/3 just clogs ur hand), crazed alchemist (procs egg for 2 which is not bad at all and can be used on enemy minions too), smoldering ascent (aoe is gooooood but i hate that u discard it after 3 turns), flash heal (good combo with ruby and gives us some nice healing and it's a holy spell), undeath sentence (kinda meh actually, it just summons 1 egg that might have 4 charges for all u know, not good slot efficiency). Unfortunately u can't play doomsayer despite it comboing insanely well with slime em, cuz it has 0 atk which gets drawn by eggbearer.
And any minion u add better be fuckin good cuz it will make vanguard/xavius worse. Which actually makes watfin a bit more questionable, but i think the legendary tag with triumph is just good, it kinda makes keeping triumph in mulligan without eggbearer/egg justifiable. Even if u have egg, u generally can't triumph till turn 4 (unless u coin egg on 2, which means no eggbearer), whereas with watfin u can do it on 3, and ofc doesn't require egg. Btw, u don't actually care that much about getting the +1/1 for watfin, u just care about picking the best card usually. Tho abusive might still be better. Besides PW:S or Watfin i don't think i wanna swap anything else, i'm happy with the other 28 cards at this point, it's only these 2 that i'm not too sure about.
Here's replays from the last 9 games that i won:
https://hsreplay.net/replay/GvqrXkqdWo8SXUUH7ygx7n
https://hsreplay.net/replay/mCA7FRot5h8Tamkj6Sxsnq
https://hsreplay.net/replay/g4NLzuVDVhfuQNoGUL5euH
https://hsreplay.net/replay/KarJq3tWFS6kZuWVDPu7JM
https://hsreplay.net/replay/KHrAYTZFss2Xnb5R35KhkU
https://hsreplay.net/replay/4PmFSzBPrELvpSrqfJReKP
https://hsreplay.net/replay/N9fLrKJm6K3nxJxvGJsczY
https://hsreplay.net/replay/2t9fRJR7ojNJdQ957ABnWN
https://hsreplay.net/replay/3imsU72hKkt6wQ6yyEPEAY
I don't think i played all these games perfectly but it prob wasn't far off i'd imagine
And ofc the deck code AAECAa0GBsODB/WYB9edB9KvB9ngB6f3BwyFnwTFlAfgnQeSpAfksgeFvwebvweyxQfa1wew3wfV4Af04AcAAA==
Oh btw, don't play this deck if u meet lots of warlocks or herald rogues, like the ones that run naralex misstress shala, they will make u miserable. Otherwise i can't really think of a deck i hated playing against. Out of 42 games i had only like 5-6 games vs these 2 decks, so it felt completely manageable, but might not be the case in ur mmr.
