Much like my earlier Warlord book with 4 Iron Golem and lots of wands and Teleport, this book plays against type. Nearly every card is out of school, and some are opposing school. I've only played it a little bit, but it was lots of fun, so I'm sharing it now:
1 Brogan Bloodstone
2 Knight of Westlock
2 Dire Wolf
1 Armor Ward
2 Bear Strength
1 Divine Intervention
1Enchantment Transfusion
2 Force Hold
2 Mongoose Agility
1 Nullify
1 Poisoned Blood
1 Retaliate
1 Battle Forge
1 Deathlock
1 Hand of Bim-Shalla
2 Mana Crystal
1 Crown of Protection
1 Dawnbreaker Ring
2 Dragonscale Hauberk
1 Elemental Cloak
1 Gauntlets of Strength
1 Leather Boots
2 Staff of Asyra
3 Dispel
2 Dissolve
1 Force Push
1 Force Wave
1 Lay Hands
1 Purge Magic
2 Purify
2 Seeking Dispel
2 Teleport
This is an aggressive book built on the back of the Priestess's natural 10 channeling and ability to purge status effect tokens, as well as some of her Priestess Only exclusives. Her Divine Reward is almost never used, and the book plays very little healing in general.
The book has two lines of play, one for non-living targets (Wizard's Tower, Iron Golems) and one for everyone else.
Soft targets can be attacked with this opening:
1. 20 - Mana Crystal, Battleforge, advance 1 zone.
2. 18+1 - Crown of Protection, Dire Wolf, use Crown on Wolf
3. 15+1 - Leather Boots, Dire Wolf, use Crown on 2nd Wolf.
Later turns Force Push/Teleport the Wolves into combat, equip some more armor for yourself and the Wolves, and go and bleed your opponent to death.
The plan for hard targets is
1. 20 - Mana Crystal, Mana Crystal
2. 22 - Enchantment, Bogan Bloodstone
3. 14 - Staff of Asyra, Hand of Bim-Shalla
By which point your opponent should have summoned an Iron Golem, and you go and do the unthinkable by trying to murder it.
The key to this plan is that Bogan's piercing and the staff's +2 vs non-living give you a pretty good match up against Golems if you can fight them one at a time, and that your opponent's Wizard's Tower is better at repelling you than at rescuing a Teleported Iron Golem, or sending reinforcements. Retaliate is a key card here, because it's a free attack not subject to Jinx. And when you get a chance to summon a Knight, you should.
There's a lot of directions to extend this book, depending on what you want to cut. Bridge troll would absolutely love armor tokens from Crown of Protection, and the book could certainly stand to include Valshalla or Simandriel.
There's also the Enchantment Transfusion line of play to consider: Nullify + Divine Intervention + Force Hold is a pretty potent payload against a turtling Wizard or Warlord, but could use the addition of a Jinx (and a stumble if you're playing promos).
The Poison Blood and Deathlock are expensive in this book, but are probably going to be very important in all ago books, especially with all those Plants coming quite soon. They're originally included because of their interaction with Bleed from the Dire Wolves, but they are useful enough, I think, to include on their own.
The ability to remove status effects and curses is probably this books other major metagame strength: Stuck, Weak, Crippled, etc are a big part of a lot of control strategies, and Priestess is very good at pushing through those, against Gorgon Archer especially. Cards that would destroy a Beastmaster are largely not important to a Priestess.
And, finally, against Curse Warlock and other enchantment heavy books, this Priestess doesn't skimp on the enchantment removal, though it does feel a bit light on the artifact hate, so some adjustments might be needed there if your expected matches include more Battleforge powered agro. Against Forcemaster, for example, this book probably just needs to cast its own Forge and Armor up while summoning Knights.
