Hearthstone’s Journey to Un’Goro expansion card reveal season is underway, and one of the revealed cards is a new Priest spell, Shadow Visions. The card has received mixed reviews, but it is one of the more interesting new cards, because it has so many uses.

Let’s take a closer look!

Priestly issues, Shadow Visions to the rescue

Shadow Visions is a 2-mana Priest spell that discovers a copy of a spell in your deck.

This is immensely useful in Priest, because Priest has long suffered from having powerful spells (such as Shadow Word: Death, Shadow Word: Pain, Entomb) and powerful combinations of cards (such as Auchenai Shadowpriest + Circle of Healing and Wild Pyromancer + Power Word: Shield), but having a very hard time drawing just the right cards in a timely manner. Priest answers are powerful, but specific.

With Shadow Visions, Priests can further thin out their decks and focus on the key cards – and Shadow Visions to provide them with copies of such cards on as-needed basis.

Reno Priest or Highlander Priest, N’Zoth Priest

The consistency added by Shadow Visions extends to Reno Priest, or Highlander Priest after Reno rotates out if you will, as it effectively gives you a second in-demand copy of a spell appropriate for the current matchup. With Kazakus, Raza the Chained, and maybe a Greater Healing Potion to substitute for Reno, Highlander Priest retains some very powerful effects and also the ability to survive aggression that other Reno decks will find hard to come by.

With the current push to make Priest a deathrattle class with the Priest legendary quest Awaken the Makers (and it’s reward, Amara, Warden of Hope) and cards such as Tortollan Shellraiser and Crystalline Oracle, I expect some form of N’Zoth Priest to be the dominant flavor of Priest in the early days of Journey to Un’Goro.

It will be interesting to see Highlander N’Zoth Priest and regular N’Zoth Priest contend for the top position.

Synergy with Elise the Trailblazer

It is also interesting that Elise the Trailblazer shuffles a spell into your deck. A spell that gives you five cards. A spell that you can discover a copy of with Shadow Visions!

As I expect the new Elise to be a staple in control decks, it will naturally find a place in Priest as well, and this creates some really interesting potential for synergy with Shadow Visions.

But can it combo?

I’m sure some people will also seek out ways to build combo decks utilizing Shadow Visions. How does an extra Inner Fire sound like? Or an extra Divine Spirit? Or an extra Mind Blast? When it comes to combo decks though, it is really hard to predict the opportunities until more details are known. Emperor Thaurissan is rotating out, so discounting your hand for a Prophet Velen OTK with that card is not an option. We’ll need to see the whole package to determine what combo potential exists.

Control Priest staple

Overall, I expect Shadow Visions to form a key part of any future Control Priest decks. As I wrote in the beginning of this article, Priest answers are powerful, but specific. This has been an issue for the class throughout the history of Hearthstone, and Shadow Visions offers a way to circumvent that issue.