Highlander Priest

Highlander Priest (also known as Kazakus Priest or Reno Priest, Raza Priest or Razakus Priest) is a Priest deck type. It is built around the powerlevel of Kazakus, Raza the Chained, and Reno Jackson.

The deck relies on a few key cards to leverage its power. Reno Jackson allows the Priest to greatly extend their health and save themselves against aggro decks, Kazakus provides extreme flexibility with his potion to fit whatever situation the board is in, and Raza the Chained improves the efficiency of their Hero Power not only to get more healing off of Lesser Heal, but also with Shadowreaper Anduin's Hero Power for premium removal and damage in the late game. The deck can be built in various different ways, making use of shells such as the Dragon package, Deathrattle package, or a burst damage Combo-oriented version.

The Dragon package is similar to traditional Dragon Priest, and is built through the power of Drakonid Operative and Netherspite Historian, and allows for a proactive approach in the mid-game. The Spell package features Medivh, the Guardian, alongisde Free From Amber to generate multiple large threats in the late game. The Deathrattle package makes use of resurrection synergy available to the priest in the form of Kazakus Potions, N'Zoth, the Corruptor and the Journey to Un'Goro Priest Quest Awaken the Makers.

Highlander Priest aims to take the controlling role in a game. Generally, they will focus on removing minions in the early game, and try to stabilize during the mid-game, and start chaining threats in the late game. Making sure to utilize the single copies of different situational spells at the right time is key to making Highlander Priest successful, and can be a real challenge.

Highlander Priest became extremely dominant after the release of the Knights of the Frozen Throne, thanks to Shadowreaper Anduin. The Priest Hero card's Battlecry allowed the deck to make up having only 1 copy of their most powerful board clear and removal while his new Hero Power Voidform allows incredible synergy with Raza's effect to not only remove enemy minions but also allows the Priest player to put pressure on the opponent or burst them down when combined with Prophet Velen and Spawn of Shadows. Other cards from the expansion allows for more consistency and flexibility for the deck from board clear (Spirit Lash), single target removal (Embrace Darkness), minion value (The Lich King, Obsidian Statue, Eternal Servitude), handle early game pressure (Happy Ghoul) or increase the win rate against unfavorable match up (Skulking Geist against Jade Druid) while also justify inclusion of many older cards. After the nerfs targeting Jade Druid, Highlander Priest became an extremely dominant deck in the meta, leading to its nerf in Patch 10.2.0.23180, reducing Raza's Hero Power reduction to 1 and dramatically reducing its burst damage potential.

With the Year of the Raven retiring the last of the singleton cards, Highlander Priest became a Wild-only deck.

2 years later, in Patch 16.6.0.43246 Raza was unnerfed, restoring the deck to its original power.

The nickname for this deck type is a reference to the phrase "In the end, there can be only one," from the 1986 film Highlander.

Common cards
The following cards are usually in the deck.

Core cards
The following cards are played in most or all versions of the deck:

Combo-oriented build
The following cards are commonly played in the Combo-oriented version:

Deathrattle build
The following cards are commonly played in the Deathrattle version:

Dragon build
The following cards are commonly played in the Dragon version:

Optional cards
The following cards are played more than occasionally, but not always: