Deck of the Week #19: Control Paladin

by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

Every Friday a legendary member from team DKMR breaks down Don’t Kick My Robot’s “Deck of the Week” . These decks are seeing a lot of play either in constructed ladder or tournaments. Team DKMR explains the deck lists and how to play them. Make sure you check out Don’t Kick My Robot if you want to become a better player or check out their premium services if you would like them to do a 1 on 1 coaching session with you to help you better your game. View past Deck Lists of the Week.

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[DKMR]Brad here bringing you the deck of the week! The one we’re going to be showing you this week is extremely interesting and not a class that you see too much on the ladder. People generally look at this class and not consider it a competitive deck, but ErA came up with a list that does pretty well. My teammate, [DKMR]Hosty, played this on the ladder quite a bit this season and got to top 50 legend with this Mid-Range Paladin. Looking at the decklist, you can tell there are a ton of 1 ofs; this gives you the ability to choose between several different options per turn, which makes it very versatile and able to deal with a variety of threats. Let’s take a look!

The Deck

2x Humility: It’s a good solution to high power minions and combos well with Stampeding Kodo as a hard removal for a minion. You can also use this on one of their minions and then attack it with Truesilver Champion or a minion to save health to your hero or you minions respectively.

2x Equality: This card alongside of Wild Pyromancer and Consecration, it is the most powerful AOE in the game. It helps you remove creatures with a lot of health with ease.

1x Holy Light: The longer the game goes, the higher chance of winning this deck has. This card allows you to survive into the later turns and can also combo with wild pyromancer to have an effect similar to Whirlwind.

1x Argent Protector: Putting this on one of your large creatures turns it from a big threat to a huge threat. It also helps in aid of killing off enemy minions while keeping your minions alive and healthy.

1x Ironbeak Owl: This is simply just a tech card. Helps you deal with sticky minions such as cairne or harvest golem alongside with silencing pesky Twilight Drakes in handlock or even silencing cards such as Sylvanas Windrunner.

2x Wild Pyromancer: As mentioned before, this is a very strong combo with Equality. For 4 mana, you can wipe out an entire board. Late game this low cost allows you to reset the board and still play one of your threats along side of it, which helps gain back board presence.

2x Aldor Peacekeeper: An extremely powerful card. A 3/3 for 3 mana isn’t too bad alone but it also turns an opponents minion’s attack to 1. Combos with Stampeding Kodo as well.

1x Earthen Ring Farseer: It’s in the deck for the same reason as Holy Light. As we mentioned a 3/3 for 3 isn’t too bad but it also comes with a heal for 3 which you can use on your minions or yourself. Let’s you survive into the late game where you can spam your larger threats.

1x Tinkmaster Overspark: What’s to be said about this card? It’s Tinkmaster Overspark! With the Paladin hero power, this card has a pretty good spot in Paladin decks. There isn’t much downside to this card, if it turns your Silverhand recruit into a 1/1 Squirrel, it’s the same as it was. If it turns a recruit into a 5/5 Devilsaur, that’s just an added bonus. An example of this card being used is if your opponent has a Harvest Golem on board, and you have a 1/1 Recruit on your side of the board. It can either turn the Harvest Golem into a 1/1 or a 5/5 or turn your Recruit into a 1/1 or 5/5. The only bad outcome is if it turns the Harvest Golem into a 5/5 which gives the card a 50% success rate, a 25% fail rate, and a 25% the board stays the same except you get an awesome squirrel instead of a boring Recruit token.

2x Truesilver Champion: One of, if not the most, powerful weapon’s in the game. It’s pretty much a must have in all Paladin decks. Helps clear creatures such as Azure Drakes or Gadgetzan Auctioneers while aiding in keeping board control.

2x Consecration: A strong AOE. Combos with Equality, as we mentioned earlier.

1x Hammer of Wrath: 4 mana for 3 damage isn’t great, but it also cycles itself which is what this deck needs. Since there’s so many 1 ofs you need to cycle through your deck a decent amount, this card helps do that.

1x Defender of Argus: With the ability to spam tokens every turn, you often have more than 1 minion on the field at a time using this deck, making Argus a great card. It’s too situational to run 2 though, which is why it is another 1 of in this deck.

1x Senjin Shieldmasta: A powerful, stand alone 4 drop. It’s a fairly strong taunt, which essentially means it’s a heal for 5. Fits well in the deck, and helps clear the enemys board to a certain extent. It’s a very good card against Miracle Rogue and Zoo in particular, 5 health minions arn’t the easiest for Miracle to clear, and it usually trades for 2 or more creatures against Zoo.

1x Azure Drake: Another cycle card. It also gives spell damage which can be useful with Hammer of Wrath or Consecration.

2x Stampeding Kodo: A powerful hard removal when used alongside of Humility and Aldor Peacekeeper. It also helps kill certain creatures such as Harvest Golem and various Shaman minions without needed any help from these cards.

1x Avenging Wrath: Can be used as a board clear with the help of Equality and also to help push the extra damage needed to finish your opponent. It’s almost like a 3rd Consecration that can be more bursty in certain situations.

1x Cairne Bloodhoof: A sticky minion that helps keep board control. With so much heal in this Paladin deck, this card fits perfectly. You heal up your hero while this card picks off the enemy minions 1 by 1.

1x Sunwalker: This card helps a lot against Miracle Rogue and Zoo in the same ways as Senjin Shieldmasta. It also helps the deck curve out better, giving you a better chance to have a solid drop on turn 6.

2x Guardian of Kings: Heals, heals heals. This is just another one of those along with a large body to back it up.

1x Lay on Hands: Heals and cycles. Sometimes it’s not easy to have a good turn to get this card off, but it’s definately needed. Don’t rush this card unless you need the card draw bad or you already have board control generally.

1x Tirion Fordring: Arguably the strongest class legendary in the game. The body alone is almost worth it’s manacost AND you get a 5/3 weapon to go along with it when it dies. A pretty crazy amount of value for a single card, and if they can’t deal with it with a Hex or silence, then it can easily be game ending.

Mulligans

Usually the most important card to get in your opening hand is Truesilver Champion. From turn 1-3 it’s often hard to have board control but when the turn 4 comes around, truesilver helps you fight to get it back. If you’re against a Handlock, you want to mulligan for Aldor Peacekeeper, Humilitie, and Equalitie. Against zoo, you want Senjin Shieldmasta, Truesilver, and Consecration. Shaman you want the Consecration and Truesilver. Going into each matchup you have to think about which cards would be the best to gain back board control. Generally, you don’t want to keep any of the cards that cost 5 or more other than Stampeding Kodo on occasion and Azure Drake against the slow decks, such as Warrior.

The Gameplan

The way you win with this deck is by staying alive as long as possible and slowly gaining board control. This deck relies on heals to stay alive, the longer you last in any given game, the better chance you have to win. Keep in mind, the deck only has 2 Equalities, so save them until an optimal time. Usually, you’re looking to clear at least 3 enemy minions when using this card, unless they have 2 huge minions on the board that you have no other solution for. Usually you don’t want to play the Wild Pyromancers without comboing because they synergize so well with the deck. You usually want to keep them for the Equality plays. Don’t be scared about taking some damage to the face when setting up for Equality. The deck runs so much heal, as soon as you equalize, health shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Final Thoughts

We hope you enjoyed this deck and get a chance to play it!  Keep track of this deck and how well it is doing at http://www.hearthstats.net and let us know if you like it! This is a really fun deck and should be used in tournaments and can be used in tournaments too!

Article written by: [DKMR]Brad

[DKMR]Brad streams every Sunday from 10 AM – 4 PM EST at http://www.twitch.tv/bradhs.

You can find all of DKMR’s streamers on their website with times and the days they stream!