✍ [Feedback] Paladin's (Classic-Basic) sets

Multiplayer Discussion
1

ok let’s have some real constructive feedback about paladin cards from the classic and basic sets.
for sake of reference let’s use this description of the paladin

  • Strengths: These are the things that a class focuses on and excels at.
  • Limitations: These are aspects that might show up a few times in a class, but they are very limited in power level and the number of cards.
  • Weaknesses: These are aspects that a class either doesn’t have or struggles to achieve effectively.

Paladin: Paladins are great champions who support their minions with buffs, healing, and divine shields; however, they are not afraid to get their hands dirty when the time comes. They are methodical, controlling the battlefield through debuffs and focused attacks instead of destructive spells. Strength and persistence are the keys to a Paladin’s victory.

  • Strengths : Minion swarms, minion buffs and debuffs, healing, Divine Shield, Secrets
  • Limitations: Cost reduction
  • Weaknesses : Direct damage spells, destroying big minions

“They are methodical, controlling the battlefield through debuffs and focused attacks instead of destructive spells. Strength and persistence are the keys to a Paladin’s victory.”
pretty cool description. and this is what most people playing paladin wants.

now for this to stay focused and constuctive. let everyone pick 4 cards from basic set. 2 they think they are preforuming pretty well. and 2 cards they are not and leaset favorite.

then pick 4 cards from Classic sets. 2 favorite. 2 least picks and least performing.

for sake of reference here are all the basic cards
[Blessing of Might] [Hand of Protection] [Humility] [Light’s Justice] [Holy Light] [Blessing of Kings] [Consecration] [Hammer of Wrath] [Truesilver Champion] [ Guardian of Kings]

To me most of the paladin basic sets are fine. and they are still used today.

use this format to make this very clear for readers

  • [Card name]
  • Brief Feedback
  • Usefulness
  • Mana Cost
  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
  • Suggestion

explanation :_
[Card name]

  • brief feedback.
    write down is it fun to use or not. useful in which situation …etc
  • Usefulness
    yes or no. do u use it in your decks …etc
  • Mana Cost
    how do you feel about it’s mana cost.
  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    if yes (quote it)
  • Suggestion
    do u suggest a specific change to it like lowering it’s mana or effect ?

I would chose 4 cards from basic sets. two good ones and two bad ones.

The Good Basic Set
there are plenty of good paladin cards in the basic set. if I have to pick two. I’d go with …

  • [Truesilver champion]
  • Brief Feedback
    one of the good paladin weapons. 4 attacks is much needed to control the board.
  • Usefulness
    very useful and I use it in almost all my paladin decks. as a control tools.
  • mana cost
    It sorta fits it’s mana cost.
  • Does it fit the paladin Identity description ?
    Yes (focused attacks and they are not afraid to get their hands dirty when the time comes.)
  • Suggestion
    Would be more fitting if it’s lifesteal instead of heals 2 HP.

–

  • [Consecration]
  • Brief Feedback
    One of the few and rare paladin control tools. using it to clear early aggro boards.
  • Usefulness
    It’s a must in almost all paladin decks. helps stabilize the board.
  • Mana Cost
    costs is a bit high. using it mostly means you end up spending your entire turn.
  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    No. it does fit the wow identity but not the Hearthstone developer’s class identity
  • Suggestion
    Lower it’s cost or change this spell to be a battlecry minion. same effect and mana cost but with a body.

The Bad Basic set

  • [Hand of protection]

  • Brief Feedback
    It’s a really powerful effect. that supposed to give you free minion trade.

  • Usefulness
    None. hardly put and used in any paladin decks.

  • Mana Cost
    it’s mana cost is not the issue. it’s the fact its a spell card with no body.

  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    Yes. (controlling the battlefield with buffs that focuses on attacks)

  • Suggestion
    As a standalone spell that does 1 effect. it feels weak. it should be a cycle card atleast. add a draw effect to it.

  • **[Light’s Justice] **

  • Brief Feedback
    really bad weapon. a 1/4 hardly trade into anything. and the fact paladin doesn’t have weapon buffs makes this really questionable to use.

  • Usefulness
    None. there are no reason to put this in any decks.

  • Mana Cost
    even for 1 mana it costs too much for costing 1 card.

  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    yes

  • Suggestion
    make this weapon attached with a body. a low cost battlecry minion that equips this

Now for Classic set.
For sake of reference here are all the classic cards:
[Blessing of Wisdom] [Eye for an Eye] [Noble Sacrifice] [Redemption] [Repentance] [Argent Protector] [Aldor Peacekeeper] [Sword of Justice] [Equality] [Blessed Champion] [Holy Wrath] [Rightousness] [Avenging Wrath] [Lay on Hands] [Tirion Fordring]

The Good Classic set
it’s really hard to pick good cards in this set. as most of them are very situational.

  • [Aldor Peacekeeper]

  • Brief Feedback
    A good control tech tool paladin have.

  • Usefulness
    this card made it into many of my paladin decks. it’s one of the good control tools with decent body on the board.

  • Mana Cost
    Fitting mana cost

  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    yes (controlling the battlefield through debuffs)

  • Suggestion
    due to how current paladin situation are. I would suggest this card to also sets HP to 1.

  • **[Tirion Fordring] **

  • Brief Feedback
    one of the best classic legendary in the game. good body. and deathrattle effect.
    but it’s mostly used as a board clear against some classes. as they are forced to trade into him.

  • Usefulness
    he ended up into many decks. the fact that it’s divine shield Taunt. provide me a small breather. as opponent has to deal with it.

  • Mana Cost
    the mana costs means spending an entire turn for him. which is fitting in most cases.

  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    yes (focused attacks and they are not afraid to get their hands dirty when the time comes)

  • Suggestion
    none

The Bad Classic set
where to begin. there are many bad cards here that never saw play.

  • [Blessed Champion]
  • Brief Feedback
    Double a minion’s attack. paladin minions in general has very low attacks. and they have hard time protecting them.
  • Usefulness
    None. I never saw any play of this card on my side. or on my enemy side.
  • Mana Cost
    beside the 5 mana cost really cripples this card usefulness.
  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    yes. (focused attacks instead of destructive spells.)
  • Suggestion
    attach a body to this effect. a 5 mana battlecry minion with taunt. this way it wont feel like a waste of using it. and would be stable in many paladin decks.

[Righteousness]

  • Brief Feedback
    The newest addition to paladin’s Classic set. it’s a win more card. we hardly keeping our board for this to be useful.
  • Usefulness
    None. I never saw this play. it’s too awkward to use.
  • Mana Cost
    the mana cost cripples this card’s usefulness. you need to have a board that can survive an entire turn for you to be able to cast this spell on it. which kills it’s purpose.
  • Fits the Paladin Identity?
    yes. it’s a control tool and helps focused attacks instead of destructive spells.
  • Suggestion
    A- make it a 0 mana spell that increases cost by 1 mana for for each minions you control.
    B- make it a battlecry minion. perhaps legendary with taunt. at 5 mana cost.
2 Likes
2

bump
Unfortunately it looks like Blizzard has no intention of touching up other classes the way they have Priest.

Senior Game Designer

HS_Celestalon (https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/g0okne/hearthstone_team_ama_april_14/fnebpg7/)
Priest was the one where we felt the Basic/Classic set was the most in need of revision, by a considerable margin.
We’re hoping to see how that goes (please, let us know what you think of it, whether you’d like to see more of that, etc.), and then evaluate the potential of making Basic/Classic design changes to other classes. I wouldn’t expect the same level of change to other classes, but we’re definitely talking about it.

It seems likely we’ll forever be stuck with Light’s Justice, Hand of Protection, Blessing of Might & a terrible secret package. The best I’m expecting is maybe they’ll make Argent Protector a 2/3 and Guardian of Kings cost 6.

1 Like
3

And since I’ve bumped the topic, here’s my overhaul.

Light’s Justice
Paladin suffers greatly in the early game, lacking any sort of reliable board presence to help them gain the tempo needed to cast spells like blessing of kings. Paladin is always playing catch up, this replacement would help paladins mount an early defense against cards like Flame Imp & Battlefiend.

Introducing:
Karabor Martyr
1 mana, 1/3;
Deathrattle: Equip a 1/3 weapon.
Even as the Legion’s armies advanced, she stood steadfast with her faith in the Light.

(This card plays into the Paladins’ theme of being a Holy Avenger, taking up the weapon of the fallen to complete their mission.)

Blessing of Might
One of Paladins’ board reliant buffs & an aggro tool that has rarely seen play even when aggro paladin is prevalent. My change here would focus on the Paladin’s theme of playing fair & retributive justice.

Introducing:
Libram of Retribution
2 mana, Spell.
Give a minion “When this minion takes damage, deal that amount back to its attacker.”
Why’re you picking on the little guy?

(This card punishes the opponent for using big minions to remove your board. It’s Eye for an Eye, for minions. This would lessen the pressure put on the Paladin when their minions are killed. I feel this is an overall more versatile spell while keeping the theme of Blessing of Might, allowing smaller minions to trade up & helping aggro paladins keep a board as their opponents’ gets bigger.)

Blessing of Protection
This card just isn’t worth taking up a slot in our basic set. It’s on par with the token spells generated during GvG. In fact, I’m pretty sure this would have been one of those cards, if this card didn’t already exist. Here’s my change.

Introducing:
Aura of Devotion
1 Mana, Spell.
Give your minions divine shield. Gain 1 armor for each minion that gained Divine Shield this way. Costs 1 more for each minion you control.
What an aura-ginal idea.

(Paladins are heavily armored, holy knights who support their allies. Worst case, this is 2 mana, gain 1 armor & give a minion divine shield.)

Righteousness
Wow, what a great card to replace our only real card draw with. I already replaced it up top ^. Here’s a new one keeping with Blizzards new aoe ideas like Immolation Aura & Maelstrom Portal.

Introducing:
Divine Storm
3 mana, Spell.
Deal 1 damage to ALL minions without Divine Shield, twice.
Give ALL minions with Divine Shield +1/+1.
There’s a storm on the horizon.

(I feel like this is some much needed Divine Shield synergy for paladin, a low cost aoe to contest aggressive boards, and it’s a dual sided effect in the same vein as Equality, which speaking of…)

Equality
I don’t have much to say here, either replace it with Libram of Justice, and make the whole Libram package core, or reduce the cost to 3 and remove it’s double sided effect. I don’t know why this was hit as hard as it was, when it was combo’d so often with pyromancer, which would clear your own board. Is not having board clears a part of paladin’s identity? We had a ton of aoe in WoW. Paladin’s are, or were, good at aoe.

Argent Protector
One of my personal favorites I would make a 2/3, or have it be an “aura” effect giving adjacent minions Divine Shield. Maybe both. Let board positioning be a paladin theme, as most notable paladins are commanders/leaders & such. (Tirion, Turlayon, Dathrohan, Liadrin, Garithos; etc.)

That’s really all I have for now, I’ve posted a lot of these ideas & more on hearthcards, but this is getting kinda long & just wanted to vent a little bit of creativity/frustration for what the class could be. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

4

The main issue with the paladin basic and classic set imo, is that it is packed with cards that do not provide strong enough effects without powerful draw tools (see all 1 cost spells) and spells that do not provide a reliable enough bonus for their cost.

Therefore, the loss of divine favor creates a huge shortfall in the sets, even though I can agree it is a poorly designed card.

My only additional issue is that holy wrath is an excellent card because it provides a unique benefit, but without proper support it becomes pointless.

The issue with 1 Mana spells is solvable through powerful draw tools or card generation.

The issue with expensive spells is solvable through Mana cost reductions.

My suggestion - replace righteousness with

Scarlet Inquisitor - (3) 4/3. Whenever you play a 1 Mana spell, add a 1 Mana spell to your hand.

This creates a combo that allows paladins to generate value with 1 Mana spells, making them potentially useful as the game passes the opening turns.

Secondly, I think some Mana cost reductions are in order for some of the higher cost spells

Equality - 3
Hammer of wrath - 3
Lay on hands - 7
Blessed champion - 3

Thirdly - support holy wrath with high cost cards and deck stacking effects so that this unique interaction can be used, or replace it with something generally useful

5

I don’t like Scarlet Inquisitor, tbh. Putting bad 1 cost spells in your deck, to randomly generate more bad 1 cost spells doesn’t sound like a good or fun card to play. The issue is that paladin’s basic set is bad. The secret package is unfun to play with, or against, as we saw with Mysterious Challenger, and that card wasn’t good because secrets are good, it was good because it
a) Thinned your deck.
&
b) Paladin had other tools that allowed us to build a board, like Muster for Battle, synergy with competitive spirit & avenge, etc.

Blessed Champion shouldn’t exist alongside a card like blessing of might, imo. Like, what’s the design goal there? Do they want OTK paladin to have been a thing? Same with Holy Wrath, it’s a high roll card that’s good, when insanely high costed cards are printed, like we saw with Shirvallah, or further back, Molten Giant, and back then, the combo wasn’t reliable, meaning it wasn’t good. You don’t play holy wrath to cycle, and you don’t play it as removal, it’s not reliable enough for that; it’s only ever seen play in OTK decks. Paladin is just all over the place, it has no internal synergy.

1 Like
6

Think about that; how many +1/1 cards does it take to make a difference late game? You need at least 10 of these to be effective, and that never happens. 1/1 is too slow too…

Was this supposed to be used in conjunction with Mountain or Kal when it was designed? This is lackluster at best

Maybe these Librams would be better with a Kael or mountain deck than with any other Libram cards

7

Here’s a question.

Has Paladin ever been good since Divine Favor got HoF’d?

8

That was sort of exactly my point, the 1 Mana stuff is fine if you have good draw tools to keep from exhausting your hand, without that though you just run out of gas

9

Libram of wisdom is a pretty decent card, especially if you can discount it to 0 early, you can play it multiple times in a turn to really get excellent value out of trades with token minions. It can easily be 0 Mana +4/4.

Where it fails is if you don’t draw it early or can’t stick any minions

10

They aren’t fine though, because they still didn’t see play when Divine Favor was standard. Reynad almost won grand finals with a hyper aggressive paladin deck, i’m talking wisps & murloc tinyfins, he couldnt even fit blessing of might into that deck & it only ran noble sacrifice. Secrets, the bulk of paladin 1 mana spells, only saw play when mysterious challenger played all of them at once for free & it thinned your deck. Actually drawing the secrets was bad, because they’re bad cards to draw & spend mana on. Even now, 1 mana spells generated off of lightforged crusader is not what you want to see, even if they can come in clutch once in a blue moon. They’re only barely okay to generate, or discover, but you don’t actually want them taking space in your deck.

11

Not really arguing that point but if you want to run a couple of 1 Mana spells and have a possible play to generate a decent amount of value off it in the mid to late game, that’s pretty decent for a basic/classic.

Certainly not op, and probably not the type of thing you want to build a deck around but it does provide an avenue to make use of those things.

12

Paladin has no classic set, It’s either useless secrets or tirion. It’s a mess and it needs MAJOR revision.

1 Like
13

What blizzard wants paladin to do are summarized in these 4 steps

  • Swarm the board
  • buff your minion
  • debuff your opponents minions
  • Be president (self heal …etc)

It’s good on paper but the issue with this

  • opponents can out value you
  • opponents minions have better states and more stickies.
  • opponents have easy low cost board clears
  • you run out of steam pretty quickly

That’s a major flaw in the design. As paladin doesn’t fit the current game.

——-
With priest however… from the earliest form of the game till the recent changes they always had one or two persistent win conditions.
Double double inner fire combo.
And valen,s spell damage finish.

The change is warranted as it was crippling their card designs.
But with paladin. They never had any clear win condition and always tied to specific expansion set.

Paladin can go president and play the long control game… but the question remains … till what? Whats the end game other than fatigue?
Which there are multiple ways to avoid that currently ingame.