This is a big misconception in my opinion. I got Highlander Jailer Paladin to Legend last month, a deck that has lots of stuff Theo can hit and disrupt the deck.
My entire ride to Legend from Diamond 10 I maybe had a Theotar disrupt my deck so I couldn’t win twice. Twice out of a good 100 games. I don’t think Theotar is nearly as disruptive as often as people want others to believe. It simply does not happen that often, regardless of what people try to exaggerate it out to be.
Paladin has always been a class that suffers from Silence effects. It’s why Priest really smashes Paladin hard. Back in the day when Immortal Prelate was a thing (one of my favorite cards) and it just got smashed by Priest over and over. But against many other classes, it’s amazing.
I’ve learned to accept that my Paladin gets destroyed by my Priest and my Priest gets demolished equally by my Warlock or Shaman decks.
I definitely never feel like my Paladin decks are hard countered any more than my Priest decks. Paladin hates silence, Priest hates morphing.
But at least Paladin has a Control option right now. Cariel is arguably the best hero and almost no one is running weapon removal.
I believe it does, and I strongly believe Divine Shield is one of the most powerful keywords in the game. “Absorb all of the next damage” is pretty awesome. And having to waste a resource to pop it is pretty good since Pally is generally playing the resource game. It forces a lot of 2 for 1 trades.
I would like to say plenty of players and many of the top pros think Starfish was a card that should have never been created. We know why it was created but that card has already been nerfed into the ground so that should have been the fix to begin with.
Just goes to show how much more powerful Battlecry is than Deathrattle.
When Showstopper was first revealed, I went nuts. I thought EVERYONE would be running that thing. However, when you need a 2 card combo to silence NOW, it’s not great. Then they revealed Starfish and I about had a fit. And it’s a beast? Thanks. Now Hunter can just smash Priest and Paladin very easily.
Very true. Warlock might be the one exception as they have multiple 1 cost ways to trigger a minions death and get some benefit as well. Most other classes have to pray there’s no silence incoming after a big DR drops.
Theotar got nerfed and is going to be nerfed again.
Starfish got nerfed too. I haven’t seen it in months. It’s a big tempo loss too.
Yes, those effects are pretty expensive generally. Hero powers and whatnot. Divine Shield minions also have much fairer on-curve stats now than they used to.
Like a 4/2 divine shield takes multiple resources to deal with no matter what. You can’t just Drain Soul/Wrath it.