its more like, paladin traditionally have strong minion on curve, because dropping minion is all they do.
if the opponent has strong control tool, paladin is powerless.
In this meta, control tool are slows, and they aren’t infinite unless you play priest or DK.
But priest and DK are vulnerable to every other OTK deck, like mage, hunter. So they arent played much. Thus paladin is king.
Board removal only does so much, especially when it’s also clearing your side of the board so you’re not really gaining tempo…this is what some people don’t get. Sure, the priest spends most of his mana clearing your threats and whatever he/she had on their own side…then what? They plop down a cheapie minion that isn’t a threat? Priest is still just treading water.
Perhaps the nerf to the Snake was too much? Maybe should have gone to 8 health instead of all the way down to 7.
I saw your post in another thread with the HSReplay tier lists highlighting Paladin. And while they are not all that much higher win rate that the decks right behind them, it would seem that with 4 very strong archtypes, there’s got to be a couple of cards common to these decks that are driving this entire class to be a little too strong. I’m not a Paladin expert (or even a Hearthstone expert 
), but Gardens Grace, Crusader’s Aura, and Seal of Blood come to mind as potential problematic cards. I could see these being reviewed internally for balance adjustments.
Just a question regarding the legendary Excavate treasures: were they meant to be a win-con in and of themselves? Aside from the Warlock, I haven’t seen any other used as such. Swing turns, sure. Outright win-cons? Nope. So why should Warlock expect it be so? It’s a very powerful effect, even at 7 health. It can still be bounced. It can still act as a finisher. You just need to be more proactive in doing damage to the opponent rather than just playing your excavates, healing face while destroying foe’s minions, playing Sargeras, etc. You have to admit that using that card 3 times to kill a full health opponent was just too convenient. Hey, at least be glad you’re not Priest having to resort to copying your opponent’s cards to have worthwhile stuff to play.
Lots of designs over the years have been where some classes get a win con and others do not. Quests, for example. Not all quest rewards were win cons.
They always mix it up. It’s no surprise that Excavates work the same way.
I have actually been playing around with mining warlock decks the last couple of days and they are really fun to play.
It is too bad their power is not sufficient to be truly relevant.
There are several decks out there that are fairly fun to play and almost good enough to be competitive, but the meta stars right now are keeping them from existing in any serious manner.
That was my experience, albeit not at particularly high ranking.
There were several decks that just sort of ate my lunch and I had little to no recourse.
Yeah, as you get into Diamond area, the real “deck crushers” become apparent. Paladin will just chew through any deck that doesn’t consistently clear the board or battle to keep board at its crazy pace.
HL Hunter is just 20+ turns of constant pressure that absolutely never ends. You have to beat it with similar pressure or be faster. Control decks struggle hard against it because it’s so aggressive consistently.
HL Shaman will punish any aggro deck that isn’t refined and stomp any deck that tries to establish a board combo type build. (overheal, deathrattles, buffs, etc)
And then Mage will just OTK you if your deck isn’t fast enough and isn’t Control.
It’s rough out there for decks that aren’t as fast as hyper aggro and doesn’t have a fast OTK.
Priest has the secret unicorn tier 0 deck that nobody found or plays. Like that mysterious Paladin deck from the old days that they claim existed at the time that nobody played.
I’ve hunted.
I’ve searched.
I found said deck.
But it was a Paladin disguised as a Priest.
Agree with ya, I will play a couple of standard games then get frustrated and switch to bgs. Then I will think about playing some more standard and then ask myself why, I am having more fun in bgs, might as well stick with bgs.
And at d5 to d4, it is mostly pala, mage, and druid for me that I face. Other classes make an appearance here and there, about only class I don’t see much of is DH
It’s more of a case of old strategies getting long in the tooth. Warlock doesn’t really have anything new and interesting to compete with new deck types. I say this having just climbed to legend this month playing Curse Warlock but that has more to do with my 800+ games playing that strategy. The ooze strat they gave is interesting but not particularly strong right now. Warlock will be a very skill based class to play for a while i fear.
It really feels like an end of rotation meta. ETC is such an important card to play(so many great cards to have in it) and Theotar has found his way back into the meta, which means it’s a target rich environment.
Guess we playing diff games dont see none here.
Im looking at legend only. I dont look at the meta chart that about as accurate as a blind man shooting a gun imo (maybe a bad analogy).
No im not trolling. I look at decks only.
Also I play my own or off meta decks as allways. Only way I find fun in this game anymore.
Actualy I took a decent break from this game (for me). Almost quit ngl. Just game back for new expansion.
Actualy enjoying how many classes are viable right now.
I posted Legend only stats. In fact, the Legend only stats right now are devastating to your assertions that Paladin has 4 other classes that are better and not seen at legend level of play.
In Legend, Paladin is the only deck at Tier 1. The next best 2 decks at the top of Tier 2 are Paladin decks.
Yeah, it’s a pretty bad analogy because the stats are very accurate across millions of games
Here’s a better analogy:
Saying what you said about how there are 4 classes better than Paladin and they aren’t seeing play at Legend is just as absurd as someone saying the Chicago Bulls weren’t the best basketball team in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, and 1998 and that no one bothered watching them during that time.
That’s how off you are.
might just be different classes, as it feels like depending on your class you also face different match ups.