Paladin has lost its Identity

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Paladin, for a long time, has had a “bunch on tiny dudes” archetype. Be it Dude Paladin of Old Gods, Odd Paladin of YOTR, or Secret Paladin that keeps coming back, Paladin has always had a token-aggro deck in its arsenal.
With the removal of Divine Favor, along with Blizzard seemingly not printing Silver Hand Recruit synergies (probably due to Baku) it has lost the fuel to maintain an aggro archetype that it always has had.
Recent expansions have pushed it into another direction: Healing and Dragons. Sound familiar? That’s Priest’s thing.
(well, Pally has mech and Priest has resurrect so it’s not a 1-1 comparison but my point stands)
Now, I agree that Divine Favor was REALLY strong and could be considered a 3 mana Draw 5, but without it, aggro pally, of any form, has trouble staying meta prevalent. But Blizzard clearly wants a secret-aggro pally to exist, judging by the secret support it received in RoS.

So this is what I suppose:
(Insert name pun here) 3 Mana spell
Draw 3 minions that have 2 or less health.

This is strong and is made for an aggro-esque paladin, pulling the secret keepers and the knife jugglers Paladin loves to run, but is also not as absurd as DF.

Do you guys think Pally will ever have an aggro archetype again?
Will Dragon Pally ever work?
Discuss below.

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Neither Dragons nor Healing are archetypal themes that Priest has a monopoly on. You’d might as well say that Control Dragon/Elemental Shaman was stealing Priest’s identity towards the end of the last expac. Paladin has always had these synergies as well (albeit to a lesser degree), and I appreciate the fact that Blizzard has taken them in their current route. While things like Control/Heal Paladin aren’t top-tier right now, I have no doubt that something could be printed in future sets that helps them out a ton in the long run.

I would also be surprised if Paladin never got an Aggro deck again. As you mentioned in your original post, aggressive Paladin decks have been a staple for a large part of HS’s history, and the class still has potential for synergies in the future.

Paladin’s just trying a new focus right now. Pretty much all classes shift their themes from time to time, and I’m sure Paladin will eventually shift away from Dragons just like Priest did.

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Don’t speak too soon, secret paladin was a midrange deck blizz obviously wanted to be good, but it lacks card draw and runs out of gas quick. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more card draw for pally, not on the level of df, but still.

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I’d made a Dragon Pally that was actually quite useable in Wild awhile back - when Equality was still 2, it meshed quite well with Dragonmaw Scorcher whose body made it a bit better than Consecrate.

Unfortunately, whether it be Dragon or some “dude” variant, the Standard Paladin decks all seem to be missing a little something. Wild Paladins can actually make great use of the new Never Surrender, and I had a few good matches against them.

But Standard? Missing Muster for Battle, missing Shielded Minibot, missing Argent Defender, missing that 5 cost draw 2 that gets cheaper with minion deaths, missing Call To Arms, missing Lost in the Jungle, missing Baku power, and missing Rallying Blade. Naturally you wouldn’t necessarily run ALL of those in the same deck, but that’s still a lot of early options gone. Paladin doesn’t really have a Frostbolt equivalent for early removal so it tended to rely on minions to establish an early game; without those minions, it has to rely on neutrals or Truesilver to catch back up, and it’s not enough. Even decks like N’Zoth or buff decks with Spikeridge Steed needed some of those early game choices.

To be perfectly fair to Blizz, I do think HoF on Divine Favor was a good call to alleviate the all-in flood style, and Equality is actually pretty balanced in Wild where all you need is a tap from a previous Light’s Justice (from Muster) or a leftover token spawned from a Lost in the Jungle or the shield off a Argent Defender, Minibot or Argent Squire to remove a big minion.

Paladin thrives pretty decently in Wild, and was not particularly decimated by the Equality nerf - in fact, it grew. But in Standard which lacks all those token generators and a slew of aggression tools, yeah, they’re not keeping up. They’d need a lot more - possibly a new archetype - to make a return.

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5

Loss of DF really hurt. Token paladin was never meta until Baku. The best form of aggro paladin was secret based with mysterious challenger. Then paladin was in the doldrums until call to arms. After that nerf, odd paladin became the quintessential aggro paladin deck.

I’d much rather paladin aggro not be defined by tokens. Druid already has that covered and it’s feel duplicative. Secret paladin as potential but could use a tad more help. Mech paladin isn’t terrible but suffers in this meta. Big paladin doesn’t work. So in summary, I hope paladin (and priest) see better cards in the next expansion.

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I was trying to make a good Wild Dragon Paladin deck, but it was unsuccessful attempt. If you saved your deck list somewhere I would like to see it, maybe I get new ideas how to improve it. :slight_smile:

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Yes, there will be some aggro archtype again.
Maybe it works atm but hadn’t its shining time. Maybe it will every work.

Hearthstone is still based on warcraft, and there Paladins are also capable of heal, as well as druids (who got a healing theme with RoS) as well as Shamans (which maybe will get a healing theme in the future.)

Dragon theme is for Warriors also since RR.

And I say, Paladins identity is more divine shield, low cost spells and buff stuff.

It’s good that there isn’t some another for paladin atm, so you get more directions for a class and some other cards will be used. No Aggro deck would use Shrinking Ray for example.

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Well alright, but my list needs some freshening too.

Dragon
Class: Paladin
Format: Wild

2x (1) Righteous Protector
1x (2) Cathedral Gargoyle
2x (2) Firetree Witchdoctor
2x (2) Netherspite Historian
1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard
2x (3) Muster for Battle
2x (3) Nightbane Templar
1x (4) Consecration
2x (4) Keeper of Uldaman
2x (4) Scaleworm
2x (5) Blackwing Corruptor
2x (5) Dragon Consort
2x (5) Dragonmaw Scorcher
2x (5) Solemn Vigil
1x (6) Book Wyrm
2x (8) Primordial Drake
1x (8) Tirion Fordring
1x (9) Ysera

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A few hiccups: I don’t own a second Cathedral Gargoyle (and not sure I want a second), and because it doesn’t do all too hot against Big Priest, it’s currently in the shop for a tune up.

However, seems to do just peachy against aggro and fights midrangey stuff like a DK Rexx Hunter or an Evens Shaman on fair grounds.

I find there’s a lot of overlooked little cards. Nightbane Templar doesn’t exactly swing tempo, but it usually becomes the precursor to one, and followed by a Scaleworm, Keeper of Uldaman, or a Consecrate, tends to take the board back from anything that goes all face. Brann became a natural fit in the deck; there aren’t any super combos with him, but there’s such a high amount of battlecry minions in the deck that he usually finds a home without needing to be saved for any specific card – I use him combined with Witchdoctors, Historians, Templar, Consort, or if I need to distract an opponent I just slap him down plain. Solemn Vigil often ends up costing 3 or less, so seems to be worth including; especially when token decks and your own Templar are involved, I often find myself paying nothing. Also, Primordial Drakes - often overlooked because of how tight the 8 mana slot is, but they’re lifesavers, able to provide both the clear and the taunt required to be the final nail in the coffin against aggressive decks.

Used to be an Equality in here to use with Dragonmaw Scorcher before it went up to 4 – now debating a Shrink Ray instead. Ysera is there as a filler – I love the idea of a “boss dragon”, but the Primordial Drakes do that well enough already, it’s just cool to play her on 7 after a Consort, but I feel a better Dragon could be fitted. Tirion is there because he’s Tirion; it felt weird including a Stonehill Defender to try and fetch Tirion when I could just play Tirion himself, and have plenty of early game anyways.

An interesting deck that could be tweaked. Really doesn’t need too much late game, because it can generate it through cards like the Historians. Makes up for Paladins weak early game by playing general stuff, then catching up with some of the faster 4-6 cost cards.

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Wow, it would be awful if we weren’t always able to play the same basic archetypes in Standard at all times. Wouldn’t want Blizzard to have to come up with something new, would we?

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10

Im more annoyed that they nerfed Equality and thus the control archetype. Fighting summoner mages, tempo rogues, and hunters now have become a lot harder.

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11

Secret paladin is one of the most aggro decks in standard RIGHT NOW. So really didn’t need to look that far…

E.g., this:
https://hsreplay.net/decks/IAot4UO33x9cwdz77NY28d/

It’s not a tier S deck, but it’s only 1-2 good cards away from that. So don’t be too surprised if you see that in half of your games if the next expansion give those cards.

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Uther should have gotten LifeLock.

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Classes don’t have just a single thing as their identity. Using dudes (in aggro or otherwise) is one paladin theme, but not the only one. Dude/aggro had its time the last couple expansions so now they’re focusing on different things about the class, such as healing and buffing.

Whether a deck built around those themes are viable in competitive meta is another matter. Mech pally, according to vs, is not a bad deck overall, it’s just unpopular due to some of its poor matchups against mages and hunters.

Dragons (and murlocs and mechs etc) are themes that can and has appeared across different classes. Even hunters are given a couple dragons in the current rotation (again, whether that’s viable is another matter)

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