I’ve asked this question before, now I’m curious. Why is Even Paladin so good? Does it really benefit from the hero power so much that it’s worth cutting all the odd options? And I know, good target for blessing of kings and all that. But isn’t Blessing of kings basically a vanilla 4/4 minion for 4 (With charge)? Why is it worth it? Would people really cut half of their options to put a vanilla buff spell and stegodon steed? Just curious. (Btw, I know it’s really good)
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Think of it as playing as a novice engineer on turn 1. Instead of having to play a card to get board presence, you get to play a 1/1 and save a card. It basically creates card advantage by filling in any gaps during your early turns.
Later on it is a good target for buffs or Tarim.
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It can depend.
The upside of Evens Paladin, and this is the same as Evens Shaman, is that you will always be able to have a turn 1 play, every game, with no such thing as a bad mulligan depriving you of a 1 drop.
This opens up possibilities. Since you will always have a minion on 1, you can tailor your turn 2 accordingly. I don’t play Evens Paladin so I’m going to use Shaman as an example, but you can try and run buffs like Earthen Might, whereas in other decks you would have to have both your desired buff as well as a turn 1 play in hand simultaneously.
And, like Vic said, it also has the edge of not consuming a resource. My first turn will always be a hero button push, so if I go first, I’ll always enter turn 2 with 5 cards in hand as if I hadn’t played anything, but still get to have a minion on board. It might only be a 1/1 or a 0/2, but it’s there, and threatens to be buffed.
Just like Teo said : nerf paladin.
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The extra chip damage and tradeability is good, almost like banking a compounding Mage hero power (but is sucesptible to removal), but the main benefit to it is always having access to additional Tarim/buff targets.
Essentially, it’s a constant pressure minion for cheap that allows your buff cards to always have a target and it doesn’t take up a card slot.
Hearthstone at its core is a mana efficiency vs mana efficiency game. (when you play a removal spell that kills a minion or more with a combined mana of more than your removal, you are “winning” the mana efficiency game and more likely to be “winning” the game.)
That 1/1 minion for 1 mana helps you to win that mana efficiency war more and more each turn.
This is why even paladin and even shaman are a thing (they create board presence and gain mana efficiency) whereas say even priest isn’t a thing because there would be turns where you aren’t gaining mana efficiency if you have nothing to heal.
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The hero power itself is fine enough - that’s not why the deck is good. The deck is good because it makes the curve much more consistent, so you don’t have the times where you miss a drop on a turn or end with unspent mana.
Making your deck primarily 2’s and 4’s makes it much easier to have a good tempo progression, with the extra 1-cost 1/1’s helping out. That, and the biggest power cards for paladin in general happen to be even.
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I will say it another way.
Even and Odd Paladin both are about under commitment while forcing over commitment from the opponent. If they commit to removal it’s fine, you didn’t spend cards while they did, if they don’t you smack them in the face with BOK or RL.
That’s why they trash Beast Hunter.
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I think I will regret dusting golden Genn…
You should never dust Standard non extras.
The correct day to dust is rotation day.
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Its good because its an always available 1/1 for 1 mana in a game that at its core favors tempo and the aggressor. Always having that option to create a board presence without needing any cards and doing it cheaper goes very well with the core game mechanics. Also having the HP cost 1 mana helps you spend mana more efficiently instead of floating a mana here and there.
This is only the case if you can use your remaining mana efficiently and without playing into your opponent’s plan. If using efficient removal leaves you with mana and nothing to spend it on, that removal may just as well have cost what the card says plus the leftovers.
And if you play into your opponent’s plans being mana efficient doesn’t matter.
I feel like a few people have already kind of said this but, the reason it is good is because it is extra value that is not coming from one of your 30 cards in the deck. It is one of the only hero powers that can force out removal on its own. If you can force out a removal card without using a single card in your deck that is pretty insane value.
edit: Think of it like this. If a Priest has no cards left and can only hero power and an Even/Odd Paladin has no cards left. The 1-1’s build up board presence eventually doing 7 damage a turn while the Priest can only heal for 2 a turn.
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Yes, the meta has been 450% Hunter for 2 damn months, but Nerf Paladin.
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Spikeridge Steed
Kings
Any buff card actually
All depend on board pressure and presence so the easy way to pretty much guarantee that is to flood the board from turn 1 (never loosing tempo) because you always have a turn 1 play and you roll on from there.
That’s the power of the hero power is constant pressure backed up with powerful buff cards that punish the opponent for not killing your 1/1s
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