Deck Guide: Aggro Paladin

Hearthstone has forever been a game built on the premise of adapt or die. Everytime the meta shifts, sometimes in a matter of hours or days, if you don’t adapt as well the ladder will bury you alive.

[See the full post at: Deck Guide: Aggro Paladin]

I had been mourning the diminished effectiveness of my Shockadin Deck when I stumbled across your deck. I like the concept and the synergies are good. I made two changes. -2 Argent Squire +2 Worgen Infiltrator. This makes the one drops a bit more meaty and synergies well with BoM or even Redemption. Also, since I dusted my Leroy in trade for a Sylvanas, I added a pocket Leroy in the form of Blessing of Kings in its stead. Was considering using Reckless Rocketeer or Argent Commander but 6 mana just seems to slow in this deck.

Thoughts?

I came across this guide when it came out about a week ago. As a fairly new Hearthstone player who likes aggressive decks and also the Paladin class, this deck seemed really interesting and affordable, so when I had the 500 dust that I needed to craft it I decided to test it. Arcane Golem replaced Leeroy Jenkins in my deck as you suggested for players on a budget. I played a total of 100 games on NA ranked over the past week and here are my results and thoughts against each class. Of course I needed to learn how to play the deck (and still I probably make mistakes) but after 100 games on NA ranked I thought it is worth sharing here how this deck performed in the lower ranked region (Rank 15-20).

Overall win rate: 52% (54.8% in games where I had Divine Favour at some point during the game)

Ladder climb: From level 19 to 15 (thanks to winning streaks)

Winrate against each class (number of games in brackets, equal to percentage) in order of encounter frequency:

Warlock: 66.6% (21)
Definitely the most commonly played class on NA at the moment, thanks to the two different strategies Zoolock (56.25%) and Handlock (100%). Yes, Handlock was the only deck type that I defeated consistently in all 5 games that I played against it. I got lucky in two of them though, as I top-decked a Consecration and a Blessing of Might in the last turn where I could have won in two of those games. It is possible to run out of gas against Handlock, but I had Divine Favour available in 4 of the 5 games which is almost a guarantee to win. Against Zoolock I would say this deck is actually 50/50. I found games against zoolock very enjoyable, often with both players ending up below 10 health in the last few turns. As you said, Redemption was very important here, Divine Favour was not. Equality and Owl are almost necessary to survive Void Terror, Doom Guard and Nerubian Eggs. If he gets all three of these early you probably lose, but since games are short the chances are about 50/50.

Priest: 37.5% (16)
Most of my losses were against priest, which is unfortunately a very common class in Ranked at the moment. While the matchup was approximately even against Control Priests (44.4%) I had a lot of trouble against Deathrattle Priests (16.7%) only winning 1 out of 6 games against that type of deck. Maybe I am just playing the deck wrong against priest, but I tried to follow your guidelines on keeping Swords and Abusive Sergeants. Cabale Shadowpriest actually never really turned out to be a problem, although I kept it in mind for turn six. Priest’s best weapon (and often game winning) was Holy Nova. I’m not sure how to play around it with this deck though. On top of that even against this fairly cheap deck Thoughtsteal still helped the priest to gain board control in most cases. While Divine Favour almost always gets great value against priest (and I picked it up in about 70% of the games), it wasn’t game changing, as for some of the other matchups. I would say that for this deck Priest is the worst matchup given the prevalence of the class on ladder at the moment.

Mage: 53.8% (13)
Mage was the class with most diverse deck types I encountered. I think it is fairly popular at the moment and it benefits from having multiple playable deck types. I encountered a Giant Mage, two Freeze Mages, 4 Midrange Mages and 6 Aggro Mages. Aggro Mages were most difficult to deal with, as they often have earlier and more removal than this deck does. I often had trouble deciding when to remove minions from the board and when to save my removal potential because it is hard to predict which minions are in the Mage Deck. I generally tried to take out the Mana Wyrms and Sorceres early, while trying to maintain pressure by doing face damage. If I managed to get a lot of early damage in against an Aggro Mage, I was able to hold on just enough to finish him off with Equality/Consecration, Arcane Golem, Blessing of Might or Truesilver later on. While Divine Favour is definitely necessary in most cases, it didn’t affect my winrate against Mage. Some games I won just with the initial amount of gas in my hand, without having to rely on Divine Favour. I think more than any other matchup, your chances to win against Mage depend a lot on your opponents hand (and the amount of early removal in it), which makes it hard to decide upon your own play. I usually just flood the board and hope for the best. Unlike in other matchups Flamestrike is not that important against this deck, as it often comes too late/is too expensive, or is not even played by the more aggressive Mage decks. I won against both Freeze Mages that I encountered, but I think this is mainly because they were both budget Freeze Mage decks, not including the Alexstraza, Double Blizzard etc. Overall facing a Mages with this deck is a bit of hit and miss, my games ended up being one sided quite often.

Hunter: 50% (12)
As you mentioned in your guide, almost all Hunter decks on ladder at the moment are very aggressive. I found that some minion removal is usually necessary to win the face race and often took out the Animal Companions and Undertakers. It was very difficult to play against early Eaglehorn Bows in combination with traps. Both Freezing and Explosive Trap are very painful and hard to play around with this deck. Consequently I even used my owl to silence their Mad Scientists, whenever I had the chance. While I had a higher chance of winning with Divine Favour (62.5%), the card is not essential to have early in this matchup. Redemption definitely is, as it helps a lot to gain board control, if they ever decide to trade.

Paladin: 55.5% (9)
I defeated both of the other aggressive decks I encountered against this class, as they both didn’t run Redemption which is a huge help to maintain board presence. The control version of paladin proved to be much more of a challenge than I expected based on the thoughts in your guide. The tokens and Consecration slow down the push quite a bit, almost always allowing them access to bigger minions and healing before you can end. I may have been a bit unlucky by getting Divine Favour only twice against control paladin, but when I did I ended up winning. It seems like you definitely need more than just your initial hand to finish off a control paladin, but if you get Divine Favour, you are in good shape.

Druid: 55.5% (9)
Similar to Paladin, Druids are usually able to slow down your push, either based on their hero power or based on strong early minions coming out of Wild Growth and Innervate. As against control Paladin I did much better in games against Druids when I had access to Divine Favour (80%). I think Argent Squire is especially useful against Druid because it survives Swipe and can then be buffed with Blessing of Might or it comes back with the renewed shield from Redemption. This matchup taught me that minion order can be very important with this deck. Against Druid you definitely need to win the game fairly early, as they either have strong creatures or the combo available, for which you don’t have many answers in this deck.

Warrior: 62.5% (8)
This turned out to be one of the best matchups for this deck, at least in my ladder region. Warrior almost always manages to slow down your push (as most of them are playing control decks). This gave me access to Divine Favour in all of the games I played against this class. As you mentioned, Execute is mostly useless against this deck and Brawl often comes a bit late/is not super useful against Harvest Golem. I found it most challenging to play around Death’s Bite, as its deathrattle is basically a board clear against this deck. I usually managed to take out Armorsmith fairly soon after it was played. Equality can be really important for this, as you mentioned. Overall I felt very comfortable using this deck against warriors, as you usually get to apply a lot of pressure and direct the game the way you want it to go.

Shaman: 25% (8)
Statistically the worst matchup based on my experience, but given the low number of opponents maybe not as important/detrimental to your ladder performance as priest. You can often get a three game winning streak without encountering any Shaman, but you are more likely to encounter a Priest. I didn’t find a good way to deal with Shaman yet, maybe you can give some advice on this matchup? I didn’t ever encounter a Sea Giant Shaman, but maybe the games just didn’t last long enough. Earthshock is definitely their most powerful weapon, but on top they have access to lightning bolt which takes out any of this deck’s creatures. That makes it hard to keep up with the board clearing, especially when they play Feral Spirit. I feel like Consecration/Equality should be valued a bit higher in this matchup in your starting hand. If you lose the board control once it is very hard to get back against Shaman with this deck with the variety of ways Shaman has to keep minions alive by healing them and hiding them behind taunts.

Rogue: 50% (4)
Only very rarely encountered on ladder these days, this class is usually played aggressively and games can end very quickly. While their weapon is very useful for removal, they also suffer hitpoint loss from doing so. When I won against Rogue, I was able to get good value out of Redemption with Leper Gnome or Arcane Golem/Argent Squire. When I lost, I simply didn’t have enough defenses against the amount of damage that Rogues can quickly come up with given the right cards and draw. 50/50 feels right overall against Rogues with this deck.

Overall I think this deck has more good matchups (Handlock, Warrior, Paladin) than bad ones (Priest, Shaman) while it is evenly matched against others at the moment (Hunter, Mage, Zoolock, Druid, Rogue). If you like to play a lot of games in a short time, this deck could be the right thing for you. I really enjoyed all the little interactions that are mentioned in the guide, and it was well worth the crafting cost for me. And yes, I did have a few 7 card Divine Favour draws, and it feels awesome!

@Fyrestrom
I think replacing Argent Squires with Worgens can be a good idea against some classes, but against the AoE removal (Holy Nova, Swipe, Consecration, Hellfire, Lightning Storm) it will be worse, as well as the value from Redemption is a bit lower than with Argent Squire in my opinion. I also think that Blessing of Kings could work well in this deck, but the Charge creature has the benefit of still being able to finish off the opponent after a board clear.