Master Series: DoA’s Divine Comedy

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Hey guys! The idea behind this article series is to outline some of the decks I’m currently playing at the highest level of the Hearthstone beta ladder!

This time around we’re finally taking a look at my Divine Shield Paladin deck. It’s gone through a lot of iterations throughout the beta and no doubt will change again, but here it is in its current state! I’ve got around an 80% win rate on the ladder overall and used this deck to get to Master 3 post-wipe in under 24 hours in only 28 wins!

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[tabs] [tab title=”1″]Hand of Protection x1
Noble Sacrifice x2
Redemption x1
Repentance x1
Abusive Sergeant x2
Argent Squire x1
Leper Gnome x2
[/tab] [tab title=”2″]Argent Protector x2
Bloodsail Raider x2
[/tab] [tab title=”3″]Sword of Justice x2
Divine Favor x2
Blood Knight x1
Scarlet Crusader x2
[/tab] [tab title=”4″]Truesilver Champion x2
Consecration x1
Hammer of Wrath x2
[/tab] [tab title=”6″]Argent Commander x2
[/tab] [tab title=”8″] Ragnaros The Firelord x1
Tirion Fordring x1[/tab][/tabs][/third]

As you can see, the theme of this deck is aggression. It’s aggro, but I’d categorize this deck as more of a mid-range aggro deck. THE major key to playing this deck is trading your minions efficiently. Luckily, the Divine Shield attribute makes this a lot easier than it normally would be. Learning when and how to use up your Divine Shield charges on your minions is necessary to winning with this deck though and the ability can’t be thrown around too wrecklessly.

My 1 drops, Leper Gnome, Abusive Sergeant , and Argent Squire all offer a strong turn 1. It’s true that general 1-drop minions are easily dealt with, but the real point of these 3 are to create a big enough turn 1 threat to draw out a removal or Hero spell early and keep your opponent from playing a minion of their own. You’ll generally be playing more cost efficient things than they will be in the mid-game so you want to get to that point with them having as few minions on the board as possible. You can almost think of it as another form of removal in that it creates a board state that gives you a minion numbers-edge! There’s also the nice possibility of getting to hit for 4 on your second turn with an Abusive Sergeant-buffed Leper Gnome on turn or something as well. Make sure to consider sometimes saving Abusive Sergeant against certain decks that you know are going to play a lot of high-hearth minions. You might need him to finish one off!

A big turn 2 play to look for in this deck is The Coin into Scarlet Crusader. A 3-damage minion with Divine Shield that fast will negate a lot of other 3-drops and put your opponent in a pretty uncomfortable position overall. Even though it has 1 health, the shield makes your opponent spend a minion + a spell to get rid of it, which is card advantage for you! Blood Knight is also a great turn 2 coin play if you’re able to get a turn 1 Argent Squire. Blood Knight is a strong card, but needs to be played carefully and isn’t always the best option, which is why I’ve only got one in the deck. It’s still a potential 6/6 on your second turn though!

From turn 3 onward this deck really starts to shine. You’ll get to start playing your Sword of Justice into cards like Bloodsail Raider and pump out 2/2 Silver Hand Recruit tokens with your Hero ability. During this phase of that game you usually won’t have a lot of creatures out, but you’ll be doing little bits of damage here and there as you trade your Divine Shield charges for your creatures and gain an overwhelming board advantage.

Late game we’ve got four cards that do a good job closing out most matches: 2x Argent Commander, Ragnaros the Firelord and Tirion Fordring. The Argent Commanders bring some great unexpected damage in the later turns and can help remove the last Taunt minion in your way to allow your finishing blow. They can also deal the kill move themselves too, of course! Ragnaros the Firelord seems like an odd choice, but he and Tirion Fordring are basically there as late game insurance. Both are capable of single-handedly giving you back the edge in a game that’s gone on a little bit too long. Remember; this is a mid-range aggro deck so that means you will see the late game a bit more often!

The focus of the spells in this deck is to help with your main goal of trading minions more efficiently than your opponent to create a board edge. Combining Noble Sacrifice with your Sword of Justice Results in a surprise 3/2 that can take down most mid-game minions your opponent will throw at you. If you’re fortunate enough to add Redemption into the combo as well you’ll often times end up minion-positive in a fight where your opponent loses one of theirs and you gain a “free” 3/1. It’s also important to note that when a minion like Argent Crusader is brought back with Redemption it re-gains its Divine Shield as well! This allows you to trade a lot more aggressively early-on that most other decks allow you to do.

Generally your board control will be pretty good with minions alone, but 2x Hammer of Wrath and 1x Consecration will make sure you always have it. I opted for just a single Consecration since you’ll seldom need to worry about eliminating more than 1 minion on the other side with this deck because of your trading efficiency. Hammer of Wrath is a generally more useful in most games because of its higher single-target damage and its card draw. Most common Taunt minions in the game can be dealt with by using one Hammer of Wrath and one of your other minions, allowing the rest to get through to your opponent’s Hero.

Divine Favor continues to be one of the best drawing cards in the game even after the recent patch nerf. At 3 mana it’s still a great play against most decks. Generally I throw it back if I’ve got turn2 and get one in my opening 4-card hand, but if I’ve got first turn and have it as one of my 3 starting cards I always keep it. This usually results in my playing 2-3 cards in my first couple turns and then using Divine Favor on my third turn for a draw of 3-4 cards as most decks in Hearthstone right now tend to save up until around then; especially if they’re going second. There’s absolutely no reason that there shouldn’t be two of this card if every Paladin deck ever though as it’s extremely valuable in helping your sustain the pressure in longer games as well.

So we’ve got a 1/1 for 2 mana. Not the most spectacular Hero ability ever, but it does come in handy once in a while. It at least ensures you’ll have a minion on the board nearly every turn. It’s a nice option if you’re short on cards and have Sword of Justice out as well. Aside from that it’s not too helpful. The nice thing is that usually you won’t be worrying about using it at all since you’ll have better cards in-hand to play anyway. The bottom line is that this ability is designed to work with the other buffing cards that exist in the Paladin class card set more than it’s designed to work with this deck specifically.

Remember! You won’t win with this deck unless you play it aggressive! It’s imperative to control the number of minions your opponent has out on the board and you’ll also need to become and expert at trading your minions in the most efficient way possible. This deck is designed to take the lead and keep it and, like most aggro decks, it’s hard to catch up if you fall behind. This is doubly true in the current control-oriented meta that exists on the Hearthstone ladder. That said, the Divine Shield Paladin is probably the strongest aggro deck style in the game at the moment and is sure to give bloodthirsty players like myself an entertaining way to win games!