Hearthpwn

hey folks,

Balckovic here with an original deck idea after WoG hits! It focuses on the original attributes of the Paladin class: Tokens, Buffs, Divine Shield and Dragons. Wait, what?
I started building this deck, when Steward of Darkshire was announced. Please keep in mind, that this deck was created pre-nerf and will change whenever new cards are announced.

Now let's start:
The main goal of this deck is to survive the early game, take the lead during midgame and overwhelm the opponent in the late game. It doesn't rely on "the one combo" but rather many small ones and pure value cards. In theory, it's damn felxible, but after all it's a theorycraft.

The extra heal and card draw will come in handy to get to the lategame, where the big drops will handle the board. In addition to that you'll find Steward of Darkshire usable with almost any other card like Young Priestress, Loot Hoarder or the Tokens provided by the hero power. Upgrade it with Justicar Trueheart for 2 Argent Squires for 2 mana without using a single card!
The legendary deathrattle minions Sylvanas Windrunner, Cairne Bloodhoof and Tirion Fordring are excellent choices to revive with N'Zoth the Corruptor. Throw in the Loot Hoarders from above and you'll get 24 mana worth of minions out of this 5 mana effect, including a divine shield taunt minion to save your life.

Now to the odd choices: Sword of Justice & Onyxia,
Sword of Justice can be garbage and is the reason why there's only 1 Truesilver Champion, but the idea of getting additional buffs in combination with the divine shield provided by Steward of Darkness is just too good to not try.

Onyxia on the other hand was always bad, because she didn't have any immidiate impact on the board and the 1/1's can be killed easily with any AoE spell. But with Steward of Darkness, you get a board full of Argent Squires! When she's discounted due to Dragon Consort, they even can be played in the same round.
Another dragon synergy is found with Twilight Drake, which will get the buff and divine shield.

Some other cards, which didn't make the cut were Blood Knight (for obvious reasons), Murloc Knight (too many 6-drops) and Faceless Shambler. I really want to try some of them out, especially the last one, since it also gets divine shield, when played with Steward of Darkness, but it's has no value on it's own, so I let it be. Equality is another excellent card, but I don't know what to put out instead. I guess that's up for playtesting.


The biggest problem I had was deciding which cards I want to put in the deck, since there are so many possiblities and builds I want to try, so I made up another version of the same deck with a more dragon focused theme, including Chromaggus and Chillmaw among others. The list can be found below, details and changes are in the description of the deck. 

There's probably even a Secret/Murloc Pally (without Anyfin can Happen) variation for this deck, though I haven't put any thoughts in it yet.

Going full Dragon control build:

If you have questions, comments or general feedback, let me know!

Update: Even though Deathwing, Dragonlord is an amazing card, it kinda destroys the dragon synergies in this deck. Twilight Drake doesn't get the health buff (but divine shield), Onyxia doesn't summon her Whelps and Dragon Consort doesn't give you the discount.

Update no.2: I've switched Sword of Justice for Rallying Blade, because they have the same purpose, yet RB is much quicker and can take out nasty early game minions as well. In addition I added a Selfless Hero and it was a though choice what to replace it with, but finally I chose Ragnaros, Lightlord, because it's another 8 drop and doesn't help the strategy the slightest. SH actually helps me through the early game, which is this deck's biggest threat.

I really want to try this first draft including my whacky choices and I'll see what works and what doesn't . Of course it's in my dragon themed build (see above) included.