Hearthpwn

Hi, I'm Xalnos, and I recently hit Legend on the EU servers for the third time using this weapon-based control Paladin. this deck is based on one objective - control the board using board clear, secrets, weapons and buffed minions that can perform efficient trades. Whilst some of the cards seem strange, I can assure you that this deck performs on the ladder and it's allowed me to reach Legend for the third time. It's a fairly cheap deck and it's very fun to play. I'll be explaining why I've chosen the cards I've chosen in detail and how they synergise with each other.

Proof of legend rank on EU: http://puu.sh/ar1m8/2bf5896f06.jpg

 

UPDATE 27/7/14: -2 Blessing of Wisdom, -1 Acolyte of Pain, -1 Sword of Justice

+2 Azure Drake, +2 Harvest Golem

Whilst I'm a fan of the Blessing of Wisdom, Azure Drake is more reliable and puts a body on the board as well as a point of spell power which helps with Consecrate and Avenging Wrath. The weak point of the deck was also the fact that there weren't many reliable turn 3/4 plays that you could make, so removing a Sword of Justice and an Acolyte of Pain makes sense due to the fact that we can add two Harvest Golem to create some presence during turn 3 and 4. Whilst taking out a Sword of Justice seems like it makes Captain Greenskin weaker, it actually empowers the deck since you'll be able to use your buffed weapons a little more tactically instead of spamming them to make room for others. I believe that this updated deck is much, much better than the one uploaded previously and I urge you to try it out! Feel free to remove a Harvest Golem or a Repentance for a Ragnaros the Firelord for additional late-game dominance, or a Cairne Bloodhoof for a dominant turn 6 play that could potentially be a 5/6 that turns into a 4/5 with Sword of Justice equipped.

 

Harvest Golemx2: Gives the deck some gluey early minions and allows you to really imprint your dominance on the board during turn 3 and 4. Combine this with a Sword of Justice buff to create a mini-Cairne Bloodhoof. Really nice card to have.

Azure Drakex2: Guaranteed card draw and puts a minion on the board that can be buffed with Sword of Justice to create a real threat. Spell power combos well with the board clear/burst spells in the deck and it gives the deck a much needed 5drop to go along with the unique Captain Greenskin.

Noble Sacrificex2: A stalwart Paladin secret, this allows you to give yourself and your minions an added layer of protection and it also shuts down vicious plays such as early Innervates from Druid, Frothing Berserkers from Warriors, Unbound Elementals from Shamans and zoo cards from Warlocks. A must-have card in this deck.

Repentancex2: Another weird card, but it shuts down big creatures and allows you to rip control of the board from the enemy if a mid-game monster card comes down such as a Druid of the Claw or a Chillwind Yeti. It almost never becomes useless and it combos well with Wild Pyromancer, Consecrate and Avenging Wrath. A must-have card in this deck - you won't be dissapointed with it.

Argent Squirex2: Not much to say here, a good 1 drop that almost always survives until the next turn. Allows you to combo with your early damage such as your hero power. A hyper-dominant turn 1 play in most scenarios.

Equalityx2: Combos well with Wild Pyromancer and Consecration. Unbelievably good for clearing the board as well as shutting down a huge minion if you have no other options.

Holy Lightx1: A useful card to have in most scenarios and it's a great way to defend against the aggro decks that have become so popular in the Naxxramas meta. Almost always useful and rarely dies in your hand - awesome value card as well.

Wild Pyromancerx2: Extremely powerful card that allows you to steal board control from your foe as well as place a powerful creature on the board that the opponent usually has to deal with due to the 3 damage. Dominates aggro decks and combos well with other cards in the deck.

Sword of Justicex1: Combos well with your hero power as well as your 1/2 drops. Captain Greenskin takes this weapon to god-tier and makes it a powerful weapon that you can also use to clear some minions in combination with your board clear minions/spells. The +1/+1 buff that the weapon gives your minions is invaluable as it helps you to maintain board control and presence with strong minions that can trade efficiently, e.g. Argent Squire, Aldor Peacekeeper and hero powers. Also combos well with Acolyte of Pain.

Aldor Peacekeeperx2: Strong card that allows you to further stamp your authority upon the match. It allows you to maintain control of the game by rendering most mid/late game creatures almost useless. Combo with Sword of Justice to create a solid mid-game body.

Acolyte of Painx1: Gives the deck an additional 3 drop creature that also allows the Paladin to gain card draw advantage vs most classes that can't instantly kill it. When used in conjunction with Sword of Justice, it usually gives 2-4 cards and it becomes the main source of card draw and tempo building for the deck.

Truesilver Championx2: Ridiculous weapon that has extreme value and presence. Gives you a heal which is always useful and another way to wrest board control from your opponent's grasp. Don't be afraid to hit face with the Truesilver Champion due to the fact that you have so many other ways to board clear. I find myself using the weapon to obliterate a minion and then hit face the next turn, replacing my destoryed weapon with another Truesilver Champion or a Sword of Justice in order to help me imprint my dominance upon the mid/late game with empowered creatures.

Consecrationx2: Absurdly good card. Unbelievablely dominant when paired with Equality and it's a great card in general. dominates board-flooding aggro decks at turn 4 and makes them cry. However, try to use this when necessary - don't waste it if you don't need to, it's also useful mid game when you start getting your weapons to clear up in combination with the Consecration and you can start flooding the board with buffed minions.

Captain Greenskinx1: The oddball in the deck. It's a strange card since it's never really used, but it combos well with the weapons in your deck and gives them much more value than normal. When used with a Sword of Justice, for example, it becomes a 6/6 creature that's buffed your Sword of Justice to a 2/5 weapon. That's impressive mid-game and it quickly becomes scary for the enemy when they have no counter. It makes Truesilver Champion into a broken card. It almost never becomes a dead card due to the high number of weapons in the deck and it makes Ashbringer ridiculous - a 24 damage weapon out of nowhere is something that usually wins the game. Trust me - it's a better card than it looks, give it a go.

Faceless Manipulatorx1: Allows you to gain the upper hand when facing other control decks as you can simply Faceless Manipulator their mid/late game powerplays and then play your own buffed creatures to support it. It sometimes allows you to steal the opponents minion - for example, your enemy plays a big minion, you Faceless Manipulator it and then you destroy his minion with one of your many clear combos such as Equality and Consecrate/Sword of Justice/Noble Sacrifice/Avenging Wrath.

Avenging Wrathx2: An awesome card to have in most control Paladin decks. You may be used to seeing only 1. However. I've put in 2 due to the insane burst potential it gives you and it allows you to make up for the fact that you don't have that many huge creatures. Your board clear is unreal and you will find yourself using the Avenging Wrath to hit the enemy hero for 6 damage or more, as he will only have 1 or 2 minions on the board due to your extreme board clear potential. This is just a great card, don't scoff at it. It's a winning card in around quarter of my games.

Guardian of Kingsx2: Big late game creature that will usually be buffed to 6/7 and it heals you for 6. What more could you ask for? Combos well with Sword of Justice and gives you 2 late game threats. It also allows you to use Holy Light as a minion healing spell instead of a hero healing spell, giving you more options and more opportunities to control the board.

Tirion Fordringx1: The big man on campus. A huge late game threat, this has to be dealt with one way or another. Tirion Fordring is quite weak to silences, but even then, it's a 6/6 creature and should remain on the board due to the enemy not having many creatures on the board because of your board clear in the turns leading up to your Tirion Fordring play. However, if it's not silenced, the game turns in your favour in a big way. You gain a huge taunt if you have Sword of Justice active, and you gain a extremely powerful weapon that you can actually hit face with most of the time as the opponent won't have minions on the board due ot your board clear.

For a cheaper, F2P version, try substituting out Captain Greenskin for a Spiteful Smith and Tirion Fordring for a Ragnaros the Firelord or a Maexxna (careful, you will lose a good chunk of damage if you replace Tirion Fordring with Maexxna - this is only if you don't have Ragnaros the Firelord).

This concludes my deck and the explanation behind each card and how they combo with each other. I hope that you try out the deck that's allowed me to reach Legend on the EU servers 3 times - I promise you won't be dissapointed!

Matchup Strategies

 

vs Miracle Rogue

Mulligans: (Sword of Justice, Argent Squire, Aldor Peacekeeper), (Repentance, Wild Pyromancer), Noble Sacrifice, Acolyte of Pain

Miracle Rogue is a pretty popular deck at the moment, but it's a matchup that you can definetly win. Try and get early control of the board by putting down minions such as Argent Squire and Acolyte of Pain, as well as secrets such as Noble Sacrifice and Repentance. By doing this, we force the Rogue to use a hero power and a Deadly Poison along with spells such as Shiv and Backstab to pop divine shields/get through Noble Sacrifice. The Repentance stops minions such as SI7 Agent and Edwin VanCleef from becoming too dangerous, as we can simply use one of our board clearing methods to take out the danger - a hero power can do the trick as well as Avenging Wrath and Consecrate. Gadgetzan Auctioneer with Conceal is near impossible to deal with, but Paladins have some methods such as Equality + Consecrate, Equality + Wild Pyromancer and Avenging Wrath. We can also kill it with our Repentance secret and 1 damage. Try and maintain board control via Sword of Justice-buffed hero powers and low mana drops and you should win the matchup.

vs Druid

Mulligans: Truesilver Champion, Sword of Justice, Argent Squire, (Aldor Peacekeeper, Repentance, Blessing of Wisdom),

Sword of Justice and Truesilver Champion comes up big in this matchup, as we're able to flood the board with 2/2 hero powers that druids have problems dealing with. If the Druid is forced to use a Wrath on your hero power, then you know you're doing pretty good. The Sword of Justice makes sure that our board will usually survive a Swipe unless it's empowered by spell power. Cards such as Repentance and Aldor Peacekeeper grant us options to shutdown giant taunts such as Druid of the Claw or scary minions like Chillwind Yeti. This is a really good matchup for us as we can pretty much deal with anything that comes our way. A ramp style Druid with lots of late game threats can be shutdown with Repentance, Equality, Consecrate, Wild Pyromancer, Aldor Peacekeeper and Avenging Wrath. An token style Druid gets dominated by our immense board clear, and Tirion comes up big if we can bait out Keeper of the Grove on our buffed minions leading up to turn 8. The Force of Nature + Savage Roar combo is scary, but we shouldn't be too worried as we have some heals in our deck with Holy Light and Guardian of Kings as well as taunts like Tirion Fordring. The Druid's board should also be relatively empty so a Savage Roar combo won't do too much to us. A pretty easy matchup that we should win most of the time.

vs Hunter

Mulligans: Truesilver Champion, (Argent Squire, Blessing of Wisdom), (Consecration, Equality, Wild Pyromancer)

Sword of Justice is weaker in this matchup due to Explosive Trap wiping out our 2/2 hero powers. However, this is a matchup heavily in our favour - I rarely lose to Hunter and they're falling out of the meta at the moment. An Argent Squire + Blessing of Wisdom start is really vicious for the Hunter to deal with, unless he's drawn into a Stonetusk Boar or an Elven Archer. Since Hunters have some problems dealing with sticky early game minions such as Argent Squire, you're almost guaranteed to get at least 1 card draw from the Argent Squire. You can quickly draw into your board clear and deal with anything the Hunter throws at you. Equality/Repentance combos should be used for when the Hunter buffs his minions via Houndmaster or Scavenging Hyena. Just play conservatively, don't overextend and give him a chance to draw into his deck with Starving Buzzard and Unleash the Hounds. Repentance should deal with Savannah Highmane and your win conditions such as Avenging Wrath and Tirion Fordring should be enough to beat the Hunter.

 

Please remember to hit the upvote button if you liked this deck, and share your thoughts and experiences with this deck in the comments below! More matchups coming soon!