Hearthpwn

Hello, you are reading an in depth guide to Midrange Murloc Paladin. If you love Murlocs and have missed playing Paladin during these dark times, this deck might be right up your alley!

Why Murlocs? Why Paladins? Why in General? What are you doing with your Life?

I got really sick of the butter soft pansy Acolyte of Pain/Forbidden Healing/Doomsayer control Paladin strategies. Un'Goro has given us a chance to actually play Paladin in a proactive manner! 

The new set has given us quite a few powerful cards that work with Murlocs. Hydrologist, Rockpool Hunter, Primalfin Lookout, and Gentle Megasaur allow us to develop our curve without losing board presence or card advantage. Cards like Spikeridged Steed and Sunkeeper Tarim help us shore up our defenses while maintaining card advantage.

Winning with Midrange Murloc Paladin

Lookin cute and feelin cute is the name of the game here with MMP. If you hold a board, you can snowball your advantage with Rockpool, Warleader, Megasaur, and Sunkeeper Tarim. If you can't hold the board, you'll have a very tough time getting it back. Warleader and Megasaur in particular have very, very powerful effects when you're ahead of the game. Sometimes, they can even just win you the game outright with lethal damage.

None of the cards you spend to hold the board will cost you in terms of advantage. You can also refuel with the end game fatties like Spikeridged, Curator, Ragnaros, and Tirion.

Core Build

Here are the core cards to any Murloc Paladin deck in Un'Goro

• Vilefin Inquisitor x2
• Hydrologist x2
• Rockpool Hunter x2
• Murloc Warleader x2
• Gentle Megasaur x2
• Truesilver Champion x2
• The Curator

Thoughts on Midrange Card Choices:

• Golakka Crawler- Very good against Pirate Warrior and not too great against Rogue. I ended up adding these at rank 2 because of the Warrior flood but I would definitely cut at lower ranks and as the meta shapes.
• Equality/Consecration- Equality is mandatory with the amount of tokens we play and works great with Consecration which is a very good card right now.
• Aldor Peacekeeper- I have these in for Rogue but I think they're one of the weaker cards in the deck along with Rockpool Hunter. Rockpool is extremely good in the aggro variant though.
• Wickerflame/Stonehill Defender- Very good card for most matchups. It can block weapon hits, replace itself, and protect your Murlocs so they can snowball. Wickerflame is just the stones against decks like Hunter that can't get over it easily and have a lot of 2 health guys.
• Spikeridged Steed- I thought this card had potential in the set so I was excited to see pro streamers using it. This is a very strong card for defensive strategies. Rogues were using it against me and it was just wrecking my aggro version because it effectively soaks up 12 damage in taunts.
• Sunkeeper Tarim- I really underestimated this card on reveal. It's very versatile, very good against Taunt Warrior, and can sometimes give you +8 damage or more by buffing your board before attacking.
• The Curator- This is my main modification to the deck. I added Curator which can get you either Crawler/Megasaur + Murlocs. The original StrifeCro/Tides builds were using 1 Lay on Hands/1 Vinecleaver. I think both cards are just way too slow and much worse than Curator. I was running a Primordial Drake too but it was slow.
• Ragnaros/Tirion- Both are necessary although Ragnaros is a bit slow. Tirion won me many games as a direct source of reach.

Mulligan + General Tips:

• Murloc Paladin needs to hold the board from the get go. You should pitch every card that is 3 cost or higher. So you're looking for exclusive Vilefin, Hydrologist, and Rockpool Hunter.
• Vilefin is a great card for flooding the board in the midgame. You can hero power, Vilefin, and hero power again. You can even do this with your second Vilefine to get 3 murlocs out in one turn to buff with Megasaur.
• If Spikeridged Steed gets you a direct swing over a minion for card advantage, you should generally do that.
• Don't forget to play weenies before dropping Tarim to buff them to 3/3.
• Hydrologist is a tricky card to play correctly. Different secrets are more powerful depending on the matchup. Off the top of my head you want:
• Repentance- Taunt Warrior
• Eye for an Eye- Mage
• Redemption- If you have Wickerflame or Tirion or Warleader
• Getaway Kodo- Best on early turns to return Hydro to your hand
• Noble Sacrifice- Pirate Warrior

Matchups (It's still early in the Meta so take these with a grain of salt)

• Druid (Uncertain)- We're definitely favored against Jade Druid but I've had some trouble against the Aggro Zoo Druid builds. We'll see how this shapes out.
• Hunter (Favorable)- You can get rushed down by early Hyena and Beast spam so protect your neck.
• Mage (Favorable)- Most Mage builds are Freeze or Secret right now. You want to find an Eye for an Eye at some point and play it after getting them down to 1 health. That pretty much guarantees a win. You can keep Ragnaros, Lightlord against Mage.
• Priest (Favorable)- Make sure to identify their strategy (Silence, Miracle or Dragon) and save answers for their important win conditions like Lyra or a buffed 4/8.
• Quest Rogue (Even)- You're the beatdown in this deck so play accordingly. Sometimes you just have to YOLO push face with Truesilver and go for a 2-3 turn lethal. If they draw well and get the quest up early, and also use cards like Backstab to stop your early flood, it will get ugly.
• Miracle Rogue (Unfavorable)- This deck is a real pain the heinie to deal with. Paladin class cards are very good so they can come back to bite you quite a bit. The combo 3/4 is nasty, Edwin is nasty, Arcane Giant is nasty. Just ugh all around.
• Shaman (Uncertain)- I haven't run into this very much with the midranged version. But Ele Shaman was crushing my Aggro Murlocadin.
• Warlock (Favorable)- Fight for board as much as possible and let your late game advantages take you to victory. Zoo can get pretty tough if they draw a lot of early game and hit Doomguard
• Pirate Warrior (Unfavorable)- This deck is still a little too fast, a little too aggro, and a little too thuggy for us. Crawler will help the matchup quite a bit and it's a lot better when we go first and hit Vilefin. If we go second, we'll be losing the Vilefin and staring down Patches + more.
• Taunt Warrior (Favorable)- It's really easy to hold board here so you can buff Murlocs to take out taunts each turn. They really need an early Axe to stop your early snowball. Make sure to play around Brawl by playing a lot of self replacing minions like Defender and lookout. If they do get the quest power you want to make sure you hero power each turn, they should be pretty low by then.

Concluding Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this guide and enjoy playing with MMP. Post any questions and I'll get to them as soon as I see them!