Hearthpwn

Hello everyone, I finished #1 Legend EU in June exclusively playing this unique paladin deck.

You can check me out on twitter: Twitter.com/JambreHS 

I also created a video guide for the deck including some examples of interesting plays: 

 Edit: upon playtesting and using data sites I found that grimscale chum was an all-round better 1 drop in this deck than the squires. Getting strong murloc starts really boosts your winrate.

Card choices:

Murloc package: Vilefin Inquisitor, Murloc Tidecaller, Rockpool Hunter, Hydrologist, Murloc Warleader, Finja, the Flying Star, Gentle Megasaur

Rallying Blade + Truesilver Champion: good midgame value/tempo vs medium sized minions. Weak to wide boards.

Dread Corsair + Patches the Pirate: Very strong combo with either of the weapons allowing you to develop a weapon, a 3/3 taunt and patches for 4 mana and often pulling you ahead in tempo. Helps vs wide boards.

Blessing of Kings / Spikeridged Steed: Kings useful for creating value trades in mid-game as well as pushing face damage. Steed often used defensively. Both buffs can be good to protect board from expensive aoes.

Sunkeeper Tarim: busted card, can combo with 1 drops. It makes wide boards of 1/1s potentially game winning.

Mulligan guide:

Want to keep main 3 cards in every matchup: Vilefin Inquisitor , Murloc Tidecaller or Rockpool Hunter. 

Don't keep Hydrologist, although it is a 2 mana it is generally low tempo on turn 2 and is better suited for turn 3s and beyond to secure your wide boards with things like redemption or noble sacrifice.

When on the coin you can keep rallying blade/dread corsair combo as it's very powerful reactively vs certain decks. Rallying blade is better vs mage/paladin/priest, generally weaker vs shaman/druid as they run lots of small creatures and bloodsail corsair as weapon removal. Truesilver is very strong vs pirate warrior especially on the coin.

When going first generally want to be going for the murlocs as it's much easier to build a board and make use of the murloc synergies.

General strategy:

Murloc Warleader : You want to generally treat this card as a temporary buff, prioritize developing your other murlocs first and use permanent buffs like rockpool hunter and megasaur to secure your board. Then, when you can get value out of the warleader buff (i.e. getting a value trade or allowing you to kill an expensive minion or pushing a lot of face damage)  you can play the warleader.

Going wide:  By going wide (playing mutliple minions over singular larger minions) you make it harder for opponents to clear your board, open up more value trades for yourself and make it more likely your buffs (Spikeridged Steed , Blessing of Kings Gentle Megasaur ,  Murloc Warleader ) find targets. 1/1 murlocs are threatening in this deck because of things like megasaur, warleader or tarim. Don't be afraid to take it slow at times to get in a few hero powers and spread your resources out.

Hydrologist:

1. Redemption tends to be the best overall secret and one you should be picking most without a specific strategy in mind.
2. Noble Sacrifice Works similarly to Redemption in a lot of cases and is slightly better in some cases (protecting your face or vs big minions) but worse in others (vs hard removal or vs 1/1s).
3. Getaway Kodo is a card that people often over-pick, you should only pick this when you almost guarantee a good return AND you have the mana to replay it (in slower matchups). The #1/#2 tempo based secrets tend to be better.
4. Eye for an Eye This card is situationally used (particularly vs mage) to counter Ice Block burn strategies. Don't choose this unless in the mid-lategame already, Redemption is more likely to get you to a point where you can pop the mage in the first place.
5. Repentence Situationally the pick if you are expecting large minions that you don't have an answer to, such as Primordial Drake or Doomsayer

Gentle Megasaur : Adapt to the situation but generally when ahead take the +attack/windfury adapts or divine shield/health to play around certain AOE's.

Stonehill Defender : Generally Sunkeeper Tarim is going to be the best choice but I would advise adapting to the situation. Try to pick cards that fill holes in your mana curve or compliment upcoming turns. Picking a Goldshire Footman over Tirion Fordring can be correct to combo with upcoming Tarim turns or just for the immediate tempo.

Card Omissions:

Tirion Fordring :

1. The deck runs a lot of weapons already so often when you play tirion, the deathrattle will be worthless.
2. Tirion is poor when behind, the ~7 effective hp of tirion is fairly easy to get through and you won't be able to make good use of the weapon as you're likely taking too much damage.
3. He is too expensive. Late game we will have plenty good plays in the form of more flexible cards: Sunkeeper Tarim Spikeridged Steed Gentle Megasaur So potentially clogging up our early hand with an additional 8 drop doesn't make much sense.

Grimscale Chum :

1. Weak to patches and pings/aoes/trades.
2. Without Coldlight Seer in the deck, it's hard to buff the cards hp
3. Weakens Finja, the Flying Star.  Adding more weak murlocs to your deck means Finja will pull weaker murlocs on average and make it less likely to pull a Murloc Warleader

Consecration :

1. Deck uses weapons and tempo plays to take control of board and stay in the lead, consecration's value goes up the further behind you are, something the deck tries not to do.
2. Better suited for decks with healing/Equality where they can afford to fall behind and then clear the board and outvalue/heal in the lategame.

Matchups:

Flood Shaman:

1. Only keep 1 drops and rockpool in mulligan
2. Weapons are weaker vs shaman than other matchups
3. Finja, the Flying Star is strong in matchup - Don't worry about Devolve, devolving Finja is too slow unless far ahead on board.
4. Develop minions over everything else and clear their board with value trades, having a wide board is essential as you can value trade into pretty much all of their minions.
5. It's fine (and encouraged) to value trade and leave things on 1hp as long as maelstrom doesn't fully clear, just being ahead is enough to win

Jade druid:

1. Go for early murloc board, don't need weapons.
2. Avoid developing Murloc Warleader before turn 6 over other plays unless you have really strong curve, you want to use it to trade murlocs up into behemoth etc. and cards like Wrath, or Swipe deal with it efficiently in the early turns.
3. Finja incredibly strong. If behind, look for big tempo swing plays like buffing finja and leaving it stealthed, then swinging next turn and making a huge board with finja kill + warleader/megasaur buff (see example in video)
4. Prepare for drake on 8 in advance by avoiding <2hp creatures or having an answer in the form of tarim/buffs etc.
5. Jade druid minions don't do much other than their stats so when you have a big taunt like steed you can often just go face.

Aggro druid:

1. Pray for no crab.
2. Generally can't afford to trade into living mana the turn it's played, instead leave the druid with 1 mana and try to build up a big defense for the next turn.

Mage:

1. Chum fine going first
2. Rallying blade very strong vs Mana Wyrm, Arcanologist Medivh's Valet.
3. Push face and keep a big board using kings/steed
4. Don't take eye for eye over redemption early on
5. Try to save 2nd swing of weapon (or sometimes patches) to pop once you start just pushing face if you can afford to.
6. Megasaur adapting for +3 attack is usually strongest but adapt to the situation.

Pirate warrior:

1. Truesilver very strong card
2. Go wide and value trade, they can't deal with 1hp creatures without patches/rusty hook.
3. Focus on going for tempo board plays before going for defensive plays
4. If you have dread+weapon combo, unless it's immediately good it's often best to save dread for 2nd swing and flood so the warrior can't use weapon to remove minions over 2 turns. (see example in video)
5. Be a bit wary of spellbreaker on steed

Taunt warrior

1. Don't overcommit to board, as long as you are pushing reasonable damage you can hold back some resources. It is fine and often good for you to play into brawl on 5 with hero powers/small minions etc as long as you have the reload in hand
2. When using Sunkeeper Tarim try to be offensive with it, use it on big targets like primordial drake. Just buffing your own board is not so great.

Priest:

1. Warleader stronger in this match as priest can only kill it with pain and murloc boards tend to stick easier

Quest rogue:

1. Try to make really wide boards so you can value trade into all their things before quest, play around glacial shard, and if they vanish you can replay a cheap wide board immediately.
2. Dread corsair + weapon fairly strong as it creates wide board while also protecting 1/1s from dagger.
3. Hydrologist stronger in this matchup than others as they don't have the early boards to contest it.

Paladin:

1. Rallying blade strong especially on coin to kill off early murlocs
2. Want to spread wide to play around truesilver/rallying blade and to keep enemy board empty to prevent buffs.
3. Value trade often as paladin doesn't have great options to ping/finish off minions from hand
4. Can use steed to prevent enemy finja from getting a kill immediately

Let me know how you guys are finding the deck and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have!
Thanks and I hope you enjoy it!