Hearthpwn

Quote from BlacKcuD »

Quote from Elchapel »

Well i am rank 12 paladin and did not have any heal until now (guardian of kings since i dont have lay on hands). it is pretty easy to come here without a heal, but i can not move more without it 

I found a nice middle ground to be 1x Holy Light, 1x Lay on Hands, 2x Guardian of Kings.

Reasoning: Holy Light is not that good, but it costs you only 2 mana, meaning you can do something else in the turn. Guardian of Kings ain't that great either, but you get that nice in-between thing where you drop a reasonably powerful creature and heal yourself at the same time. Lay on Hands is amazing, however also very expensive. If you use LoH, your turn is basically over. Going one turn without casting anything offensive or dropping additional creatures is a hard decision and thus I would highly recommend against going 2x Lay on Hands.

Also having both Lay on Hands in your hand at one time sucks really really badly.

Quote from Lextalionis»

I'm not debating the efficacy of lifegain against decks with particularly huge fall-off once they cast their burn and you're not dead, I'm just saying cards that solely gain life are really not good against a gauntlet of decks

Quote from Lextalionis »

Healing Touch, Holy Light, etc are all awful. Do not play them. Lifegain as a bonus is fine (Lay on Hands, Truesilver Champ, even Guardian of Kings if you face a lot of Mage or midrange decks) is decent but solely paying for it is literally paying mana to discard cards

Quote from Lextalionis »

Quote from keennyy »

Quote from Lextalionis»

I'm not debating the efficacy of lifegain against decks with particularly huge fall-off once they cast their burn and you're not dead, I'm just saying cards that solely gain life are really not good against a gauntlet of decks

 You blatantly said they're awful and to not play them. See your own post.

Quote from Lextalionis »

Healing Touch, Holy Light, etc are all awful. Do not play them. Lifegain as a bonus is fine (Lay on Hands, Truesilver Champ, even Guardian of Kings if you face a lot of Mage or midrange decks) is decent but solely paying for it is literally paying mana to discard cards

Yes, and I stand by the statement that I'd rather play a card that either draws me more cards, applies more pressure etc than straight lifegain - Far Seer, Truesilver, GOK, the Ancient that can gain life are all viable but 2 mana gain some life is something I will never play

While you do have a point, understand that cards like Healing Touch and Holy Light, while not giving direct card advantage in the casting, can both be cast on high health taunters to create card advantage, and also can literally at times mean the difference between winning and watching helplessly as a Mage/Warlock/Shaman gets you to within direct damage lethal and steals victory from the jaws of defeat even when you have overwhelming tempo and board advantage.  Pyroblast doesn't care where you got your health, whether from Alexstrasza or Healing Touch, getting over 10 health after your Mage opponent has 8 mana is priority 1 or you've most likely simply lost, board state be damned.

I personally think those direct heals are more at home in a control deck, and I also think that they're mostly there for redundancy.  Slapping a Holy Light on your 5/1 Sylvanas against a weenie deck could potentially win you the game by itself, and even if you only include one such card in a deck, rarely will it ever go completely to waste.  Yes, more utilitarian means of gaining health are 'better' for value, tempo, and board advantage, but your health is a resource of its own and coincidentally, while it's functionally useless when it's greater than 0, at 0 you've lost the game.

Quote from Lextalionis»

and I stand by the statement that I'd rather play a card that either draws me more cards, applies more pressure etc than straight lifegain - Far Seer, Truesilver, GOK, the Ancient that can gain life are all viable but 2 mana gain some life is something I will never play

You're entitled to your opinion, and quite frankly I agree with you on some points. My only argument is that because some of the best players in the game are running cards that you deem "terrible", you might be using the term a little too liberally.

I don't think you're giving enough credit to how strong rush decks can be at dealing 30 damage.  That extra 6 or 8 health can often buy the 1-2 turns needed to fully control the board and the game.

Quote from Lextalionis »

A control deck does not want to spend 2 mana and discard a card late - if that 8 life wins you the game you were playing badly/a pretty bad control deck to be that close to dying to aggro late. I imagine even a Sunfury Protector, Argus, or any number of other cards give more effective health than a HT or HL with board presence to boot

The key word here being "imagine". The strength of your opinion coupled with its level of inaccuracy betrays the fact that you don't have any actual experience playing against high level opponents or decks.

I've been playing a lot with Pkughost's Paladin deck. Heals are awesome, you have no idea the turns i survived dropping 2x Holy Light or Guardian of Kings + Holy Light. In a deck like this or where the concept is similar i'd say healing is a staple of the deck. Also heals are pretty good vs Mages and they could buy you the turn you need to draw an answer to something. 

I used to think they were useless or very very situational, now i'm changing my mind.