Hearthpwn

Hello!

This is my hipster Val'anyr list. It's hipster because it does quite an odd variety of things that have (I hope) a surprising amount of synergy. I'll go through the main features of the deck:

1. The Prince Keleseth + Witchwood Piper combo: The only 2-cost minion this deck runs is Keleseth. This was quite a deck-building challenge, which I enjoyed, and to compensate for having no 1- or 2-drop minions, I have added double Lost in the Jungle and double Blessing of Might. Bizarrely, these act as a control combo, because getting dudes out early and then having Blessing in hand gives you the opportunity to trade up into anything they might play on turns 1-3, giving you time to play your Piper/whatever else. Blessing is also one of two spells which will buff Lynessa Sunsorrow. You then have double Piper purely for maximum consistency of drawing Keleseth. With this combo you should all but guarantee being able to play Keleseth by around turn 5, if not before. The deck then runs other excellent Keleseth targets like Saronite Chain Gang and the new Paragon of Light, for which the Keleseth buff activates its card text and makes a 3 mana 3/6 taunt lifesteal, which is nuts.
2. Val'anyr: You're primarily looking to hit Chaing Gang with the Val'anyr buff, for double deathrattle value. Leeroy is the other main target as this gives you a large amount of burst damage and therefore a win condition. Muck Hunter makes for a reasonable target, giving you essentially 9 damage of removal for 5 mana. There are various solid targets, like Paragon (as discussed) as well as Chillblade Champion for burst damage and/or removal plus burst self-heal.
3. The Glass Knight: Paragon, Chillblade, Lay on Hands and Uther of the Ebon Blade all provide lifesteal or health restoration, so Glass Knight should be able to get reasonable value. The deck feels like it could do with running one or two more lifesteal/health restore cards, however I couldn't really find room and didn't want to sacrifice too many of the other elements purely to give Glass Knight more value. The best option imo would be Truesilver Champion, however then you would possibly have both too many weapons and too many 4-drops. I also considered adding one Rotten Applebaum, but didn't think it did enough in this deck.
4. Various hipster elements: Oh boy. You've got Countess Ashmore, which in this deck at best will draw 3 cards. This is the main reason for running Muck Hunter - I think it's worth adding just to allow the chance of a max value Countess (it also fills out the rather sparse 5-mana slot). There are only two deathrattles in the deck: Val'anyr and Tirion Fordring. If you haven't drawn Val by the time you drop Countess, you'd be happy to draw either it or Tirion. Ideally you have already drawn Val, in which case dropping Countess on 7 provides the huge tempo play of allowing you to curve from Countess on 7 into Tirion on 8 (honestly that's one of my favourite nuances of this deck). The only deathrattle minion in the deck is Tirion. That means you can run (and no this isn't a meme): Tomb Lurker. Holy shit. As long as Tirion has died, Tomb Lurker is a "5 mana 5/3 battlecry: add Tirion Fordring to your hand". That's some sweet value. Though I realise this is horrible tempo, in the late game this deck becomes more focused on value, so I think that's fine. You've also got Happy Ghoul! This deck wants to restore health to enable Glass Knight, and iirc Ghoul is the only other minion in the game which synergises in a similar way. I initially ran 2 but in the end couldn't really justify it. You've got Sword of Justice! This has excellent synergy with Paragon and allows you to activate her much more consistently. Sword is really in there as a sub-par replacement for the whole handbuff package which is rotating out. It has great synergy with Chain Gang and allows for relatively high early game tempo if you play Lost in the Jungle after Sword. And finally you've got Lynessa. Not so much a hipster choice, she gives more value to Blessing of Might, which ordinarily you would feel pretty bad about running in a non-quest paladin deck, and provides a large late-game threat if you've managed to play a Spikeridged or two.

That's just about it! I know the deck is probably not the most competitively viable, but that's not really the point. I set myself a deck-building challenge of making the Keleseth/Piper combo work, and I think I made a pretty interesting if not necessarily very strong deck. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think!

Edit:

Note that there is a tragic missed opportunity here to play Lesser Pearl Spellstone. In this deck, which already aims to self-heal/run lifesteal because of the lifesteal minions which benefit from buffs and because of The Glass Knight and Happy Ghoul, I think this would be the first opportunity ever for the paladin spellstone actually to be great. One of the pillars of the deck is Keleseth, however, so this cannot be. Keleseth also disables you from running Equality, which is why this deck is a hipster/midrange-ish deck instead of a control deck. The Keleseth/Piper also makes Call to Arms unplayable, which hurts the power level of the deck a lot. I would love to remake this deck as a non-Keleseth control deck which runs spellstone and Call to Arms.

Edit 2:

I just remembered that Blackguard exists! Damn. I'm going to cut something for 1 of it:

• -1 Tar Creeper
• +1 Blackguard