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Refined Even Paladin List

  • Last updated May 14, 2018 (Witchwood)
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Wild

  • 22 Minions
  • 5 Spells
  • 3 Weapons
  • Deck Type: Ranked Deck
  • Deck Archetype: Even Paladin
  • Crafting Cost: 8060
  • Dust Needed: Loading Collection
  • Created: 4/21/2018 (Witchwood)
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  • Battle Tag:

    N/A

  • Region:

    US

  • Total Deck Rating

    134

View 9 other Decks by BaggedMilk
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Update: Just changed the text size, reading small text is really difficult and I'm hoping that was one of the reasons this deck never picked up any traction.

Card Choice: Every card in the list has been put there for a specific reason, in it's current iteration it will play out smoothly- that being said removing cards will effect the performance of other cards in the deck. Card substitutes as well as 'packages' will be addressed in-depth below.

Must Have Cards / Core (These cards are irreplaceable and should not be substituted):

  • Dire Wolf Alpha x2 - Dire Wolf Alpha is arguably the best buff 2-drop possible in this archetype and plays into many of your core interactions, buffing Silver Hand Recruits early for better trades, pulling Dire Wolf Alpha as well as a Rush minion such as Vicious Scalehide or in an alternate list, Bluegill Warrior along with some luck on positioning can be game-changing. 
  • Drygulch Jailor x2 - Drygulch Jailor despite the argument that this card is too slow, or that even after it's deathrattle it's just netting you three hero powers in one turn, this card is a staple. Having a deathrattle that nets you three cards makes your opponent less happy about killing this card, making buff effects given by Dire Wolf AlphaDark Conviction, Blessing of KingsMad Hatter, Sunkeeper Tarim, Bonemare, Dinosize or Silver Sword even more powerful. The three Silver Hand Recruit's this card adds to your hand create a powerful tempo swing if played before, or alongside; Lightfused Stegodon, Sunkeeper Tarim or Crystal Lion
  • Knife Juggler x2 - Thanks to Genn Greymane reducing your hero power to 1 you have an on demand 1 mana deal 1 to a random enemy, along with it's synergy with Silver Hand Recruits from Drygulch Jailor's deathrattle and Call to Arms it's clear the card over-performs in the deck even in comparison to other aggro decks. 
  • Blessing of Kings x2 - A 4/4 buff in a deck that relies on early board control with Silver Hand Recruits is just good, helps minions stick for future buffs, surprise damage for trades into large taunts or doomsayers as well as burst for closing out games.
  • Call to Arms x2 - Great synergy for a deck that doesn't run 1-drop, you will almost always be high-rolling into good trades with Dire Wolf Alpha,Knife Juggler, Vicious Scalehide or Bluegill Warrior to make a quick trade on the board. Removes and plays 6 mana worth of 2-drops from your deck making it more likely to draw your mid or late-game buffs.
  • Lightfused Stegodon x2 - This card has the flexibility of being used as a finisher or to make your Silver Hand Recruit stickier for subsequent buffs, powerful after playing the recruits from Drygulch Jailor.
  • Crystal Lion x2 - Although even paladin doesn't flood the board with Silver Hand Recruits as quickly as odd paladin, Crystal Lion should be included for its potential alongside Drygulch Jailor and for situations where your opponent was unable to remove your Silver Hand Recruits from turns 1 or 3 making it a solid 4 drop
  • Genn Greymane x1 - Terribly statted, drawing this card in-game feels terrible however, reducing your hero power to 1 is essentially what drives the silver hand archetype or alternatively, upgrading your hero power. Therefore this card cannot be cut and without it there's no point in putting together the rest of the list.
  • Sunkeeper Tarim x1 - Extremely powerful due to most of your minions on board being 1/1's, a mass +2/+2 buff as well as a 3/7 body with taunt against your opponents reduced minions is a game-changer, look to play this card whenever suitable do not save it for the debuff effect and try to play it before your other buffs ( Lightfused Stegodon, Mad Hatter [/card], [card]bonemare, Dinosize, Silver Sword etc.) to get the most value out of the card.
  • Silver Sword x1 - Although it's weakly statted, I insist on including at least one copy of silver sword in your list, as small as it may seem a +1/+1 buff across a wide board late-game can be gamechanging, especially if your board sticks for subsequent buffs from the card. A great play after buffing a board with Sunkeeper Tarim to secure a game.

Included Optional Cards / Packages (These cards are cut-able and are not 100% necessary in this archetype):

  • Loot Hoarder x2 - Loot Hoarder is a weakly statted minion and should not be played on turn 2 (unless it's your only option) or mulligan-ed for however; cheating out Loot Hoarder with Call to Arms feels like an extremely powerful interaction and it provides some of the draw to make-up for lists that don't include Divine Favor. All of this being said, I believe Loot Hoarder can be cut and substituted but it probably shouldn't be the first card you cut.
  •  Mad Hatter x2 - This is a card I really had to play with a fair bit before I got comfortable with including him in the deck, 4 mana for 6/5 worth of stats is unarguably very powerful; especially when you're looking to make your silver hand recruits stick, I feel including Consecration and Equality improve this cards power level however I eventually cut those in favor of better options. This card still made the cut without them as it's often easy to gain board control early or attain it after playing Call to Arms and trading in minions to ensure this card only hits friendly minions. Cutting one or both copies of this card wont drastically effect the decks performance and it's one of the first cards you should look to cut.
  • Bonemare x1 - 4/4 charging worth of stats similar to the effect of Blessing of Kings has proven fairly powerful in this archetype however, it comes to an 8 mana cost and although it is well worth the price of 8 mana for a 5/5 body on board and 4/4 stats + taunt, and having a minion on board is almost guaranteed- games don't tend to make it up to the 8 mana mark when running this deck therefore I decided on only putting in one bonemare as having two stale in hand seemed to effect games negatively, the +4 attack is very useful for closing out a game but lots of other cards in the deck can perform the same feat at a lower mana cost.
  • Dinosize x1 - Another niche situational buffing card, I couldn't help but keep 1 dinosize for the situations where your opponent leaves up one Silver Hand Recruit in the late-game or any other small minion not expecting a +9/9 buff to come into play, this card has the potential to save you games but again do to the pace of the game I would never recommend running two and I would look at this card as one of the first to cut if you're finding you have too much late-game
  • The Glass Knight Package; Vicious Scalehide x2, The Glass Knight x1 and Truesilver Champion x2 - Although all of these cards are independently acceptable on their own in this deck, together they drastically improve the consistency of The Glass Knight's effect and I wouldn't recommend running The Glass Knight without them. Vicious Scalehide has incredible synergy with Call to Arms and Dire Wolf Alpha however without The Glass Knight I would consider running Bluegill Warrior over it- scalehide's three health makes it better for trades however often it won't be paired with a Dire Wolf Alpha and you'll need the extra damage for trading, or there are no trades to be made and you would just outright prefer the Bluegill Warrior from Call to Arms. You generally do not want to play either bluegill or scalehide on 2 mana and would rather pull them from Call to Arms. Truesilver Champion is usually 4 mana deal 8 over 2 turns, which is just solid in the archetype however the added bonus of improving The Glass Knight's consistency is a nice touch, definitely consider running two of these even without The Glass Knight in your deck. Finally of course I wouldn't include a package around a useless card, The Glass Knight provides a unique stickiness compared to other minions as your if your opponent doesn't have a means of dealing with the divine shield and health, it's very easy to restore the divine shield and continue trading with him or just hit face and leave an annoying 4/3 divine shield minion for your opponent to deal with.
  • The Sea Giant Package; Sea Giant x2 - The reason I included this as a package is due to my opinion that running just one is almost always worse than running two, if you're in the situation where you can play one Sea Giant, you're probably not far off from playing the second. Due to the deck's ability to fill the board quickly Sea Giant usually makes it out around the mid-game and shouldn't stale as a late game card in your hand very often. If you're considering cutting one, be sure to cut the second as well.

Other Optional Cards / Packages (These cards did not make the cut, but fit the archetype and are worth trying):

  • Acidic Swamp Ooze - weapon removal is generally good as long as it hits, however I found this deck would rather be establishing board with other cards and doesn't benefit very much from a vanilla 3/2, definitely include if the meta shifts away from spiteful decks and more towards legendary weapons or other aggro lists.
  • The 2/3s; Amani Berserker, Bloodsail Raider and Plated Beetle - A 2/3 minion is good enough for this deck, that's why all of these cards saw some amount of play or experimentation- pulling 6/9 worth of stats from Call to Arms feels great, however; these cards don't really help the archetype and only serve the purpose of helping to fight for board, don't include all of them either they usually see play apart from each-other so your two-drop slot isn't over-saturated. 
  • Bloodmage Thalnos - strictly worse version of Loot Hoarder but if you'd like a third one, be my guest.
  • Bluegill Warrior - I feel like this card can really shine in the deck, however having one health makes it less desirable and you always want to be pulling it from Call to Arms rather than playing it for 2 mana so it didn't make it onto my list in this iteration, worth an include if you're not running The Glass Knight
  • Dark Conviction - Although a 2 mana +2/2 buff seems very good, especially in a deck where you want to see your Silver Hand Recruits stick- you'd often rather make a wider board early on over buffing what few minions you start with, and later into the game it's out shined by Blessing of Kings and other buffs in the deck.
  • Removal; Equality, Wild Pyromancer, Consecration, Primordial Drake - this is another set of cards that don't all necessarily belong together, but synergize with equality to create a board clear. I generally believe that this is a deck that would rather force your opponent into trades than deal with the opponents board, and run Spellbreaker when necessary rather than small removal, Wild Pyromancer, Primordial Drake and Equality tend to hurt your board and as you'll very seldom run into a situation without any board (aside from when they spend their turn dealing with your board; in which case they wont have minions and you would rather rebuild your board) so the cards tend to hurt your cause rather than help it, and I try to avoid running most of these aside from the odd Consecration.
  • Hydrologist - a 2/2 isn't bad in this deck, drawing a secret of your choice which is likely either hit redemption or repentance is very good in this deck, the only reason I chose not to include this card is the competitiveness of the 2 drop slot, and the feeling when you pull Hydrologist through your Call to Arms.
  • Millhouse Manastorm - this card is for people who like to have several patches in their deck, Genn and Millhouse are both terrible draws however pulling Millhouse from Call to Arms is incredibly powerful, I didn't like the high-roll feeling it gave the deck, and the card is absolutely useless when drawn therefore I wouldn't dare to include it.
  • Sound the Bells!- A 2 mana +2/2 in Dark Conviction didn't make the cut so why should this? Sure it's a little more flexible but on 4 mana you would rather play Blessing of Kings and on 2 mana you would rather Dark Conviction; those being the turns that are more crucial compared to later in the game use of this card, I couldn't find a place for it in the list.
  • Stubborn Gastropod - Another minion that isn't terrible when you pull it from Call to Arms, but not many minions are bad to pull from it. I found it had too little impact played early and too niche late (single large minion on enemies board with no way to deal 2 damage?) so I didn't include it.
  • Divine Favor - I very rarely find myself running out of cards with this deck with the abundance of 2 and 4 mana drops and 1 mana hero power to help fill your curve so I saw no reason to include this card in the list.
  • Corpsetaker - Although it's effect will almost always go off due to vicious scalebane, The Glass Knight and Sunkeeper Tarim being present, this archetype just doesn't want a 4 mana 3/3 with divine shield taunt and lifesteal, and would rather be expanding their board or buffing other minions with said mana.
  • Grim Necromancer - powerfully statted and helps create a wide board, however I found I'd rather be playing other 4-drops on 4 compared to this card.
  • Lifedrinker - acts as a Nightblade at 1 mana cheaper with -1/1, just not good enough. The healing is irrelevant and even in combination with The Glass Knight the card still wasn't strong enough.
  • Handbuff Package; Saronite Chain Gang and Val'anyr - I found the package too slow and too high-rolly as you're playing a lot of minions in the deck, and playing 2 2/3 taunts for 4 mana isn't what this deck wants to do.
  • Spellbreaker - very powerful against deathrattles like Hadronox, Void Lord and Spikeridged Steed can present however; I found the situations where it closed out the game or was heavily impactful on the games outcome too rare. Definitely try at least 1 in a list if you're looking to fill in a card.
  • Avenging Wrath - without board clears in the deck this card often acts as a poor one, forcing you to finish off trades with your minions that you likely could have made in the first place, and when it comes to finishing damage you have plenty of other options like Blessing of Kings , Truesilver Champion or Dinosize so I found the card under-performed too often.
  • Spikeridged Steed - too slow and defensive of a buff for this deck, and although it helps make a silver hand recruit sticky, if it's deathrattle is triggered it's just a 2/6 beast with taunt and doesn't help achieve this archetypes goal.
  • Spiteful Summoner - often included alongside Dinosize spiteful can prove to be an extreme tempo swing, however if the Dinosize lands on Spiteful Summoner it's only a +6/6 buff and if it lands on Call to Arms that's mediocre as well since you can't use any charge or rush minions but if the enemy has a board and the Dinosize ever lands on their board, which you wont often have cleared at turn 6 without removal it's game ending.
  • The Lich King - I found the card too slow for this deck and would rather more immediate impact on the board for 8 mana instead of a value card generating effect. I don't like having to highroll Death Coil.
  • Tirion Fordring - Tirion can prove very powerful in the late stages of the game and the 5/3 weapon he grants on death can have an impact but I generally found playing a 6/6 divine shield taunt on 8 wasn't good enough in this deck.

Mulligan Guide; Generally mulligans in even paladin play out similar whether they be with or without coin, the only difference being whether you coin a two-drop when you start with coin, otherwise opening with a hero power is your only option. Try to mulligan for any 2 two-drops and a four-drop to get through the early game turns as efficiently as possible.

Cards you'll want to mulligan for include: 

  1. Call to Arms due to it's power level, keeping two with a two drop is fine as well. First/Second irrelevant.
  2. Knife Juggler most powerful two drop to play out of hand, due to hero power and Call to Arms synergy. Better going second.
  3. Dire Wolf Alpha very strong paired with a turn 1 hero power for trading into 2 health minions, good to keep going first.
  4. Sunkeeper Tarim is a powerful enough card to warrant a keep if you already have a two drop.
  5. Truesilver Champion powerful with a board, keep along with a couple two drops

Cards you'll want to mulligan away:

  1. Genn Greymane this card is the Patches the Pirate equivelant for the deck, always mulligan him away.
  2. Dinosize, Silver Sword, Bonemareyou don't want to be mulliganing for 8 drops in this archetype.
  3. Lightfused Stegodon although this card can be great on four, because you can't guarantee a board of silver hands by then its better just to wait to draw it and play it when its correct to play. Consider keeping if you have Drygulch Jailor as well
  4. Loot Hoarder playing this card is fine if you need a two drop, however it feels much more powerful when pulled from call to arms, so try to avoid this as your 2 drop if possible.
  5. Drygulch Jailor playing a 2 mana 1/1 on turn 2 is significantly underwhelming and should put you behind on board however depending on the opponents hero power and whether you have Lightfused Stegodon in hand this card can be worth keeping- but you would much rather pull it from Call to Arms.

Authors Note:

Hi I'm BaggedMilk, I hit legend playing a homebrew Murloc Warlock deck I called WetLock at the start of Un'goro, before that I usually hovered around rank 5 or so; I got back into playing late into Knights of The Frozen Throne and I loved the Twilight's Call Corrupted Healbot OTK priest after Kobolds release which I used to climb to high ranks, I took a short break but am looking to reclaim legend and after a quick look at what everyone's playing I've determined Even/Odd Paladin, and Spiteful Druid is pretty set meta so I'm bringing you my take on Even Paladin with the experience I've accumulated so far in the set. I am positive there's more refining to be done and I'm very happy to take suggestions from the comments below, further explain card choices and of course modify the list. Please let me know what you think, your successes, failures and all the in-betweens you've had with the list and I'll be happy to respond and keep the list updated daily. Happy Climbing everyone! ~BaggedMilk