[100 LEGEND] Complete even paladin guide
- Last updated Jan 1, 2019 (Level Up Nerf)
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Wild
- 19 Minions
- 8 Spells
- 3 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Even Paladin
- Crafting Cost: 10580
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 12/26/2018 (Level Up Nerf)
- Goudhout
- Registered User
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- 7
- 17
- 42
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
N/A
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Total Deck Rating
459
Hello everyone, in this guide I will cover even paladin, and everything that you need to know about the deck.
For more of my decks and updates please follow me on twitter:
https://twitter.com/GoudhoutHS
UPDATE: Just got it to top 100 with it!
To start of, I do not and will not anywhere claim that I am the inventor or creator of this deck/archetype. I also do not and will not claim the credits for it. I will refer to the decklist as “my decklist”, this is because this is the decklist that I use. I hope you guys can respect that and not criticize me for it in the comments.
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In this guide I will cover:
- Why you should listen to me
- Introduction
- What makes this list different
- Per cards explanation of why we run it
- Synergies between cards
- Techs
- Matchups
- Strategies
- Afterword
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Now first of all why you should listen to me. Let me start by introducing myself, my name is Goudhout and I am a dutch player that has played since TGT so that is about 3 years I believe. I a player for TimeOut Esports, I hit legend every month, and I usually end high in legend every month. I predominantly play aggro, because control is just too boring and it has worked for me in every meta.
Recently odd paladin has been nerfed, so I was looking for something to play, master's call hunter worked good, odd rogue was fun, and then a friend of mine recommended me to try even paladin again. The deck is really good and I have now spend quite some time with it, I also took it to top 100 legend:
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Introduction
Even paladin is a deck that utilizes the 1-mana hero power granted by Genn Greymane in order to get well ahead on board. The deck can be very good as a midrange deck and can be teched to be either more aggressive or more controlish. The main gameplan of the deck is to get ahead by using our 1-mana hero power together with our 2 drops and 4 drops. Then we can control the board using powerful tools as Truesilver Champion, Consecration, Equality and Avenging Wrath.
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What makes this list different
In previous versions of my deck guides I would here compare my list to a standard list and discuss all the changes, however I will not do that now, as the guides are already pretty long and I explain most of it in the next section anyways.
The list that I run is a more aggressive version from even paladin. Some notable cards that are missing are Spikeridged Steed, Saronite Chain Gang and Mojomaster Zihi. These cards have been cut in order to include more damage into the build with cards such as Bonemare, Tirion Fordring, Knife Juggler and a second copy of Avenging Wrath. This makes the list quite a bit faster and works better to help and shut down control and combo decks very quickly.
I personally really like this more aggressive approach to even paladin because it fits my playstyle more.
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Per card explanation why we run it
Acidic Swamp Ooze- First off all this card is a 2 drop, and in an even paladin deck you are gonna need a lot of 2 drops because you can not just skip turn 2 and 3. This card can be played on turn 2 or 3 just for the minion. Next to that is also removes weapons which can be very good against hunters, OTK paladin, cubelocks and warriors. In some matchups it might be worth saving this card to destroy a high value weapon.
Argent Protector - This is again a 2 drop, this card provides good protection for some of your high value minions, it can protect Knife Juggler, or give Corpsetaker another divine shield, but it can also be used to give a 1/1 divine shield on turn 2.
Equality - This card is really good in a lot of cases, you can combine it with a lot of dudes, or with Knife Juggler, Consecration, Avenging Wrath or Wild Pyromancer.
Hydrologist - this is another good 2 drop and it also provides good utility with various good options for secrets.
Knife Juggler - This is again a 2 drop, this card has not seen a lot of play in recent versions of even paladin but this card is still really good in my opinion. The deck still has the ability to summon minions very cheaply so Knife Juggler will often get in 2 or 3 damage which is still quite a lot for a 2 drop. Also if you are lucky enough the card has insane carry potential.
Wild Pyromancer - Next to this card being a 2 drop is provides really good opportunities to clear the board. With Equality this card will always full clear the board, but this card also provides a nice buff to Consecration and Avenging Wrath.
Blessing of Kings - This card is really good allowing you to make big boys early on. The card can also be used as some good burst and in combination with Corpsetaker can shut down games easily.
Consecration - This card can turn the tide in the mirror or when facing any aggro deck. When you skip turn 1 by playing just a 1/1 you will probably lose to other aggro decks, then this card can help you to still win the game. Also against control decks it can clear a board full of big taunts in combination with Equality.
Corpsetaker - If this card hits the field with all of its buff it is insane, this card can easily carry games on its own. Also there are not a lot of answers for this is the current meta.
Spellbreaker - This card provides really good utility to the deck, it has a lot of applications in the current meta. Most importantly this card can silence big taunts in order for you to sneak that last bit of burst damage in there.
Truesilver Champion - This card can do 2 things, it can either be used to provide quite some face damage. Next to that you can also use it to clear 2 midrange minions from your opponent's board. The card is pretty good overall.
Argent Commander - This card is really good at burst damage. Furthermore it also serves as a good 6 drop being able to freely trade for one of your opponents minions and it provides Corpsetaker with divine shield for if you draw Tirion Fordring early on.
Avenging Wrath - First of all this card is really good at clearing the board together with equality, next to that the card can also be used as face damage.
Genn Greymane - This card almost makes the name for the deck.
Sunkeeper Tarim - This card is just insane, it can instantly make a small board quite threatening by buffing your own minions, and it can also turn the big taunts of your opponent into small 3/3’s.
Val’anyr - This card provides good finishing potential. It gives you a lot of damage to throw at your opponents face.
Windfury Harpy - This card is only in here to provide corpsetaker with windfury.
Bonemare - This card will often catch the opponent off guard, it provides a big taunt against aggro decks and it provides burst damage against control and combo decks. This card is just quite strong by default.
Lich King - This card is just really good and really versatile.
Tirion Fordring - This card buffs up your late game by a lot, a weapon that provides you with 15 damage on top of a 6/6 taunt with divine shield is just nuts.
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Synergies between cards
Here I will quickly provide an overview on the synergies between cards, because most of them are pretty obvious I will not go into detail.
- Equality + board clear
- Corpsetaker + Blessing of Kings
- Argent Commander + Blessing of Kings
- Tirion Fordring + Redemption (Hydrologist)
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Techs
Like I mentioned before the list I run is a really aggressive list, some of these cards can be exchanged in order to make for more defensive builds. If you need to make room for other cards I would recommend cutting the following cards, as they are less core than other cards:
- The second copy of Avenging Wrath
- Tirion Fordring
- Bonemare
There are a lot of good cards in the game which you can tech into this decklist, but I will still highlight some of the best ones:
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Matchups and strategies
The following graph will display the winrates this deck has against other decks, these winrates are based on my personal opinion on the matchup and stats from HSreplay and tempostorm’s meta snapshot:
Normally I would discuss the strategies for every single matchup individually. I have decided to not do that this time around because a lot of the matchups go pretty similar so I would just be repeating myself a lot of times.
Against aggro:
against aggro you mainly play for the board control, you will probably fall behind early on because a 1/1 does not stand a chance against an actual 1 drop. In the later turns you will need to swing the board with some of your board clears and then you will probably win the game.
Against midrange:
This is once again a matchup that is about board control, but this should be easier as the game will take longer giving you more time to find your board clears. In this matchup you can usually play the control game as your late game is really strong.
Against control:
Against control you should play fairly aggressive, but you should be able to as this deck is full of damage. You can also use cards like sunkeeper tarim and equality in order to remove a really big board to make space for more damage. You need to realise that your late game will not stack up against their late game if it takes too long.
Against combo:
This matchup is a lot like the matchup against control, but here you can be more aggressive as they have a lot more dead cards and they are most often tuned to kill control decks rather then more aggressive decks.
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Mulligans
To end the guide I also want to quickly cover the mulligans, most of the times you are just looking for 2 drops and Corpsetaker. If you know what deck you are going up against you can also keep some more specific cards. If you know that you will be playing against an aggro deck then you could keep a copy of Consecration or Truesilver Champion. If you know that you will be going against a control deck then you might consider keeping Blessing of Kings as such a big minion might be very hard for your opponent to kill.
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Afterword
I hope that you enjoyed this guide. This guide is a lot shorter than my other guides because they were imo to long to be worth reading. So I tried to make the guide a lot shorter in order to make it more readable. If you are left with any questions after this guide thrown them down in the comments.
If you liked the guide then please gimme a +1 on the top here, I would really appreciate that. Now if you don’t mind lemme just thank some people and put down some links.
If you would like to know more about me then consider following me or my team on social media:
https://twitter.com/GoudhoutHS
https://twitter.com/timeoutbe?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/TimeOutEsportsBE/
Also I would like to thank Pbarbosa7, he recommended me to try the deck and he shared a lot of wisdom about it to me when we played together. The list that I play is basically his list, but I cut the second copy of acidic swamp ooze for a second knife juggler. You can find his twitter here:
https://twitter.com/BarbosaLord
Videos
I got a really cool video for all of you, this one is from kiwiinbacon. I would highly recommend that you guys check it out:
And another video, this one is made by Max evo, its a really good video and you could definitely learn something from it:
I got another video for you guys, this one is made by Khristophesaurus Dinosaurus, really nice work!
Do you think guys Equality is still good in even deck ?
It's pretty meh. Try Dark Conviction. Could be worth experimenting with though.
Went to rank 8ish with this deck from rank 15, then changed around a few cards and am now at rank 6 as well as being pretty confident this deck can take me to R5 (my previous high was R12).
-2 Wild Pyro.
+1 Loot Horder.
+1 Vicious Scalehide.
Wild Pyro had too much anti-synergy and, while could be useful, I though the Corpsetaker buff would be better against aggro. Originally, I put in a Cheaty Anklebiter, but then thought about BoK+Scalehide synergy. There's also a distinct lack of card draw so the Hoarder can help a bit there, specially against control.
After the Equality nerfs I popped in 2 Dark Convictions instead which seems to work just fine.
As a self confessed abysmal player I would note that the deck is not easy to play if you are looking for a new player/bad player friendly deck. I went from 4 star rank 16 to zero star rank 20 without winning a single game.
15-8 with this deck, from rank 16 to 14. I added a Chillwind Champion and two Steeds though. I went from 1-5 to 10-3 this way. I'm facing a lot of Hunters and had to adapt the deck. Went from 0-3 to 5-1 against them. Fun to play and can win against a lot of things.
14-0 from rank 8 to 3. Nice deck
I am using this deck but I replaced Argent Commander with Chillblade Champion to get the most out of Corpsetaker. If you use the deck as is, Corpsetaker doesn't reach its full potential because there's no Lifesteal minion in the deck. If you replace Argent Commander with Chillblade Champion then it gets every buff (if you don't draw the Champion first. If you do, oh well - it's the same as if you still had the Commander instead. At least this gives you SOME opportunity to get Lifesteal also). Plus Chillblade Champion is two less mana and only one less attack, and still has Charge. So you can still do the Blessing of Kings combo with it, while also restoring health. And if you're at 10 Mana you can use Argent Protector to give it Divine Shield as well. Then you'll have Charge, Divine Shield, AND Lifesteal, with only one less attack than the Commander, for the same amount of mana.
But most importantly, it allows for the full set of buffs on Corpsetaker. Can't believe that was overlooked by the OP. Feel free to edit your deck listing with this replacement.
Probably the worst paladin deck I've ever played
Haven't played the deck but will give it a try. Thumbs up on the write-up alone, great job.
Probably the worst meta for Even Paladin since the archetype started to exist.
Play this deck if you like losing to hunter decks.
gets farmed by control warrior and every hunter archetype
Amazing Deck!! Paladin is my favorite class
I dont have Val'anyr, so I put Dinosize instead and Im getting a great value of it.
Looks nice. Playing Genn doesn't really give you worse options here. I can't think of any uneven card I would want in this deck. Nothing that makes a big difference anyhow.
Pressure every turn to kill a spell hunter FeelsGoodMan
First time I have ever got legend with this deck, THANK YOU SO MUCH. Very straight forward deck to play, just need to use a bit of thinking around turns 4/5, as often I haven't played around board clears with priest or warrior.
Great Deck. But the way you explained it was even better :). Best deck guide Ive ever read. Easy to follow. Ty :)
Adding a minion with Lifesteal would really power up the Corpsetaker cards. The default seems to be Crystalsmith Kangor but I actually prefer the charge component to Chillblade Champion for most matchups.
Yeah I replaced Argent Commander with Chillblade Champion to get that Lifesteal. Minimal negative impact on the original vision of the deck - only one less attack, for two less mana, plus the Lifesteal buff. Can use that two extra mana on an Argent Protector and get Divine Shield back.
What about Kangor and glass knight in this deck?