Secret Paladin = Fun and Profit (63% WR)
- Last updated May 27, 2019 (RoS Rogue Nerfs)
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Wild
- 13 Minions
- 13 Spells
- 4 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Secret Paladin
- Crafting Cost: 6500
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 5/27/2019 (RoS Rogue Nerfs)
- JTA
- Registered User
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- 4
- 13
- 41
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Battle Tag:
#21977
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Region:
EU
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Total Deck Rating
16
I have reached rank 5 with this deck which is very enjoyable and profitable at same with 63% winrate. After a lot of researching and testing(i have played 60 games) this is my final version of the deck but of course nothing is static in HS and i still have some new ideas that worth trying.
This is very fast deck which relies on secret and some weapon synergy. Your secrets buff your minions and protect them so you can develop a very sticky and buffed board. At the same time you are using cards like Bellringer Sentry and Subject 9 to draw our secrets as fast as possible and impove our drawing pool.
As you may have already noticed i do not include Masked Contender in this deck, in my opinion we have already enough secret draws and a 3 mana 2/4 is a little bit slow for this deck, instead i have a better candidate for that slot Bloodsail Raider. With 4 weapons this card most of the times will be 2 mana 5/3 or 6/3 which in my opinion is better than 3 mana 2/4 cast a random secret from the deck.
Desperate Measures - it gives us a free random secret, buffs our 2 drops but not the Secretkeeper which is the key card of the deck. Overall i am not too excited about this card this is why i run only 1 copy. Tip - it can cast a secret you already are holding in your hand so sometimes you want to play it last.
Never Surrender! - this card alone has won me some games. It keeps alive our Secretkeeper and our board. Opponents almost never play around this card and quite often spend removals without results.
Secretkeeper - the absolute must of the deck. This is one of your winconditions, without this card the deck is unplayble. We have 8 cheap secrets to buff and same time protect her, there was never a better deck for this card to be in.
Mysterious Blade - 2 mana 3/2 and perfect weapon synergy. 5 stars next...
Sunreaver Spy - 2 mana 3/4, ok i will take that. 5 stars next...
Commander Rhyssa - 3 mana 4/3, nice aggro stats and a perfect effect. You will almost always get value from this card.
Dread Corsair - 0 or 1 mana 3/3 taunt, ok i will take that. 5 stars next...
Truesilver Champion - 4 mana 4/2 and perfect weapon synergy. 5 stars next...
Blessing of Wisdom - the biggest weakness of this deck is the card drawing. This deck is so fast that on turn 4-5 you will have no cards in the hand. With so many secrets to protect our board this card is a huge addition. Most of the times you will draw at least 2 cards for only 1 mana. Judging from my 60 games this card definitly deserves a place in the deck.
Sound the Bells! - one another weakness i have noticed is that you need some late support for your board if the game is not finished until turn 6-7. For that reason Silver Sword was added first and it performed very well. The only problem is the high cost of 8 mana. If you draw this early while you are pushing to finish the game until turn 6-7, it is useless. Sound the Bells! on the other hand is more flexible and has a similar buff effect. 2 mana 1/2 is not the best but the freedom to destribute that stats with the echo ability make a huge impact , especially vs other aggro decks.
Curious as I am I switched out Greenskin for a Blessing of Wisdom.
I stand corrected. It is really good in this deck.
Edit: That was a reply fail. This was meant to be a reply to the ongoing discussion.
I'm currently toying with a similar approach; I feel that especially the Dread Corsair is a huge Tempo card in this deck and gives it a big push. I think Secret Paladin isn't even half as bad as people say; it's just that it's crucial to include the correct cards to actually make this deck work and that help with building pressure.
Edit: After reading again, I actually feel like we kind of have the same approach to the deck (Weapons, Secrets and beefing up minions), we just use different cards and playstyles.
I was originally thinking about Sound the Bells!, Bloodsail Raider and Blessing of Wisdom, too. I just found that those cards are really awkward to play, especially if you don't have too much board presence. Same goes for other cards that people might suggest (Like Knife Juggler, like... This card is so bad since Call to Arms rotated) - What this deck needs is cards that have an effect that instantly does something and doesn't rely too much on standalone effects that require something else to give Tempo. Or at least these prerequisites have to be achievable easily to not sacrifice Tempo.
I'm not a big fan of Subject 9 in Secret Paladin, thanks to the inherent Bellringer Sentry (Subject kind of feels like Overkill sometimes). Masked Contender is another card that can be played earlier in a match and does multiple things at once. Desperate Measures also kind of feels weird to me because it offers so little synergy with the "Pull a secret" effects and Secretkeeper.
Here are the changes I'd made including explanations. I'm not saying "You have to build your deck like this!". I just want to give some context about why I play different cards. Try it out if you want (If you actually do have the cards), but if you feel like your list works better for you, then take the following with a grain of salt :)
-1 Autodefense Matrix, +1 Noble Sacrifice: Noble Sac can trigger twice via Commander Rhyssa, Matrix can't. One copy of Matrix should still be in the deck, though. I like it. It makes it annoying to deal with the Dread Corsairs or beefed up minions.
-1 Desperate Measures, -1 Blessing of Wisdom, +2 Call to Adventure: As stupid as this sounds, but CtA actually means card draw, secret synergy and value all in one, because it oftentimes draws you a Secretkeeper or Sunreaver Spy and already buffs it. The loss in Tempo you suffer from this is made up by the fact that you end up with a Secretkeeper that turns into a Yeti with just one Secret, or a 5/6 Sunreaver Spy. For Paladin, getting card draw and value at the same time is really difficult right now and I feel like CtA actually fills this gap. Plus, it pulls the cheap stuff out of your deck that you don't want to draw later on and actually rewards you for doing so.
As for Desperate Measures and Blessing of Wisdom, as I mentioned earlier, they feel kind of awkward to play, and usually BoW makes a minion a high priority target, which means it will often just draw one card, or no card at all if you've lost the board. DM is just unpredictable and when drawn always feels like a 1 Mana Do-Nothing card, as it doesn't synergise at all with Secretkeeper, a possible Masked Contender (Not in your decklist) or Bellringer Sentry.
-1 Never Surrender!, -1 Subject 9, +2 Consecration: Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE Never Surrender!, especially with Rhyssa on the board. I just feel like oftentimes it ends up turning a 1/1 dude into a 1/3. I guess it's up to personal preference whether to run 2x Sac or 2x Surrender; for me it's 2x Sac because once you have Dread Corsair out there's just too many shenanigans with Rhyssa that your opponent has to deal with, and one minion less attacking your things is always nice. But - again - Never Surrender! is probably my favourite Paladin Secret right now (Ever trolled a Hunter on Turn 5 who thought he could Baited Arrow a Silver Hand Recruit? 5 Mana, kill a 1/1 lol).
Regarding Subject 9, you already have immense Secret Draw if you choose 2x Masked Contender (See below) and 2x Bellringer Sentry, and the benefit of having actually playable secrets is only given if you have a Secretkeeper. However, with Call to Adventure you can draw even more and already pre-buff your Keepers.
On top of that, Consecration is yet another tool that gives you the edge over other Aggro decks (Corsair being the other "I am better at Aggro" card). Yes, I know, oftentimes Cons doesn't fully clear, but there are many situations where it's really good to have it in the deck nonetheless. You don't really want to trade with your minions, but you kind of need a way to get rid of wider, smaller boards.
-2 Bloodsail Raider, +2 Masked Contender: I feel like the Contenders just help immensely with drawing your deck. The biggest issue with Secret Paladin is actually drawing secrets. It feels unbelievably weak to draw a 1-Mana spell that has no impact at all, unless there's a Secretkeeper on the Board. Bloodsail Raiders, while strong with a jacked-up Mysterious Blade and Truesilver Champion, oftentimes just end up being a River Crocolisk. I mean, yeah, the Sunreaver Spy can also just be a croc, but you have far more secrets than weapons in your deck. Contenders, much like Bellringer Sentry, just provides more Tempo, because you get a body, you get a secret and you empty your deck faster.
-1 Sound the Bells!, +1 Captain Greenskin: Sometimes Greenskin is just a 5 Mana 5/4, but then again, it can turn your Truesilver Champion into an Ashbringer or your Mysterious Blade into a better Truesilver Champion. The big deal is actually not the +1 damage, but rather the +1 Durability. StB just feels really weird. You don't want it in the early game because it's somehow meh, and you only want it in the late game when you're already winning.
I really appreciate these type of commends, thank you. I enjoy sharing ideas and arguing.
Sound the Bells and Blessing of Wisdom - yes need to have a board to get value from these cards but you have all the tools (weapons, secrets, buffs) for a sticky board presence. As i explained StB was added to support the late game and it has an instant effect while you have at least 1 minion on board. You said''You don't want it in the early game because it's somehow meh, and you only want it in the late game when you're already winning.'' exactly you dont want it early, it is like a plan B for late game which means you are losing not winning as you said. This is a fast deck and like other fast decks if you dont finish the game until turn 6-7 chances are you are losing it. Ideally you want to play it late in the game to get as many buffs as possible but if a situation acqures you can play it early. Sure shit happens sometimes for both of these cards, but it is very very rare in my experience. BoW - ideally you want to play it in a super buffed minion which lived more than 1 turn which means your opponents can not remove it except he top decks something. Or you could cast it in a second biggest buffed minion to protect the biggest one beacuse now as you mentioned it becomes high priority target. For the record in 60 games it has never happened to me not drawing cards from it, couple times just 1 card , and more often 2+ cards in which point the game ends.
Bloodsail Raider- i get this minion buffed in almost every game, very rare it is just 2/3 but same can happen with Masked Contender and Sunreaver Spy. I have tested Contender in the slot of Bloodsail and it didnt impress me. I prefer having a 5/3 or 6/4 on board rather than a 2/4 play a random secret and thin my deck by 1 card. And all these for 2 mana instead of 3.
Subject 9 - i find this card super strong, even if he draws just 3 secrets he impores your drawing pool so much. If anyone decides to include Contenders then Subject is an overkill, we do agree in that.
Consecration - you should not really strugle vs other aggro decks, you have already the best board control tools. You should focus more against slower match ups. I am not even considering putting this card in my deck.
Captain Greenskin - i dont own this card. In my opinion it is not the must have but sure a solid addition to the deck.
Again, I believe we have the same approach to the deck, we're basically just using different cards to achieve the same effect.
Beefing up minions and drawing cards can be done either by using BoW and StB or by using 2x CtA - Both achieve the same goal. Same amount of cards used, pretty much same effect, with both having upsides and downsides.
Subject 9 or Masked Contender + Bellringer Sentry: Again - Same goal, different cards. Both draw the low-cost stuff that you really don't want to draw at the beginning of Turn 5 or 6.
Consecration or Bloodsail Raider: Once more - Different cards that serve the same purpose. The board presence coming from the Raiders in your version is being done by the Contenders in my version - Their lack of damage is being counteracted by Cons.
So, overall I don't see much difference. We draw cards and beef up minions in different ways, we draw our secrets in different ways and we secure the board in different ways.
Ultimately, we both still end up going face.