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Uther Bendragon - The one and only, the single and true, Uther!

 

 

 

Contents 

            1.1 Foreword
            1.2 Description

            2.1 Strategy
            2.2 Versus Other Decks

            3.1 Card Overview
            3.2 The Cards - A Closer Look
            3.3 The Dragons

            4.1 Afterword

 

1.1 Foreword

Still figuring this deck out. But so far it has been a lot of fun to play with and to be honest I am starting to love it.

Most of the time it feels like a deck that has answers for most things whilst at the same time being capable of pushing back against the enemy. On the contrary, this is one of the few Paladin Decks I made with the cards I have where bad-RNG feels less of a problem (although still a problem from time to time, just, not as often).

The other Paladin decks I felt come close are my Bendragon v1.1
This seems to be my better iteration yet.

 

1.2 Description

Want to have fun with a deck that is actually a Dragon Paladin and doesn't use the word Dragon as a gimmick? Welcome to Uther Bendragon. This is the second Dragon Paladin deck I put together. The first consists of the 1st four Blackrock Mountain wings. This one includes cards from all 5.

So basically, complete all of Blackrock Mountain to be able to use this deck.
If you want one without the last wing check out my older deck named Uther Bendragon v1.1
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/278362-uther-bendragon-v1-1-hazard-paladin

 

 

 The idea of the deck? Simple. Dragons. And not as in a Dragon deck with "Paladin cards alone and staple minions plus 3 dragons maximum," but a deck that actually uses Dragons. And quite a few!

 

 

2.1 Strategy

This deck plays out kind of like a blend of a Control and Midrange deck. More or less. I would lean it over to Control a little more in the way it is played, but as I saw the actual cards used and style is more Midrange (from what I gathered at least) so I will throw it into the Midrange deck type.

There are answers to most things that someone can throw at you. Don't be afraid sometimes to sacrifice a silence or a humility early on. Although this can backfire, many times it also does not and can save the game. Its a judgement call. But some games don't work out as well if you are saving your answers for really big threats.

On the other hand, if you can counter with minions alone and save spells, then all the better. At which point you will open up to even more control-type combos in mid to late game.

Sometimes if you have a bad hand it can force you to play a late-game approach. This is not always crippling, as with the cards given there are times you can pick the pace back up and have even more options to control the late game.

The idea is simple. Don't let the enemy do what they want, control the threat level of the board, and don't be greedy. This is not a deck that can toss out many minions again and having the entire board wiped clean will really hurt your play.

Oh, and always check for lethal.

 

 

2.2 Versus Other Decks

Against Hunter- there is a weak spot here. Face Hunter with all the right cards to start off with can make this deck suffer since it is stronger mid to late game. Not impossible to win Face Hunters, but not easy. With 3 taunts in the deck including an Annoy-o-Tron, Sen'jin Shieldmasta, and a Sunwalker, along with one Defender of Argus, you should be able to easily handle Face Hunters provided all these come at the right time.

Sure, not too many taunts to counter a Hunter, but enough. The only problem is that being few in count, there are many games that do not hand you a single taunt whatsoever until it is too late (happens more often than not to me). Mulligan for taunts I guess.

Try to use control tactics more against Face Hunters. This usually works better but not always the best bet. Feel free at times if you have to to even sacrifice minions you would otherwise want to hold on to. A single turn for the hunter keeping a minion sometimes makes the difference between win or lose (lost to one lately because I left one of their minions with 1 health and 1 damage alive.... that minion was just enough for the last hit for lethal. Don't leave anything for those hunters. Take it all from them if possible and leave them with nothing.)

Live long enough through your taunts and Lay on Hands and Antique Healbot and if you manage to pull off all of those then you should be able to turn the game around and decimate them.

Otherwise, with no taunts or heals present, pray the match is over sooner than later.

Against Zoo-Lock, Aggro Warriors, Aggro Decks in General, etc- again a weak-spot there. But easier than facing a hunter. Aggro decks can really make this deck suffer early game. But there have been plenty of times were the cards are just right making counters to an aggro deck quite easy. You need to be careful against these decks and steer clear of yolo-ing. Take caution if you survive to late game since Aggro decks can surprise you even then. If you play your cards right, winning against them is no problem many times either.

This deck has gotten a lot more wins against Paladins, Priests, Druids and Shamans. The next in line that are harder to beat are Mages, but still quite easily manageable most of the time. After that Rogues are the next in line and a little harder. Not entirely easy and a bad hand can give them the advantage, but ok nevertheless. Aggro Warriors are harder from there on after Rogues as are Zoo Warlocks, but they too can suffer badly against this deck if the right cards are in your hand and RNG has them trying to fish out better cards (especially warriors, a Grim Patron warrior has very few options to grow their Grim Patron numbers with this deck since most minions have 3 or more damage). From the 2 I notice Zoo Warlocks are the larger threat since they can easily overwhelm the board more than once. But even they if you are lucky can be handled with Consecration. Hand-Locks on the other hand are average, and sometimes even easy to beat. Sometimes.

Hunters remain to be the biggest problem for this deck. Hard to counter, but not completely impossible. Win ratio vs hunters is understandably much smaller than all the other classes.

 

 

3.1 Card Overview

The basic structure of this deck is 20 minions, 8 spells, and 2 weapons. The balance of cards strangely enough (was not intentional) are exactly 15 Paladin Cards and 15 Neutral cards. Also, the structure of the deck includes a large variety, two copies of cards are a rarity in this deck, as only 2 minions are x2 in the deck and 2 spells. Oh, and the sword. All other cards are used only once allowing for a large flow of options.

It relies on healing when possible, so use that Truesilver Champion if possible to take back some hit-points, and of course it includes the Antique Healbot and a Lay on Hands for an extra 16 health to keep you alive long enough to dominate your opponent later on.

The smaller minions of this deck are mostly for control. Some are Priest Invulnerable against their Shadow Words, others are there because they cannot be targeted by enemy spells, others are there to eat away on small minions when possible (like the Shielded Minibot), others are there to simply weaken an enemy (Aldor Peacekeeper) and others to take down large threats (like the Big Game Hunter). With an Annoy-o-Tron you can control some more early on or simply just delay the enemy, or you can keep it depending on the opponent to protect another minion, whilst the Blackwing Technician is another strong control type card that for its mana pushes out a strong threat as well.

All these minions are good enough to give you a large range of options at all times, with (as mentioned before) a Sen'jin Shieldmasta and a Defender of Argus to make things even harder for the opponent. The idea to the deck is options. You want the options in your hand to control any given condition.

Your larger bodies are then used to create both control and a threat. Whilst the deck relies somewhat on card drawing as well.

It does not include the Azure Drake neither the Hammer of Wrath, which sometimes can be a little crippling in the play (especially for me that I am now used to playing with those two). However, other cards have substituted their effects as we will see later on and in a better way perhaps too.

At this point, in this deck you must rely a lot on using Solemn Vigil right. Along with Lay on Hands, for card drawing. Then, there is Nefarian and Ysera. Not card drawers exactly, but they do offer you more play options (and good ones too), and that is something this deck relies on. As I already mentioned. Having options all the time.

The rest of the cards used are basics the likes of Equality and Consecration. You simply do not enter a battle with a Paladin without those two cards in your deck.

 

 

3.2 The Cards - A Closer Look

Lets take the cards in order. I will only go into the cards that need some explaining for their inclusion to the deck and their use, as well as/or their choice over some other cards. I will also look into some cards that didn't make it into this build of the deck and the reason why I tossed them out.

 

For lack of a better choice since I have only one Aldor Peacekeeper (and can't be bothered creating a second one), I tossed in Humility.

However, I find that it is actually just as helpful. On the one end we have a body of 3/3 for 3 mana. On the other, we have the effect alone for 1 mana, which makes it a life saver at times. With Humility it becomes much easier to create the effect of Aldor Peacekeeper as well as toss out another card at the same time. For the same mana you can use Humility and either an Annoy-o-Tron, a Faerie Dragon or a Shielded Minibot.

All three options are actually better as bodies if not the same as an Aldor Peacekeeper.

And at 4 mana you can do the same effect and toss out a Blackwing Technician for a 3/5 body. And so on so forth.

The real life-saver in this card however is when you need to play Ysera or Nefarian and the board has a large body present. Simply use Humility and job done.

However the advantages of Aldor Peacekeeper remain to be evident in that you save a card for having both the effect and a minion/body in one. For this reason, I placed just one Humility in the deck. Not a smart idea to substitute Aldor Peacekeeper for a second Humility. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and I find that in the long run it is better to run one of each.

The rest of the cards up to 4 mana are pretty self explanatory I think and quite important of being part of the deck.

 

Debatable cards. Both of these. And yet I feel they are quite important. The deck, without these two, is quite weak in that midrange mana curve and lacking of any taunts, with the smallest being all the way at 2 mana and the largest all the way up at 6 mana.

Sen'jin Shieldmasta is arguably one of the best taunts at that mana curve. And although I am still testing the deck (even after many games) he feels like an average to good help. He isn't a game changer or too special, neither a lifesaver like other cards, yet on the other hand he isn't useless either. Taking him out might make the deck a little more agressive and ruin the style of it, I will test it out more.

Meanwhile Defender of Argus is one of those cards that is quite situational. On the one hand, when you have the chance to use him right, he works wonders. On the other, there are times he simply sits there in your hand looking at you to avoid the fail of using him alone and putting a 2/3 body on the board for 4 mana. Quite a fail indeed.

Of the two, I find the Defender of Argus to be a much more potent play. However as I mentioned before, he is much more situational and to counter the chance of not being able to use him, much less two of them, the Sen'jin Shieldmasta is a welcoming body that does it's job on the spot no questions asked.

 

This is a late entry to the deck (the Twilight Drake) and it substituted the Piloted Shredder. I have to say I made this change with a heavy heart and only for the purpose of testing it out.

It is quite common with this deck to have a large hand from time to time. And the Twilight Drake can really make a great use of that. Both can be silenced at that point and both are cards the opponent does chase into silencing. At which point the Piloted Shredder is the better choice since it is a 4/3 even when silenced.

Again, still testing this out to see how much I miss that wonderful Piloted Shredder. I should soon come to a conclusion as to what should be kept, or (another choice I am fond of and thinking of testing) a substitution of the Sen'jin Shieldmasta for bringing back the Piloted Shredder.

This move however will make the deck even weaker against the heavily aggro driven decks. On the other hand, the deck in order to win a Face Hunter for example must rely a lot on RNG being on your side. And since this is something I steer clear from when possible, it might be completely ok to simply toss out that taunt for a Piloted Shredderand whatever happens.

     

This deck does not run a Hammer of Wrath in it, and my playstyle is a little cramped from this. I really am used to that card. However Solemn Vigil and Blackwing Corruptor make up for this change as well as the choice of getting rid of the Azure Drake from the deck. It simply needs a little different handling now.

As opposed to the previous deck I built (Uther Bendragon v1.1) this one here (v2.1) runs as it is evident the Blackwing Corruptor and Solemn Vigil as opposed to Hammer of Wrath and Azure Drake. Here is the why I think it is a better choice.

For starters the Blackwing Corruptor is a better body than the Azure Drake for the same mana, even if only slightly. With a dragon in your hand, the Blackwing Corruptor also works as a Hammer of Wrath being able to deal 3 damage with battlecry. The only downside to that 3 damage is that it costs 1 more mana hence comes to use 1 turn later. It is also a little situational as it needs a dragon in your hand to be able to deal that 3 damage.

The upside is that you have a body and 3 damage for 1 extra mana. Meanwhile, the deck is running 7 dragons! That is almost a third of the deck. Not having a single dragon in your hand (and yeah, it has happened to me) is the result of really bad RNG. At which point it is really not the fault of the deck with such a lousy draw of cards, especially by turn 5.

The spell damage is something that is lost to this selection of cards, however I have found that it has helped me on very rare occasions making my Consecration 3 damage instead of 2. Something again that is a little weak at late game and at this point in all the games I played hardly a thing I even looked forward to.

The only thing now that is missing is the 2 cards drawn, 1 with the Azure Drake and 1 with the Hammer of Wrath. And in comes Solemn Vigil to take care of this in flying colours.

What makes it a little harder as a play is the fact that Solemn Vigil needs to be used as a combo after killing off minions. This however has its advantage, and it is a big advantage as it can end up costing anything down from 5 mana. Quite often, it is at 2 mana. And sometimes, it is even 0, giving you 2 cards completely free.

 

In this deck I took out Guardian of Kings and replaced him with an Antique Healbot.

Definitely a better way to go especially for a deck that could use an early heal card. Meanwhile, Guardian of Kings although a pretty good body at 5/6, he costs 7 mana and heals 6 points. He renders your play quite weak at turn 7 and is a body that is easily countered. So is the Antique Healbot, however at turn 5 it isn't as crucial of a turn and it heals you for 8 points.

Also a great counter spell minion for such opponents as the Mage. Better to give them a 3/3 body and heal yourself for 8 points, rather than give away a 5/6 and heal for 6. In late game, the Antique Healbot can also be used together with stronger cards, and is a clear winner in all ways for me. I don't even miss that Guardian of Kings.

 

Yeap. Emperor Thaurissan is gone. And in his place is a second Dragon Consort. For now.

Both bodies are at 5/5. And although Emperor Thaurissan has a clear advantage when you have a large hand, reducing the cost of each card by 1, he almost never lasts as much as a Dragon Consort in my experience. And rightfully so. He is more dangerous. Where as the Dragon Consort done its job and what is done is done.

For this reason, I find I make better plays in the end with an existing 5/5 body that I can actually use. This is hardly a reason I know, but it balances out for me for the following reasons.

One is that for most plays it is more important to be able to bring out Nefarian or Ysera for 7 mana than try to reduce the cost of all the other cards.

The reason is that although the Emperor is quite helpful, I find with this deck that many times reduced costs on my cards have me finish a turn with spare mana crystals. This is a clear implication of wasted mana more or less, or the fact that I could most of the time play these cards regardless of Emperor Thaurissan. Also, as mentioned earlier, do not push out too many minions with this deck. 3 to 4 is enough at all times, and even that is a lot. Which means you barely need all that mana reduction and the real minions you want to reduce are Ysera and Nefarian.

Here is were the advantage is clear over Emperor Thaurissan, since the Dragon Consort can be used 1 round earlier for 1 less mana, and is a body of the same strength. This play makes an Ysera or Nefarian play possible at 7 mana indefinately, whilst Emperor Thaurissan will need two rounds alive to be able to accomplish this effect. He also comes out one round later, so with Emperor Thaurissan you quite simply will never get Ysera or Nefarian out as early. And that is the most important part of the mana cost reduction to this deck.

Its an instant -2 mana on any dragon that can be used in the same turn, and there are plenty dragons here. Whilst the effect is for the next dragon you play, which means you don't need to have it in your hand at all to reduce its cost. The Dragon Consort does its job indefinitely for the next dragon you play. This is by far one of the most important cards of this deck (hence why this one is twice).

It is also an extra dragon in your deck, making it easier to use Blackwing Technician and the Blackwing Corruptor as well.

In the case that you want to make another combo, Dragon Consort reduces the mana cost by 2 for all dragons evidently, and with so many dragons in the deck it is possible to deploy better minions for less mana without waiting for Emperor Thaurissan to do his work. Still a great card, but I find the Dragon Consort to be much more potent for this deck.

 

I always run a Faceless Manipulator, I don't care what deck I am playing. This guy needs no explanation. Just note people that he is there not just for copying enemy minions, he can work wonders with our own minions too. I even used him once to copy my Piloted Shredder and then tossed a Defender of Argus between them. Just because and to have some fun. Needless to say they lasted longer than I expected.

And lets not forget Ysera. Having her twice on your board is just.... Well... Wonders really.

The Drakonid Crusher is just one and in the deck for two reasons really. The one is as a finisher threat. Being patient for the opponent to reach 15 health usually means that they have done all their silences, hexes, sheeps and what not, leaving the way open for a 9/9 minion for 6 mana. (Or 4 mana if you played a Dragon Consort). Even when silenced he is 6/6.

The other reason is that he is a very effective dragon, adding even more dragons to my hand to work with.

 

Well, I don't have Tirion Fordring, and so in his place I am running a Sunwalker. Feel free to substitute this one.

Keep in mind though not having this card and not having tested it, I don't know how it will effect the deck. It could have a negative effect as well, since the Sunwalker (although weaker and no weapon from that card) costs 2 mana less. This can alter an entire game. You counter aggro decks or anything really earlier with the Sunwalker, but most important of all it is a great bate for people to hex/sheep/destroy it. This bate is out earlier, which means you can rid your opponent of such a spell and make your play even better after that.

If not, they keep those spells for bigger and better cards. Including Tirion Fordring.

So again, I have no idea in the long run if Tirion Fordring is a good choice for this deck. Perhaps he is. Whoever has him can try it out and see how it goes.

 

3.3 The Dragons

This deck relies heavily on dragons because, well for starters they are cool. We need a proper Dragon Deck don't we?

But appart from that, more on the actual mechanics side of things, each Dragon used more or less has a great role and use in the game period. With the Dragon Consort playing more dragons more efficiently is even easier, and with more dragons you can also use both a Blackwing Technician and a Blackwing Corruptor properly almost always. Both being very powerful for their cost.

The total amount of dragons comes to 7. And that should make things quite toasty when playing this deck ;)

         

 

4.1 Afterword

So, thats it from this deck guys. Try it out and let me know your thoughts, ideas on improvements, and what not. Still a work in progress perhaps, not sure, maybe it is just fine the way it is. It was fun making this guide and even more fun playing with this deck.

Enjoy.

 

Small trivia for those that don't know- Uther Pendragon was King Arthurs' father. Bendragon Uthr/Uthyr was the Welsch name as opposed to Pendragon, etc etc.
Thought it was fitting enough. Merlin. King Arthur. Tales of the Dragon. Uther from Warcraft. Dragon Paladin Deck..... All kinda fits and hence my Uther Bendragon ^_^