Top4Paladin
- Last updated Sep 14, 2015 (TGT Launch)
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Wild
- 16 Minions
- 14 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Unknown
- Crafting Cost: 2360
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 8/28/2015 (TGT Launch)
- muirhead01
- Registered User
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- 5
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- 14
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Battle Tag:
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Total Deck Rating
930
Hi I'm Muirhead who previously wrote a Top8Patron guide.
Here is my take on the recently popular secret paladin, which I piloted to rank 4 NA legend:
Proof:
I then proceeded to win five games in a row at rank 4 and then lose one all while staying at rank 4! I've never lost a game and maintained the same rank before.
I don't have anything as refined to say about this deck as I did for my patron list, because I only have 63 games recorded with this exact list! However, a few comments are in order.
Mulligans: Keep 1 and 2 mana minion drops and the mysterious challenger. Throw away all secrets, even if you have secret keeper. Keep divine favor only if you strongly suspect you are playing handlock or freeze mage. When playing against rogue, toss juggler in favor of a more sticky 2 drop. Depending on the MU and hand it is often good to keep muster as well.
This deck is very aggressive but has almost no reach, so it plays a lot like demonzoo. At some point you will have to try to rush face, usually after playing the 6 drop. Like demonzoo, when ahead on board it is important to play sticky minions against potential board clears.
The game plan is to flood the board in the early turns and get in some damage. If you draw shredder you can win just from this early aggression, but most of the time you will need to draw a divine favor or mysterious challenger by turn 6 or 7. Either of these cards will draw an immense amount of value, giving the reach you need to finish the game.
The challenger is both amazingly strong and it thins the bad draws from your deck. If possible, try to engineer maximum draw when you play the challenger: don't have a secret in play already that you can draw the second copy of from your deck.
The most unvaforable MU for the deck is face hunter with double explosive trap, which races you aggressively. Other unfavorable MUs include freeze mage and patron warrior. In my small sample size and testing I have a very good winrate vs all other decks.
Repentance is very key to play carefully in certain matchups. It is your #1 tool vs handlock and patron. On turns 5 and 6 patron might want to make a set of 4 patrons on an empty board to crush you, but he cannot play patron when repentance is up. Against handlock, if you set them below 10 HP when repentance is up they cannot play molten giant.
Edit: After a lot of playing and watching people play this deck I have some gameplay tips. I saw a lot of people losing against other paladins to consecration. Most of them were playing far too aggressively and not trading enough. Most paladins have no reach, so board control is much much more important than face damage in the matchup. My other tip is that a naked mysterious challenger is much weaker than a mysterious challenger supported by minions. If you have the choice between flooding the board effectively (i.e. using all your mana on sticky minions) and playing challenger it is sometimes correct to hold off on the challenger for one turn.
Possible tech choices: To improve the matchup against aggro and weaken it vs control, switch leper gnomes for squires. An early game leper gnome against a control deck often translates into about 4 more damage than an early game squire, and it's a much better topdeck late game vs control. However, in the mirror squires are better.
If you feel you are suffering for late game reach with this deck, consider switching one copy of competitive spirit for truesilver champion, a buff, or a big minion. The two weaker secrets in this style of deck are competitive spirit and redemption. If you do decide to run kings, squires become better.
My current version of the deck runs one less leper gnome, repentance, redemption, and competitive spirit. In their place I use coghammer, Loatheb, and 2x blessing of kings.
By request I've linked to some amazingly well-produced video guides to the deck. Not all of them showcase perfect play but they'll give good ideas of how the general gameplan works!
You could cut down on redemption if you want. I rarely find they both activate at the same time unless I draw them off of a challenger. In that case it's pretty rare that I would want to both draw and play fewer secrets just because they don't synergize perfectly.
Belcher could be good: you should try him if you like him. Secret keeper is the best 1 drop in this deck I think. She rarely takes over games but she is often as strong as a zombie chow early on.
Bro, Secret Keeper is like Undertaker. Insane turn 1, okay 2 turn, decent turn 3, then the rest is just draw a secret and combo with Secret Keeper. The card is ridiculous.
Keep giving this deck +1 so that more idiots will trust/play it. It has terrible pace against everything but other pallys and resulted in a 15% win rate on a recent 20 game trial. GG
Sorry to say, but you clearly don't understand how to play the deck. But keep getting mad and failing to understand relatively simple deck.
Total Bullshit. How the fuck do you get a 15% win rate with this deck. 15% of my wins come from people conceding as soon as they see me play my first Secret, or Secret Keeper + Secret turn 1. Well anyways you're clearly not playing this deck right, which is surprising because it's pretty easy to play initially, and then you slowly learn all the combos more and more.
How do you feel about this version compared to the more slow deck list that is running Boom, Tirion and no Divine Favor? Which one would you consider more effective on the long term?
After a bunch of testing I think divine favor decks are better than ones that don't run divine favor. However, there is room to make slower decks that run both boom and 1-2 copies of divine favor. Some of these hybrid lists seem interesting right now.
Thanks for the answer! I've tried both versions and i like the slower version as it feels a bit less "all in" than the very fast version. However, the slower list started to be more consistent once i added one Divine Favor.
I don't think owl is very good in this deck but you should try it if you like it
Best deck I've ever used. Your guide is short but sweet. I follow your mulligan and your repentance timing and I went up from 17 to 13 so far without a single loss
A great trick I've found is that if you play Competitive Spirit on a developed board on turn 5, and follow it up with a Mysterious Challenger, super boost!
Anyone try out Warhorse Trainer in this deck? Maybe trying 1 out and cutting a secret.
Won almost every game and reached rank 12 without any problems. Now everything stopped..
Only absolute morons play this shit. And thats about 80% of ladder right now. Raping and BMing every single one of them with double flare hunter.
more shit secret pala decks *yay*
Powerful deck and consistent. With all the 1 drops you can always be mana efficient... and turn 6 you really swing the game in your favor with Mysterious Challenger. I've been wrecking from rank 18 - 10 so far..... Face/Cancer Hunters its always a race. Flare will make you cry yourself to sleep. Early board advantage against warrior/priest is pretty crucial.
I've had terrible luck with this deck and always draw the majority of my secrets before mysterious challenger. I've lost to every face hunter and patron warrior, I suppose midrange may be better.
Replacements for Avenge? I'm using +2 Truesilver Champion, but considering + 1Consecration +1Truesilver Champion. What do you think is better?
Simple, cheap, powerful to the point of broken and incredibly fun to play. A++ would play again
You have lots of feedback experience for ebay transactions, don't you? lol