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
- 7
- 14
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
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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!
I also like coghammer, 2x blessing of kings, and loatheb nowadays. But I still like 2x divine favor :).
Congrats on your rank 5. Good tinkering and I hope you get some excellent golden cards!
what card do you replace for lotheb?
I would try to get loatheb asap if i where you! It shuts down your opponents ability to aoe you and often means you get an extra full board of damage to his face. Very scary card on top of everything else this deck does.
Thank you so much! This deck takes me to rank 5...i will try to get legend this season using this deck
Do I need 2 Mysterious Challengers? I got one in a pack. I know it's practically the whole idea behind this deck but I thought some variations run 1. What would be the best replacement?
The deck won't really work without 2x challenger unfortunately :(
I only use one. I climbed from 10 to 2 rank for the weekend.
So, did you make it to Legend?
oh, so close!
I just reached Legend for the first time ever with this deck. It is absolutely fantastic. This is the only deck I played on ladder so I took it from around rank 18 all the way to legend. I only have a couple changes that I made that work really well for me: -1 Competitive Spirit, -2 Abusive Sergeant, -1 Repentance, +1 Coghammer, +2 Blessing of Kings, and +1 Dr. Boom.
After 187 games, I am at 62% winrate. This deck is legit. Thanks for sharing it!
I'm using your version and having great success. Currently rank 3 with a roughly 75% win rate. Only thing giving me trouble is midrange Druid, how did you beat them?
Great changes
Congrats on legend and I'm glad you found a version that works for you!
Druid has actually been one of the easiest matchups for me. The main thing is to get board control and throw out a Mysterious Challenger as early as possible. That being said, I'd mulligan for Shielded Minibot, Haunted Creeper, and Knife Juggler. The Minibot and Creeper are nice and sticky, and the Knife Juggler is a good counter to Darnassus Aspirant (which they seem to always have early on and you want to remove asap).
Try to play around Swipe, especially on turn 4. For example: don't play a Muster for Battle on turn 3 unless you have something that will survive in a Swipe turn (minibot with Divine shield still up, or a haunted creeper that will spawn it's 2 1/1's if it's killed by swipe).
Also, if you happen to get Repentance in your hand early on, try to save it for their 5 drop (which will usually be a Druid of the Claw with taunt).
Do your best to maximize your Divine Favor value. Unless druids are able to get a strong ramp and/or innervate out some early minions, they will usually only be able to play 1 minion per turn and will therefore amass more cards than you after 4 or 5 turns. You can often draw 3-5 cards with Divine Favor if you play it at the right time.
I've had a number of Druid's blow their combo on trying to deal with all the secrets from Mysterious Challenger. After they do that, they have pretty much lost their win condition and it's just a matter of time before you win.
I played this exact version by some time, but now my version runs -1 Competitive Spirit and -1 Repentance for 2 Truesilver.
The weapons are very helpfull to clear a big threat on the board by turn 4~5, so you can use Mysterious by turn 6 and your opponent won't have enough minions to pass through Noble Sacrifice.
It's good to finish games as well and has improved my winrate.
I also like now to run only 1x spirit and 1x repentance, because the paladin 4 drops are so good. Have you tried kings instead of truesilver? I like it more.
Yes, i tried both and i like Truesilver to help board control.
Any tips against druids? I'm new player and have worst win ratio against them.
Also thanks for build, i was never that far on ladder.
Druid should be an OK matchup. Do your best to play around swipe when making trades. Repentance and kings are both good in the matchup.
I'm really struggling against Druid as well. Not sure what to do against them. Every other deck isn't giving me much trouble.