Divine Aggro (84% WR to legend)
- Last updated May 4, 2016 (Old Gods)
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Wild
- 18 Minions
- 8 Spells
- 4 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Aggro Paladin
- Crafting Cost: 1880
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/28/2016 (Old Gods)
- sixenm
- Registered User
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- 5
- 7
- 22
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Battle Tag:
sixenm#1730
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Region:
US
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Total Deck Rating
876
Introduction:
This is at the core an aggessive oriented paladin deck revolving around the cards Steward of Darkshire and Rallying Blade. It very much plays out similar to a zoo deck using efficient spells and reloading with Divine Favor.
The name of the deck may be divine aggro (as i was uncreative originally) but the deck is all about board control (like zoo is) if you're able to seize the board, you can easily win in a turn or two with the buffs.
How to Play:
The key to playing this deck successfully is to always keep board control utilizing the buffs such as Abusive Sergeant along with with divine shield minions such as Argent Squire and Argent Protector to get amazing trades vs opponents early minions. When the opponent is within range of a 2 turn lethal, its best to switch to face and only deal with the more annoying minions while ignoring large minions that cant do much on their own.
The hugest tempo swings come in the form of using buffs like Blessing of Kings and Keeper of Uldaman on divine shield minions and trading while maintaining the new large bodied minion. Rallying Blade played on a board of a few divine shield minions also spells game over for non-rouge opponents as the weapon itself serves to protect the divine shields so damage-based board clears have little effect.
If you have multiple weapons in hand don't be afraid to play one on an empty board and go face (Truesilver Champion should be played over Rallying Blade in this scenario). During the late-game it is important to note that your cards cost 5 or less and the only important card you could theoretically top-deck is a divine favor, so you should hold onto your weapons to surprise them until you need to push damage or kill a minion.
This deck can come from behind just as well as it can play from in front. If your first few turns are spent hero powering and the board remains empty you are in a very good position. Forcing out resources from opponents for your low cost minions and transitioning into aggro can be done within a turn. Any of your small minions can become large threats that your opponent must deal with at any point which is the hidden power behind the deck (I've had priest players using Shadow Word: Death on a 5/1 Selfless Hero).
(Disclaimer: this is quite a rushed video in my point of view playing out the deck, i realize the sound quality is quite poor during gameplay and i do tend to ramble on when it comes to some of the decision making, even over-thinking at times, but if anything this does show how sub-optimal hands can win games and the staying power of the deck in general. Sorry no stomps recorded)
The Mulligan:
Always mulligan for your 1 drop minions, it is the most important part of the deck to play either an Argent Squire or a Selfless Hero on turn one, if you can't mull into those, playing a naked Abusive Sergeant isn't the end of the world. By playing these minions on turn one you can abuse the Argent Protector and Abusive Sergeant fully to gain board control and to begin to spiral out of control.
The mulligan and guides for all the classes:
Druid: Keep one Keeper of Uldaman if your hand already has other one drop minions and a curve as the card provides the largest tempo swing later in the game vs druids. Try not to over extend with 1 health minions into Swipe, trading them off where appropriate. If you see early wraths, playing a Steward of Darkshire that is unanswered forces the druid to commit too many resources to your board, which should see you out the game. Added one Equality to help improve this match-up slightly, try to save it to deal with multiple big treats such as Twin Emperor Vek'lor or Klaxxi Amber-Weaver. Druids have insanely hard time dealing with an early Blood Knight and Blessing of Kings, so keep that in mind when playing the match-up.
Shaman: You need the Abusive Sergeant to deal with Tunnel Trogg after that the match-up is one of the easiest. Feral Spirit are easy to deal with Rallying Blade and you should be ahead in board and life by the time the Doomhammer comes out (providing an early Tunnel Trogg didn't survive). If you're able to Aldor Peacekeeper the Flamewreathed Faceless you basically win the game.
Paladin: It is super important to keep or mulligan for Argent Squire specifically as it usually dictates the early board game. If faced with a N'Zoth, the Corruptor Paladin the match-up is unfavorable due to the infinite board clears and healing, try to make a few large minions as opposed to lots of small ones and sandbag Blood Knight for the tirion if it gets to that stage.
Mage: Same mulligan for shaman if its a Tempo Mage deck, if you can deal with their early Mana Wyrm the match-up becomes much easier. Yes there are going to be insane Flamewaker turns where the opponent wipes the board while using 3/4 cards, but the waker is easily dealt with weapons and your opponent would have committed multiple cards to kill multiple dudes. Against Freeze Mage, keep Divine Favor as it usually draws 5+ cards and swings the game back into your favor when they play the Frost Nova and Doomsayer turn.
Warrior: Try to mulligan for Argent Squire and Bilefin Tidehunter as the main form that the warrior is going to try and deal with your minions early game is weapons. Also do not over extend yourself into whirlwind situations, its best to prioritize keeping the divine shields on 1-health minions. Save Blessing of Kings and Keeper of Uldaman to deal with big taunts and DO NOT prioritize divine shielding damaged minions compared to an undamaged minion. Patron warrior has proven to be the worst match-up overall for the deck, having 4+ Whirlwinds, Armorsmith and a lot of cheap 1 damage spells, but the match-up is winnable with correctly timed use of both Blessing of Kings and your weapons
Hunter: Another easy matchup, Argent Squire and Selfless Hero trade very well early, don't overthink when playing into Fiery Bat and Huge Toad as the board is usually in your favor. Truesilver Champion is mainly used to go face in this match-up, while it is best to start ignoring the Savannah Highmane by either telling it to follow the rules (Aldor Peacekeeper) or flooding.
Priest: Most current priest decks are too slow to deal with your decent draws, mulligan to the cards listed in the overall mulligan and around turn 4/5 start to prioritize divine shields and 3/4+ health on minions as Holy Nova and Excavated Evil become a thing. A lot of questions were asked in the case of dragon priest and their early 2/4 taunt. Trading into a 2/4 on turn 2 isn't the hardest thing for the deck to accomplish, having a 2/1 minion stick on turn 1 and using Abusive Sergeant gets past almost all of these scenarios, and if that isn't a possibility then using a coin or on curve weapon deals with the problem easily too.
Warlock: Whether it is C'Thun or zoo, it is important to have a body on turn 1 to trade profitably into the Voidwalker or a coin turn 2 Imp Gang Boss. If your hand allows you to keep Consecration do so as it clears the Forbidden Ritual and Knife Juggler. To deal with an early Darkshire Councilman play your 3 mana minions early even if they don't provide huge value, getting damage on it early turns it from a huge threat to a 3/2.
Rouge: One of the harder match-ups if its a Yogg-Saron, Hope's End /Miracle Rouge as the tempo generated by their Backstab and SI:7 Agent paired with Fan of Knives (which is by far the best clear vs this deck as the board is not usually set until turn 4) is quite hard to come back from. Try to mulligan for Argent Protector and don't be scared to play a Selfless Hero or Abusive Sergeant turn 1 on the play, as them wasting a coin to hero power limits their combo potential greatly. If it is a C'Thun rouge then the match-up is still not favored but much more winnable.
The Power Plays:
This deck offers a few power play situations that start the snowball going which make it super difficult for the opponent to come back from given their class, I've listed the main power plays below:
Selfless Hero: Choosing the divine shield target for selfless hero comes up not too often but can be a big deal. If you're able to land it on a Steward of Darkshire on turn 3 it creates a huge tempo swing in your favor as the opponent needs to remove that card unless they want to be dealing with 2 new divine shield minions next turn.
Steward of Darkshire + Bilefin Tidehunter: If the board presents itself for this opportunity on turn 4/5, you can gain a lot of stability and sticky minions on the board that can protect the steward leading to more degenerate things next turn.
Rallying Blade: The thing with this card is that it is good on its own, 3 attack weapons are in a decent spot since the expansion, taking out Beckoner of Evil, Feral Spirit, SI:7 Agent, Acolyte of Pain and many more. When able to be combed with one or even 2 divine shields (turn 6 with Argent Horserider or turn 3 prior to an Argent Protector) is a game winning play.
Keeper of Uldaman: As we should all be familiar with, Uldaman taking a bunch of stats of a Dark Arakkoa or any other large minion, or even buffing an Argent Squire is enough to throw up a little at the value generated.
The Card Choices:
Consecration: The reason there is such a reactive card in the list is it is so good against certain match-ups that playing it in a timely manner is usually the match. It also does 2 points of damage to the face if you need those last few points of reach. Also allows your buff-less divine shield minions to make profitable trades on clogged boards.
Blood Knight: Since there are little to no silences running around and against the mirror this card gets the nod, playing it against a druid early usually translates to a lot of face damage and taking off opposing shields from the likes of C'Thun's Chosen usually is a game winning tempo swing.
Aldor Peacekeeper: The reason that one is in the deck is against taunt-less large minions, at this stage its better to ignore those large minions and transition to face, providing a large tempo swing that allows you to close out the game in a timely manner. Also the main reason for this is against shaman's Flamewreathed Faceless as many people were asking, as well as providing a lot of long game value.
Stand Against Darkness: One copy is in the deck for the sick interaction with Steward of Darkshire. Usually played after the oppoent has used a board clear to again challenge their life total, and if played with the stweard, makes Rallying Blade a game ending play. This is the control winning card, as it provides too many bodies for a control deck to deal with so you can play your stranded buff cards.
Seal of Champions: One seal is in the deck to gain tempo and board control early as well as providing a bit of burst towards the end of the game. Using this against Warriors, Priests and Shamans is dirty as they then are forced into a position to trade their premium removal on a 4/1 dude.
Notable Omissions:
Cult Master: I tried the card out and it proved to be too slow or do nothing when the board was just wiped. Drawing cards is nice but usually your minions aren't trading because of your divine shields and buffs.
Worgen Infiltrator and Twisted Worgen: These cards only really have synergy with Steward of Darkshire which isn't enough as alone they make poor trades and the steward isn't usually played early.
Wolfrider: Again alone it only has synergy with Steward of Darkshire so i opted to go for the Argent Horserider as having divine shield itself has a lot more synergy with Rallying Blade and Blessing of Kings toward the late game.
Knife Juggler: All the minions in the deck that are 1 or 2 drops either have/give divine shields or buffs or have multiple bodies. The key to this deck is sticking a body or 2 on the board to abuse the extra buffs and shields when it reaches midgame.
Sea Giant and Gormok the Impaler: There was a variation of the deck that tried out these cards but during the game play, i found that keeping divine shields on minions and trading off smaller bodies that don't have divine shield lead to more snowball opportunities, thus i cut the two cards and the deck was more fluid.
Leeroy Jenkins: This deck does close out games well, but that is not exactly what the deck is looking for. With the staying power, if you were able to run multiples of this card comparable to Doomguard then the card would go up in value so much. As it stands it is too inconsistent vs the whole field to really warrant a spot, as well as being dead in the hand for Divine Favor most of the time.
Currently under consideration:
Justicar Trueheart: The card is insane vs any midrange and control but folds to aggro, not sure how to fit this card in at the moment but moving things around to see how they go.
Tirion Fordring: In the same place as Justicar, but has a different angle of attack in attempts of closing out a game, would rank this second at the moment to Justicar.
My record with the deck:
I played with variations of this deck originally around rank 5 but took this card of card list from rank 4 to rank 1 with a score of 15-0 destroying all the face shamans and c'thun decks.
then on from rank 1 to legend with a score of 11-5 along the way facing 4 rouges but still winning 2 of them. Also currently 5-1 with the deck at legend, surprisingly the deck has a lot of play vs Freeze Mage and have only lost to the mirror. (overall 31-6 84%). Since this i have gone 10-3 in legend ranks bringing the overall score to 41-9 which is a total of 82%.
Final thoughts:
This deck is very good in the current meta of C'thun Druid/Priest/Warrior and the Aggro Warlocks and Shamans having good match-ups with all those decks. The deck is very enjoyable to play and it took within a day to push from rank 5 to legend without any burnout. And yes i created a hearthpwn account just to share with you all this amazing deck that i have played. Please leave comments and feedbacks on the deck as you see fit, it is a relativity cheap deck to craft and play while being extremely competetive.
Find me on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIG60eDpTWrIj42ON9_QKuA for more guides similar to this one
P.S. I'm sorry if this becomes the next Cancer Paladin on ladder. Check out my new Mage deck at: http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/526025-sixenm-reno-x-cthun-mage-standard
P.S.S Please check out a competitive deck building guide that i have created in hopes of giving you guys the thought process being making strong decks that can perfrom:
*edit: added reasons for Knife Juggler, Sea Giant and Gormok the Impaler
**edit #2: added more detailed mulligans and guides for some classes and added power plays.
***edit #3: swapped one Consecration for one Equality, granted more play vs big minions, usually played out similarly to Consecration against zoo decks too while having the ability to reach and deal with Sea Giant as well as Houndmaster taunted beasts in hunter.
****edit #4: added in even more detailed match-ups and mulligans as well as a video guide, along with cards being looked at for current tweaking of the deck and more reasons for other left out cards.
Yes this is a current meta crusher as there's few warriors running around but it does do quite a good job in keeping all the over the top decks in check at the current moment but as the meta evolves around the deck, i'll evolve the deck right back.
I think one of the biggest things the deck had and still has going for it is its surprise factor. It sort of a new deck archetype which people will learn to play better against. I've already noticed far more control priests running wild pyromancers even in their Cthun dekcs, probably not in response just to this deck but agro overall.
Gotta say I love the deck. I was trying to do something similar in hunter at the start of OG using the beast immunity synergy to try and get board control early but it wasn't working out. I also love flood decks. This does a much better job of it. I've played about 50 games with it at legend now and here are my thoughts on matchups in order of highest to lowest representation so far:
Warlock - pretty much all zoo right now. matchup is very favored, in the range of 70/30. You can win the board just with minions alone but I've found an early Rallying blade to be the MVP of this matchup, securing the win from turn 3. Consecrate is also amazing at flipping the board or securing the win when you are ahead. WIth a bad mull and poor draw you can lose though. If you get Divine favors or spells clogging up your hand you can lose fast as you will likely never get a chance to play them.
Shaman - Very favored. 80/20 range both agro and mid range alike. Cons can be OK here. Not much to say. Though the last two face shaman games I've been in ran double lighting storm and took the game unexpectedly.
Hunter - Favored. not really enough games to tell %. Can still go either way as the juggler hounds combo is devastating. Explosive trap in face is also a problem but can be played around.
Rogue - Still favored in my experience but a tough match. THeir tempo plays and FoK are tough to play around. Rallying blade and True silver are MVPs here as they have a lot of 3 and 4 health minions.
Priest - Overall unfavored. Dragon priest may be in the agro pally's favor but the control priest and control/C'thun hybrid are not. Wild Pyro, nova, circle... very hard to keep up with all the board clears. I've even seen almost every priest running silence. Luckily we don't give them a good target for entomb which means they don't really have a good way to push back leading to some long games. I feel like an explosive start and playing around board clears is essential here.
Warrior - Unfavored for the same reason as priest. So many 1 damage aoe effects. Patron and the new mid range warrior are both brutal. Control is a more even match along with C'thun but I haven't run into too many of those.
Druid - Undecided. 100% win rate vs C'thun druids but I am sure something else will develop for them soon.
Paladin and Mage - 1 game each, not enough to go on. However the control paladin match-up I was in seemed unwinnable with the insane amount of healing and board clears he had. (new rag, forbidden healing, healing minions, wild pyro, cons, etc...)
I think it is a great deck and will likely see tweaking into a mid range version something like what happened to secret paladin when mysterious challenger was released once the meta stabilizes somewhat. I feel a card like twisted worgen or even jungle panther would be great in this deck, as often times it can be tough to fight back onto board and get any value out of a hand full of spells or battlecry buff minions when your opponent gets to decide all the trades. I'll probably experiment with cutting one or two consecrates as it is mostly a dead card in a lot of the tougher matches and only really helps to come form behind in the agro vs agro matchup.
Wow thanks for all the work you put in the deck, and i do tend to agree with all your assessments bar the priest one. I do agree that it is an unfavored match-up but only very slightly. I have been able to work in an equality which goes a long way against priest/druid/warrior. Also a power of the deck comes in it's ability to turn on its engine at any point which catches a lot of people off-guard. Board with a few 1/1s and an arget squire can turn into a 5/5, 3/3 with a bubble and a 3/4 all after say a mage or priest has committed damage based board wipes to clear most of your guys and some of your bubbles.
overall thank you very much for all the time and effort, and yes i do see this deck eventually slowly transforming to a more midrange deck with tirion and justicar, because it is already halfway there as a 'board-control deck'.
equality does seem like a great fit. Not super detrimental to this deck overall and a great tempo removal in the mid to late game since it is only 2 mana.
also has very good early game applications removing either priest buffed clerics etc.
I was thinking the same. Going to give it a try. what did you cut for it?
every update is written above in the guide :) at this moment one consecration was cut to make room for it.
Really good deck, went from rank 10 to rank 5 with 71% win rate. Thanks. :)
I changed 3 cards: -1Truesilver, -1 Consecration -1 Blood Knight (Don't have him) +1 Blessing of Might +1 Defender of Argus and +1 Twisted Worgen.
why no mention of Warhorse Trainer or Justicar Trueheart? I run into them fairly often on the ladder, and they put in a ton of work
Justicar Truehart is for spamming a bunch of 1/1s and you can't do this until after turn 6 so it would be too slow.
Warhorse Trainer only synnergizes with the 1/1s that you get from Stand Against the Darkness. It's not as fast in terms of aggro. Also people didn't even run warhorse trainer with muster for battle before. Why would they run it now?
Those are great choices for Midrange Paladin, but Justicar only gets value if you want to grind out your opponent- this deck isnt trying to go the long game
Any tips on Dragon Priest? You say the deck is slow but I have lost to them 4 out of 4 times..:/
added equality for that match-up, keep abusive to push through the early 2/4 taunt, on turn 3 you should have time to set up a board you can buff with kings or seal and push through their 3/6 easily turn 4. That is only if you don't draw the equality now.
Thanks for reply dude. Deck seems good:)
What is a good sub for Keeper of Uldaman, since i don't have that expansion?
keeper is basically the best card in the deck and it doesn't function even close to as well if you don't have it.
Actually, I did find a pretty good replacement. Use Dread corsair. Great synergy with the 4 weapons in the deck, fits into the curve and can be combined with both weapns on turn 4 for some serious tempo and protection.
First time playing the deck and this happens http://prntscr.com/ay5x7o
In all seriousness, it seems pretty strong, am currently 6-3 with it
Good deck. Very reliant on divine favor, but every game I've drawn it by turn 5/6 I've won by a huge margin.
I seem to have trouble finishing against Priests and their 16/16 C'Thun wipes me on turn 10