Hearthpwn

 

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Capri Paladin

Version 6 - ready for Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Difficulty: hard
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Leolph
Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/leolph
Blog: http://hearthstone.leolph.com
About me and my decks

 

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UPDATE 12.12.2016 - Version 6 - now ready for Mean Streets of Gadgetzan !

 

UPDATE 26.11.2016 - Version 5 - Thanks to Kripparian for trying this deck live on stream with over 27000 viewers. Here's a short clip of his emotions:


 

If you prefer twitch clips here you go: https://clips.twitch.tv/nl_kripp/ExcitedHawkTheRinger

 

 

 This deck is part of a deck series called "Capri". Check out my other decks to find the Capri version for all other classes (some might not be released yet).

 

[Guide] An example how to create a new deck archetype

This will be a long article, please take your time to read it, there is no TL;DR.

In the last 2 years of Hearthstone it was very difficult to create a new deck archetype. Often it was a single card that was released and people started buidling decks with that card. Sometimes it was a 2-card-combo or (e.g. Force of Nature + Savage Roar) or a 3-card-combo (Leeroy Jenkings + Power Overwhelming + Faceless Manipulator with reduced costs from
Emperor Thaurissan) that were used as a win condition and the rest of the deck was filled with tools to get to this combo.

In my experience as a dedicated deckbuilder I created a lot of decks since the release of Hearthstone and I tried to build decks with every single card that Blizzard released until now.

Most of those decks which are competitive or fun/meme and can be found on my Hearthpwn profile where you are able to rate and comment them. In the last weeks I was tinkering with a new concept of deck building based on the for some of you well known deck series I made (for those who don't know: a deck series were 9 decks with a specific card or combo which worked for all 9 classes).

The key to this "next level" type of deck building is card synergy and while we had a lot of synergies in the past they where pretty consistent and obvious (e.g. Wild Pyromancer + Equality for a board clear as a Paladin). The release of the last adventure "One Night in Karazhan" changed that and with currently almost half of the cards for the upcoming expansion "Mean Streets of Gadgetzan" (MSG) revealed you can see that Blizzard is going right into this direction. When you read/watch videos card reviews about MSG you will notice a lot of struggle from content creators while valuating a card to be good/medium/bad. The reason for this is that most of those content creators are not experienced deck builders and I don't mean that in a negative way. Usually they take a tier deck and tinker with some tech cards and pilot those decks in(to) high ranks. This does not make you a good deck builder and with the direction Blizzard is heading with their cards deck building will be more important in the future. It's a skill that is not rewarded (yet) and it's not cheap to train this skill as you not only need to own a lot of cards (prefering "all cards"), you also have to know all the cards and moreover have the knowledge what cards they can synergize with.

Having said that, let's jump right into it and let me introduce you my latest deck series called "Capri". This deck series is the first that features a more deep synergy of cards involving almost the whole deck. The two cards that make this possible are The (C)urator (a)nd (Pri)nce Malchezaar (Capri).

Let's start with Prince Malchezaar. It expands your deck with 5 legendaries and being itself a legendary with pretty good stats this will increase your threats in your decks up to a possible of 6. When you played Hearthstone for a while you know that most of the time 1 card trades for 1 card of your opponent and vice versa. Board clears (some of them need 2 cards) can get more value to terminate 3 or more cards from your opponent. So when you play Prince Malchezaar you try to focus on the value game and in the long run you will win this value game most of the time because you have more ressources. On the other side you will lose consistency because the chances to have the right answer/card in hand is lower in a 35 card deck than in a 30 card deck and this will lead you to the first conclusion: when you play Prince Malchezaar you need card draw. A lot of card draw, more than you usually will include in a deck.

The Curator is one of the tools that provides a lot of card draw. He can be used to pull more card draw cards from your deck which also need to work when you do not have The Curator in hand the time when you could play him. So the best cards for massive card draw which synergyze with The Curator are Coldlight Oracle (* see Coldlight Oracle section below) and Azure Drake. For the beast cards drawn by The Curator I usually take Jeweled Scarab because it's a cheap beast and can provide you with some more value because the discover mechanic is the most versatile in the game right now. Also you can keep one Jeweled Scarab at the start of the game to have a turn 2 and a turn 3 play (which might look weak because it can be a huge tempo loss, but still, you need to know the whole deck to be able to judge specific card choices). Depending on the rest of the deck and the class you can switch to other beast cards drawn by The Curator.

[Excursion] Coldlight Oracle - why this card is the best card in the game
There was a ton of discussion why Fel Reaver was a good card and a lot of players did not see the upside - just the downside, and that was loosing most of your cards from the effect of Fel Reaver until you are out of cards and loose the game due to fatigue damage. Coldlight Oracle is an evergreen card and it has an even better effect than Fel Reaver had. It not only affects your hand size and deck, it also affects your opponents hand size and deck size. With  over 1800+ cards (900+ in standard) there are only a very few cards that are able to manipulate your opponents hand size and deck size because this effect is way to powerful to have more cards that can to that. In Hearthstone Alpha Blizzard removed all cards from the game that forced your opponent to discard his own cards (the reason was it was too frustrating to play against those cards). Only one effect can make your opponent "discard" / loose a card without playing it, and that is when his hand size is at a maximum of 10 cards. So a Coldlight Oracle always provides the following:

1. cycling itself + draw 1 card for you (Arcane Intellect) (worth 3.5 mana as a neutral card, in mage it's 3 mana because it's a class card) + get a 2/2 body (worth 1.5 mana), so it's a 2 mana tempo gain for the price of your opponent also drawing 2 cards

2. speeding up the card draw for both players for 2 cards, forwarding 2 turns ahead into fatigue range

While most players agree with option 1, the discussion about option 2 is almost the same as with Fel Reaver. Just seeing the downside is the short view, when you agree with the upside you are 1 step further in your deck building skills.

When you are able to burn only 1 card from your opponent because he already reached his hand size limit this means that the card got a third option:

3. trading 1:x card, where x=1 in this case

The option to maximize this x not only enabled a new archetype called "mill" / "fatigue" decks, it is also viable in control decks without the main win condition to fatigue your opponent. There is only 1 class where an early Coldlight Oralce (on turn 3) can be bad and that is Hunter. Since the beginning of Hearthstone there is no Control Hunter list around because the hero power of the class favors every aggro / midrange playstyle of this class. This is why other classes try to immit this playstyle with Sir Finley Mrrgglton and choosing Steady Shot as the new hero power.
So whenever you add Coldlight Oracles in your control deck be sure to have good comeback  mechanisms to negate the "tempo loss" against these type of decks. This can be a complete board clear and/or a huge health restoration to your hero. For example: Reno Jackson can be a thing when you know you cycle fast enough through your deck to get rid of all 2-offs to activate his effect.

Depending on your opponent and sometimes RNG there might also be a fourth "option", when the conditions of option 3 were met:

4. Loosing a card can result in frustration of your opponent, especially when he looses a key card from his deck (like C'Thun, Malygos etc).

This can sometimes lead into a concede of your opponent. That is not a win condition you should calculate with, but with the right portion of emoting this can be used as an additional tactical strategy.

 

Now with these 8 cards you have enough value and most of the time Prince Malchezaar provides you some legendaries which can act as a win condition. So what is missing to make this deck competitive?

You need single target removal, board clears and at least 3-4 cards that restore health to your hero. While every class has at least 2 good (and most likely mandatory anyway) single target removals, the board clears might take more than 1 card slot each. The hard part might be to find the health restoration cards for specific classes. I will handle this part in every released deck for each class in the deck guide on Hearthpwn. When you have fulfilled these requirements and still have room for more card slots then it's time for tech cards.

Tech cards are cards you "tech" in for the current played meta. For example, when you face a lot of weapon classes, then Acidic Swamp Ooze and Harrison Jones are good choices as a tech card. Also Brann Bronzebeard and Emperor Thaurissan might be useful as a tech card to provide either more value or tempo. It also depends on the class and the cards you implemented as removal/heal what are the choices of your tech cards. This is the part where that most players already know, changing tech cards is a skill most competitive players already have.

Last but not least you have to take care of your mana curve. With that much card draw you also want to be able to play all those cards and when your curve is too high you might just sit on all your value cards in hand and find yourself in the position that you would discard cards because all you can play are more card draw cards (in terms of mana cost). A very good and also evergreen card is Doomsayer, it can be a 7 health heal, a 1:1 card (soaking a removal spell) or just delay 1 turn giving you the initiative (back). He is not needed in every class but might be a consideration when you can't find enough health restoration cards.

That's it for this guide, I hope you liked some of the thought processes written here and I'm looking forward for any kind of criticism and feedback.

 

Mulligan tipps:

general:
You want to pick up your board clear Wild Pyromancer + Equality, so if you have 1 card of this combo always keep it. (Keep both too!)
Other cards to keep are:
Jeweled Scarab (for turn 2 and the discoverd card from it on turn 3), then you also can keep a 4-drop/Mountain Giant
Coldlight Oracle (if you have no 2 drop just hero power), to find your 4-drop
any 4-drop

other important tipps:
Brann Bronzebeard:
You always want him to play with an Ivory Knight for a massive double heal and picking up good burst cards. Good examples are Avenging Wrath (good in combo with Azure Drake or Equality if you have no Wild Pyromancer), Blessed Champion, Holy Wrath.
If you need really a lot of heal you can pick any high cost card like Lay on Hands and even Anyfin Can Happen just to get the 10 heal.
When you have mana left (because you got a mana reduction tick from Emperor Thaurissan) then you also can play a Jeweled Scarab for some extra value. Keep your hand size in mind - this will give you 4 cards for 2 cards played.
Although you know the combo of Brann Bronzebeard and Coldlight Oracle you play it not very often in this deck because you could burn yourself some cards.

When you have the choice between Twilight Drake and Mountain Giant always play the Twilight Drake first to bait out some removal.

more tipps will be added soon

 

 Capri Paladin (v5) vs Dragon Priest

 

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Mill Rogue

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Maly Druid

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Reno Warlock

Capri Paladin (v5) vs C'Thun Druid

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Secret Hunter

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Midrange Shaman

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Miracle Rogue

Capri Paladin (v5) vs Reno Dragon Paladin