Stancifka's Handbuff Paladin
- Last updated Oct 9, 2017 (Evergreen Nerfs)
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Wild
- 23 Minions
- 3 Spells
- 4 Weapons
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Handbuff Paladin
- Crafting Cost: 12180
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 10/9/2017 (Evergreen Nerfs)
- StanCifka
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Hello everyone! I am back with another deck guide, this time we will take a look on Handbuff Paladin. This deck has been a niche archetype in Hearthstone for quite some time, but now I think it gained quite a bit with recent bans.
This deck is capable of creating a wide board with some big minions very soon, which you do thanks to abusing all the possible buffs. It is also the best core for Prince Keleseth himself, as you get much more of his ability then the normal deck.
However, you really need to work on your sequencing, this deck is not trying to play Curvestone as you know it. Instead you often don’t play your minions for a while, just setting up your hand with buffs and Sword of Justice. Once you are ready to go, you just slam your huge minions on turn 4 or 5, creating a massive board and taking control of the game from there.
As you would expect, Prince Keleseth is something you want to see really badly. As such, you mulligan your cards very aggressive in case you don’t have him. The only card I like to keep as well is Smuggler's Run, which is just a great card.
From there you can keep Rallying Blade in case you know you are playing against aggro and Sword of Justice against control.
Other than that just mulligan it all in your search of Prince Keleseth. I wouldn’t even keep Righteous Protector which might seem counterintuitive, but since you wouln’t even want to play on turn 1 then it starts making sense.
You are trying to play as many minions as you can in the deck because of all the buffs, which is basically the reason there is just one Spikeridged Steed in the deck. Cards that are taking care of the buffing are Smuggler's Run, Prince Keleseth, Sword of Justice and Grimestreet Enforcer.
Don’t be too hasty with Smuggler's Run, it is often incorrect to just play it on turn 1. Instead you usually wait until you have 4 or even more minions in your hand, and then you play it. This is the reason why I think this deck really wants to be on the coin, as it means you have more cards in your hand that are getting buffed.
The classic example how you start with the deck would be something like this:
- Turn 1 you just pass, don't play anything
- Turn 2 you use hero power or Prince Kelesethif you got him
- Turn 3 you still prepare everything with Sword of Justice
- Turn 4 you finally start slamming your big minions, using big Patches the Pirate for clear
So now that we have all our buffs ready to go, let’s look at the payout cards. Saronite Chain Gang and Doppelgangster are extremely strong here, as they effective double or triple the power of your buff, as they copy themselves already buffed. Meanstreet Marshal is also extremely good, and even though he is not as flashy as his colleagues, he provides very nice value.
Patches the Pirate is also a payoff card in a sense, as he is so much more powerful when he arrives bigger than just a 1/1, which you mainly achieve thanks to Sword of Justice.
Other than that, you are just playing Paladin good stuff, Sunkeeper Tarim and Tirion Fordring are good no matter what, and you also get some extra value from taunt minions thanks to them getting buffed.
You can also find Corpsetaker package in here, mainly being powered by Wickerflame Burnbristle (which is a good card by itself) and Grook Fu Master (which is a bad card by itself). Windfury is just too good to not play any card for it though, as buffed Corpsetaker can attack for a huge amount of damage if uncontested.
While Meanstreet Marshal is really solid in this deck, you can just replace him with Fire Fly. Not exactly a perfect swap, but Marshal is an epic for some reason, so I guess you don’t have two of those laying around in your collection.
Sword of Justice is also hard to cut, but technically you can just run any creature instead, like second Southsea Captain for some extra pirate action.
If you want to crush Priest hard, you can also add Mindbreaker to the deck. Once this guy get's buffed twice he becomes virtually unkillable by Priest, and at that point good luck winning without your only win condition :)
And that’s it for today, I definitely recommend that you take this deck for a ride as it is extremely fun to play! If you have any extra questions or want to pilot this deck more precisely, then make sure to also watch added Youtube video with full deckguide and game analysis. If you like this type of content make sure to hit the Youtube subscribe button to stay updated, we are making a new video every day!
Cheers
Stancifka
Please, Help me!
Changes...
- 1 Saronite Chain Gang for _________?
- 1 Corpsetaker for _______?
I enjoyed Handbuff palladin from good ol days of Gadetzan.
This version is actually really fun. Only thing I changed -2 Doppelgangster, +2 Cobalt Scalebane.
To many times Doppelganster does nothing or was just 3/3 or 4/4. While its lots of stats but they all die to those pesky AOE. Cobalt is quite durable and with 1-2 buffs is really large. And survives Dragonfire Potion.
Also if his buff lands on Corpsetaker (or on Grook Fu Master) its awesome.
As I don't have Patches (but could create him) how critical are the pirates to the success of this deck?
Never mind. I used 100 gold to buy a pack of Mean Streats card and, lo and behold I got Patches!
Hello guys!
I tried this deck because I really like the handbuff mechanic and I saw stan playing on the stream so I decided to record video as well. I just cant explain how satisfying it is! The deck is extremely fun to play and it works like a charm. I would not expect for example card such a Corpsetaker to carry games on it self! So much fun! Really nice job Stan!
After some playing I got to my month goal - rank 5 with a 9-2 score which is 82% WR (small sample size but that was my run)
In the video you can see three various matchups (thanks to that the video is a bit logner than it used to be)
1) The most aggroish warlock ever with some interesting techs
2) Jade druid
3) Highlander priest - you can see the corpsetakers in action here :D
Thank you for watching guys and I hope you can enjoy the video at least as I did enjoy playing the deck! Have a nice day :)
As with all of Stancifka's decks, this one works well if your opponent doesn't play any minions.
Edit: the deck is quite good actually but you do have to be careful about letting aggro get away from you if you play too greedy at the start
Great deck! Currently im at 14 and having trouble with aggro decks. Any advice?
Just made it to rank 6 with this deck (with my few minor modifications.)
It really is great.
If you are having trouble vs. priests, including a Cobalt Scalebane (in lieu of a dopplegangster) is very helpful. Survives dragonfire and boosts even a 1/1 minion into a 4/1 at the end of turn. I also always try to save Bonemare until after my opponent plays DK Anduin.
So loving the deck and have so far reached rank 13 with it in about 4 days of pretty casual play but seem to have hit a wall of priests with Shadowreaper and ridic hard clearance and damage. Any tips on beating these guys? Am also finding Keleseth absent from my decks a whole lot despite mulliganing hard for him - luck I guess!
I don't have Meanstreet Marshall and I replaced it with Blessing of Wisdom. In a deck with Windfury minions it is ideal, not sure why nobody plays this card.
Granted, if you top deck it after a board clear it won't do you much good, but top decking Meanstreet Marshall after a board clear won't be particularly helpful either.
Hey Stan, you think Arrogant Crusader could be a good card for handbuff decks?
Deck is absolutely bonkers. Opponent opened up Keleseth into Shadowstep and it still managed to absolutely take over by turn 6 with double Enforcer. 6/6 Patches and 11/11 Tirion op
Nice :D Yeah, this deck can snowball like this, feels great :)
Meanstreet Marshal is inferior to Acolyte of Pain in almost every way.
He's far scarier; he can draw more than one card and while opponents try their hardest to ignore Meanstreet Marshal since he can replace himself, they go out of their way and waste removal on your Acolyte of Pain desperately trying to remove it before you get value; so he's also bait.
That's without saying that one is basically useless unless buffed; unlike the other.
^this
Since you put great effort in this observation, how come you didn't notice the 2 mana difference?
For me I scratched out all the pirates and meanstreet marshal
and replaced em with firefly and acolyte, scalebane, spell breaker, stonehill defender and chillblade champion; Been working beautifully.
I really, really do not want to craft meanstreet marshals for this deck. I'm curious which ranks your at? Since the rise of Priest, I've been stuck at rank 15-12 in wild when I normally go to 10. Very frustrating.
13 as of now, but now Im thinking about going back to the pirate synergy mentioned in this deck and just replace mean street marshal with acolyte and maybe find something to replace for Chillblade champion.
I also included 2x stonehill defender, 1 x acolyte, 2 x spellbreaker and 1x chillblade.
I cut 2 x meanstreet marshall, 1 x spikeridge steed, 2 x dopplegangster, and Southsea captain.
I know cutting the dopplegansters seems stupid, but if you don't do well in the first few rounds vs. anyone but Priest (which is usually a long-term game) you are dead anyway. Stonehill is a great card, it helps with aggro and gets you a good taunt minion 8/10 times. Spellbreakers are essential for eliminating taunt minions to push for lethal or dealing with threats like that hyena hunters play ASAP. I find I need more power early in the game and the wait for dopplegangster was hurting me.
Anyone else agree or are dopplegangsters too crucial to the deck?