Whispers of the Old Gods is almost upon the men of the light! With the rotation of standard, Paladins will lose a lot of their tools. Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle, Coghammer, and Quartermaster just to name a few. So where will Paladins fall on the scale come WOG?
The new cards given to Paladin are definitely interesting to say the least. None of them directly give the impression of forming a new deck archetype besides a few, but overall it is looking quite promising. Let's go over two of the most important cards Paladin has ever gotten.
Paladin Now Has Good 1-Drops
One of the defining features of Paladin (besides Secret Paladin) is the lack of viable 1-Drops for the class. With Zombie Chow out of the rotation come forth New Standard, the Paladin would have been in a huge heap of trouble without any cards supporting him.
Selfless Hero is a very intriguing card that Paladins now have at their disposal. It is a powerful 1-Drop that completely changes the early flow of the Paladin as a whole. Playing this on the first turn of the game puts immense pressure on your opponent. If they play a 2-Drop, like an Undercity Huckster, you can counter it by playing your own 2-Drop and trading Selfless Hero into their minion to get a great tempo swing on the board. Paladin was one of the classes that never had anything impactful on Turn-1, besides Secret Paladin's Secretkeeper. There was no threat, but now there is. In the mid-to-late game it isn't amazing card, but it will definitely have an affect of some sort if you have a board. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw this card at least once in every single Paladin deck, besides the one that uses the next card.
Vilefin Inquisitor is the other 1-Drop minion revealed for Paladin. Its baseline stats of a 1/3 are particularly strong, being able to trade fairly with 2/1 minions, which will be quite prevalent in some classes come Whispers of the Old Gods. The card allows you to run some synergies among Murlocs in your deck. The biggest synergy being with Murloc Knight, as the token you summon will be affected by the Murloc the Murloc Knight Summons. It is certainly possible that this deck may be aggro based, but to me it seems more likely that it would fit into a midrange shell that focuses on your card synergies to obtain value.
Common Spells, Interesting Effects
The new spells that Paladin has gotten in this expansion are easy to dispel that they aren't good and will not see play if you don't look hard enough. Let's take a lot at the three Common spells that they have gotten.
The first being A Light in the Darkness, which is a pseudo Unstable Portal for Paladins. Discover has been growing in popularity as a mechanic, and for good reason. This card alone makes it difficult for the Paladin to completely run out of steam. Discovering, in some cases an "overpowered" card for 2 mana is very worth while. However take notice that this card is purely based upon the value, as you lose quite a bit of tempo from the turn you use to cast the spell. I would suggest mulliganing this card so it isn't in your opening hand, as this card gets exponentially stronger in the later turns of the game. I'm not particularly sure what shell this fits into, but on my guess it would be a control-like Paladin that focuses on the late game and obtaining value rather than tempo.
Divine Strength is a card that appears to be very weak at first glance. It is a tool given to Paladins to increase their trading capability in the early and sometimes late game. You can put this spell on a 2/1 like the Selfless Hero, and then it turns into a 3/3 which trades perfectly for 2/3s or 2/2s which will be immensely popular. The card itself has great synergy with Divine Favor, as it is a cheap spell with good value that allows you to quickly dump your hand to get more draws from Divine Favor. Divine Favor is going to see a huge raise in popularity, possibly in Midrange as well as there will be a multitude of high value decks that have high amounts of cards in hand. Such as Handlock, Freeze Mage, or some Control Decks.
Stand Against Darkness isn't a very pretty card. It summons five tokens, and that is about it. With Quartermaster taken away, the scariness of a Silver Hand Recruit has gone down considerably. Also there is a ton of counters to token based decks, such as Twilight Flamecaller, Ravaging Ghoul, or the typical Fan of Knives. However I wouldn't count the card out just yet. It still creates 5 potential threats on the board that can be potentially buffed by other sources. It has particular synergy with some of the following cards I will be discussing next.
Divine Shields Threelore
Steward of Darkshire gives a new element to Paladin that they haven't visited in a long time. It is a three mana 3/3 that gives a boost to all of your one health minions that you may have other synergies with. A good example would be the Selfless Hero, which gives it Divine Shield directly. And the previously mentioned Stand Against Darkness, where you obtain five Argent Squires. This board stickiness is very scary, as the overall stickiness of minions has gone down since Naxxramas and GvG are rotating out. The main goal with this deck is to extract as much value as you can with your tokens that are extremely hard to kill consistently. Twisted Worgen is something I'm extremely interested in Paladin, as it has the perfect stat distribution needed for this kind of deck. Because summoning a Scarlet Crusader with Stealth for 2-Mana is nothing to ignore about it.
Rallying Blade continues this theme of Divine Shield in Paladin. These cards paired together can create a massive snowball affect that leads into the mid-to-late game to completely overthrow your enemy. A couple of Argent Squires, or minions buffed by the Steward of Darkshire and you get a perfectly strong ability. You may even need to run a Blood Knight as a counter, or late game minion for apposing Paladin decks. However there will be another archetype of Paladin that shouldn't be left out, and that is the Healadin deck.
Heals for Days
Forbidden Healing is definitely the strongest healing ability in the game. Its versatility makes it never worthless, and it always has an affect on the outcome of the game. Against aggro decks, this can be game ending right there on the spot. Healing overall in Whispers of the Old Gods has become a lot more valuable with the removal of Antique Healbot, and no suitable replacement seems to have appeared. Only Paladin and Priest seem to have access to burst Healing now, which means a lot when it comes to their place within the meta. Aggro and Burst Combo decks will have a much harder time dealing with these classes, but also that they have some of the best board clears in the game as well. Equality Consecrate for Paladin will be game defining now, as the overall cost of minions will be much higher. Aldor Peacekeeper, Eadric the Pure, and Humility will have a much bigger affect since there will more single minion "bombs" rather than a consistent output of minions in Midrange decks. Overall the control Paladin will definitely have a spot in the meta, as its cheap board wipes will be some of the most valuable combos within the game now. However, don't underestimate the power of the Paladin come late game either. As now has a really good tool to use at its disposal.
Ragnaros, Lightlord is an extremely strong late game card that can win you the game on its own, similar to Tirion Fordring. With the nerfing of Ironbeak Owl and Big Game Hunter, these two cards may be considered to be the best legendary duo in the entire game. There isn't much to be said about this card. It is overall extremely powerful as it heals you for a great deal, and if it isn't dealt with it heals you even more!
Well Met!
In conclusion, Paladin on the surface seems to be a pretty weak class when the new expansion hits. However they now have many tools at their disposal to deal with the old gods in an extremely effective way. Don't underestimate the power of the Paladin, as it is made to defeat the darkness come Whispers of the Old Gods.
Good job on this. I'm still not sure where Paladin ends up in this expansion, but it is a good breakdown of the cards.
There are a lot of tools, but not much of a focused theme (minus the sort of divine shield part). There's something for Murlocs, something for healadin, something for divine shields, etc. Really will be a test of how people can combine those things with the classic cards and what is still in the rotation from previous expansions/adventures.
Could be some decent Paladin decks out there. Murlocs could be good depending on the deck. Certainly some fun options with the Murloc Knight. Which wasn't as prevalent when almost all Murloc decks were Anyfin KO decks where that card wasn't needed.
At least there are some decent 1 drops. Doesn't quite replace Minibot, but oh well. Better than the non-existent Paladin 1-drops of before.
Steward of Darkshire is probably one of the more interesting new cards. Some good combinations out there. If nothing else a fun combo possibility with Noble Sacrifice.
I don't know. There seem to be a lot of possibles. I'd probably prefer being one of the classes that has a much more focused class card selection. But at least there are options. May rely a lot on the classic, TGT, LOE, etc cards in conjunction with a couple of the new ones we got here. No clue on what decks will be most effective though. Will have to wait and see.
I'm too don't know how paladin is going to end up this expan. I've always had a divine shield deck and I am very happy they are finally going in that direction.
but I feel we got too many low cost for control decks to change alot, which i was really hoping for control to be the main (never liked murlocs). Mid range is a possibility now though for sure .
Everybody is saying their class looks bad after rotation...
Paladin looks pretty solid, in fact most classes do. There is a lot of inversion, and I would not be surprised in the slightest to see a Control Paladin finally creep up as quite playable. Murloc Midrange also seems perfectly fine, not a bad strategy to lead off with as other classes work to figure out their place in the meta. Still having access to [card=gold]Tirion Fordring[/card] is pretty legit and Psych-o-Tron seems pretty beastly. I will likely try my hand at Murlocs out of the gates though, I quite like the new Pally 1 drop and Bilefin Tidehunter
Whispers of the Old Gods is almost upon the men of the light! With the rotation of standard, Paladins will lose a lot of their tools. Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle, Coghammer, and Quartermaster just to name a few. So where will Paladins fall on the scale come WOG?
The new cards given to Paladin are definitely interesting to say the least. None of them directly give the impression of forming a new deck archetype besides a few, but overall it is looking quite promising. Let's go over two of the most important cards Paladin has ever gotten.
Paladin Now Has Good 1-Drops
One of the defining features of Paladin (besides Secret Paladin) is the lack of viable 1-Drops for the class. With Zombie Chow out of the rotation come forth New Standard, the Paladin would have been in a huge heap of trouble without any cards supporting him.
Selfless Hero is a very intriguing card that Paladins now have at their disposal. It is a powerful 1-Drop that completely changes the early flow of the Paladin as a whole. Playing this on the first turn of the game puts immense pressure on your opponent. If they play a 2-Drop, like an Undercity Huckster, you can counter it by playing your own 2-Drop and trading Selfless Hero into their minion to get a great tempo swing on the board. Paladin was one of the classes that never had anything impactful on Turn-1, besides Secret Paladin's Secretkeeper. There was no threat, but now there is. In the mid-to-late game it isn't amazing card, but it will definitely have an affect of some sort if you have a board. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw this card at least once in every single Paladin deck, besides the one that uses the next card.
Vilefin Inquisitor is the other 1-Drop minion revealed for Paladin. Its baseline stats of a 1/3 are particularly strong, being able to trade fairly with 2/1 minions, which will be quite prevalent in some classes come Whispers of the Old Gods. The card allows you to run some synergies among Murlocs in your deck. The biggest synergy being with Murloc Knight, as the token you summon will be affected by the Murloc the Murloc Knight Summons. It is certainly possible that this deck may be aggro based, but to me it seems more likely that it would fit into a midrange shell that focuses on your card synergies to obtain value.
Common Spells, Interesting Effects
The new spells that Paladin has gotten in this expansion are easy to dispel that they aren't good and will not see play if you don't look hard enough. Let's take a lot at the three Common spells that they have gotten.
The first being A Light in the Darkness, which is a pseudo Unstable Portal for Paladins. Discover has been growing in popularity as a mechanic, and for good reason. This card alone makes it difficult for the Paladin to completely run out of steam. Discovering, in some cases an "overpowered" card for 2 mana is very worth while. However take notice that this card is purely based upon the value, as you lose quite a bit of tempo from the turn you use to cast the spell. I would suggest mulliganing this card so it isn't in your opening hand, as this card gets exponentially stronger in the later turns of the game. I'm not particularly sure what shell this fits into, but on my guess it would be a control-like Paladin that focuses on the late game and obtaining value rather than tempo.
Divine Strength is a card that appears to be very weak at first glance. It is a tool given to Paladins to increase their trading capability in the early and sometimes late game. You can put this spell on a 2/1 like the Selfless Hero, and then it turns into a 3/3 which trades perfectly for 2/3s or 2/2s which will be immensely popular. The card itself has great synergy with Divine Favor, as it is a cheap spell with good value that allows you to quickly dump your hand to get more draws from Divine Favor. Divine Favor is going to see a huge raise in popularity, possibly in Midrange as well as there will be a multitude of high value decks that have high amounts of cards in hand. Such as Handlock, Freeze Mage, or some Control Decks.
Stand Against Darkness isn't a very pretty card. It summons five tokens, and that is about it. With Quartermaster taken away, the scariness of a Silver Hand Recruit has gone down considerably. Also there is a ton of counters to token based decks, such as Twilight Flamecaller, Ravaging Ghoul, or the typical Fan of Knives. However I wouldn't count the card out just yet. It still creates 5 potential threats on the board that can be potentially buffed by other sources. It has particular synergy with some of the following cards I will be discussing next.
Divine Shields Threelore
Steward of Darkshire gives a new element to Paladin that they haven't visited in a long time. It is a three mana 3/3 that gives a boost to all of your one health minions that you may have other synergies with. A good example would be the Selfless Hero, which gives it Divine Shield directly. And the previously mentioned Stand Against Darkness, where you obtain five Argent Squires. This board stickiness is very scary, as the overall stickiness of minions has gone down since Naxxramas and GvG are rotating out. The main goal with this deck is to extract as much value as you can with your tokens that are extremely hard to kill consistently. Twisted Worgen is something I'm extremely interested in Paladin, as it has the perfect stat distribution needed for this kind of deck. Because summoning a Scarlet Crusader with Stealth for 2-Mana is nothing to ignore about it.
Rallying Blade continues this theme of Divine Shield in Paladin. These cards paired together can create a massive snowball affect that leads into the mid-to-late game to completely overthrow your enemy. A couple of Argent Squires, or minions buffed by the Steward of Darkshire and you get a perfectly strong ability. You may even need to run a Blood Knight as a counter, or late game minion for apposing Paladin decks. However there will be another archetype of Paladin that shouldn't be left out, and that is the Healadin deck.
Heals for Days
Forbidden Healing is definitely the strongest healing ability in the game. Its versatility makes it never worthless, and it always has an affect on the outcome of the game. Against aggro decks, this can be game ending right there on the spot. Healing overall in Whispers of the Old Gods has become a lot more valuable with the removal of Antique Healbot, and no suitable replacement seems to have appeared. Only Paladin and Priest seem to have access to burst Healing now, which means a lot when it comes to their place within the meta. Aggro and Burst Combo decks will have a much harder time dealing with these classes, but also that they have some of the best board clears in the game as well. Equality Consecrate for Paladin will be game defining now, as the overall cost of minions will be much higher. Aldor Peacekeeper, Eadric the Pure, and Humility will have a much bigger affect since there will more single minion "bombs" rather than a consistent output of minions in Midrange decks. Overall the control Paladin will definitely have a spot in the meta, as its cheap board wipes will be some of the most valuable combos within the game now. However, don't underestimate the power of the Paladin come late game either. As now has a really good tool to use at its disposal.
Ragnaros, Lightlord is an extremely strong late game card that can win you the game on its own, similar to Tirion Fordring. With the nerfing of Ironbeak Owl and Big Game Hunter, these two cards may be considered to be the best legendary duo in the entire game. There isn't much to be said about this card. It is overall extremely powerful as it heals you for a great deal, and if it isn't dealt with it heals you even more!
Well Met!
In conclusion, Paladin on the surface seems to be a pretty weak class when the new expansion hits. However they now have many tools at their disposal to deal with the old gods in an extremely effective way. Don't underestimate the power of the Paladin, as it is made to defeat the darkness come Whispers of the Old Gods.
Selfless Hero - This card is a mediocre one at best. It has 1 hp for god's sake- druids, mages, priests, rogues shamans have an easy answer for this. considering knife jugger is is still a thing - this card is strictly worse than- Young Priestess .
Vilefin Inquisitor - i dont see how this will help the paladin at all - if you run this you cant run anyfin or justicar.
Steward of Darkshire - another situational 3 drop taht does not do anything on the turn its played / on empty board. Wont be good - we already have a bunch of cards like that - Argent ProtectorWarhorse TrainerMurloc KnightSword of Justice. those cards aren't played what makes you think steward will be played... its a 3/3 for 3 does nothing this turn.
Ragnaros, Lightlord - 8 mana 8/8 lightwell more healing. usable only in control deck - but we get nothing to help us build a control deck( besides this )
Rallying Blade - aggro / midrange card that is good if you managed to keep 1 or more minions on board - considering we have no good 1 or 2 mana minions that will safely survive makes me doubt how good this will be.
Divine Strength - the only good card in this set - midrange / aggro.
In conclusion: the cards are so bad that they did not even showcased a working deck of the class in the stream. It looks like paladin is gonna be good for 1 thing - aggro and maybe have a chance of being good in a fatigue deck with justicar.
I agree with some things, disagree with others... but what I don't get is your Forbidden Healing maths when comparing that card with Holy Light. Do you realize the heal is mana cost x2? 8 mana Forbidden Healing is 16 heal, that is +10 heal compared to Holy Light, not +4 heal, and same mana (2 mana) Forbidden Healing is 4 heal, that is -2 heal compared to Holy Light. Forbidden Healing could be great for Control Paladin imo, I'm theorycrafting about a deck using that card and it looks great.
I don't think paladin cards are that strong this time around.. but on the bright side paladin got really good cards in LOE,BRM and TGT so it's not that bad for uther/liandrin
Well Met!
Whispers of the Old Gods is almost upon the men of the light! With the rotation of standard, Paladins will lose a lot of their tools. Shielded Minibot, Muster for Battle, Coghammer, and Quartermaster just to name a few. So where will Paladins fall on the scale come WOG?
The new cards given to Paladin are definitely interesting to say the least. None of them directly give the impression of forming a new deck archetype besides a few, but overall it is looking quite promising. Let's go over two of the most important cards Paladin has ever gotten.
Paladin Now Has Good 1-Drops
One of the defining features of Paladin (besides Secret Paladin) is the lack of viable 1-Drops for the class. With Zombie Chow out of the rotation come forth New Standard, the Paladin would have been in a huge heap of trouble without any cards supporting him.
Selfless Hero is a very intriguing card that Paladins now have at their disposal. It is a powerful 1-Drop that completely changes the early flow of the Paladin as a whole. Playing this on the first turn of the game puts immense pressure on your opponent. If they play a 2-Drop, like an Undercity Huckster, you can counter it by playing your own 2-Drop and trading Selfless Hero into their minion to get a great tempo swing on the board. Paladin was one of the classes that never had anything impactful on Turn-1, besides Secret Paladin's Secretkeeper. There was no threat, but now there is. In the mid-to-late game it isn't amazing card, but it will definitely have an affect of some sort if you have a board. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw this card at least once in every single Paladin deck, besides the one that uses the next card.
Vilefin Inquisitor is the other 1-Drop minion revealed for Paladin. Its baseline stats of a 1/3 are particularly strong, being able to trade fairly with 2/1 minions, which will be quite prevalent in some classes come Whispers of the Old Gods. The card allows you to run some synergies among Murlocs in your deck. The biggest synergy being with Murloc Knight, as the token you summon will be affected by the Murloc the Murloc Knight Summons. It is certainly possible that this deck may be aggro based, but to me it seems more likely that it would fit into a midrange shell that focuses on your card synergies to obtain value.
Common Spells, Interesting Effects
The new spells that Paladin has gotten in this expansion are easy to dispel that they aren't good and will not see play if you don't look hard enough. Let's take a lot at the three Common spells that they have gotten.
The first being A Light in the Darkness, which is a pseudo Unstable Portal for Paladins. Discover has been growing in popularity as a mechanic, and for good reason. This card alone makes it difficult for the Paladin to completely run out of steam. Discovering, in some cases an "overpowered" card for 2 mana is very worth while. However take notice that this card is purely based upon the value, as you lose quite a bit of tempo from the turn you use to cast the spell. I would suggest mulliganing this card so it isn't in your opening hand, as this card gets exponentially stronger in the later turns of the game. I'm not particularly sure what shell this fits into, but on my guess it would be a control-like Paladin that focuses on the late game and obtaining value rather than tempo.
Divine Strength is a card that appears to be very weak at first glance. It is a tool given to Paladins to increase their trading capability in the early and sometimes late game. You can put this spell on a 2/1 like the Selfless Hero, and then it turns into a 3/3 which trades perfectly for 2/3s or 2/2s which will be immensely popular. The card itself has great synergy with Divine Favor, as it is a cheap spell with good value that allows you to quickly dump your hand to get more draws from Divine Favor. Divine Favor is going to see a huge raise in popularity, possibly in Midrange as well as there will be a multitude of high value decks that have high amounts of cards in hand. Such as Handlock, Freeze Mage, or some Control Decks.
Stand Against Darkness isn't a very pretty card. It summons five tokens, and that is about it. With Quartermaster taken away, the scariness of a Silver Hand Recruit has gone down considerably. Also there is a ton of counters to token based decks, such as Twilight Flamecaller, Ravaging Ghoul, or the typical Fan of Knives. However I wouldn't count the card out just yet. It still creates 5 potential threats on the board that can be potentially buffed by other sources. It has particular synergy with some of the following cards I will be discussing next.
Divine Shields Threelore
Steward of Darkshire gives a new element to Paladin that they haven't visited in a long time. It is a three mana 3/3 that gives a boost to all of your one health minions that you may have other synergies with. A good example would be the Selfless Hero, which gives it Divine Shield directly. And the previously mentioned Stand Against Darkness, where you obtain five Argent Squires. This board stickiness is very scary, as the overall stickiness of minions has gone down since Naxxramas and GvG are rotating out. The main goal with this deck is to extract as much value as you can with your tokens that are extremely hard to kill consistently. Twisted Worgen is something I'm extremely interested in Paladin, as it has the perfect stat distribution needed for this kind of deck. Because summoning a Scarlet Crusader with Stealth for 2-Mana is nothing to ignore about it.
Rallying Blade continues this theme of Divine Shield in Paladin. These cards paired together can create a massive snowball affect that leads into the mid-to-late game to completely overthrow your enemy. A couple of Argent Squires, or minions buffed by the Steward of Darkshire and you get a perfectly strong ability. You may even need to run a Blood Knight as a counter, or late game minion for apposing Paladin decks. However there will be another archetype of Paladin that shouldn't be left out, and that is the Healadin deck.
Heals for Days
Forbidden Healing is definitely the strongest healing ability in the game. Its versatility makes it never worthless, and it always has an affect on the outcome of the game. Against aggro decks, this can be game ending right there on the spot. Healing overall in Whispers of the Old Gods has become a lot more valuable with the removal of Antique Healbot, and no suitable replacement seems to have appeared. Only Paladin and Priest seem to have access to burst Healing now, which means a lot when it comes to their place within the meta. Aggro and Burst Combo decks will have a much harder time dealing with these classes, but also that they have some of the best board clears in the game as well. Equality Consecrate for Paladin will be game defining now, as the overall cost of minions will be much higher. Aldor Peacekeeper, Eadric the Pure, and Humility will have a much bigger affect since there will more single minion "bombs" rather than a consistent output of minions in Midrange decks. Overall the control Paladin will definitely have a spot in the meta, as its cheap board wipes will be some of the most valuable combos within the game now. However, don't underestimate the power of the Paladin come late game either. As now has a really good tool to use at its disposal.
Ragnaros, Lightlord is an extremely strong late game card that can win you the game on its own, similar to Tirion Fordring. With the nerfing of Ironbeak Owl and Big Game Hunter, these two cards may be considered to be the best legendary duo in the entire game. There isn't much to be said about this card. It is overall extremely powerful as it heals you for a great deal, and if it isn't dealt with it heals you even more!
Well Met!
In conclusion, Paladin on the surface seems to be a pretty weak class when the new expansion hits. However they now have many tools at their disposal to deal with the old gods in an extremely effective way. Don't underestimate the power of the Paladin, as it is made to defeat the darkness come Whispers of the Old Gods.
Good job on this. I'm still not sure where Paladin ends up in this expansion, but it is a good breakdown of the cards.
There are a lot of tools, but not much of a focused theme (minus the sort of divine shield part). There's something for Murlocs, something for healadin, something for divine shields, etc. Really will be a test of how people can combine those things with the classic cards and what is still in the rotation from previous expansions/adventures.
Could be some decent Paladin decks out there. Murlocs could be good depending on the deck. Certainly some fun options with the Murloc Knight. Which wasn't as prevalent when almost all Murloc decks were Anyfin KO decks where that card wasn't needed.
At least there are some decent 1 drops. Doesn't quite replace Minibot, but oh well. Better than the non-existent Paladin 1-drops of before.
Steward of Darkshire is probably one of the more interesting new cards. Some good combinations out there. If nothing else a fun combo possibility with Noble Sacrifice.
I don't know. There seem to be a lot of possibles. I'd probably prefer being one of the classes that has a much more focused class card selection. But at least there are options. May rely a lot on the classic, TGT, LOE, etc cards in conjunction with a couple of the new ones we got here. No clue on what decks will be most effective though. Will have to wait and see.
Nice break down.
I'm too don't know how paladin is going to end up this expan. I've always had a divine shield deck and I am very happy they are finally going in that direction.
but I feel we got too many low cost for control decks to change alot, which i was really hoping for control to be the main (never liked murlocs). Mid range is a possibility now though for sure .
we'll just have to see
Everybody is saying their class looks bad after rotation...
Paladin looks pretty solid, in fact most classes do. There is a lot of inversion, and I would not be surprised in the slightest to see a Control Paladin finally creep up as quite playable. Murloc Midrange also seems perfectly fine, not a bad strategy to lead off with as other classes work to figure out their place in the meta. Still having access to [card=gold]Tirion Fordring[/card] is pretty legit and Psych-o-Tron seems pretty beastly. I will likely try my hand at Murlocs out of the gates though, I quite like the new Pally 1 drop and Bilefin Tidehunter
I don't think paladin cards are that strong this time around.. but on the bright side paladin got really good cards in LOE,BRM and TGT so it's not that bad for uther/liandrin