So, I felt like I would review what we have and what we are kind of looking at moving forward. I consider myself a pally main and while I will totally admit I dont play as much hearthstone as I probably could I wanted to recap my thoughts on the pally cards and options moving forward.
NEW CLASS CARDS:
Sunkeeper Tarim - My first thoughts were that he reminded me of Eadric the Pure but to be honest he is so much better than that. He has taunt as well as stat adjust all of your minions while also hitting toughnesses. He also can take on 3 of your opponents creatures himself before being underwhelmed (assuming nothing else). He can also be used to pump your own creatures which seems like an interesting finisher for an aggressive strategy or used as a control card. Its important to remember that he can be used with something like Lost in the Jungle or Fire Fly. He is very versatile and I think where Eadric the Pure missed in a lot of ways he makes up in adaptability.
The Last Kaleidosaur - My thoughts on this card when it was spoiled is that it depends a bit on how good of buffs and creatures we also get. I think we got some fairly good buffs out of this set but I am still a bit in between on the minion options we got. I am still optimistic and I think the rewarded Galvadon is amazing I think there is still a large question of how good the creatures we have access to are. I will leave myself at cautiously optimistic but I am still waiting for it to prove itself before I really vouch for it. I love buffadin and its an archetype I have been playing for a long time myself but I dont overly feel like paladin has the minion base to really make buffadin good right now.
Dinosize - this is absolute garbage. It costs too much and is too easily overcome.
Primalfin Champion - to be honest, I am really mad at the stat line they assigned him. This is a creature who is drastically under stated for his cost and while his "potential" is cool you are going to have a hard time dropping it on curve because of how bad its base stats are and it has no ETB or Deathrattle if it doesn't stick around a bit assuming you are not planning to play it off curve. I think its a really cool design but even a 2/2 for 2 is not good stat efficiency since the base 2 drop has a 5 combined stat line and this one has a 3. All of this adds up to it either not being a playable on curve minion or being too dependent on your opponent playing nothing to the board and or not having spot removal which is a tall task early in the game. Again, I love the concept of the card they just gave it ridiculously bad stat efficiency. I say this coming from someone who has played buffadin for a good bit of time using both the Eydis Darkbane & Fjola Lightbane sisters with Djinni of Zephyrs. When it comes to buffadin based creatures you really want them to at least have a decent stat line assuming you dont get to the point where you get to buff them. If and when they have a below average stat line it means you have to hold them until you control the board and or can combine them with buffs in one turn. The best way to play buffadin creatures is proactively with solid stats for the mana in case they do not last you want your opponents to invest good removal to get them out. You want to buff those creatures as well into positive trades instead of just going face with a buffed creature so that they simulate card advantage too. Everything I am seeing about Primalfin Champion as it stands reads that it is a trap. I go into this set saying that you should be very cautious about this if you plan to play buffadin because I would not craft this creature until you see some sort of results for it.
Spikeridged Steed - This card is a really good buff. It has some concerns still but generally speaking face aggro decks are trying to ignore your minions so you should be trading in on their minions. Most aggro decks dont use non damage minion kill / bounce as well so outside of the outlier of perhaps a tempo rogue, this card should be really really good against aggro and probably midrange decks. The downside of this card is going to be against a control deck and or a midrange deck that is keeping you off the board. I dont think that you need to be playing any sort of a buffadin deck for this card to have good results but of the buffs I would put it in the top 3 for current existing pally buffs.
Lightfused Stegodon - Honestly, all of these effects that we have really ever seen have been a little underwhelming. I think this is a cute card but I still dont think that adapt is that amazing of a buff for the Silver Hand Recruits concept. Quartermaster was only ever kind of ok and I think on average he is a stronger buff than this is so possibly if you want a gimmick deck it might be ok but I think this is kind of low tier.
Vinecleaver - Historically speaking, expensive weapons have not been that playable. This is a 4/3 weapon though and Truesilver's 4 attack has been very powerful. I am going to go ahead and say that it "might" be playable in a slow control deck but I am a little cautious to even say that much. It does have potentially a lot of power to it considering all of the recruits it does give. It does have some good synergy with Sunkeeper Tarim and it does give some options to buff some minions. All that said though, it is after all a 7 drop weapon which is very late in the game and might cost you additional health to use.
Hydrologist - I think its battlecry is alright. Overall its stats are kind of on or slightly under par. It seems like an alright pally minion and its nice that it can be used proactively. I tend to like to see a 5 combined stat on 2 drops and thats really my only complaint here. It makes for a decent 2 or 3 drop given that pally secrets all cost one mana. The big problem is that most pally secrets kind of also suck. This is in fact how I want to see the pally secrets handled a little more and the fact that its a discover effect means that your opponent wont always know what secret you have up too. Overall, I think this is probably playable and it could even be solid. Of the new paladin content this is one that I have the hardest times giving a read on because of the fact that pallys dont have much proactive plays for 2 drops. It will depend a little on what other tools and neutrals turn out as well as what kind of pally ends up seeing play.
Lost in the Jungle - I first compared this card to Living Roots and I was a little disappointed when comparing the two of them. I did however give it more thought and come to a few conclusions. First of all, getting 2 creatures in play for 1 mana is actually very good efficiency wise. Doing this on turn one means that your hero power on turn 2 is not just negated by your opponents hero power turn 2 as well because they are just keeping it status quo for the time being. On turn 3 you can hero power and do this making it almost as powerful as Muster for Battle (although still less) you still get 3 bodies for 3 mana. Add into the mix of this card the new legend Sunkeeper Tarim and you could potentially cast Lost in the Jungle the same turn as him making a psudo Quartermaster play. Given that Sunkeeper Tarim also seems like an overall good card and not fringe play it seems like something that could turn out to be a very strong card. I think while this might not seem exciting the actual tempo of this card could play very well into buying early game board control and or playing well into a Divine Favor deck as well.
Adaptation - I struggle with this card a little because of the unknown element of it. Keep in mind though that it shares a LOT of similarity with Blessing of Might but can be a little more unpredicatable but flexible. If you have a small minion against a larger minion you could use the +3 attack or Poisionous options to trade into it better. If you have a good minion then making it untargetable by spells and hero powers, divine shield, windfury, or stealth could all be great options. Overall I think it works a little better on a midrange tier creature than it does on a small minion hoping for 2/10 options because I think about half of them or more are actually fairly good for a mid sized or larger creature. It does also play well into large minons as well which makes me think its more of a midrange and or control based buff than something I would play in an aggro deck.
So, I guess there is a question of what to play with these new cards not to mention all of the neutral cards its adding. I probably will focus on some sort of Buffadin and or control based decks myself. Thoughts?
I think there is still potential. Keep in mind a few things about this rotation:
1) Lots of combo enablers are rotating. We have class and neutral combo that are heavily rotating right now.
2) Lots of the neutral healing is rotating. This might mean that a midrange and or aggro strategy is more viable. It also means that our control options are one of few classes that can efficiently heal.
I wont lie when I say that I was hoping for some strong 2-3 mana standalone effects and I did not get what I was looking for there but I think its a little preemptive to just dismiss pally because what the base assumptions for what we wanted did not show up.
I want to be optimistic, but I can't. There are some synergies, and given the current situation, things can't be worse...but...the cards Paladin received are a bit underwhelming. I hope it is not given the Drakonid Operative treatment.
I agree that Paladin didn't get the love it needs this expansion but I disagree about Dinosize. If you have a single creature left on board when your turn 8 starts, you basically have a 10/10 charge. What you don't want to do is put it on a creature the turn it was played, unless of course it has charge.
Plus now you can play that Angry Chicken you've been dying to utilize
I don't think it's about the Challenger. I think it's about the way they design Paladin as a concept from the very basis, and at least up to now, their experiments didn't go very well.
I've got all kinds of ideas for a Galvadon Paladin that could work. Whereas most people saw The Last Kaleidosaur and thought it would be too much work to complete as a quest, I saw major amounts of potential. If Secret Paladin could gain massive amounts of power even despite the deck being heavily populated with Secrets, why couldn't a Galvadon Paladin deck do the same with a lot of buff cards? Of course, I took my time and carefully thought about every decision I made with the deck. As many of us know, one of the bigger things that made Secret Paladin so strong was the indomitably valuable minions for each mana cost that Paladin had at its disposal, thus covering the worries of class minions not being good enough. Only a few questions remain about the buildup of the deck:
Between Argent Protector, Knife Juggler and Hydrologist, is there a 2-drop minion that doesn't need to be in the deck? If so, which one? Or should all three of them stay in?
Could Moroes and/or Barnes fit into this kind of a deck? Barnes could have synergy with Knife Juggler, Tirion Fordring and maybe some other cards, and Moroes would allow for the consistent generations of minions to give buffs, thus ensuring the advancement of the Quest. I'm just not entirely sure if they would really belong in a deck like that.
And lastly, I can't really decide what to put in to fill the 5-mana slot. Or if I even need to have something to fill it. Anyways, let me know what you guys think, I'm totally open to advice in this.
I fear that Wild Pyromancer will become ubiquitous in Paladin decks like Auctioneer has been in Rogue. Not only do you have the old equality combo, but he's strong against aggro/mid range if you're playing a lot of buffs, and if you can pull the poisonous adapt, its another board clear. There's almost no reason not to run the card.
I think a lot will depend on where the meta settles. Galvadon is useless in a taunt-heavy meta. Sadly, what we didn't get in this meta is any direct damage (or even a new secret for Hydrologist!). Paladin has never been good dealing with big taunts, and we're screwed if all the goods decks are running many of them.
I can see one tier 2 deck for paladin, and that is murloc aggro paladin, ungoro added some insane new murloc cards and paladin/shaman are the only classes that can play a full murloc deck well, you can tech in sunkeeper tarim to deal with taunts mid game whill pushing for lethal, with divine favor you can keep a big board of murlocs and then you can use the 5/4 adapt all murlocs to get some windfurried murlocs with charge, GG
I don't have time to comment a lot so I will post again later. Paladin is my main class and in the last season I have tried various handbuffadin decks. If this expansion becomes minion based, then handbuff is going to be powerful. I have taken a look at all the cards and found out that most synergize with the handbuff mechanic. Especially against jade decks, which are also,losing Bran it's going to,be great. It can also counter the new druid quest and the warrior too.
Oh and btw. I love the potential of Galvadon but compared,to,the druid one which is insane I am a little disappointed. For that reason I am crafting a golden Sunkeeper Tarim to debuff them in style.
I don't think this Galvadon thing can work because it forces us to play a bad deck.
But I really hope that I'm wrong because we are pretty all in on this. I mean, we didn't get any cards to play anything else.
Hydrologist is a good card, I think it's better than Dark Peddler, the problem is sustaining a tempo loss which paladin can't afford with no removal and no good proactive early game.
Well OP, I agree with your assessment on most of the cards released, except I'm a bit more pessimistic on some of the cards.
On Vinecleaver for example I think this is way too heavy while doing too little to see play, even in a control deck, unless you're going full in on the Recruit synergy. The attack value of the weapon is simply too low imo for this to be efficient as a removal card which is the primary function of a weapon (forget that Warriors have turned to using it just for SMOrcing purposes).
Lost in the Jungle seems to be rated as a really good card by you, I think this thing is okay and will be a one-of or not included in most decks kind of good. If you aren't playing a handbuff archetype basically this card is Alley Cat for Paladins right? But Alley Cat doesn't see that much constructed play, and it's a Beast, and Beast synergies are much more plentiful and powerful in Hunter than Recruit synergy is in Paladin and it doesn't see play. That fact makes me a lot more pessimistic towards the card.
Adaptation I don't think is impactful enough as a buff to include in the deck. Sure it's flexible but it's also random, so the flexibility may not go in a direction you want. The Last Kaleidosaur I am also a lot more pessimistic about because taking out minions for buffs to make the quest more reliable also makes the deck less reliable into drawing into those early plays and I shudder about the times you will have 4~5 buffs in your hand and an empty board, as well as the bad buffs in Paladin right now.
I also don't see why some seem to rate Dinosize as a card, I was arguing on the topic on reddit and I didn't really see an occasion you'd play this in your deck (not discovered from Ivory Knight) as opposed to running Tirion or Rag, but I had people telling me about the amazing "10/10 pesudo-charge" (If that happened on a regular enough basis, Rafaam would have seen play, as he actually adds +10/+10 in stats from Lantern of Power) and of seeing it alternatively as an "aggro deck finisher" (why would you run an 8 mana card in an aggro deck) or a "Jade counter" (I don't see how this even works).
Hydrologist I agree is a good 2 drop, but I see it as worse than the Rogue 2/2 or Dark Peddler which is rotating out because the cards you are discovering are Paladin secrets which are very specific to the situation in which you want to play them where as Dark Peddler's 1 drops are a lot more useful in a variety of situations. Also Rogue and Warlock as a class are a lot different from Paladin, Warlock has some insane 1 drops like Flame Imp and Voidwalker to take the board early, so they can get away with playing a card that lacks a little in stats, and Rogue has a lot of early game removal as well to clear the board. It would be a really good minion if Paladins had some decent early game options, but we don't.
N'Zoth Pally is most likely dead or at least a lot weaker now without Sylvanas in the deck, and I don't see a good deck that Paladin can play outside of some kind of Divine Favor shenanigans with the quest, and that's a lot weaker than even the current version of standard Secret Paladin because of a lack of a swing turn in tempo and because Mysterious Challenger takes all the secrets out the deck for reliable draws, whiles with this buffadin archetype there is nothing comparable to it so if you make the quest more consistent then you're going to end up with dead draws regularly and get beaten down by anyone who puts down minions on the board.
I also think the importance of losing Keeper of Uldaman cannot be understated, she was a big reason why we were coping with the lack of removal in the class imo, because she dealt with high health targets very efficiently, without which you were reduced to breaking out your Equality every time (read: Ysera. And then you gut your AoE potential.). Additionally she was never a dead card in any matchup, even against aggro decks, whereas Sunkeeper Tarim is a dead card vs aggro because you can't control the battlecry - it applies to everything - and is a legendary so you'll have it less reliably against the control decks you're going to want to play this in.
Overall I don't know how, but Paladin seems to have gotten even worse imo in the new expansion and I am not looking forward to playing it at all, it's just frustrating when the range of choices you can make is so inherently limited by design the moment you lose the board.
The bad thing is that you can't judge cards in a void. You are using a list, reviewing cards as a standalone effect which is bad. I mean, you need to see the grand picture in order to see if something is good or not. In general, my verdict is that the environment will slow down, so strategies like midrange handbuff will be more viable, since they don't take much of a hit.
As far as emerging concepts, the Paladin quest is something that historically doesn't work, since by buffing a minion you fail to generate card advantage, because you need small minions to buff, and when they are removed you have wasted two cards instead of one. A junky concept of buffing small people like Argent Squire/Shieldbearer/Silent Knight and the likes of stuff that will probably make it to the next turn, is shaping up...but I don't think that it will deliver a solid deck.
Personally, I think that Paladin's best bet will be a traditional handbuff with smaller people, Tarim and Lost in the Jungle, probably utilizing Tar Creeper and other midrange elementals in order to easily trigger Fight Promoter for card draw.
The bad thing is that you can't judge cards in a void. You are using a list, reviewing cards as a standalone effect which is bad. I mean, you need to see the grand picture in order to see if something is good or not. In general, my verdict is that the environment will slow down, so strategies like midrange handbuff will be more viable, since they don't take much of a hit.
As far as emerging concepts, the Paladin quest is something that historically doesn't work, since by buffing a minion you fail to generate card advantage, because you need small minions to buff, and when they are removed you have wasted two cards instead of one. A junky concept of buffing small people like Argent Squire/Shieldbearer/Silent Knight and the likes of stuff that will probably make it to the next turn, is shaping up...but I don't think that it will deliver a solid deck.
Personally, I think that Paladin's best bet will be a traditional handbuff with smaller people, Tarim and Lost in the Jungle, probably utilizing Tar Creeper and other midrange elementals in order to easily trigger Fight Promoter for card draw.
I have been sayng that too for days. If the meta slows down and if it becomes very board-/minion-dependant then handbuff could become a viable mechanic. And with all these quests like the warrior and druid one, it's going t be time for Sunkeeper Tarim to shine. Handbuff decks were able to outvalue jade decks so it's going to be possible to outvalue a taunt warrior, or a quest druid, or an elemental shaman.
Stuff like The Curator, Primordial Drake, adapt minions could fit in the deck. The problem is the loss of argent horserider who has been our quick removal. Argent commander is too expensive to replace them, and all other charge minions don't have divine shield. Maybe a finja deck with Bluegill Warriors and Gentle Megasaur could do the job.
I think the handbuff mechanic is stronger than a single target boardbuff that the quest requests. And I don't really know if Primalfin Champion works with handbuffs.
A decent way for the quest to work is, The Voraxx, which when buff counts as 2 buffs for the quest. A single Adaptation on him will give us value.
The thing with buffing stuff in generall is you need board and card draw . Because i tryed it in a midrangy version with Blessing and you almost never wanna play it (will be the same with the new 6 mana taunt spell ) because the value loss if they hex or remove it is so huge .
Even if i could land a BoK on a Argent Horserider and kill a 5 or 6 hp minion , that minion probably has already done something, and i invested 2 cards to kill one card . Also i invested 7 mana and now i have a 6/5. thats so cheap to remove . Buffing seems to be in general too expensive even the 1 mana buffs . Maybe with Divine Favour tho.. but any aggroversion wrecks buffstyle decks.Same with midrange they have too efficient removal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So, I felt like I would review what we have and what we are kind of looking at moving forward. I consider myself a pally main and while I will totally admit I dont play as much hearthstone as I probably could I wanted to recap my thoughts on the pally cards and options moving forward.
NEW CLASS CARDS:
Sunkeeper Tarim - My first thoughts were that he reminded me of Eadric the Pure but to be honest he is so much better than that. He has taunt as well as stat adjust all of your minions while also hitting toughnesses. He also can take on 3 of your opponents creatures himself before being underwhelmed (assuming nothing else). He can also be used to pump your own creatures which seems like an interesting finisher for an aggressive strategy or used as a control card. Its important to remember that he can be used with something like Lost in the Jungle or Fire Fly. He is very versatile and I think where Eadric the Pure missed in a lot of ways he makes up in adaptability.
The Last Kaleidosaur - My thoughts on this card when it was spoiled is that it depends a bit on how good of buffs and creatures we also get. I think we got some fairly good buffs out of this set but I am still a bit in between on the minion options we got. I am still optimistic and I think the rewarded Galvadon is amazing I think there is still a large question of how good the creatures we have access to are. I will leave myself at cautiously optimistic but I am still waiting for it to prove itself before I really vouch for it. I love buffadin and its an archetype I have been playing for a long time myself but I dont overly feel like paladin has the minion base to really make buffadin good right now.
Dinosize - this is absolute garbage. It costs too much and is too easily overcome.
Primalfin Champion - to be honest, I am really mad at the stat line they assigned him. This is a creature who is drastically under stated for his cost and while his "potential" is cool you are going to have a hard time dropping it on curve because of how bad its base stats are and it has no ETB or Deathrattle if it doesn't stick around a bit assuming you are not planning to play it off curve. I think its a really cool design but even a 2/2 for 2 is not good stat efficiency since the base 2 drop has a 5 combined stat line and this one has a 3. All of this adds up to it either not being a playable on curve minion or being too dependent on your opponent playing nothing to the board and or not having spot removal which is a tall task early in the game. Again, I love the concept of the card they just gave it ridiculously bad stat efficiency. I say this coming from someone who has played buffadin for a good bit of time using both the Eydis Darkbane & Fjola Lightbane sisters with Djinni of Zephyrs. When it comes to buffadin based creatures you really want them to at least have a decent stat line assuming you dont get to the point where you get to buff them. If and when they have a below average stat line it means you have to hold them until you control the board and or can combine them with buffs in one turn. The best way to play buffadin creatures is proactively with solid stats for the mana in case they do not last you want your opponents to invest good removal to get them out. You want to buff those creatures as well into positive trades instead of just going face with a buffed creature so that they simulate card advantage too. Everything I am seeing about Primalfin Champion as it stands reads that it is a trap. I go into this set saying that you should be very cautious about this if you plan to play buffadin because I would not craft this creature until you see some sort of results for it.
Spikeridged Steed - This card is a really good buff. It has some concerns still but generally speaking face aggro decks are trying to ignore your minions so you should be trading in on their minions. Most aggro decks dont use non damage minion kill / bounce as well so outside of the outlier of perhaps a tempo rogue, this card should be really really good against aggro and probably midrange decks. The downside of this card is going to be against a control deck and or a midrange deck that is keeping you off the board. I dont think that you need to be playing any sort of a buffadin deck for this card to have good results but of the buffs I would put it in the top 3 for current existing pally buffs.
Lightfused Stegodon - Honestly, all of these effects that we have really ever seen have been a little underwhelming. I think this is a cute card but I still dont think that adapt is that amazing of a buff for the Silver Hand Recruits concept. Quartermaster was only ever kind of ok and I think on average he is a stronger buff than this is so possibly if you want a gimmick deck it might be ok but I think this is kind of low tier.
Vinecleaver - Historically speaking, expensive weapons have not been that playable. This is a 4/3 weapon though and Truesilver's 4 attack has been very powerful. I am going to go ahead and say that it "might" be playable in a slow control deck but I am a little cautious to even say that much. It does have potentially a lot of power to it considering all of the recruits it does give. It does have some good synergy with Sunkeeper Tarim and it does give some options to buff some minions. All that said though, it is after all a 7 drop weapon which is very late in the game and might cost you additional health to use.
Hydrologist - I think its battlecry is alright. Overall its stats are kind of on or slightly under par. It seems like an alright pally minion and its nice that it can be used proactively. I tend to like to see a 5 combined stat on 2 drops and thats really my only complaint here. It makes for a decent 2 or 3 drop given that pally secrets all cost one mana. The big problem is that most pally secrets kind of also suck. This is in fact how I want to see the pally secrets handled a little more and the fact that its a discover effect means that your opponent wont always know what secret you have up too. Overall, I think this is probably playable and it could even be solid. Of the new paladin content this is one that I have the hardest times giving a read on because of the fact that pallys dont have much proactive plays for 2 drops. It will depend a little on what other tools and neutrals turn out as well as what kind of pally ends up seeing play.
Lost in the Jungle - I first compared this card to Living Roots and I was a little disappointed when comparing the two of them. I did however give it more thought and come to a few conclusions. First of all, getting 2 creatures in play for 1 mana is actually very good efficiency wise. Doing this on turn one means that your hero power on turn 2 is not just negated by your opponents hero power turn 2 as well because they are just keeping it status quo for the time being. On turn 3 you can hero power and do this making it almost as powerful as Muster for Battle (although still less) you still get 3 bodies for 3 mana. Add into the mix of this card the new legend Sunkeeper Tarim and you could potentially cast Lost in the Jungle the same turn as him making a psudo Quartermaster play. Given that Sunkeeper Tarim also seems like an overall good card and not fringe play it seems like something that could turn out to be a very strong card. I think while this might not seem exciting the actual tempo of this card could play very well into buying early game board control and or playing well into a Divine Favor deck as well.
Adaptation - I struggle with this card a little because of the unknown element of it. Keep in mind though that it shares a LOT of similarity with Blessing of Might but can be a little more unpredicatable but flexible. If you have a small minion against a larger minion you could use the +3 attack or Poisionous options to trade into it better. If you have a good minion then making it untargetable by spells and hero powers, divine shield, windfury, or stealth could all be great options. Overall I think it works a little better on a midrange tier creature than it does on a small minion hoping for 2/10 options because I think about half of them or more are actually fairly good for a mid sized or larger creature. It does also play well into large minons as well which makes me think its more of a midrange and or control based buff than something I would play in an aggro deck.
So, I guess there is a question of what to play with these new cards not to mention all of the neutral cards its adding. I probably will focus on some sort of Buffadin and or control based decks myself. Thoughts?
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
We are dead.
I think there is still potential. Keep in mind a few things about this rotation:
1) Lots of combo enablers are rotating. We have class and neutral combo that are heavily rotating right now.
2) Lots of the neutral healing is rotating. This might mean that a midrange and or aggro strategy is more viable. It also means that our control options are one of few classes that can efficiently heal.
I wont lie when I say that I was hoping for some strong 2-3 mana standalone effects and I did not get what I was looking for there but I think its a little preemptive to just dismiss pally because what the base assumptions for what we wanted did not show up.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
I want to be optimistic, but I can't. There are some synergies, and given the current situation, things can't be worse...but...the cards Paladin received are a bit underwhelming. I hope it is not given the Drakonid Operative treatment.
I agree that Paladin didn't get the love it needs this expansion but I disagree about Dinosize. If you have a single creature left on board when your turn 8 starts, you basically have a 10/10 charge. What you don't want to do is put it on a creature the turn it was played, unless of course it has charge.
Plus now you can play that Angry Chicken you've been dying to utilize
Mysterious Challenger was a mistake, and we are still paying for it.
I don't think it's about the Challenger. I think it's about the way they design Paladin as a concept from the very basis, and at least up to now, their experiments didn't go very well.
I've got all kinds of ideas for a Galvadon Paladin that could work. Whereas most people saw The Last Kaleidosaur and thought it would be too much work to complete as a quest, I saw major amounts of potential. If Secret Paladin could gain massive amounts of power even despite the deck being heavily populated with Secrets, why couldn't a Galvadon Paladin deck do the same with a lot of buff cards? Of course, I took my time and carefully thought about every decision I made with the deck. As many of us know, one of the bigger things that made Secret Paladin so strong was the indomitably valuable minions for each mana cost that Paladin had at its disposal, thus covering the worries of class minions not being good enough. Only a few questions remain about the buildup of the deck:
Between Argent Protector, Knife Juggler and Hydrologist, is there a 2-drop minion that doesn't need to be in the deck? If so, which one? Or should all three of them stay in?
Could Moroes and/or Barnes fit into this kind of a deck? Barnes could have synergy with Knife Juggler, Tirion Fordring and maybe some other cards, and Moroes would allow for the consistent generations of minions to give buffs, thus ensuring the advancement of the Quest. I'm just not entirely sure if they would really belong in a deck like that.
And lastly, I can't really decide what to put in to fill the 5-mana slot. Or if I even need to have something to fill it. Anyways, let me know what you guys think, I'm totally open to advice in this.
I fear that Wild Pyromancer will become ubiquitous in Paladin decks like Auctioneer has been in Rogue. Not only do you have the old equality combo, but he's strong against aggro/mid range if you're playing a lot of buffs, and if you can pull the poisonous adapt, its another board clear. There's almost no reason not to run the card.
I think a lot will depend on where the meta settles. Galvadon is useless in a taunt-heavy meta. Sadly, what we didn't get in this meta is any direct damage (or even a new secret for Hydrologist!). Paladin has never been good dealing with big taunts, and we're screwed if all the goods decks are running many of them.
I can see one tier 2 deck for paladin, and that is murloc aggro paladin, ungoro added some insane new murloc cards and paladin/shaman are the only classes that can play a full murloc deck well, you can tech in sunkeeper tarim to deal with taunts mid game whill pushing for lethal, with divine favor you can keep a big board of murlocs and then you can use the 5/4 adapt all murlocs to get some windfurried murlocs with charge, GG
everything else looks like complete garbage to me
I don't have time to comment a lot so I will post again later. Paladin is my main class and in the last season I have tried various handbuffadin decks. If this expansion becomes minion based, then handbuff is going to be powerful. I have taken a look at all the cards and found out that most synergize with the handbuff mechanic. Especially against jade decks, which are also,losing Bran it's going to,be great. It can also counter the new druid quest and the warrior too.
Oh and btw. I love the potential of Galvadon but compared,to,the druid one which is insane I am a little disappointed. For that reason I am crafting a golden Sunkeeper Tarim to debuff them in style.
FOR THE HORDE!
I love N'Zoth Paladin. Paladin is my only golden class. That archetype is now dead. FeelsBadman :(
Also I don't like that we didn't get any new secrets since we got Hydrologist but are losing sacred trial. That was stupid.
FOR THE HORDE!
Paladin got completely shafted... once again...
I don't think this Galvadon thing can work because it forces us to play a bad deck.
But I really hope that I'm wrong because we are pretty all in on this. I mean, we didn't get any cards to play anything else.
Hydrologist is a good card, I think it's better than Dark Peddler, the problem is sustaining a tempo loss which paladin can't afford with no removal and no good proactive early game.
Well OP, I agree with your assessment on most of the cards released, except I'm a bit more pessimistic on some of the cards.
On Vinecleaver for example I think this is way too heavy while doing too little to see play, even in a control deck, unless you're going full in on the Recruit synergy. The attack value of the weapon is simply too low imo for this to be efficient as a removal card which is the primary function of a weapon (forget that Warriors have turned to using it just for SMOrcing purposes).
Lost in the Jungle seems to be rated as a really good card by you, I think this thing is okay and will be a one-of or not included in most decks kind of good. If you aren't playing a handbuff archetype basically this card is Alley Cat for Paladins right? But Alley Cat doesn't see that much constructed play, and it's a Beast, and Beast synergies are much more plentiful and powerful in Hunter than Recruit synergy is in Paladin and it doesn't see play. That fact makes me a lot more pessimistic towards the card.
Adaptation I don't think is impactful enough as a buff to include in the deck. Sure it's flexible but it's also random, so the flexibility may not go in a direction you want. The Last Kaleidosaur I am also a lot more pessimistic about because taking out minions for buffs to make the quest more reliable also makes the deck less reliable into drawing into those early plays and I shudder about the times you will have 4~5 buffs in your hand and an empty board, as well as the bad buffs in Paladin right now.
I also don't see why some seem to rate Dinosize as a card, I was arguing on the topic on reddit and I didn't really see an occasion you'd play this in your deck (not discovered from Ivory Knight) as opposed to running Tirion or Rag, but I had people telling me about the amazing "10/10 pesudo-charge" (If that happened on a regular enough basis, Rafaam would have seen play, as he actually adds +10/+10 in stats from Lantern of Power) and of seeing it alternatively as an "aggro deck finisher" (why would you run an 8 mana card in an aggro deck) or a "Jade counter" (I don't see how this even works).
Hydrologist I agree is a good 2 drop, but I see it as worse than the Rogue 2/2 or Dark Peddler which is rotating out because the cards you are discovering are Paladin secrets which are very specific to the situation in which you want to play them where as Dark Peddler's 1 drops are a lot more useful in a variety of situations. Also Rogue and Warlock as a class are a lot different from Paladin, Warlock has some insane 1 drops like Flame Imp and Voidwalker to take the board early, so they can get away with playing a card that lacks a little in stats, and Rogue has a lot of early game removal as well to clear the board. It would be a really good minion if Paladins had some decent early game options, but we don't.
N'Zoth Pally is most likely dead or at least a lot weaker now without Sylvanas in the deck, and I don't see a good deck that Paladin can play outside of some kind of Divine Favor shenanigans with the quest, and that's a lot weaker than even the current version of standard Secret Paladin because of a lack of a swing turn in tempo and because Mysterious Challenger takes all the secrets out the deck for reliable draws, whiles with this buffadin archetype there is nothing comparable to it so if you make the quest more consistent then you're going to end up with dead draws regularly and get beaten down by anyone who puts down minions on the board.
I also think the importance of losing Keeper of Uldaman cannot be understated, she was a big reason why we were coping with the lack of removal in the class imo, because she dealt with high health targets very efficiently, without which you were reduced to breaking out your Equality every time (read: Ysera. And then you gut your AoE potential.). Additionally she was never a dead card in any matchup, even against aggro decks, whereas Sunkeeper Tarim is a dead card vs aggro because you can't control the battlecry - it applies to everything - and is a legendary so you'll have it less reliably against the control decks you're going to want to play this in.
Overall I don't know how, but Paladin seems to have gotten even worse imo in the new expansion and I am not looking forward to playing it at all, it's just frustrating when the range of choices you can make is so inherently limited by design the moment you lose the board.
The bad thing is that you can't judge cards in a void. You are using a list, reviewing cards as a standalone effect which is bad. I mean, you need to see the grand picture in order to see if something is good or not. In general, my verdict is that the environment will slow down, so strategies like midrange handbuff will be more viable, since they don't take much of a hit.
As far as emerging concepts, the Paladin quest is something that historically doesn't work, since by buffing a minion you fail to generate card advantage, because you need small minions to buff, and when they are removed you have wasted two cards instead of one. A junky concept of buffing small people like Argent Squire/Shieldbearer/Silent Knight and the likes of stuff that will probably make it to the next turn, is shaping up...but I don't think that it will deliver a solid deck.
Personally, I think that Paladin's best bet will be a traditional handbuff with smaller people, Tarim and Lost in the Jungle, probably utilizing Tar Creeper and other midrange elementals in order to easily trigger Fight Promoter for card draw.
FOR THE HORDE!
This right here is a Galvadin (Galvadon Paladin) deck that I've created. Let me know what you guys think!
The thing with buffing stuff in generall is you need board and card draw . Because i tryed it in a midrangy version with Blessing and you almost never wanna play it (will be the same with the new 6 mana taunt spell ) because the value loss if they hex or remove it is so huge .
Even if i could land a BoK on a Argent Horserider and kill a 5 or 6 hp minion , that minion probably has already done something, and i invested 2 cards to kill one card . Also i invested 7 mana and now i have a 6/5. thats so cheap to remove . Buffing seems to be in general too expensive even the 1 mana buffs . Maybe with Divine Favour tho.. but any aggroversion wrecks buffstyle decks.Same with midrange they have too efficient removal.