I've been able to make it to rank 10 with a zoo-like midrange version that swarms with silver hand recruits + Moroes and divine shield effects and utilizes buff cards alongside the likes of The Voraxx and the Primalfin Champion to extend value (I used to run the quest but removed it to make it more consistent). It does pretty well against everything but Elemental Shaman and Taunt Warrior thus far, but I'm still working out the kinks. So based on my experiences, the replies in this thread, and what I've seen on ladder, Paladin is in a pretty decent spot this expansion.
If you were going to run Barnes you'd have to try to shoehorn in as many decent targets as possible. Rag and Tirion are good, Grimestreet Enforcer would be excellent. Also Igneous Elemental if youre running the Elemental version. Stonehill Defender is excellent and 1/1 taunt result from Barnes isnt the end of the world.
I've hit r10 just now with Elemental handbuff Paladin, the deck is pretty sweet. I've teched in 2 Dirty Rats and 2 Aldors in it because of Quest Rogues/Mages and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire Priest, of all things.
I still miss Keeper of Uldaman, though - and without Equality in my deck, big boards and high health minions are a huge problem. Thankfully they aren't that common, but I think I've lost against every single Quest Murloc Shaman and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire Priest so far. Once they get Warleaders and Coldlight Seers on the board it's impossible to retake the board against Murloc Shamans because of the bad AoE options and Priest seems to somehow get nut draws every time they face me and get 10/10s on the board by t5 with depressing regularity. I think the deck will probably struggle if those decks become meta - I don't know if DS/IF combo Priest is reliable but Murloc Shaman seems pretty reliable and I'm not sure why more people aren't playing it, at the very least. At any rate, it still highlights the problems Paladins have with board clear and removals, but they aren't as big a problem because thanks to Tar Creeper and Tol'vir Stoneshaper I've been able to get things to stick to get good trades in. Blazecaller also partially acts as a removal card, but this is probably still the weakest part of the class.
Servant of Kalimos and Stonehill Defender are real lifesavers - before you tended to fall flat in the late game once Tirion and Rag Lightlord got removed, and with Paladin lacking card advantage you tended to lose steam rather quickly. These two cards actually provide Paladin with some really good card generation, which solves a lot of the card draw problems - I hope Blizz will continue to print similar cards that can be utilized in the class to solve the lacklustre card draw problems that we have.
Paladin is more than fine, stop being bad at deck building
As expected with shamans losing tunnel trog and Warlocks losing Reno Paladin got much better at aggro and midrange playstyle vs other classes, just wait for tempostorm to show Paladin in a high tier2 seat
It was awesome to see savj and kalento go positive against elemental shamans on their handbuff elemental paladins, it was quite comical to watch the supposed defacto elemental archtype get beat by the red headed handbuff stepchild of last rotation
I've been able to make it to rank 10 with a zoo-like midrange version that swarms with silver hand recruits + Moroes and divine shield effects and utilizes buff cards alongside the likes of The Voraxx and the Primalfin Champion to extend value (I used to run the quest but removed it to make it more consistent). It does pretty well against everything but Elemental Shaman and Taunt Warrior thus far, but I'm still working out the kinks. So based on my experiences, the replies in this thread, and what I've seen on ladder, Paladin is in a pretty decent spot this expansion.
If you were going to run Barnes you'd have to try to shoehorn in as many decent targets as possible. Rag and Tirion are good, Grimestreet Enforcer would be excellent. Also Igneous Elemental if youre running the Elemental version. Stonehill Defender is excellent and 1/1 taunt result from Barnes isnt the end of the world.
Paladin is in a pretty good spot currently.
I thought it would be trash as well, but I have to say I'm quite happy with UG.
Compared to Kara and MSG, we are miles ahead of where we were.
I've hit r10 just now with Elemental handbuff Paladin, the deck is pretty sweet. I've teched in 2 Dirty Rats and 2 Aldors in it because of Quest Rogues/Mages and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire Priest, of all things.
I still miss Keeper of Uldaman, though - and without Equality in my deck, big boards and high health minions are a huge problem. Thankfully they aren't that common, but I think I've lost against every single Quest Murloc Shaman and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire Priest so far. Once they get Warleaders and Coldlight Seers on the board it's impossible to retake the board against Murloc Shamans because of the bad AoE options and Priest seems to somehow get nut draws every time they face me and get 10/10s on the board by t5 with depressing regularity. I think the deck will probably struggle if those decks become meta - I don't know if DS/IF combo Priest is reliable but Murloc Shaman seems pretty reliable and I'm not sure why more people aren't playing it, at the very least. At any rate, it still highlights the problems Paladins have with board clear and removals, but they aren't as big a problem because thanks to Tar Creeper and Tol'vir Stoneshaper I've been able to get things to stick to get good trades in. Blazecaller also partially acts as a removal card, but this is probably still the weakest part of the class.
Servant of Kalimos and Stonehill Defender are real lifesavers - before you tended to fall flat in the late game once Tirion and Rag Lightlord got removed, and with Paladin lacking card advantage you tended to lose steam rather quickly. These two cards actually provide Paladin with some really good card generation, which solves a lot of the card draw problems - I hope Blizz will continue to print similar cards that can be utilized in the class to solve the lacklustre card draw problems that we have.
Paladin is more than fine, stop being bad at deck building
As expected with shamans losing tunnel trog and Warlocks losing Reno Paladin got much better at aggro and midrange playstyle vs other classes, just wait for tempostorm to show Paladin in a high tier2 seat
It was awesome to see savj and kalento go positive against elemental shamans on their handbuff elemental paladins, it was quite comical to watch the supposed defacto elemental archtype get beat by the red headed handbuff stepchild of last rotation