I've always played it slow and like a control deck that grind out whatever threats appear, but whenever I face it people almost play it like an aggro deck. Not quite, but close. They like to go face and only clear if necessary. They almost always win by turn 8 or so. Do I understand the deck wrong?
Yeah, it's not a slow deck. It excels in getting libram reductions and having cheap cards buffed out of counter range, trading to preserve board advantage and then smashing face.
It wears your opponent down, while staying healthy and having backup tools to deal with bigger threats, which can be used to stall, heal or clear taunts to get lethal damage in.
It all depends on how you build it. The older variations with all the librams and healing I'd say was something between midrange and control. The builds which are most popular now are rather fast midrange.
Well, i would not call it a tempo deck, since I would expect a lot of comeback tools from such a deck, whereas Pure Paladin struggles a little to regain board control with Libram of Justice and Lord Barov being more or less the only options for that. But midrange is definitely true. You have strong offensively statted, yet sticky early game minions with Shotbot, Murgur Murgurgle and Goody Two-Shields and buffs to keep them alive, so the plan in my opinion should be always to pose the threat the opponent has to answer. But the right balance between keeping the momentum on while not overextending against control decks is the most difficult part in my opinion.
Of course, against pure aggro decks like Face Hunter or so you can (are forced to, respectively) play a lot more defensively, since they are most likely to be pretty much dead to Libram of Hope.
I've always played it slow and like a control deck that grind out whatever threats appear, but whenever I face it people almost play it like an aggro deck. Not quite, but close. They like to go face and only clear if necessary. They almost always win by turn 8 or so. Do I understand the deck wrong?
Yeah, it's not a slow deck. It excels in getting libram reductions and having cheap cards buffed out of counter range, trading to preserve board advantage and then smashing face.
It wears your opponent down, while staying healthy and having backup tools to deal with bigger threats, which can be used to stall, heal or clear taunts to get lethal damage in.
It's definitely not a control deck, you should be aggressive with it.
It all depends on how you build it. The older variations with all the librams and healing I'd say was something between midrange and control. The builds which are most popular now are rather fast midrange.
Well, i would not call it a tempo deck, since I would expect a lot of comeback tools from such a deck, whereas Pure Paladin struggles a little to regain board control with Libram of Justice and Lord Barov being more or less the only options for that. But midrange is definitely true. You have strong offensively statted, yet sticky early game minions with Shotbot, Murgur Murgurgle and Goody Two-Shields and buffs to keep them alive, so the plan in my opinion should be always to pose the threat the opponent has to answer. But the right balance between keeping the momentum on while not overextending against control decks is the most difficult part in my opinion.
Of course, against pure aggro decks like Face Hunter or so you can (are forced to, respectively) play a lot more defensively, since they are most likely to be pretty much dead to Libram of Hope.
Also, I think this deck is one of those that benefits most from playing on curve. If you have the option to play Aldor Attendant, Hand of A'dal, Goody Two-Shields, Lightforged Zealot, Aldor Truthseeker, Libram of Hope in that order, it's very rarely not the best option.
Ceterum censeo classum magi esse delendam.