Every Class should have at least one viable control variant.
I disagree. Hunter, rogue and druid never had control decks, it just doesn't fit the identity. They go for aggro, tempo, midrange, combo, ramp, token. Shaman had low tier control deck that was born and died in wild b/c it couldn't get all the tools in a single standard rotation. Control pala died with Equality nerf. If devs would put Solemn Vigil in the classic, that'd eventually keep the dream alive.
edit: I'm probably wrong about the druid, plus it fits the identity - they can tank in WoW, and in HS they have insane armor gain.
Do you recall why they nerfed equality? What was their reasoning? Was it included in a problematic deck?
It was just too cheap as a full board clear when combined with Wild Pyromancer or Equality. I think they wanna reduce hard unconditional removal, especially when it removes the whole board and put in more stuff like Shadow Word: Ruin and Breaker Kel'idan that has conditions and such.
I think Libram of Justice is more along the lines of what kind of removal they want Paladin to have and I don't think every class needs card draw, but Paladin is kind of weak at what it does do well to not have good resource generation. Or some sort of way to generate a lot of value like Priest has or Druid used to have.
And yeah I'd like to see a Paladin rework of their classic set like Priest got. Probably not for Holy Light or Consecration, I think those cards are fine and do what they're supposed to. It's also that more and more it matters what the card POOL is, not just what you can put in a deck. So making the legendary pool is reasonably consistent, most class minion & spell pools are reasonably consistent. So there's less of just... "oh I pulled garbage from this random effect I lose".
Pal has two cards now that drop enemies to 1ife and two tools to finish them off. Have you tried playing with those 8 cards and trying for quest and/or librams?
Definitely! But the board clears for Pally have always been too clunky to be really effective. Why must I have to wait for both Equality and a Wild Pyromancer to be in my hand before I have an effective board clear? Why must I use two cards to do the job of one? Plus, you have 6 cards tied up for board clears not including single removal, taking up even more space in your deck. Libram of Justice is ok, but without the Aldor Attendant, it's an expensive, ineffective replacement for Equality. I've tried both quests, but they don't seem that useful in Standard.
N'zoth Pally, Dragon Pally, Secret Pally, Buff Pally, Quest Pally None of these were control decks, they were all midrange decks
How do you figure that? Pretty much all of them relied on a late-game finisher to win the game. Pretty much all of them had a weak early-game (stalling). Doesn't sound like midrange to me.
i don't understand why there's need to complain exactly NOW that controllish libram paladins are quite strong (i've tried some). there were no control palas past expansions (you cited mech paladin which isn't in standard anymore). if someone don't wanna try a libram control it's because they wanna play only OP winEZ netdecks. if you use it, try to refine it. you don't need fatigue, to bring oppo to 0 hp isn't a titanic task most of times (also cause no heals around except for priest...and paladin). honestly there's no need of unbalanced finishers as n'zoth or shudderwock in standard please
Completely disagree, Holy Light is absolutely a Paladin card that should be reworked.
Name me one time anybody tried putting this card in their deck. Ever. At ANY point in Hearthstone history.
That's not the point. It's a basic card and there's lots of unplayable basic cards. A 2 mana, heal for 6 card is perfectly good for what it is. If Paladin had, had a working healing deck like Druid kinda does, then Holy Light might have seen some play like Healing Touch kinda did. (Though it's also worth noting the threshold for Druid healing decks is 5, with Paladin it was... 8.)
The bigger issue is the huge number of low impact 1 mana spells Paladin has. Hand of Protection, Blessing of Might, Blessing of Wisdom... if Paladin had a card which incorporated using 1 mana spells in an effective way, that'd be different but as it is these do nothing.
Pyro/Equality was clunky because both cards were useful independently of each other. Typically that's not how decks were built, but that's the case in most actual paladin decks. Also, that combo was SO cheap. Who had a board clear that was even close to that. Priest had Lightbomb, which was situational, they had Pint-size/horror, which also had conditions. Warlock has Twisting Nether which costs twice as much mana.
I think Paladin could use more proactive healing cards and some better weapons for clearing out minions, but I'm really glad they're reducing the number of hard, unconditional board clears. It allows for the game to be much more interactive and put some thought into how you want to clear a board.
N'zoth Pally, Dragon Pally, Secret Pally, Buff Pally, Quest Pally: all happened in Standard, as well as Wild. Hell, even Mech Pally has some control variations in Wild.
As a prolific wild and standard player I can assure you that Mech Pally has 0 viable control variation in wild. I can also telly ou that all of those Paladin builds you listed, either aren't control decks or haven't ever been viable (the exception being N'Zoth pally which like I said in my original comment, hasn't been a thing in forever).
Playing paladin now for a while in wild. Playing now the uther otk deck. Having about a 52% winrate now. But I have to agree boardcclear and card draw is not good.
Equality and consecration are one boardclear, pyromancer and libram of justice is the second. Enter the coliseum is the third.
So you need 5 cards for 3 board clears. Needing 2 cards for 1 boardclear. Lucky in wild there a some tools to have a decent carddraw. But then look further, Enter the coliseum leave you with 1 enemy on board, but you don't have any single target removal. Then the other boardclears, what happens if u try them against a warlock board with mal'ganis? nothing, because of the buff health goes to 3 health and you kill nothing. So against warlock u have only 1 boardclear. The reno package gives zephrys which can provide another clear or maybe 2.
My fav was bells pali, suedo control. Probably more tempo at the end of the day though... But played it to legend!
Tempo/control/combo, idk, but I did lose to a Wild spell buff pally which should qualify as control. The game plan is to buff up stuff to exhaust removal and eventually play Zola on a giant Lynessa.
Yes, control paladin has barely been a thing since Naxx, but mid-range, tempo and aggro decks have been cancer, and combo decks have been viable.
You can try to play big paladin with duel but it doesn't work well. The reason is that cheating out a turn five tirion or scrapyard colossus SHOULD give you a high chance of winning the game. The reality is that pretty much any top tier deck seems to comfortably able to deal with a turn five 6/6 with divine shield. There is so much power creep and paladin cards are just so bad. I mean avenging wrath is 6 mana to deal just 8 damage to enemies (and not even guaranteed to hit minions). The deck has no draw. Lay on hands is 8 mana to draw three cards whereas skull of guldan is 6 mana to draw three and you get a cost reduction! Guardian of Kings is redundant due to amber watcher. Equality is too expensive and in any event you need two cards on paladin to board clear (but the deck has no draw). Holy wrath is just a meme.
Every Class should have at least one viable control variant.
I disagree. Hunter, rogue and druid never had control decks, it just doesn't fit the identity. They go for aggro, tempo, midrange, combo, ramp, token. Shaman had low tier control deck that was born and died in wild b/c it couldn't get all the tools in a single standard rotation. Control pala died with Equality nerf. If devs would put Solemn Vigil in the classic, that'd eventually keep the dream alive.
edit: I'm probably wrong about the druid, plus it fits the identity - they can tank in WoW, and in HS they have insane armor gain.
Where's Hunter's control variant then? Or rogue?
It was just too cheap as a full board clear when combined with Wild Pyromancer or Equality. I think they wanna reduce hard unconditional removal, especially when it removes the whole board and put in more stuff like Shadow Word: Ruin and Breaker Kel'idan that has conditions and such.
I think Libram of Justice is more along the lines of what kind of removal they want Paladin to have and I don't think every class needs card draw, but Paladin is kind of weak at what it does do well to not have good resource generation. Or some sort of way to generate a lot of value like Priest has or Druid used to have.
And yeah I'd like to see a Paladin rework of their classic set like Priest got. Probably not for Holy Light or Consecration, I think those cards are fine and do what they're supposed to. It's also that more and more it matters what the card POOL is, not just what you can put in a deck. So making the legendary pool is reasonably consistent, most class minion & spell pools are reasonably consistent. So there's less of just... "oh I pulled garbage from this random effect I lose".
Yup. That was a weird nerf out of nowhere that really screwed the class imo.
Definitely! But the board clears for Pally have always been too clunky to be really effective. Why must I have to wait for both Equality and a Wild Pyromancer to be in my hand before I have an effective board clear? Why must I use two cards to do the job of one? Plus, you have 6 cards tied up for board clears not including single removal, taking up even more space in your deck. Libram of Justice is ok, but without the Aldor Attendant, it's an expensive, ineffective replacement for Equality. I've tried both quests, but they don't seem that useful in Standard.
How do you figure that? Pretty much all of them relied on a late-game finisher to win the game. Pretty much all of them had a weak early-game (stalling). Doesn't sound like midrange to me.
i don't understand why there's need to complain exactly NOW that controllish libram paladins are quite strong (i've tried some). there were no control palas past expansions (you cited mech paladin which isn't in standard anymore). if someone don't wanna try a libram control it's because they wanna play only OP winEZ netdecks. if you use it, try to refine it. you don't need fatigue, to bring oppo to 0 hp isn't a titanic task most of times (also cause no heals around except for priest...and paladin). honestly there's no need of unbalanced finishers as n'zoth or shudderwock in standard please
is that so pilo8? Is that why libram paladin is at 36% winrate legend ranks?
Maybe share your list you are doing so well with. Because unless you are bronze, I don't believe you :-)
for sure i wouldn't give my lists to you :-)
"Is that why libram paladin is at 36% winrate legend ranks?"
...Okay, real talk, when you put it like that? It makes Libram Paladin sound way better than it actually is.
That's not the point. It's a basic card and there's lots of unplayable basic cards. A 2 mana, heal for 6 card is perfectly good for what it is. If Paladin had, had a working healing deck like Druid kinda does, then Holy Light might have seen some play like Healing Touch kinda did. (Though it's also worth noting the threshold for Druid healing decks is 5, with Paladin it was... 8.)
The bigger issue is the huge number of low impact 1 mana spells Paladin has. Hand of Protection, Blessing of Might, Blessing of Wisdom... if Paladin had a card which incorporated using 1 mana spells in an effective way, that'd be different but as it is these do nothing.
Pyro/Equality was clunky because both cards were useful independently of each other. Typically that's not how decks were built, but that's the case in most actual paladin decks. Also, that combo was SO cheap. Who had a board clear that was even close to that. Priest had Lightbomb, which was situational, they had Pint-size/horror, which also had conditions. Warlock has Twisting Nether which costs twice as much mana.
I think Paladin could use more proactive healing cards and some better weapons for clearing out minions, but I'm really glad they're reducing the number of hard, unconditional board clears. It allows for the game to be much more interactive and put some thought into how you want to clear a board.
i play with big pally with board clears and heals.
i can beat dh warlock and druid
hard against mage and priest but doable.
really fun deck and board clear and heal let s you come back to the game turn 5
Control Paladin died the day that Equality got nerfed
As a prolific wild and standard player I can assure you that Mech Pally has 0 viable control variation in wild. I can also telly ou that all of those Paladin builds you listed, either aren't control decks or haven't ever been viable (the exception being N'Zoth pally which like I said in my original comment, hasn't been a thing in forever).
Playing paladin now for a while in wild. Playing now the uther otk deck. Having about a 52% winrate now. But I have to agree boardcclear and card draw is not good.
Equality and consecration are one boardclear, pyromancer and libram of justice is the second. Enter the coliseum is the third.
So you need 5 cards for 3 board clears. Needing 2 cards for 1 boardclear. Lucky in wild there a some tools to have a decent carddraw. But then look further, Enter the coliseum leave you with 1 enemy on board, but you don't have any single target removal. Then the other boardclears, what happens if u try them against a warlock board with mal'ganis? nothing, because of the buff health goes to 3 health and you kill nothing. So against warlock u have only 1 boardclear. The reno package gives zephrys which can provide another clear or maybe 2.
It is doable but it could be better.
My fav was bells pali, suedo control. Probably more tempo at the end of the day though... But played it to legend!
Tempo/control/combo, idk, but I did lose to a Wild spell buff pally which should qualify as control. The game plan is to buff up stuff to exhaust removal and eventually play Zola on a giant Lynessa.
Yes, control paladin has barely been a thing since Naxx, but mid-range, tempo and aggro decks have been cancer, and combo decks have been viable.
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You can try to play big paladin with duel but it doesn't work well. The reason is that cheating out a turn five tirion or scrapyard colossus SHOULD give you a high chance of winning the game. The reality is that pretty much any top tier deck seems to comfortably able to deal with a turn five 6/6 with divine shield. There is so much power creep and paladin cards are just so bad. I mean avenging wrath is 6 mana to deal just 8 damage to enemies (and not even guaranteed to hit minions). The deck has no draw. Lay on hands is 8 mana to draw three cards whereas skull of guldan is 6 mana to draw three and you get a cost reduction! Guardian of Kings is redundant due to amber watcher. Equality is too expensive and in any event you need two cards on paladin to board clear (but the deck has no draw). Holy wrath is just a meme.
I mean midrange Dragon/Libram Pally seems to work just fine for me atm , but Control simply gets shut down by endless value from Rogues and Priests.