I've been trying out odd paladin at rank D2 and getting smoked. About 50/50 maybe less.
What I don't understand is how to maintain board control vs. Decks like pirate warriors, odd DH, murloc sham, etc. Have to clear their minions so they don't snowball but the 1/1 recruits aren't big enough to clear and hold board. And once behind on board none of the synergy works. Are these just bad match ups or am I missing something?
I've considered ignoring and going face but then the murloc buff spells or pirate buffs/cannons will eat you
Generally speaking you want to retain board control at all costs against aggro decks like the ones you described when you're playing odd pala unless you have lethal in your hand or on board and you're completely confident your opponent won't be able to remove your threats in time to prevent you from winning the game. Obviously you should employ some common sense regarding this rule: you're not going to have to trade if you have 6 buffed 3/3 recruits and your opponent has 1 1/2 pirate on the board. With that said, if you can't keep control of the board in the early game you will lose pretty much every time, as I'm sure you're aware.
Actually doing that is another thing entirely. Warrior and shaman are statistically your two worst matchups, although interestingly hsreplay says dh is one of the easier matchups. Unfortunately I'm not in the best position to be giving you advice on this particular topic since I've never been higher than D2 with odd pala myself. Of course you should mulligan as aggressively as possible to get as many minions on the board in the early game as possible, but that's fairly standard procedure for odd pala anyway. You could try to switch decks if you feel you're running into pocket aggro metas, but otherwise I would go on hsreplay or to twitch directly and see if you can find any multi legend streamers that are playing the deck. Watch how they play these matchups and try to see if they're doing anything differently than you, and if you find that their strategy is superior to yours you should incorporate said strategy into your own gameplay.
Alternatively, you could try to que another deck like murloc shaman or pirate warrior or secret mage; maybe you'll find that one of these decks is easier for you to play. With that said, an odd pala decklist does appear to have the highest WR in D5-D1 by a fairly significant margin on Hsreplay at the moment. If you aren't playing that particular decklist you could give it a shot. Otherwise you could try to just grind it out. If you're D2, you and the deck are good enough to get legend and it should just be a matter of time.
As Sevasmios mentioned, pwar and murloc shaman can be tough matchups because they can both snowball out of control quicker than odd pally can react (and for pwar, having cannons out is a real pain in the rear) but yeah, no idea how you lose consistently to odd shaman as, like decks such as odd rogue and kingsbane, it relies very little on board presence and very much on direct face damage...you should be able to simply kill everything they have quickly enough and kill them with your board soon after that. There will be times when the odd dh will have an absolutely nuts draw and you get your baku leeroy and quartermaster in the opening hand but overall that matchup is strongly in odd pala's favour, just mulligan correctly and the rest is up to luck, really.
Generally speaking you want to retain board control at all costs against aggro decks like the ones you described when you're playing odd pala unless you have lethal in your hand or on board and you're completely confident your opponent won't be able to remove your threats in time to prevent you from winning the game. Obviously you should employ some common sense regarding this rule: you're not going to have to trade if you have 6 buffed 3/3 recruits and your opponent has 1 1/2 pirate on the board. With that said, if you can't keep control of the board in the early game you will lose pretty much every time, as I'm sure you're aware.
Actually doing that is another thing entirely. Warrior and shaman are statistically your two worst matchups, although interestingly hsreplay says dh is one of the easier matchups. Unfortunately I'm not in the best position to be giving you advice on this particular topic since I've never been higher than D2 with odd pala myself. Of course you should mulligan as aggressively as possible to get as many minions on the board in the early game as possible, but that's fairly standard procedure for odd pala anyway. You could try to switch decks if you feel you're running into pocket aggro metas, but otherwise I would go on hsreplay or to twitch directly and see if you can find any multi legend streamers that are playing the deck. Watch how they play these matchups and try to see if they're doing anything differently than you, and if you find that their strategy is superior to yours you should incorporate said strategy into your own gameplay.
Alternatively, you could try to que another deck like murloc shaman or pirate warrior or secret mage; maybe you'll find that one of these decks is easier for you to play. With that said, an odd pala decklist does appear to have the highest WR in D5-D1 by a fairly significant margin on Hsreplay at the moment. If you aren't playing that particular decklist you could give it a shot. Otherwise you could try to just grind it out. If you're D2, you and the deck are good enough to get legend and it should just be a matter of time.
Thanks for this, good tips. Yeah pirate warriors and murloc sham seem to be the two worst. Odd DH if I can't clear the early stuff they snowball as well but not as bad
As Sevasmios mentioned, pwar and murloc shaman can be tough matchups because they can both snowball out of control quicker than odd pally can react (and for pwar, having cannons out is a real pain in the rear) but yeah, no idea how you lose consistently to odd shaman as, like decks such as odd rogue and kingsbane, it relies very little on board presence and very much on direct face damage...you should be able to simply kill everything they have quickly enough and kill them with your board soon after that. There will be times when the odd dh will have an absolutely nuts draw and you get your baku leeroy and quartermaster in the opening hand but overall that matchup is strongly in odd pala's favour, just mulligan correctly and the rest is up to luck, really.
Yeah will watch some streams but the warrior and sham keep popping up. Even lost to an odd warrior who just kept clearing everything. Then I switched to pirate warriors myself and started winning. Maybe will try out Reno priest
Quick bump here. Thanks for the tips people. Just hit legend w odd paladin. The hardest part is the grind but didn't lose a single game at rank 1 or higher. My last 3 for rank 1 were all Reno priest. Apparently odd paladin wrecks Reno priest (or I got lucky). Bursted them down on lethal turns and refilled board immediately after clears. The secret is to try to use hero power every turn vs priest since it's a value game, loathe b + conviction or +2/+2 5 drop + conviction or +1 damage horse guy + conviction = 15-20 damage burst turns. Used tempo storm mulligan guide which helped.
I've been trying out odd paladin at rank D2 and getting smoked. About 50/50 maybe less.
What I don't understand is how to maintain board control vs. Decks like pirate warriors, odd DH, murloc sham, etc. Have to clear their minions so they don't snowball but the 1/1 recruits aren't big enough to clear and hold board. And once behind on board none of the synergy works. Are these just bad match ups or am I missing something?
I've considered ignoring and going face but then the murloc buff spells or pirate buffs/cannons will eat you
Generally speaking you want to retain board control at all costs against aggro decks like the ones you described when you're playing odd pala unless you have lethal in your hand or on board and you're completely confident your opponent won't be able to remove your threats in time to prevent you from winning the game. Obviously you should employ some common sense regarding this rule: you're not going to have to trade if you have 6 buffed 3/3 recruits and your opponent has 1 1/2 pirate on the board. With that said, if you can't keep control of the board in the early game you will lose pretty much every time, as I'm sure you're aware.
Actually doing that is another thing entirely. Warrior and shaman are statistically your two worst matchups, although interestingly hsreplay says dh is one of the easier matchups. Unfortunately I'm not in the best position to be giving you advice on this particular topic since I've never been higher than D2 with odd pala myself. Of course you should mulligan as aggressively as possible to get as many minions on the board in the early game as possible, but that's fairly standard procedure for odd pala anyway. You could try to switch decks if you feel you're running into pocket aggro metas, but otherwise I would go on hsreplay or to twitch directly and see if you can find any multi legend streamers that are playing the deck. Watch how they play these matchups and try to see if they're doing anything differently than you, and if you find that their strategy is superior to yours you should incorporate said strategy into your own gameplay.
Alternatively, you could try to que another deck like murloc shaman or pirate warrior or secret mage; maybe you'll find that one of these decks is easier for you to play. With that said, an odd pala decklist does appear to have the highest WR in D5-D1 by a fairly significant margin on Hsreplay at the moment. If you aren't playing that particular decklist you could give it a shot. Otherwise you could try to just grind it out. If you're D2, you and the deck are good enough to get legend and it should just be a matter of time.
As Sevasmios mentioned, pwar and murloc shaman can be tough matchups because they can both snowball out of control quicker than odd pally can react (and for pwar, having cannons out is a real pain in the rear) but yeah, no idea how you lose consistently to odd shaman as, like decks such as odd rogue and kingsbane, it relies very little on board presence and very much on direct face damage...you should be able to simply kill everything they have quickly enough and kill them with your board soon after that. There will be times when the odd dh will have an absolutely nuts draw and you get your baku leeroy and quartermaster in the opening hand but overall that matchup is strongly in odd pala's favour, just mulligan correctly and the rest is up to luck, really.
Thanks for this, good tips. Yeah pirate warriors and murloc sham seem to be the two worst. Odd DH if I can't clear the early stuff they snowball as well but not as bad
Yeah will watch some streams but the warrior and sham keep popping up. Even lost to an odd warrior who just kept clearing everything. Then I switched to pirate warriors myself and started winning. Maybe will try out Reno priest
Quick bump here. Thanks for the tips people. Just hit legend w odd paladin. The hardest part is the grind but didn't lose a single game at rank 1 or higher. My last 3 for rank 1 were all Reno priest. Apparently odd paladin wrecks Reno priest (or I got lucky). Bursted them down on lethal turns and refilled board immediately after clears. The secret is to try to use hero power every turn vs priest since it's a value game, loathe b + conviction or +2/+2 5 drop + conviction or +1 damage horse guy + conviction = 15-20 damage burst turns. Used tempo storm mulligan guide which helped.
https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/decks/odd-paladin-wild-meta-snapshot-jun-22-2021
Congrats!