Hearthpwn

Between Orb, Wand Thief, and Exocation you can find more damage to close out the game fairly consistently. Mask is just a dead draw in the early game where you need small spells to activate combos, damage with firebrand, and removal.

Quote from VanHades21209 >>

I myself got now 5000 Paladin wins and consider myself a Pala main. I am playing wild, not standard, but even in wild you are right. you lack the identity, the fire and the fun. Paladin is nice, I mean there has to be a reason why I main it. And don't mistake me. I love the new quest. I made a very nice controlling reborn deck myself which works pretty decent. But as you said, the class feels clunky. And fuck yeah, no decent card draw at all. I am playing high defensive hardcontroldecks to win against most things. And that's the best I can do as Controldeck in Pala nowadays. But guess what? Every fucking combo deck eats me. Every fucking hardcore aggressive deck eats me. Every value cheating decks freaking eats me. I create my decks myself, I work at them, I make them unique and good. And I am proud of them. BUT I am suffering that much on ladder sometimes I wanna hang myself already. It's so good damn frustrating. The fifth game in follow against quest mage. You already now you are beaten. Then pirate warrior with perfect curve. Then millrouge with 20.000 N'Zoth. It's disgusting. Pala has several problems and thank God, I am not the only ****** who does see this. Thank you for this essay my friend. Highly appreciate it. And no matter what let's keep the Paladin flag high in the wind. I will fight with honor! 

PS: And don't you start playing this cancer mech or murloc shit. Then you abandoned the way of light. 😉

Thanks! And don't worry, I will fight with honor! 

100% agree viability for control is nonexistent. I've been homebrewing a hilarious Recurring Villain paladin deck if you're looking for something fun to try, SoJ and Villain is one of the funniest combo's in the game for me if you're looking for a mess around deck

Quote from senkinbog >>

You are 100% right OP, but I also think that Paladins basic/classic cards are the weakest in the game, only truesilver and consecration is decent, and I think it is also part of the problem 

 God I didn't even talk about the basic and classic set at length but you are so right. Secrets, weird small buffs, that god awful DS card they replaced divine favor with? 

Quote from Skyi101 >>

I didn't read the whole wall. I'll say this though...

Palladian has been to the mountain top, it's consistently in meta even if not tier 1, libram paladin is currently a thing (and I run 17-2 with a homebrew variant d5-legendary and remain over 70% with it after another 40+ games in legend - most of my loses to curved agro DH no less).

Also, 3000 wins and don't know how to counter. So you know the class, but not the game. A lot of players do not realize that the majority of knowledge in making winning plays lies outside know their prefered class... Rather knowing the opponents deck and strategy and playing to counter it.

Lastly, libram paladin is in a very good spot and the new expansion cards offer a lot of support to make it stronger. So while not mind blowing this expansion makes an already META deck stronger.

I think OP you need to learn the game mostly, just not the class. And given your knowledge on AOE and board removals, paladin is one of the better classes for board control/removal and got additional support - even if it requires 2 cards. Clear board and gain tempo for 2 cards is pretty damn good. Or build a 10/1 wild pyromancer board clear with a hand of 0mana librams. There's always been options and still are in paladin.

Pretty short sighted to call a class dead. 

Pretty inflammatory comment for not even reading the post. 

Again the class isn't BAD in terms if winrates. It can win. It's bad in terms of design, for the reasons I went into. The support cards this expansion are FINE, but it's more of the same, nothing to shore up the glaring flaws in the class. I said it above but 2 Card maybe clear the board if not sticky minions exist is OK with draw to support it, but there's no draw at all. Also, Pyro can't be played in Pure, the only viable non-aggro paladin list.

I made this thread for real feedback, there's no need to throw insults. 

Welp here comes the feedback, ill try to respond to people I see

The title says it all. I just hit 3000 wins with Paladin, and I can say unequivocally that it is the worst designed class in the game, possibly in any card game I've ever played.  This latest card reveals stream solidified it in my mind that Blizzard has no idea what they're doing when it comes to designing the class, and doesn't care. 

Don't mistake this for a 'paladin is bad' thread, HS replay shows that paladin has several competitive decks. What Paladin doesn't have is healthy, fun decks, both to play and to play against. There are several main drawbacks to the class: No card draw, no good aoe, no good way to leverage a good board state, and no win conditions. In this I will go over the major drawbacks of the class, and what needs to change going forward. Apologies if this gets a bit rant-y at times. 

And again, I'm not saying the class hasn't had success in the past. But it's success was in large part through unfun and toxic strategies 

1. The Draw Problem.

Every game is draw dependant in Paladin, more so than any other class in I believe any other card game, period. They have little to no efficient card advantage, either from draw or other generation effects. This is compounded by the fact that paladin has no 1 card board clear outside of 4 mana deal 2 to all, a classic card that has been power crept out by the meta years ago. Their removal is based on card combos, which is had to do when the class has 0 card draw to get to these removal peices. Historically, that meant shoring up the board clear spot with WIld Pyromancer, but now the only real viable paldin archetype is pure, leaving no room for Pyro to help clear. And when they do hit the equality/libram combo, the removal is less efficient being a 2 for X, and there's no way to restock your hand safely. 7 mana 7/7 generate 5 cards, maybe 3 of them decent, with no direct damage or cheap rush/taunts? 3 mana 3/1 draw 2 bad cards from your deck when it dies? 7 mana 4/6 Get a bunch of buff spells in your hand?  All of these options are slow, clunky, or bad, forcing paladin to run high value minions to try and keep up tempo on board and get efficient trades. However, in control decks that leaves their hands far too full of removal combos and large minions to do anything with the bizarre generation effects they do have access to. You can;t get 5 random cards in hand or a hand full of 0 mana 8/8's when you have 2 card board clears in had you're saving for a swing turn. In short, Paladin needs more efficient boardclears, a buff to the clears they already have, and a way to get cards that's in theme for the class. Comparing Paladin to the White color in Magic the Gathering, the developers of that game have admitted that card draw is too important a mechanic to leave out of one class entirely, and the same is true here. 

2. Identity Crisis and Lack of care from Blizzard

Divine Shield. Murlocs. Minion Buffs. Handbuffs. Secrets. Big Spells. Healing. Dragons. Reborn. Librams. Pure. Silver hand Recruit. Big minions. 1 Heath minions. Mechs, both small and big magnetic. 2 different OtK decks.

The most telling part of all of this isn't the multitude of archtypes, it is the lack of support from expansion to expansion. Oh so we're doing secrets now? ok, lets o- oh nevermind no good secrets and no refill because Divine Favor is baned. Oh ok, so we're doing a buff theme? great we have plenty of- Oh the quest is slow garbage with an easily removable payoff and we got no more support cards for it? Alright, at least this even deck seems midrange and fun- oh it's the best card was nerfed? cool, how about Reborn? Little out of theme but cool card generation and- oh the best card for the deck rotated and we got 1 new reborn minion in the last 3 expansions? Awesome, how about Handbuffs? make things big and- oh I'm dead already because I played a low tempo game and got cleared when I did finally get my big card out? Alright, how about healing? We use weapons, we can leverage- Oh 0 good cards for healing payoffs, and a deck that only work if you draw 1 legendary and the rest of the deck perfectly? Nice. But what about Dragons. Dragons are big and cool and- Oh I got brawl'd and killed by Dr. Boom value from the hero power, and I can't play anything good till turn 6? nice. Librams are a great new tool though! Few more of those and- oh 0 new libram cards this expansion? Ok. But 1 health minions, now there's where it's at! Fast-paced, tempo draw, with- oh no more 1 health synergy payoff cards printed since? Ok, silver hand recruits can be good! Lets just- oh the buffs are spread out over 3 different expansion blocks and we can't play them in standard? Ok, how about big paladin! Big, meaty cards with duel and- Oh, 0 good payoff cards, 100% draw dependant, super expensive cards that clog your hand, and the opponent kill the card immediately getting a 2 for 1 leaving you even further behind, AND I can't play small minions to stabalize? But come on Pure is gonna be great! Thematic and- oh only 2 supporting cards in 3 expansions, and makes it so you can't run Wild pyromancer? Big MEchas are cool though! Kangors to being back monsters and- Oh the best magnetic cards summon 1/1 tokens that take up resurrect spots, and the only payoff card is 1 legendary spell? Otk is pretty fun, lets try- oh, both types lose to every aggressive deck and was inconsistent as hell? for Ok, so what do we have? 

Oh but we found some Murlocs in the corner you can keep, some aggro zoo mechs on the side. He're the most universally hated deck in the game ever, Odd paladin! So easy a monkey can play it. Oh you want something actually fun? Well, just for you, here's a vanilla 6 mana 4/9 with lifesteal for the area, and an unplayable, 7 mana, even worse Duel to get it out with! Not like we printed a card that ignores taunt or anything. Oh and if you're thinking about saving up cards to play these expensive "bombs", don't worry, because demon hunter will force you down to 4 cards anyways while they draw 4! A better Divine favor! You remember Divine Favor right? The best card you had, and the only card draw in the entire base set, that we banned because it was 'too strong'? Good times. Oh, got to go, We've giving mage 10000 spell damage cards to kill you from 30 and Druid infinite mana, enjoy your 8 mana 3/9 maybe kill 1 minion. 

This has been said, but the class has 0 identity, 0 support across expansions, and is the last thing Blizzard thinks about every expansion, cobbling together something to fill the card slots. I mean NO librams this expansion? No pure support, I'm not counting OK cards in the class as 'support', I mean payoff cards? None? No card draw, no aoe, hell at least they stopped printing secrets that wasted dust.

The only viable lists have been unfun, toxic aggro decks like 1 drop mech, Murloc, and Odd, braindead strategies that feel bad to play and bad to play against because of their draw dependence. Rare exceptions like Un'goro Silver hand paladin and GvG Midrange existed in the past, proving that the class CAN be fun, but the good decks were far and few between. 

This biggest issue with the class isn't it cards, but the fact that Blizzard just flat out doesn't care about Paladin. It's like mainstream media, the class isn't 'sexy' like mage, priest or rouge, who do fun, random, wacky things, wow so cool! Fast-paced, damage, steal your opponent's stuff! Random spells, random minions gogogogo, Playing Paladin is like watching C-Span, boring, and not with the time or thought of the dev team. I can list a million examples. I mean for one, why in the hell did warrior get Restless Mummy instead of Paladin? It fits paladin and reborn so, so much better, and would have gone a long way to making the class much more fun to play. And maybe this one is just me, but why the HELL did paladin get Making Mummies instead of the priest quest? I mean healing a bunch and buffing minions is a PALADIN thing and playing with copies is a PRIEST thing, what gives? Why waste card slots every expansion before these last few with garbage secrets, when 0 paladin decks ran them in the first place? But again, blizzard doesn't care. Hell, Paladin and Druid are the only classes to not get a Hero card since KNIGHTS OF THE FROZEN THRONE. IN 2017. Lord knows druid does enough broken things to get late game value, but the sheer hatred the Dev team shows the paladin class is astounding, and these new reveals really showed that. Druid gets a card that can refill 10 mana and kill you in 1 turn, pre-nerf innervate, DH can draw infinitely, Warrior can clear the board with one weapon swing, hunter has a million and a half ways to kill minions, mage gets more AoE and spell damage synergy, Warlock gets massive new tempo and healing options, Priest gets even more broken resurrect combo's, Rouge gets a 1 mana draw 5, Shaman casts infinite spells, and paladin....plays a 6 mana 4/9 lifesteal. Kills 1 big thing on board for 8. 4 mana 4/2 maybe 2 divine shields. gets 2 1 drops in hand. Gets a guy out for 7 mana with some keywords that gets 2 for 1'd by every removal spell in the game. 5 mana buff a guy and get 2 for 1'd, again. 

The class fodder for other decks and classes to pad their win rates against or get mad at for the degeneracy of play. I'm convinced the people who make paladin cards aren't shown what other classes are getting every expansion, the power level isn't even close to comparable. I spend my whole game getting a few 0 mana 8/8 taunt divine shields? Priest kills them all with 1 of 70 cards they have to kill big minions. Then generates a million more with galakrond. Or steals your cards and plays a better paladin deck than you. Rouge saps them, togwaggles gigantic threats over and over again, till you run out of cards. Demon hunter, forget it, you're dead long before you get to play any of them, and they'd ignore your taunts anyways, with efficient removal and insane pressure every turn. Or a shaman snowballs a totem in the early game because you have 0 removal spells and you effectively lose by turn 4. Warlock laughs in your face clears your board and had a full hand to beat you down with every game. Mage freezes them all and kills you with Zepher and face damage from spells. 

And paladin got a 6 mana 4/9. 

The thing is, paladin got 2 buffs to their cards this expansion, and they missed the mark HARD. Both did nothing to fix the underlying issues of the class, so they know something is wrong but somehow can't see what to fix. They nerfed equality, thinking that they could add better AoE options to the class, then they preceded to add 0 since that nerf. They took away divine favor and added 0 draw back to the class.

Every class has a weakness. Druid can't deal with big minions, Hunter can't restock their hand easily, rouge lacks healing. Paladin lacks card advantage, AoE, tempo, and late-game finishers. The only thing they're decent at is hyper aggression to offset lack of draw, and out healing face damage. 

3. Conclusion

The class needs good card generation and AoE. Hell change the cards before this expansion drops, I don't care But don't sit there and give us a crappy duel deck that's another random archtype and think it can in any way keep up with the crazy crap you've given other classes. The class needs a rework to takeaways the secrets and replace them will divine shield synergy and Aoe. Play into the divine shield ability for resource generation like Blood Knight for card draw, rush divine shield minions to take better trades, anything decent that lets paladin set the pace of the game. Maybe deal damage for every divine shield you pop, a libram that gives divine shield and deals damage to all minions, anything to solidify a real identity with the class. 

Please let me know any thoughts you have about this, I'm seriously getting tired of Blizzard ignoring the issue and leaving paladin out in the cold. 

Just wait for Genn and Baku to rotate out and then change it to 3 mana to avoid odd paladin from using it

This is 100000000% what paladin needed, it was so close to having late game endless potential with Val'anyr but not quite enough, 2 of these in a deck let you go to a much later game then paladin would have been able to before, and I love it

This is the single best non legendary minion ever printed for paladin outside the basic cards. this is INSANE. I have 2,500 wins with the paladin class, and control archtype, and what the class needed for the longest time was a second set of equalities for wild pyro and concecration cOmbo's. this could have been 6 mana and it would have been busted. its equality and sunkeeper tarrim and aldor rolled into one card and I love it, THANK YOU BLIZZ :D

1 Attack in the early game counts for a lot against aggro, which is the only matchup this card is remotely viable against in theory.

Unfortunately useless against control, horrible against combo, and bad against aggro due to its low stats. It's not even a mech that you can magnetize onto. Healing is a notoriously BAD mechanic for Paladin, as they cannot self damage enough efficiently to make use of the synergy. This is the second clunky legendary focused on healing in a row, and it will see just as little play as Glass Knight imo. At most its what, a firefly that heals you for 4 maximum by itslef? We need to see more support for this to work, and I'm praying we DON'T. Drop healadin blizzard, the archetype AUTO LOSES against 2/3 of the meta. Stick to secrets and divine shield, maybe this new Mech thing

Marsh Drake to me is too unreliable to kill off the 2/1, so I'd recommend throwing in two copies of Nightmare Amalgam instead, better buff targets with blessing of kings, which as a minion focused deck this should also include I'd say of consecration. Overall, a fun deck design, you'll see me tearing up the rank 5 no star meta with this one 

Can y'all just let paladin be in the spotlight for a while? Shaman was busted, preist was busted, paladin hasn't been "busted" since TgT really, despite what people say about murloc paladin last rotation it was just decent compared to the levels of bs we see from cubelock and saw from raza preist, or god forbid face shaman. Just...just let me have this ok?!? 

Honestly, I'd be fine with making the battlecry summon random demons that cost 3/4/5 or more, lower burst consistency and it gets worse with every expansion with new demons. The hero power is supposed to be good, not like it holds a candle to Frost Litch Jaina for late game-ending potential. The problem is it's 2 finisher cards in 1, if you burn resources dealing with the demons you won't outlive the hero power, and if you push damage the demons will just kill you, 

Isn't this just a slight variation of the "Hand Druid DOES have legs!" Deck that's been on the top 6 list for like a week now? 0.0