Hearthpwn

Fighter-Cleric-Fisherman-Engineer-Dragonrider-Pirate(remember Wickerflame?)-Murloc-Archaeologist-Mummy Man. Paladin is just the side job.

Quote from Sebzero >>

Actually the real "paladins" or rather said templars were involved with mysticism, forbidden knowledge about the universe and had alot of secrets that still have to be uncovered. 

Templars themself were a secret organisation, with alot of secrets in their own ranks and towards society. 

In class identity, paladins using secrets, makes alot of sense!

 That's not Paladins in WOW though.

There's no "secret" sects in WOW Paladin. By which I mean, they don't share secret, hidden knowledge.

I also hate the "Paladins are White/Red from MTG" argument. This is HS, not MTG. In some aspects they can be similar. Doesn't mean they have to be exactly the same. They should follow the imagery from WOW. And yes, that does include minion swarm. It doesn't mean only minion swarm.

Yeah, Secrets don't fit thematically at all. From a flavour perspective it doesn't fit. From a balance perspective, it's rare that you actually want to put them in your deck - they're often not worth the card slot.

I feel like the Paladin identity as defined by Blizz (in terms of the traits laid out instead of the image of the class) just shuts down any control possibilities whatsoever as well. Not having any direct removal is a choker for the class. It's also completely weird card draw isn't listed as a weakness given that they are hesitant to add good, non-conditional card draw for the class.

In fact the Paladin basic card pool is straight trash. They nerfed Equality to the ground, so that's crap now; once you take that out, the real staples in the basic pool are Truesilver, Blessing of Kings, Tirion (maybe) and Consecration (maybe). Honestly as the power level of cards has gone up generally, Tirion has gone from a game-ender to a decently strong minion, Consecration is just mediocre and the only reason we're using it is because they haven't seen fit to give us anything else. Like, the Paladin basic card pool basically revolves around minion combat, having things on the board which you can then take advantage of and taking value trades with them. And that's fine, but the massive amount of mana/tempo cheating in the game rn and the amount of removals and clears there are and minions rarely live for a turn, if that. So many of the tools that Paladin has are so dependent on having something live that the strengths of the Paladin class aren't able to be used properly. They need to start giving proper removals, clears, draws, Rush minions.

Some good points being made in this thread. Couple of points to make:

- Alex is not Discover, and she can "go wrong" (in the sense of not providing much value) - like if she gave you a couple of Fairie Dragons, yeah that's still a 2 mana discount on each but not really worth putting in a deck then. I would argue Alex is mana cheating, not Discover, and if you wanted to criticize the card I guess you could say that the value generation is too strong (pulling from a strong tribe) and the mana cheating potential (of potentially playing 27~30 mana's worth of stuff for 9 mana) is overbearing. (You could make an argument about N'Zoth here, but I think N'Zoth and Alex are very different because in N'Zoth you know exactly what's going to be summoned whereas in the case of Alex you don't. And sometimes the cards that Alex summons can literally flip games, like getting a 0 cost Nozari when you are low, etc.)

- I'm drawing from VS stats here but afaik Galakrond Rogue and Hunter archetypes are still among the most popular, which rely on mana cheating and Discover a lot. Judging by Vicious' stats, add Dragon/Highlander Hunter and Galakrond/Highlander Rogue, plus Highlander Mage, and you get about 40% of the playerbase.

-You can't call Resurrect Priest non-RNG based, early pulls from Res effects have a huge impact on what gets drawn. If you pull something shitty in the early pulls (like Psychopomp) you have an increased chance to pull shitty pulls in your Mass Res pulls. Or a couple of Albatross token pulls in your Mass Res pulls can really swing the game. Or maybe you ended up pulling Vargoth in your Res pull in the late game, and you manage to double dip on the Res value.

Bit of a necro here (a week ago) but some of these opinions are really flawed.

1. Shirvallah OTK is a good control deck.

It's not been a good deck in the latest expansion. I don't play anymore because I got tired of the forced minion swarm after minion swarm that Blizz have been pushing for Pala nonstop, but I check Vicious Syndicate every week, I also watch a few HS streamers that are pro and play in Legend. Not seen a Paladin deck. If they do appear, they're mostly Mech Pala.

Second point, and more importantly, Shirvallah OTK imo isn't a control deck, which has value threats in the late game that must be answered. It's more of a straight combo deck, a la Freeze Mage or Worgen OTK. It has no threats whatsoever in its entire decklist, everything is just working towards its endgame combo. 

2. "Why should Paladin have the only 4 mana board clear? It is unfair!" (And related comparisons to other cards)

First of all, you should know that you cannot directly compare cards between classes. Why then does Warrior have permanent (in the context of cards like Naturalize or Sap, which are temporary removal) single target removal for 2 mana when every other class that has hard removal has it for 4? I believe this also answers the commenter who compared it to Hunter's Mark, which by the way is laughable - comparing it to Hunter of all classes - Hunter has Veranus, which is a vanilla statted minion that casts Equality on only the opposing minions, which is just stupid. Hunter's Mark also is targeted, not AoE - by which I should point out that Hunter's Mark hits only the minion you wanted it to hit, Equality hits every minion on the board, which includes your own, which makes it worse in some respects than Hunter's Mark, considering you can't just throw it out on something and continue to build a board. You have to commit to the board wipe fully, reset the entire board, and rebuild your own board.

Second, for the person who said you retain your board - this is just flat out incorrect. By the terms of the card(set the health of all minions to 1), you either wipe (if you are using the Wild Pyro+Equality combo) or at least weaken (If you Equality+Consecration) your board, making it easier for your opponent to clear your board as well. So no, you don't retain your board, unless your board was full of 1 health minions in the first place, in which case, the opponent should have no problem clearing your board anyway, with any kind of ping effect, or any Rush minions etc.

Lastly, you forgot to mention that this "board wipe" is also pretty limited - by divine shields, by aura effects, by the fact that it requires two cards combo'd together, not a single card, thus making it lack consistency (my biggest gripe with the card), which, considering it's the only board clear that Paladin has (because let's face it, two damage these days isn't even sufficient to clear aggro deck boards most of the time) is annoying as hell (you should try looking at opposing boards with no Consecrate and two copies of Equality. Seriously, it's frustrating as hell.). 

3. Paladin is not a control class.

Incorrect. I've been playing since before TGT, and Midrange Paladin was the go-to back in the day. However, back then the border between control and midrange was a lot more blurry, because you didn't have as many late game catds and powerful cards available for anyone. So in those days, even Control Warrior ran stuff like Dr. Boom, Sylvanas, Ragnaros, Baron Geddon, Deathwing, in addition to the Alex/Grom combo. In those days Paladin ran a midrange list, but was pretty top heavy as well, running Tirion, Dr. Boom, Rag, Sylvanas, Lay on Hands. And as a matter of fact, Paladin was always the "getting small incremental advantages and slowly snowballing them" class back then. Control fits well here, grinding out advantages little by little. For the same reason I absolutely despise Combo decks when playing Paladin, but Blizz seem happy to push it for whatever reason that escapes me. 

During the Old Gods expansion there was a brief moment where N'Zoth Heal Control Paladin also came a meta deck for a while.

Personally the class I find most ahistorical right now is Hunter, who has recently had a bunch of really good control cards and late game value cards despite never really having had those tools in the past. That's not to say Hunter can't be a control class, simply that "it's not been a control class before," even if it were correct (which it is not), isn't even a valid argument.

4. Basic/Classic cards shouldn't be an automatic include.

They wouldn't be, if Blizz actually printed good removal and board clear for the class. Unfortunately Blizz haven't even really tried to print good board clear for Paladin. They print gimmicky shit that would never see play in just about any class. They printed "Worse Brawl that costs 1 more mana" and "more expensive Equality that casts Humility but what the hell does that matter if you're gonna cast Consecration in the same turn" and....that's about it. 

I've quit for a long time because of the state of Paladin, I really really wanted a Control Paladin to work (not otk), unfortunately this hasn't been the case for 2 years.

Here are some things missing from the class imo.

1. Efficient removal:

Whether it's single target or AoE, Paladin's removal options are pitiful. Paladin removal (single target) takes the form of stat manipulation(Aldor/Humility/Subdue/Equality/Shrink Ray)or weapons(mostly just Truesilver). Stat manipulation is inefficient as removal for the Paladin class because direct damage is almost non-existent in the class, therefore you end up having to hit minions yourself with your weapon or with a minion on the board. The problem is that as a Control deck you are often behind on tempo, meaning that having a minion on the board is difficult. If you don't remove the minion straightaway after using your removal on it, keep in mind it can still be bounced to hand or hidden behind a Taunt minion. This is especially problematic in the case of minions with special effects (ongoing effects, start/end of turn effects). 

With weapons, Truesilver is really good, efficient removal early, but falls off hard in the mid~late game since it is unable to help against high-health minions (anything 5 health and above is impossible to deal with).

With AoE even before the Equality nerf one of the problems was that all AoEs effect your side of the board symmetrically, which made it more difficult to build a board (which, in the absence of single target removal, Paladin has to rely on for board control). After the Equality nerf there is a dearth of mana/card efficient AoE (as all AoEs require comboing with Consecration/Wild Pyro). Cards like Veranus being given to other classes is a joke.

2. Card draw (?)

I think this might have changed now, but my opinion of Paladin draw cards are that they are consistently limited. Cards like Lay on Hands are too expensive for what they do and the others are limited in ways that make it unfavourable for a Control deck to play them. This might be different now, though, since I haven't played for quite a while, with neutral draw options like Big Ol' Whelp, and cards like Crystology being buffed to 1 mana (still think you wouldn't really want to put Crystology, at least two copies of it, in a control deck).

3. Lategame

This is one of the big things, but Paladin simply does not have a lategame value bomb like other classes do. If you want to just hang on until late game, Paladin can do that decently, but once you get there, what are you gonna do? Play Tirion and...hope it doesn't get answered? Meanwhile, other classes are playing Galakrond and other late game infinite value cards, or finshing the game with cards like Dinotamer Brann and other finisher cards. Paladin has no finisher (no direct damage, bar the highly inconsistent (in a normal deck) Holy Wrath), nor does it have a lategame value card, so it struggles to compete in the late game.

4. Midgame tempo 

Personal feeling this, but I kinda feel like on 1 and 2 you had some really good cards you could throw out to gain tempo. From 3~6ish however, the class minions you have access to are badly statted and don't stick. You look at cards like Rotnest Drake which are obscenely powerful as a tempo tool, in the meantime Paladin gets a mixed bag of stuff that is usually bad on tempo despite a heavy reliance on tempo (despite Blizzard purposely making it ao that Paladin's reliance on board is the greatest out of all classes by flat out refusing to print removal). Whoever printed the Saviours of Uldum cards, by the way, needs to get fired - that expansion might as well not exist.

There are no Rush cards or anything really that helps you come back on the board that can be thrown out on curve. The only Rush minion in the class that I can even think of was severely overcosted (5 mana 3/4 rush, Divine Shield). Everything is throw something on the board, hope it sticks, then try to get a value trade off. This was less of a problem in the old days but in todays' game where you have Rogues using up to 80 mana a turn (maximum - 7 for Gala, 3 for Togwaggle wand, 7 cards for 0 mana that can cost up to 10 mana apiece), Druids using effectively two cards at the cost of one every turn after they complete quest, Hunters with incredibly efficient minions, etc, this passive board building strategy rarely works. This is also the same problem with the existing Paladin removals - they presuppose that you have a minion on the board to trade with, when in fact minions rarely last longer than the turn you play them. How is Paladin supposed to build and maintain boards when minions don't last past the turn they're played, unless they are extremely mediocre tempo plays? The tools are only for snowballing a board, not taking it back.

From this expansion specifically there were a lot of questionable cards, Sand Breath and Amber Watcher/Bronze Explorer/Nozdormu the Timeless don't fit (Sand Breath is great as a tempo tool, but lacks value to fit in a lategame deck which both of the class dragons want to get to - goes back to problem 3 as well. What are you gonna actually play in the late game that's worth playing?), not enough Pure Paladin removal cards to play late game with a Pure deck (Lightforged Zealot probably can see play in a more aggressive Pure Paladin deck if such a deck works), a bunch of swarm cards (the only archetype Blizz is actually pushing enough to get played)...

Obviously, this is just my opinion, feel free to disagree

There's no one true Paladin deck archetype. Aggro is a mainstay, has been since launch (Divine Shield swarm decks have been around for a long time and cards like the now HoF'd Divine Favour are evidence of that).

Midrange has also been around for a long time and historically probably the most common and most successful. Secret Paladin was the most successful example of that, but the more iconic one was probably the version that ran midrange minions (Sylvanas, Tirion, Boom, Piloted Shredder) along with things like Quartermaster.

Combo has also sometimes cropped up in the class. Anyfin, DK Uther OTK and the current Holy Wrath OTK decks are an example. That said due to extremely limited direct damage in the class this is probably the most foreign one.

Control? Also not really alien. We had one decent attempt at it during N'Zoth but cards that heal are a hint that control is an archetype Paladin could play, going for the long game rather than going for tempo. Lay on Hands is a great example (albeit dated). Also I would argue that in those days any kind of slow midrange deck effectively was classified as control at the time, since the consistent value generation you see in some of the DKs and the hero cards like Dr. Boom, Mad Genius simply did not exist and so you ended up striking a balance on the question of "how much late game stuff can I cram into my deck without dying to aggro?" - Control Warrior ended up running things like Dr. Boom, the Alex/Grom combo, Sylvanas, Geddon, Rag, etc - by today's standards this would be a slow midrange deck.

Unfortunately Blizz will never release this archetype for Paladin anymore because of their fixation on minion swarming and secrets as "part of the class identity." They never give Paladin the removal nor the consistent late game value cards, the resource generation(this is a big one, card generation being awful when you're forced to run two cards for one boardclear meaning you fundamentally don't have as much resources as other classes do is awful), necessary for Control to work. 

Whatever the deck archetype is you need to build a singleton deck for this to see play, don't think we have the cardpool in Standard right now for viable Control or Aggro decks for Paladin right now. Control probably does not want the added risk of an RNG hero power it has no idea how to work with. With aggro while it's feasible in principle I'm skeptical that the cardpool is there - you'd just be building a worse Zoo at that point as far as I can imagine and the deck needs to hold its own without drawing Finley. You can have successful singleton decks (I played a Reno/DK Guldan Demon Zoo deck back in the day) but they need a big cardpool of synergistic cards.

Quote from SparkyFlame >>

I like this card and you know what I think that many are underestimating it as this will also add reborn to any magnetised minion 

everybody crying for the quest failing to understand that this was designed for the mech archetype and is a very powerful addition as mech pala is already a solid deck

cute design and a hell of a sleeper 

 Reborn doesn't retain magnetized, there is no reason to think so. Unless it specifically says that the card retains enchantments after dying. When this dies with something magnetized to it, this card will just be Reborn as a 1/1.

Overall it is an okay card but nothing spectacular. Might see experimentation in mech aggro decks or flood decks.

Compared to Vex Crow or Violet Teacher this is more powerful (stats and effect) and easier to activate in return for a slight downside, but Zoolock wants to start tapping when they start running dry anyway. Zoo will love this. Control Warlock has better things to do than summon a random 3 drop.

I actually agree with Jonesy - it's confusing.

Keep in mind I'm probably biased because my line of thought whenever I see a Murloc in Paladin is GET THE MURLOCS AWAY FROM MY PALADIN BLIZZARD ever since Blizz started actually pushing Murlocs in Paladin.

And okay, they could actually push out a few more Murloc cards and that "could" make this good because obviously in an ideal world, and leaving aside my hatred of Murlocs in Paladin with gritted teeth, the card is very obviously insane. 8 mana for Recruit 7 cards. Assuming the average Murloc is about 2 mana's worth you break even if you pull 4. If you're actually going to put this in your deck you're going to put quite a few Murlocs in there, it'll probably pull 6+ Murlocs reliably, I'd reckon, at least the first time you play it. Obviously there are problems like the complete lack of midgame options that are Murloc, meaning it is pretty draw reliant (e.g. if you end up drawing a bunch of low value Murlocs in the midgame, could fall behind too quickly, and coming back from a losing board is one thing Paladin traditionally struggles at due to bad removal options).

So far though whether it'll actually be a thing is an unknown quantity. I can think of two Murloc cards they've printed so far that could be used in Paladin - Fishflinger and (new) Finley (edit: forgot about Murmy); both of them are okay cards in a vacuum, Fishflinger is kinda eh and Finley...is not really something you want to put in a deck that runs this card, I'd imagine, since I doubt there are enough (good) Murlocs in Standard to make this card work.

The second option people have been speculating is running a bunch of Murlocs, this, and then trying to activate the Shirvallah Holy Wrath combo.  Personally I doubt that works, because you're putting a bunch of very low value (even the good Murlocs) cards in a deck and hoping a little too much to luck into Tip the Scales on 8 - in other words, Yes Paladin would have been consistent if this worked; difference between this and CtA lies in the fact that Paladin combo/control decks that ran CtA in the past ran it with a bunch of defensive minions - Doomsayers, 1/1 Divine Shield Taunts, you could stretch it and say Wild Pyro was defensive if you're thinking about Equality/Shrink Ray combos and that allowed you to stall out the game or get ahead on tempo whereas with this...when's the last time you've seen a Murloc that has Taunt? Never, so far as I know. Now they "could" break that trend, go crazy and start printing Murlocs with Taunt and Divine Shield or Murlocs that passively damage your opponents' non-Murloc minions or something, but I doubt it. And if you don't have to defend and can reliably out-tempo opposing decks with this single card and stuffing a bunch of Murlocs in your deck then I don't really see why you'd actually be using the OTK in the first place because you'd be a more successful deck without the OTK components then.

That aside, can I just say how the cards printed by Blizzard have been all over the place for Paladin for a good while now? The themes they push for Pala are really kinda bad imo.

Because if you think Blizz balances around Wild I have a bridge to sell you. They've historically not shown much interest in that to back that claim up. Plus they touched 3 decks and 1 class archetype which have been strong or limiting in Standard for the last 1~2 years? That's why.

Those were good nerfs. I'm surprised people are flipping from "good nerfs" to "Blizz are greedy assholes."(which to be fair they are, but independently of these nerfs)

People talk about synergy cards and nerf by proxy and how X card should get refunded for the synergy nerf as well, but that will just be so many cards to refund when you go along that line and it's totally unrealistic.

On the Grumble vs Chain Gang discussion - perhaps the nerf to Chain Gang was intended as a way of indirectly nerfing Keleseth a little while hitting Shudder? Keleseth has been in every tempo deck since it has been discovered. Removing Chain Gang would be a slight hit to its power as Chain Gang was very powerful as it doubled up on the buffs.

 On Fungalmancer - I don't really see why that card is nerf-worthy.

If we go by the approach some people take in which card reviews are done on potential there is almost no card that we could definitively say is bad unless they are strictly inferior. It's a useless way to rate cards. Like Gurubashi Chicken could conceivably be good with some kind of support card, say. Like some buff that buffs health by 3 and gives it "heals back to full every turn," say, perhaps with an additional buff applying only to 1 attack minions. It becomes a useless stream of "what if this support card was printed in the next few expansions?" 

No one knows what the hell Blizz is going to print; that's why that kind of speculative card review is in my opinion not helpful. There's literally 0 proof that Blizz are going to do ANYTHING to help ANY card. 

The "potential" argument only imo holds any water if all people are trying to do is jam it into existing decks without theorycrafting new decks, because that is how you disregard possible new decks. Ben obviously has, because he seems to believe Control Paladin "will be a thing," while Control Paladin is practically nonexistent in terms of the Constructed meta rn. So no, that criticism isn't right there either.

That over on on that related point, I'm curious why Ben thinks Control Paladin is going to be viable. I see no reason to suggest it will be.

For the next expansion, no. It's gonna be the same old tempo based decks. As far as Pally goes, it just does not have anything to contest the kind of late game value that FLJ or DK Rexxar or BR Guldan or Hadronox can bring. Heal Paladin still lacks that. It's basically Odd Warrior - without Omega Assembly and without Dr Boom. Perhaps worse, because Odd Warrior at least does have Shield Slam, a reliable single target removal. This is why I expect Healadin to be midrangey, although I don't think it will muscle out Even decks. IF it sees play, it will be a few cards in Even Pally.

Even after the DKs rotate out, that actually weakens our current late game plans right now, since the DK was a decent late game removal card if nothing else(also kills off OTK Pally, which was a joke), and Lynessa/Galvadon are gone, plus Tarim. And yes other classes are weakened too, but Warrior still has Boom and Shaman still has Hagatha and it may not be feasible to go up against them.