SpaceMonkey’s Secret Paladin Deck List Guide (August 2016, Season 29)

Secret Paladin has been a sneaky good deck that has floated around the ladder in Standard. SpaceMonkey got to Legend for the first time with this list, and has been kind enough to allow us to re-host this guide! Check out his Twitch and Twitter!

Overview

Over the last 2 seasons I’ve put in about 400 games with varying versions of this deck. This deck is a blast to play. The general gameplan is to have control over the board with your sticky minions, weapons, and spells and then find a win condition. You win by aggro-ing out, Tirion Fordring, Avenging Wrath surprise face burst, Leeroy Jenkins, weapons-to-face, or Blessing+chargers. Some games I even won by casting 2 Consecrations for the final 4 damage to face. The deck is generally 50/50 even against its worst matchups, which makes it less volatile than something like Hunter (some great matchups, some awful matchups). This deck always has a chance to win and if you lose you can oftentimes easily pinpoint where you made a mistake or what cards you should have played around.

Proof of Legend: http://imgur.com/kpgUkHr

Synergies

• Argent Squire + The Coin + Rallying Blade is pretty much your strongest opener.
• Rallying Blade + Argent Squire/Argent Horserider/Silent Knight are pretty silly together. In a lot of matchups you want to keep your divine shields intact to make your opponent’s life harder and you want your minions to have more than 1 hp quite often.
• Dragon Egg + Abusive Sergeant is a great opener if you expect your opponent is likely to have a 1 drop
• Dragon Egg + Abusive Sergeant/Keeper of Uldaman/Blessing of Kings/Competitive Spirit can be degenerate. It invalidates a lot of your opponent’s removal plans (Ravaging Ghoul, Swipe, Lightning Storm, Maelstrom Portal, Fan of Knives). Dragon Egg has been a house largely by preventing your opponent from using their cards optimally. I’m pretty sure a lot of people get too focused on the egg and misplay around it.
• Redemption + Divine Shield Minions/the Barnes copy. If you sadly draw redemption you can still find creative uses for it. Playing it (or Comp. Spirit for that matter) alone will make your opponent make bad plays thinking they’re playing around Noble Sacrifice. Redemption is also very strong if you can force your opponent to have to kill one of your divine shield minions (make it a threat with blessing, etc). It should also be noted that if Barnes pulls a 1/1 mysterious challenger for instance that if redemption triggers off that guy dying he will return as a 6/1.
• Leeroy Jenkins + Consecration is a hilarious play that you can make if the game actually reaches this point. Pretty much the only time I’ve ever been able to attack twice with Leeroy.
• Leeroy Jenkins + Blessing of Kings is a pretty gnarly 10 damage burst. Generally if I draw Leeroy I don’t really want to play him until the turn I’m going to win. Blessing I would normally have already used, so this situation only really comes up if the game is going late and I’m trying to rely on surprise.

Mulligans

Always keep Argent Squire, Dragon Egg, and Rallying Blade. Keep Abusive Sergeant without another 1 drop if you need it in the matchup (Hunter, Shaman) where you need to guarantee that you’re proactive on the board. You can consider keeping Consecration against Druid or Zoo.

Card Choices

• Consecration – 2 of these feels really necessary in the current meta. And it turns a bunch of your matchups from unfavored to 50/50 or 50/50 to favored. I’ve tried versions without Consecration and it feels like without them you don’t have a very effective comeback gameplan. Consecration can blow out so many games if used effectively.
• Avenging Wrath – Versatile and sexy. Can be used as another board wipe or for lethal face damage. Using this card effectively has won me a lot of games. You can make what seem like strange trades into your opponent’s board to prep this card for maximum efficiency. Coincidentally this is also the card that I played to get lethal to win my final match to Legend. I tried using Ivory Knight in this slot, but it seemed slow and when I hit turn 6 I’m looking at my decklist for things that will help me push the last bit of damage. Ivory Knight was versatile and could help come back, but Avenging Wrath seemed to fit better.
• Barnes – He brings out 2 bodies and decent stats no matter what. This is beneficial at it’s core because you want creatures to buff and play with. If he grabs a divine shield minion, then awesome, if he grabs a charger, then awesome. I only pulled t4 Tirion Fordring one time – I won that game needless to say.
• Noble Sacrifice – I run 2 because I actually find the tempo from playing one to backup a divine shield minion can be really useful, especially since you need your creatures to survive. Also counters things like Raging Worgen, Leeroy Jenkins, and Call of the Wild. I also sometimes have 2 Challengers in hand to play and having the second MC actually pull a secret can be overwhelming. It should also be noted that this card can be a “soft” counter to a big single drop like Savannah Highmane or 4 mana 7/7 onto an empty board. It essentially just invalidates it for a turn while your dudes run past it.

Other Card Options

I’ve tried playing Defender of Argus, Selfless Hero, Argent Commander, Silvermoon Portal, Aldor Peacekeeper, Ivory Knight, Divine Favor, Repentance, Steward of Darkshire, and even Bilefin Tidehunter. These are all good cards and good options that pull the deck in different directions. I had a lot of success with a version that was a lot more aggressive with Selfless, Bilefin, Steward, and Divine Favor together. Defender of Argus felt bad a lot of the time because if you lose board presence then he’s basically completely dead in hand. Aldor Peacekeeper can be a really good card, but very matchup dependent. Ivory Knight seemed good, but slow. If someone tried to slow the deck down to be more control-oriented, then I could see his spot be validated. Silvermoon Portal actually seemed to be really good, but oftentimes I would wind up with a hand that had multiple buffs in it and no creatures (defender of argus problem), and it can’t replace Blessing. Argent Commander is the only card that I couldn’t get to work for me – I know Jambre is a big fan of this card. It seemed worse than Avenging Wrath in most situations. Maybe he’s better now because of Barnes?

Stats from Rank 5 to Legend vs.

Druid = 9-4 (69%)

Consecration and Avenging Wrath are really good in this matchup. Kill Violet Teachers and Fandral Staghelm on sight. Try to have a diverse board with >1 hp minions and prioritize keeping divine shields. Druids are also awful at handling 1 large threat, so if you Blessings an early drop and start going face they seem to panic and start digging for mulch. If they burn Mulch early then Tirion wins. The deck is good at having consistent threats to play out that druid can’t deal with effectively (unless you play directly into swipe).

Hunter = 15-4 (79%)

Both decks want to have sticky creatures (us=divine shield/egg, them=deathrattle) and play secrets and then have powerful midgame plays. Ours are just better in the head-to-head. Dragon Egg also loves Fiery Bat, Huge Toad, and Flame Juggler (though most lists I’m seeing are only running the Bat these days). Effectively play around the more common Hunter secrets is key. Argent Horserider is a great creature to sniff out Snipe, Explosive Trap, Freezing Trap. Weapons and effective use of Consecration are the MVP of this matchup.

Mage = 2-4

Freeze mage is actually a pretty good matchup. The volume of chargers, weapons, and Avenging Wrath can lead to cheeky wins.

Tempo mage is really bad for us. Mirror Image, Arcane Missiles, and Flamewaker can blow us out and if they get off to a good start then it is hard to come back, as most of our removal is hitting creatures with our face, which brings us into burn range. The only healing we have is Truesilver Champion.

Paladin = 2-2

Mostly played against N’Zoth and Anyfin control variants. Generally kept up divine shields and went face like crazy. Didn’t see much of these near the top.

Priest = 3-0

Feast decks. One match I had to kill 6 Priest of the Feasts. The decklist seems like it runs out of stall at some point and you can push through the last damage. Egg is surprisingly good here because with Blessing it gets to the magical 4 attack threshold. If a Priest is entombing a Dragon Egg you’re probably going to win.

Rogue = 5-2

Miracle seemed 50/50, but surprisingly I mostly saw a couple other random aggro and C'Thun variants around Rank 1 and just completely blew them out.

Shaman = 8-7

Aggro/Midrange Shaman is a tight matchup and largely hangs on what totem Tuskarr Totemic brings to the party. Using Weapons and Consecrations effectively is key. Also getting one of your 2-3 best openers is important (Squire + Rallying Blade, Squire + Abusive, Egg + Abusive). Be mindful of his tempo clears (Maelstrom Portal, Lightning Storm) and make effective trades.

Concede Shaman seems favorable as you can aggro out fast enough that they become super reactive. They don’t really have good ways to pop your divine shields to open up their damage sweepers to be effective.

Warlock = 4-2

Reno is favored. Aggro out and keep divine shields. Hard for them to react adequately in time. If the game goes late I think you could still get it as well.

Zoo is tight. Consecration is bonkers in this matchup, but you have to be putting pressure on as well, otherwise they’ll just vomit their hand onto the board over and over regardless of how many times you clear. One of the more intricate trading:face matchups to play.

Warrior = 5-4

I played all kinds of warriors. This new-fangled spell warrior with Patrons/Giants can be rough as Wild Pyromancer can blow you out. C'Thun seems beatable, as does Dragon. Again, prioritize divine shields, don’t buff already damaged minions, once both executes are baited out Tirion should just win.

tl;dr The deck thrashes Hunters and wins hard against Druid – and there were a lot of those on ladder for some reason this week. Tempo Mage is the worst matchup.