Dragon Paladin Theorycraft Deck List – Rise of Shadows – April 2019

This isn’t the first time when the pre-release hype period features a promising Dragon Paladin archetype: back in the Blackrock Mountain days, it seemed like the class would be in pole position to benefit from the tribal support tools thanks to Dragon Consort – and yet, the lack of class-specific synergies meant that it fell flat on its place, never seeing any play whatsoever. Could things be different in the Rise of Shadows metagame? While some of the cards are definitely interesting, the parallels seem inescapable.

There are surprisingly few neutral Dragons available at the start of the Year of the Dragon – unless you’re going to include more of the mega-expensive ones, you’re limited to the seven we’ve decided on in this build –, and the only tribe-related card that wasn’t released in this set for Paladin is Cathedral Gargoyle – an obvious two-of in this kind of a deck. This means there aren’t actually that many synergy elements to look for either: Dragon Speaker is essentially the only other one that is exclusive to the class, which is why Scaleworm, Crowd Roaster and Wyrmguard are included to take better advantage of the Dragon shell.

A lack of a dedicated finisher and cheap Dragon cards necessitated a midrange-y approach for the featured build instead of a pure control strategy: consequently, you’ll be fighting for the board at all times, hence the lack of the Wild Pyromancer/Equality package. A single copy of Shrink Ray is included instead alongside the double Consecration. This direction also means that Nozari didn’t make the cut, prioritizing Ysera’s value generation ability instead. Zilliax is a decent jack-of-all-trades initiative option while Cairne Bloodhoof serves as a sticky board presence to target with buffs. Note that Firetree Witchdoctor will often pull a Paladin secret, which is not exactly a great outcome, but a pseudo-Hydrologist with a higher ceiling is definitely worth the inclusion.

Replacement (and “sideboard” candidates for Specialist) include Spellbreaker and The Glass Knight for a slightly faster approach and Mojomaster Zihi for Cairne Bloodhoof if you’re trying to target combo decks. Bloodclaw is also worth considering if you’re running into too much aggro on the ladder.

All in all, it remains to be seen whether the limited Dragon synergies will make this the optimal midrange shell for the class in the Rise of Shadows metagame, but Dragon Paladin definitely makes for an interesting alternative after a year full of Odd and Even archetypes. An interesting alternative is a mech-based midrange archetype, which you can check out here.