Paladin is a big problem, sure the dagger trades but I usually have to use petals to stay alive. I don’t think you’re favored at all. I use Lifedrinker because it’s one of the best neutral healing cards, and you face trade a lot, so it seemed like a good fit. I might experiment with getting rid of it though. Ancient Mage is definitely a card I save for the final push, so it isn’t that great against aggro. It trades very poorly.

I don’t necessarily think Even will survive, but it will have to think outside the box even if it becomes an off-meta pick. As you mentioned, other Paladin variants will simply be better, so it suffers from redundancy if it’s win rate isn’t exceptional. I’ll probably try out and Even Dragon Paladin, even if it turns out to be garbage haha. I think you’re right and I may be overestimating Cathedral Gargoyle.

I don’t see Taunt Druid being super good post-nerf. Big Spell Mage, Shaman, and Warrior all look like they’re going to do better, and all three classes have easy ways to counter Witching Hour. Other classes (and Odd Warrior) could also tech in Tinkmaster if Taunt Druid became super popular.

Token Druid might be a winner from the nerfs as well. Control Priest and Warlock are it’s worst matchups, so it might do alright. Then again, Control Warrior decks also do really well against it, so if they get more popular, Token Druid loses stock.

I actually think that Secret Paladin might be better after the nerfs too. Most builds only run Liam in the 5 slot, and have Bellringer Sentry as “competition” for CtA on 4. Whether it will be better than Murloc Paladin is debatable though, because Murlocs also have a monster curve now and are less susceptible to AoE.

I’m also interested in whether Even Paladin will be able to adapt and still function without CtA. It will be forced to run midrangey stuff again, but the Dude package may still not be good enough (Drygulch Jailor is soooo slow when played from hand). My weird prediction is that a midrange dragon build with Cathedral Gargoyle might be the way to go. Cathedral Gargoyle is REALLY good, but sucks when you pull it with CtA. Maybe without CtA, it becomes a sold turn 2 play for Even Paladin.

CtA will probably still be good in Murloc, though the 5 spot will be a little crowded. Maybe Secret Paladin will end up being the best Pally archetype now; it doesn’t run any 5 drops outside of Liam right now, so who knows. I think CtA is still a good card, but it will only be good in non-Genn, non-Baku Paladin decks.

Wow, a response so boring that the article even preempts it:

“All archetypes will conjure up negative feelings if they are left unchecked. Aggro is brainless SMOrc that never even trades; tempo decks are “Curvestone”; combo decks are “fun and interactive” solitaire experiences from the other side; and control decks just constrict you and won’t let you play by killing everything you put on the board and slowly grinding you down. All of these archetypes were decried as brain dead at some point throughout the history of Hearthstone, meaning you shouldn’t value these particular complaints highly.”

It’s not a nerf. Only like %1 of Shudderwocks ever did more then 20 battlecries. Most Shudderwock decks have only 9-11 battlecry cards.

It really isn’t. Rage’s list only has 7 non-Shudderwock battlecries, the deck with the highest winrate on HSreplay has 10, and the most popular deck according to HSreplay only has 11.

It capping at 20 IS a good thing. Yes, battlecry OTK shaman isn’t that great a deck, but it’s absolutely terrible to lose against when each battlecry can take like 15 minutes to resolve. It’s even worse if you actually CAN win next turn, but you have to sit through all the battlecries. There were even some reports of Shudderwock vs Shudderwock games that lasted HOURS.

In terms of OTK potential, the 20 battlecry limit doesn’t really affect it at all. Look at Rages list that was posted earlier, there are only 7 battlecries in the whole deck!

This is a gamefeel / quality of life change, not a hard nerf that will effect whatever viability the card may or may not have. I’d be surprised if they offered a refund for it.

That moment when you reach #2 Legend with 0 cards from the new expansion lol

Well you have a 50% chance, but yeah, it’s pretty bad. However, this deck already has poor matchups against slow Mage and combo Shaman because it’s a slower deck; against Tempo Mage or Even Shaman it’s rare to get to a point where you need more then one Hadronox Swing (if you end up needing one at all).

Killing Hadronox with the Cube is hilarious and so is Cubing Astral Tigers. My only complaint is the Ooze. I feel like one of the more expensive weapon removers is better, cause pulling the Ooze out with Oaken Summons HURTS

I’m pretty sure 50% of the player base is in that rank, it’s not as bad as you think

I’m 0-4 with this, I’m sure it does alright against aggro but it consistently gets outvalued by control decks and doesn’t have the speed to really pressure them

Save one Naturalize for Hadronox, get a board back of big taunts. Druid does a big problem with single target removal though.

Gluttonous Ooze

I took out Shadowstep for Vanish, because I kept wanting Vanish and Shadowstep kept being a dead card sitting in my hand.

Imo if you wanna go all in on the combo, running Bloodbloom isn’t bad. Happy Ghoul could also be a back up?

I feel like against a slower Warlock deck, you wouldn’t play Sulfuras until after their Bloodreaver. You can hopefully save a Reckless Fury or Brawl for that swing, too. You just have to make sure you’re at a high enough life total that their Hero Power can’t kill you before your quest one does.

If you’re going to run this many deathrattles, might as well run the Quest for fun, right?

As stated in the article, it checks your deck BEFORE the mulligan phase, so you can’t cheese Greymane that way. You COULD use that to cheese the effect of Murkspark Eel, but why play Quest Shaman in the first place?