If a deck can give this Rush and doesn’t have any other way to draw cards easily, it will at least try this. Otherwise, I don’t see it working.

A 5/3 is probably too easily removed by turn four under most circumstances for this to survive a turn. Granted, it will probably Overkill something if it does.

Perhaps, the more desperate a deck is for card draw, the more likely a deck will be to play it. It is a potential source of neutral card draw with better stats than Gnomish Inventor if anything else. Granted, Gnomish Inventor will always draw a card. Ticket Scalper gives you no guarantee,

For a control deck, that’s not really a whole lot.

How exactly would Odd Paladin get more out of this than say a generic three mana 3/4?

To MockRock

Crystology doesn’t help draw out the necessary parts of the OTK. In fact, it makes Call to Arms in the deck worse since Righteous Protector is probably one of the best minions to pull out with Call.

How exactly is it easy for a Control Paladin to draw through their deck? They have Prismatic Lens and Call to Arms. The former just can’t draw out the center piece of the OTK while the latter merely increases the chances of drawing it.

To No Soup For You

No. Complexity and Uniqueness is what dictates a cards rarity between commons, rares, and epics. Legendary cards, due to the one per deck restriction, are the one rarity that is allowed to be overtly more powerful.

Epics and rares tend to be better than the average common because they’re added complexity allows them to do more, and a card that does more will usually be better than a card that does less.

Ultimate Infestation is actually a very complex card because it does so much. It is similar to Tirion Fording in that regard. There is hardly any other card that does four things at once. Off the top of my head, only Zilliax, a legendary card actually does more because of all of its keywords.

The primary thing keeping OTK DK Paladin from being competitive is the OTK combo itself.

Yeah it probably could, but there is the occasional simple Epic card like Wispering Woods and complex common like this and Weapons Project.

Yes it does.

Compare the average complexity on a common to that on a Epic espcially, and you’ll see just how many more interesting effects are given to Epic cards.

The average common with a battlecry will simply buff a minion in some way and occasionally add a card to hand. While with Epics, there really isn’t an average. Some do buff and only buff like Quartermaster, but then there’s stuff like Spiteful Summoner, Mysterious Challenger, and Twilight Acolyte.

Added complexity also means they’ll often do more, and, yes, end up being better cards as a result.

Call to Arms isn’t a draw effect; it’s a card that improves future draw.

It’s also take up most of a turn in the late game to draw three cards, something other classes do for five mana. While it also gains you life, that aspect of the card is rather minor by comparison for the class.

It’s comparable to Rebuke because it’s also a Paladin card that people hyped to the max during the preview season that seems like it would go well in a Control Paladin. It’s also fine as a card, but it just isn’t a complete game changer.

It is two extra turns for OTK DK Paladin (assuming they draw it in time) , but I am not convinced giving two extra turns to that deck will make it any better than the myriad of other OTK strategies out there at the moment, especially if the only card draw option slow Paladin decks have is still Prismatic Lens come December. The hurdle the deck has yet to really overcome is not so much surviving to get to the combo, but being able to efficiently draw it out, and two more top decks won’t help that much.

Druid has Branching Paths, Nourish, and Ultimate Infestation to name only three. Warlock has its hero power and Kobold Librarian. Priest has Northshire Cleric, Power Word Shield, and uses Hemet, Jungle Hunter to great effect. Paladin has nothing like that other than Prismatic lens, which is most often used as an Arcane Intellect that costs four, and the OTK DK deck does use Call to Arms to improve future draw.

If Paladin is given access to an efficient draw spell or two, then we might be able to discuss whether OTK Paladin can really compete with what Druid, Warlock, and even Priest have to offer. This card alone will not make the deck viable outside of fringe play.

Ice Block was something that’ll always buy you an extra turn.

This played at the wrong time will have a minimal effect on the game.

While Time Out! is certainly exciting, if Rebuke from The Witchwood is anything to go by, this won’t usher in the return of Control Paladin.

The two cards I feel are best to compare this to are Ice Block and Shield Block.

When compared to the former, Time Out! cannot just be played whenever one has three spare mana in a turn and know it’ll save them when lethal is out on the board. This needs to played this the turn before one’s opponent can kill them. It will be a skill testing card since playing this just right could easily delay an opponent’s Leroy drop, but, unlike Ice Block, it won’t always save its player from a surprise damage burst. Granted, unlike Ice Block again, your opponent can’t being you down from a higher health total to almost nothing during the turn this is in effect. Even with that though, Time Out! is probably somewhere between a single step to a step-and-a-half below Ice Block.

When compared to the latter, it still comes up short. Shield Block can be played early and have an impact on the board beyond the life gain and is still perfectly playable whenever one has three extra mana lying around. I am aware Paladin doesn’t have much of an armor component, but Time Out’s lack of a cycling effect and synergy with the class overall also hurts the card.

This does also prevent damage done by swinging in with a weapon, but between the usual four attack ceiling on Paladin weapons, the life gain already attached to Truesilver Champion, and the abundance of good taunts and lifesteal tools a control Paladin would already play, I’m fairly sure that aspect of the card won’t matter that much.

If Control Paladin returns to the metagame, it will likely play this, but its presence won’t be the reason the deck works out. It may be part of that reason, but without better early game healing and maybe a form of AOE damage that isn’t reliant on Equality, Control Paladin won’t become very viable.

The same reason Rebuke was a common: detaching it from the card it was originally taken from makes it far worse.

Plus, rarity is a sign of a card’s complexity, not power.

If you’re willing to make the combo even less competitively viable, yes, the ceiling would be higher, but with Pirates being a rather aggressive tribe, I cannot see that deck incorporating Spell Damage elements to get even more out of the card.

I know combos have already been figured out with this, but they all seem too out there and too easily complicated by an opponent’s wide board to see play outside of the first couple weeks of play.

If a Pirate Rogue decks comes about during the next format, it will play this, but the extra complications that will be brought with playing Spell Damage in it and with how Pirates themselves will be beating down an opponent during the first five turns of a game, it won’t also water itself down with combo enablers.

When you drop this on turn six, the taunt minions you’ll see won’t really have three or less health without throwing minions at them. Since an aggressive Warrior deck hasn’t been seen since Pirate Warrior, I’m not convinced one set will be enough nor would really be that interested in playing a six mana weapon with only four attack.

The biggest difference is this can be played early and often.

It could see play only in a Standard format without Prince Keleseth.

Well, it is a perfect Soul Infusion target, but it is usually too slow to play in Zoo Warlock. The rest of the set will make or break this card.