No matter if you look at Vicious Syndicate or HSReplay.net (both sites are gathering THOUSANDS of games), you will see that Murloc Paladin is the second best deck on the ladder, right after Even Paladin. Vicious Syndicate shows that it’s even better than Even Paladin at lower ranks.

The deck is clearly too strong, even though it’s slightly underplayed (people jumped on Even build mostly because it’s something new) and just upping the cost of CtA to 5 won’t change that. It’s hard to say whether it will be just strong, or broken, but it will definitely be near the top of the tier list. But you don’t have to believe me – you will see in a while.

The problem is that if you don’t do anything for the first 4 turns, you’re probably dead against most of the decks.

I think that Even Paladin MIGHT still be playable without CtA, but will there be a point? It’s a bit like Midrange Paladin right now. You can play it, and it does work, but no one plays it, because Even Paladin does the same thing, but better.

It might be the other way around after the CtA nerf – it will probably be just better to play the regular Paladin, because it will do the same thing, but better. But it’s hard to say. I COULD see Even Paladin going for more Dude synergies instead, with Lighftused Stegodon filling the gap a bit.

Dragon Paladin is a cool idea, but I don’t think it will happen yet, especially not in the Even version. There is only a single Dragon synergy (Gargoyle) and not many activators… The best “Midrange” activators – Amalgam & Scalebane – are both odd-costed. Dragon Paladin would probably need another good Dragon synergy before seeing play.

Velen is not good in Wild Highlander Priest, especially after the Raza nerfs – you can’t really combo him with anything. Spawn of Shadows does the job instead.

And yes, you can take out the Eater of Secrets. It’s a tech card, so it really depends on the decks you face. I’d imagine that the author was running into lots of Secret Mages and/or Paladins, so he decided to run it. If you don’t play against decks running Secrets, then get rid of it and add another tech instead. Ooze/Harrison is something that pretty much always works, so that’s not a bad idea. I’m not very familiar with the current Wild meta, so I can’t really say how good it is right now.

I don’t understand the question. Yes, those cards do work. It’s mostly an off-meta deck after the nerf to Raza, but as it turns out, it’s not as bad as some people thought.

With Spawn of Shadows, it’s still easy to burst your opponent down to 20+ damage even after the changes.

As much as I agree that Tarim should get some kind of nerf, why would Rin get nerfed? It’s a pretty niche card which is good only in a few matchups. Plus it has a really interesting counterplay. It’s one of the last cards I’d nerf.

Of course it will! After the nerf happens, you will be able to disenchant the card for 1.6k Dust.

Sometimes just playing Doomguard from your deck is the right answer. Losing two random cards is often not a big deal. But it really depends on the matchup and the situation. For example – do you NEED those Doomguards to win the game? If you do, go ahead and play them, there is nothing else you can do. Or let’s say that you stare at a 5/5 minion that will put you on a quick clock if you don’t kill it – also play that Doomguard and pray that you don’t discard anything valuable.

To be fair, the only discard that REALLY hurts is Bloodreaver Gul’dan. As long as you don’t discard it, you still have a way to win the game.

Umbra can be somewhat reliably replaced with Spellbreaker. The card really improves some combos, but it’s not necessary.

As for the Lord Godfrey, in this specific list I’d just run a second Doomsayer (since it uses only one). Other solid replacements are e.g. Acidic Swamp Ooze/Gluttonous Ooze, Plated Beetle or Stonehill Defender. Twisting Nether might also be a replacement, but only if you face more slow decks and not Aggro. Nether is often too slow vs Aggro, and you’d rather have some more solid early game instead.

When it comes to common ladder decks, Tempo Mage is probably the best one against Cube Warlock. Odd Rogue should also be fine. Those decks should be about 60/40 vs Cube Warlock.

Odd Control Warrior and Control Priest are also favorable, but those decks are much more difficult – if you haven’t played them in the past you will most likely lose against Cube Warlocks, because the matchup is hard to play. However, if you master them, they should also be around 60/40 or at least 55/45 against Cube Warlock.

The best counter would probably be Odd Face Hunter – the deck is like 70/30 vs Cube Warlock, which is a very good counter. But then again, it’s bad against so many other common decks, such as all kinds of Paladin or Spiteful Druid.

It might get better, you’re right. I would never think that Even Paladin will be so strong before the expansion, and I believe that Odd/Even decks will still surprise us in the upcoming expansions.

After playtesting the deck (Odd Mage) earlier into the expansion, it just wasn’t performing too well for me. I tested it in Legend during the first days of The Witchwood with a negative win rate. Maybe the meta has changed a bit and it’s better right now, though, I’ll give it another try soon, or at least after the nerfs 🙂

I actually use BGH in Odd Control Warrior, mostly thanks to the Spiteful Summoner & Cube Warlocks (Mountain Giants).

But I don’t really see it being a common tech card. It’s just a dead/nearly dead card in so many matchups…

Cube is one of my favorite cards from Kobolds & Catacombs too! I think that it’s a stronger side, but I wouldn’t call it overpowered. It’s really interesting and promotes some very cool strategies. It would be sad if they nerfed it just because of the CubeLock.

I think that he was asking for a deck list 😀

I think you underestimate the power level of those cards/decks if you think that those nerf are too punishing. For example, Call to Arms at 5 would still be a powerful card (obviously, no longer usable in Even Paladin, but no one says that you NEED to build it as even – more classic Aggro or even Murloc Paladin would still be using it), or a 3/6 or 2/7 Tarim would be slightly easier to get rid of, but basically just as strong.

Keep in mind that I’m not saying that ALL of those nerfs should happen at once. For example, just changing Lackey’s cost to 6 and Librarian’s damage to 3 (an example set of two nerfs) would not kill Cube Warlock, the deck would still be strong.

Meta doesn’t work that way. When those decks get nerfed, it’s not like they will live a gap in the meta. Other decks will take their place and be considered best decks. Now Tier 2-3 decks would take the Tier 1 places, and now off-meta builds such as Rush Warrior, Combo Priest, Token Druid or whatever might be playable as Tier 2-3 decks. Then some new decks might pop out that were held back by the top meta decks.

We would never be back to “hearthstone classic 1.0” as you’re saying, from my long experience with the game I can definitely say that the nerfs only make the game more interesting, not vice versa. Especially if they’re handled well and the nerfed decks aren’t completely killed off.

I wouldn’t say that the state of the game is poor – the problem this time around was that The Witchwood’s power level was pretty low across the board, relatively to the Year of the Mammooth expansions. We had three sets in a row with high power level cards – Un’Goro, Frozen Throne and especially Kobolds & Catacombs. And now The Witchwood has… mediocre cards mostly.

Which means that the decks relying on the 2017 cards, such as Cube Warlock or Paladin builds, weren’t affected by the rotation very hard, while no new archetypes have risen to counter them, since The Witchwood didn’t have strong enough cards.

It’s a hard nut to crack. Going around and nerfing lots of 2017 cards is not a great way to handle that (especially with two more 2018 expansion in mind, which might have a slightly higher power level than Witchwood), but waiting for new cards to come in order to counter them is also a poor option.

Tarim is the second strongest Paladin card after CtA and one of the strongest card in the entire game, he is definitely overpowered.

But he’s not as oppressive as CtA, because he comes later and can be played around, at least to a certain extent. I like Tarim, because he makes playing against Paladin more skillful, in a way that how well you play around it often wins or loses you the game. CtA – you can’t really play around most of the time, if comes down on T4 and floods the board, that’s it.

Honestly, Tarim is also a good nerf candidate. I’m 100% sure that it would still be great at 7 mana, or with worse stats.

Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been busy in the last few days.

There are LOTS of ways to build Even Paladin. And I’m not arguing whether Tirion is the best one or not (it’s still hard to say – played decks with and without him and both were good), but if you look at HSReplay, he’s played in many decks. The best build hasn’t been found yet, but Tirion really might be in it.

If you sort by popularity, he’s in the #1 most popular Even Paladin build in The Witchwood. If you sort by the win rate, he’s in most of the highest win rate builds across all ranks: https://i.imgur.com/wBVu27K.jpg

So no, it’s not the case of “I randomly put him into the list because some player played him in Even Paladin”.

Generally, he’s a GREAT fit into Even Paladin, and the only thing that’s keeping him behind right now is the amount of Silence cards in the meta. You’d rather get your Lich King silenced, because he got one card anyway + he’s leaving an 8/8 body instead of a 6/6.

I assume that he’s talking about the Mind Blast Control Priest: http://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/zetalots-1-legend-mind-blast-priest-ft-squashling-may-2018/