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Data Reaper Report - Paladin

Disco Maul

Disco Maul

This weapon compares very favorably to Warrior’s reworked Woodcutter’s Axe. A 2/2 weapon on top of a baseline 1/1 buff that grows with every minion you play. The floor of the card is realistically a 2/2 buff on turn 3, but it could easily be more. While that sounds like an extremely powerful weapon on paper, there are some caveats.

The first is that 2/2 weapons historically do very poorly in Hearthstone because there are many early game minions with 3 health, which they don’t answer. This is why 3/2 weapons, even when they come down a turn later, find their way into decks more often.

The second is that Muster for Battle is in the core set. As amazing as Disco Maul is, many Paladin decks will prefer one of the most memorable Paladin cards of all time, due to specific synergies. These two weapons painfully clash with each other, so it will be one or the other. Disco Maul may not see as much play as it could, but it’s obviously very good and should be one of the first cards you put into an aggressive deck that does not care about Silver Hand Recruit synergy.

Score: 3

Boogie Down

Boogie Down

This card is so much worse than Call to Arms, it hurts. The numbers just don’t seem to be there. Summoning two 1-drops from the deck doesn’t math out at 3 mana for us, even if both 1-drops get taunt. The value of a taunt on small bodies is not worth that extra mana. Boogie Down would be very strong at 2 mana and no taunts, to give you some perspective on our thinking.

What’s more is that the possible 1-drop pool isn’t great. Righteous Protector is a cornerstone 1-drop that overlaps with the card. Sanguine Soldier is nice, but the neutral pool doesn’t leave many possibilities for exploitation. We don’t think Helmet Hermit is what you want to play!

Just a little bit too fair and balanced.

Score: 1

Funkfin

Funkfin

This card affects all minions, including itself, so it will come down as a 4/2 with divine shield. Paladin is very familiar with that stat line, having a couple of minions that had a short time in the sun before falling off. We think Funkfin is worse than both Azsharan Mooncatcher and Goody Two-Shields.

The reason is that Funkfin’s inherent upside is reliant on other minions being in play. Realistically, how many divine shield can we expect to have on the board on turn 3? Did our opponent disconnect from the game? We don’t like Paladin minions that are terrible when we’re not ahead. It dooms the class to be very easy to play against.

Even the dream scenario of Funkfin with a board full of Silver Hand Recruits carrying divine shields from Lothraxion, is better leveraged by Warhorse Trainer. The fact Trainer has been buffed so dramatically and still struggles to be that relevant should tell you what you need to know about these minions. Funkfin flunks the smell test.

Score: 1

Jitterbug

Jitterbug

Much like Funkfin, Jitterbug’s ability procs off losing its own divine shield, so this is a 4 mana 4/3 with DS that draws a card ‘later’. Drawing a card ‘later’ is much worse than drawing a card ‘now’, so as a standalone card, Jitterbug isn’t appealing.

The question is whether Jitterbug becomes a realistic draw engine and we’re not optimistic. Cards that rely on divine shields being lost were around before and always failed to become competitive simply because the condition is really hard to trigger. Once again, we’re imagining a juicy board of divine shield minions that were allowed to live to our turn since our opponent has disconnected from the game. We proceed to play Jitterbug and trade (yes, we’re trading and not going face for some reason) our divine shields away to get a bunch of cards.

Why do we need to fantasize about best case scenarios to draw a bunch of cards? Thankfully, we have Order in the Court. We’ll play that, thanks.

Score: 1

Harmonic Disco

Harmonic Disco

The discover pool in both options is not good enough to make up for how awful this effect is. The 5-mana pool is full of battlecry minions that carry undersized bodies. Even if you do find a decently-sized option, this is an underwhelming play. The 1-drop pool can provide you with good stats for the cost, but good stats for the cost on turn 5, that have no synergy with the rest of your deck, just aren’t good enough for constructed play. This is just not as good as Boulderfist Ogre!

It feels like this spell was made to help a Big Paladin deck that’s restricted from playing minions due to its required synergies, but we don’t even think this is good enough for Big Paladin. A pile of stats and nothing else can be good in the early game since most removal at that stage is damage-based. Health breakpoints are critical. Once you get to the mid-late game, removal becomes less damage based, which means a big dude is going down no matter how big he is.

We’re not dancing to this tune.

Score: 1

Lead Dancer

Lead Dancer

This card is hard to evaluate by itself, as its existence is entirely reliant on the targets it’s meant to pull. But, let’s assume that Paladin is getting a Voidlord-level 9-drop as well as another mana cheating enabler in this very set that have 3 attack.

The easy comparison here is Possessed Lackey. Lackey was busted at 5 mana and good at 6. Lackey didn’t heavily restrict your deckbuilding and prevented you from running small minions, as it was tribe-targeted, which is much better than Lead Dancer’s condition. Possessed Lackey also had Dark Pact, which allowed you to sack it immediately and pull its intended target on the turn you played it. Furthermore, Possessed Lackey had Doomguard and Carnivorous Cube, which provided the class with an insane late game. It’s not happening here. Lead Dancer’s targets are mostly defensive in nature.

So, Lead Dancer doesn’t compare to a 6 mana Lackey, but it could ‘still’ be a very good card due to synergies. Since we rate the targets it pulls so highly, we’ll give it a very generous score.

Score: 3

Spotlight

Spotlight

This card initially impressed us. Turn 1 Righteous Protector or Sanguine Soldier into a turn 2 5/5! That’s a very nice early game start. Spotlight also has tradeable, so if the opportunity isn’t there, you can just cycle it out. Paladin has several important divine shield minions that can feed it, so there are plenty of chances to get that 2 mana 5/5 throughout the game.

But here’s the problem. We’re very focused on the 5/5 and forgot there’s a price to pay. A divine shield is worth ‘some’ stat points. If we looked at good divine shield minions in the game’s history, a divine shield seems to be worth around 2 stat points. Righteous Protector and Sanguine Soldier are unplayable constructed cards without their shields.

If we did some “math” when it comes to the price and the reward, Spotlight is a 2 mana 4/4, rather than a 5/5. How good is that? It’s not bad. Some decks would absolutely play a 2 mana 4/4. It’s a strong stat line, but even this stat line is conditional. It’s not a 2 mana 4/4 every time. Sometimes it’s nothing because you don’t have a divine shield in play! Just ask Bonedigger Geist how it’s doing in Standard when its ability is not guaranteed to trigger.

Suddenly you look at a returning core Paladin card in Hand of A’dal… and it’s likely better than Spotlight in many early game scenarios. All it needs is a minion on board and it delivers. The value of good stats is lessened as the game drags on, and more removal comes online too.

So, is Spotlight decent? Yes. Is it one of the best cards in the set? Not even close.

Score: 2

Annoy-o-Troupe

Annoy-o-Troupe

Annoy-o-Lord. The mother of all taunts. In fact, there is a strong argument that this minion is significantly better than Voidlord as a standalone card. The initial body is only slightly worse than Voidlord, as a 3/6 with divine shield compared to a 3/9. The deathrattle is where Annoy-o-Troupe blows Voidlord out of the water.

Last time we checked, Annoy-o-tron was worth 2 mana to Voidwalker’s 1. The amount of taunt you need to go through here is ridiculous, as evidenced by how powerful Giggling Inventor was at 5 mana. You need 8 attacks to get through this thing. An aggressive deck that doesn’t have a clean answer for this monster has no chance of hitting your face ever again.

And guess what, Lead Dancer pulls this from your deck. Blood Crusader allows you to cheat this out for 6 mana. Yes, you’re taking 9 damage in the process, but your opponent can never hit your face again!

This card becomes a primary win condition for Paladin in any fast matchup. If they can’t kill you by turn 6, they need hard removal (which they don’t run), silence (which is a bad tech option in most matchups) or carry enough direct damage to finish you off.

This could be a meta defining clock.

Score: 4

Starlight Groove

Starlight Groove

How much damage can Starlight Groove prevent during a game? How much mana are we forcing our opponents to spend on hero power to ping the divine shield away? Those are the key questions to ask when attempting to evaluate this card. A defensive Paladin deck should have many holy spells, so refreshing a divine shield shouldn’t be difficult.

If a turn 3 Starlight Groove prevents ~10 damage coming from the opponent, then the card is worth playing. Against a board flooding deck, it might not be as effective. Against a slow deck that doesn’t look to damage the Paladin in the early-to-mid game, this is also not amazing and will likely lead to diminishing returns. Against any proactive deck that’s slower than an Unholy Death Knight or an Aggro Druid, or a deck that relies on burn damage to finish games, this can be worth a lot of damage and mana.

So, the card shouldn’t be absolutely crippling to deal with, but it’s going to be very powerful in some matchups and give the Paladin a lot of survivability that it’s losing with the retirement of Lightforged Cariel. Is there a single defensive Paladin deck that looks at this card and says, “no thanks”? Nope. It’s a staple.

Score: 4

Kangor, Dancing King

Kangor, Dancing King

Kangor is a very strong enabler for a Big Paladin deck. It comes down on turn 5, which is the timing of a Skull of the Man’ari. It puts a body on the board that’s hard to ignore with Lifesteal and its mana cheating ability also comes with a bonus lifesteal buff on the minion pulled. That could have a hugely stabilizing effect on the game.

The difference between Skull and Kangor is that you need to spend the 5 mana again to repeat the process, but a constantly bouncing Kangor is enough hell for your opponent. For us, this is the stronger enabler of Big Paladin compared to Lead Dancer, as it opens the possibility to cheat other minions with bigger attack value. Lead Dancer can also pull Kangor, which might not be as good as an immediate Annoy-o-Troupe but is a nice bit of redundancy.

The main drawback of Kangor is that you might want to run a Battlecry minion in your deck. Having it pulled out of your hand might feel a little bad, but this is probably not going to be the thing that breaks the deck. This is the card you want to find every game.

Score: 4

 

Final Thoughts

Festival of Legends Set Rank: 6th

Overall Power Ranking:  5th

Paladin looks in good shape. It’s got a strong established archetype that loses little to rotation in Pure Paladin, a well-rounded set that provides the class with new ways to play the game, as well as a Core set update that might be just as impactful as the new expansion.

Pure Paladin looks very powerful and is exactly the kind of deck that punishes inefficiency and a reduction in overall power. Its Silver Hand Recruit variant is getting a major boost with the return of Muster for Battle, one of the greatest Paladin cards of all time, alongside Lothraxion the Redeemed. An Order in the Court curve looks back breaking in this variant. Blood Crusader/Countess, into Lothraxion, into Stand Against Darkness/Buffet Biggun, into Jury Duty/Warhorse Trainer. Remember that most decks just lose to the first part, but now it becomes exceedingly hard to deal with Paladin even if you managed to outlast the Countess’ invitations.

So Pure is almost a sure thing, but there’s other stuff happening. Big Paladin looks the strongest it’s ever been on paper. Annoy-o-Troupe, Lead Dancer and Kangor form a package that is reminiscent of Kobolds & Catacombs Warlock in terms of survivability. An Annoy-o-Troupe coming down to the board on turns 5-7, potentially with lifesteal, means game over in faster matchups. The question becomes whether Big Paladin can have a strong enough late game to overcome a defensive deck’s removal toolkit.

It’s certainly getting good survivability options to help it last until the Kangor/Dancer turns. Starlight Groove is such a powerful card for slower Paladin decks. It’s not Lightforged Cariel, but it’s a pretty good compensation. The buffs to Consecration, Truesilver Champion and Hammer of Wrath may also be quite impactful here.

Aggressive Paladin decks seem to be getting a lot of divine shield support. We could be very wrong about this, but we think it looks significantly inferior to a Pure Paladin deck. It’s extremely reliant on having a board lead, which is typical of a one-dimensional deck. Pure Paladin, at least, has The Countess as a wildcard for a comeback. Spotlight looks great but might be getting a little bit overrated.

Mech Paladin is another aggressive option. Much like Mech Mage, it will be looking at the Core updates in the neutral set, as well as some expansion cards, to relive its Sunken City glories.

We expect a strong launch of the expansion from Paladin. Get ready, dudes and dudettes.

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