Has Tourist access to: Rogue
Cards can be played by: Mage
Volley Maul
3 mana 3/2 weapon with upsides tend to see play. Volley Maul provides both card advantage and pressure, as Sunscreens are decent buffs that can help snowball a board advantage.
Volley Maul might face stiff competition within the class though, as both Handbuff and Showdown Paladin utilize cornerstone weapons that suit their game plans better. Maul may require a new archetype that’s centered on single target board buffs to see immediate play, likely one that leverages Sea Shanty.
This weapon may have a better chance of shining in Mage, should the class successfully establish a deck centered on Raylla and Concierge, with Sunscreens offering a valuable resource and a turn 3 bridge into the deck’s mid-game shenanigans.
Score: 3
Grillmaster
A 4-mana 3/4 that draws two cards isn’t too bad. You can compare Grillmaster to Chillfallen Baron, but instead of random draws, it can be utilized as a tutor for a multitude of win conditions. In Paladin, it can act as a tutor for Reno, Sea Shanty, or even Lynessa. In Mage, the obvious candidate is Sif.
Taelan has baited many players in the last couple of years with its tutoring potential, but Grillmaster is clearly a much better card. What’s nice about it is that it draws the cheaper card on its battlecry, which can help you find additional plays, either on the turn you play it or in the following turn. There is less urgency on drawing the expensive card.
Hard not to see this card being leveraged to improve some deck’s consistency. The only concern we have is that it’s a bit slow, so it’s unlikely to be played in aggressive decks. You’re mostly looking at late game focused strategies.
Score: 3
Power Spike
This spell seems overcosted. A random Blessing of Kings on top of 4 damage isn’t worth a 6-mana investment. The issue with expensive cards that rely on you having board is that they become extreme liabilities if you ever fall behind. We don’t see what deck wants to play Power Spike, even when we envision potential new synergies that this set specifically promotes, such as Sea Shanty.
At 5 mana, this card would become more interesting for an aggressive deck, offering the ability to substantially impact the board while pushing damage. Feels like a card that might have been nerfed during development.
Score: 1
Divine Brew
Note that Divine Brew can buff any character, which means we can use it on our own hero. If the character already has a shield, Divine Brew starts buffing their attack for a turn. This is very important, as Divine Brew can become a deceptively strong attack buff for Horn of the Windlord, in combination with Lynessa.
When you play Divine Brew with Lynessa in play, you get two copies of Divine Brew, each of them having two Drinks left. This means that Brew’s damage potential is not too different from Valeera’s Gift when paired with Sonya.
Another very strong enabler of Divine Brew is Concierge in Mage, which can help you massively discount a Sea Shanty, or other cards through Service Ace.
Considering that Divine Brew is not even a bad defensive card, as it can mitigate a significant amount of damage from the opponent, its offensive potential establishes it as an exciting proposition for both Mage and Paladin decks.
Score: 4
Lifesaving Aura
For just 1-mana, Lifesaving Aura provides us with three Sunscreen buffs over the next three turns. Single target buffs carry importance in the context of the current set due to their potential synergy with Sea Shanty, Service Ace and Concierge, so generating three instances of buffs in a single card should be valuable.
Cheap buffs also make it easier for an aggressive deck to maintain an efficient curve. Having a bunch of Sunscreens in hand can amplify your board advantage by taking efficient trades or buffing your minions out of the reach of AOE spells.
This card seems versatile enough to be included in different types of decks. The only drawback is that we might have to skip turn 1 to play it, but we suspect that the advantage gained by Sunscreens will more than make up for it.
Score: 3
Lifeguard
A sizeable taunt, but one with a very awkward ability that’s going to be difficult to leverage. For a spell to be able to lifesteal, it needs to deal damage, but Paladin doesn’t have many spells that deal direct damage. The other issue is that even if we do utilize these spells, we cannot play other spells following Lifeguard, as they will simply waste the ability for no value.
It’s clear that Lifeguard is a bit more suitable to be played in Mage, as the class has far more spells that deal damage, but even in this class, the proposition doesn’t sound exciting. The best follow up to Lifeguard is Star Power, but it’s hard to see any Mage deck in the upcoming expansion that opts for this pairing. And remember, even if we do run both cards, there is no guarantee that we can find them in the right order. It’s very likely that we will need to develop Lifeguard when we can, only to whiff on the lifesteal ability by playing a spell that gains little to no value.
A 4 mana 2/7 taunt, as big as it is, isn’t good enough for constructed play. If the Lifesteal ability is unlikely to serve as a consistent upside, we find it hard to get behind this card.
Score: 1
Service Ace
Service Ace doesn’t offer us a good standalone 3-drop. As a 3 mana 3/3, it is very weak to play on curve with the hopes of it surviving. Even if we assume an outcome of survival, it will require multiple cheap buffs to swing us ahead, so it’s very reliant on Sunscreens to get going.
What’s clear to us is that Service Ace doesn’t belong in an aggressive deck that tries to snowball through buffs. It is too weak by itself to be considered a good choice for an initiative-focused strategy.
Where Service Ace could shine more is as a combo piece, in a similar role to Nazmani Bloodweaver. Mage can run Concierge, accumulate Divine Brews and Sunscreens and execute a turn 5 that chain discounts its hand by continuously buffing Service Ace.
This could emerge as a competitive way to discount Sif, but we do have to remember that Service Ace looks at the current cost of cards. We cannot discount Sif to 0 mana with 6 Service Ace triggers, if other cards in our hand cost mana. It could be a powerful play that sets us up for success, but it requires a lot of moving parts and careful setup.
Alternatively, Service Ace could help us rapidly discount Sea Shanty. Every Sunscreen cast on Service Ace can discount Sea Shanty twice, with Divine Brew working similarly. Ace may not be completely necessary for this combo to work, but it might add consistency to it.
Score: 2
Sea Shanty
Sea Shanty generates a big board of 15/15 in total stats. It gets discounted by any spell we cast on a character, not just buffs! If we hit an opponent in the head with a Frostbolt, that discounts Shanty.
We could envision a buffing Paladin deck that runs Sunscreen generation along with other buffs to leverage the card, or one that goes off with Lynessa to rapidly discount the spell in one turn.
Alternatively, there is great promise in leveraging Sea Shanty in Mage, thanks to Concierge making our 1-mana Paladin buffs cost no mana. This doesn’t require Service Ace either. We just need to find Concierge alongside Divine Brews and Sunscreens to start going off and potentially dropping down Sea Shanty on the same turn.
This does sound like a promising strategy. With some clever deckbuilding, we can help increase the consistency in finding the necessary pieces to go off. The key mulligan piece would be Concierge, which is not too different from a Naga DH looking for its Blindeye Sharpshooter.
Score: 3
Sanc’Azel
The way Sanc’Azel works in a normal turn is the following: Sanc’Azel is played, attacks a minion, and turns into a location. We can then activate the location to buff a friendly minion’s attack, after which Sanc’Azel will turn into a minion again that can attack on the same turn. Once Sanc’Azel attacks the second time though, it will turn into a locked location that will only re-open in a couple of turns.
Sanc’Azel’s health is linked to its durability as a location, while its attack value will determine the attack buff given to a friendly minion as a location. This means that if we buff Sanc’Azel as a minion, we get increased benefits from its role as a location.
Clearly, this legendary minion is a perfect fit for Handbuff Paladin. This deck can buff it in hand to such a level that its attack buff as a location, acting as a source of potential burst headed to the opponent’s face, becomes very scary. The only things we need is one friendly minion in play, as well as one enemy minion in play (for Sanc’Azel to rush into).
We don’t think Sanc’Azel is as versatile as Tarim, nor are we overly excited to see it played in Mage. It’s just a great addition to an existing deck.
Score: 3
Sunsnapper Lynessa
Lynessa is the crème de la crème of the Paladin set, granting access to Rogue cards, a class far removed from the normal identity of Paladin’s playstyle. We suspect that this collaboration will also lead to the emergence of a Paladin deck with a wildly different playstyle than we’re accustomed to.
Lynessa doubles the effect of every cheap spell we cast. That includes coins, Paladin spells and Rogue spells we gain access to, such as ‘Oh, Manager!’.
As we’ve explained when discussing Divine Brew, Lynessa may become the centerpiece of an OTK Paladin deck that kills opponents with Horn of the Windlord and Divine Brew. The damage potential of a Paladin equipping Horn and being buffed by a fully stocked Divine Brew is 32 damage (26 from Brew buffs and 6 from Horn). This is without potential damage coming from ‘Oh, Manager!’ or Holy Glowsticks.
The limitation we have is mana, as we cannot discount Divine Brew with Concierge. But what we can do is accumulate coins, or discount Lynessa with Sea Shill to help us maximize our damage in a single turn.
Alternatively, we could just drop Horn and focus entirely on shooting the opponent’s face with direct damage spells. Paladin has access to several nukes that are cheap and can be copied by Tidepool Pupil. This lessens the reliance on Divine Brew and allows us to OTK opponents past taunts.
But if the OTK path does not materialize in a game, we could similarly use Lynessa as a Sea Shanty discount engine. Note that Lynessa will double the discount on Sea Shanty on every spell, while also doubling the effect of Sea Shanty if it’s discounted to 2 mana or less. We could generate a full board of 5/5’s in a single turn, at a very early stage in the game. That should win us any game against a faster deck that doesn’t run mass removal.
An OTK in slower matchups and a Chef Nomi in faster ones? Lynessa’s potential is massive. Our call for the strongest Tourist in this set.
Score: 4
Final Thoughts
Perils in Paradise Set Rank: 3rd
Tourist Synergy Score: A
Overall Power Ranking: 3rd
We expect Paladin to undergo a complete transformation of its character, thanks to a surprisingly successful collaboration with Rogue, a class that represents the opposite of Paladin’s identity.
From a board-centric class relying on incremental advantages through stats in play, coupled with moderate swing turns, Paladin may turn into a combo-centric, burst damage flinging, electrifying class with the most heart thumping swing turns in the format.
Lynessa will be at the center of it all and may prove to be the most powerful Tourist as a standalone card. What we like the most about Paladin’s chances of successfully incorporating Lynessa is the versatility she provides. A Lynessa Paladin can be built to create massive boards within the blink of an eye. It can be built to burst down opponents from full life as early as turn 6-7. A hybrid approach can also be accommodated, making Lynessa adaptable to any kind of format that emerges.
Having said that, Paladin can still rely on its established strategies to thrive. Both Showdown and Handbuff Paladin are strong decks in the current meta. However, both receive almost no support through this set. If the format surges in power, they might be left behind. For Showdown Paladin to be successful, it needs other aggressive, board-centric decks to thrive. For Handbuff Paladin to be successful, it needs the late game clock of the format to be pushed as far as possible so that its stat scaling comes online.
If you want to play a Paladin deck unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, this is the time to do it. This is the class’ time to capture the hearts of the best players on ladder. Get ready to live in Lynessa’s world.
