The Comprehensive Saviors of Uldum Preview

Data Reaper Report - Paladin

Subdue

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This is a pretty good card and would have impressed us more in every other set. Almost a hard removal option for Paladin considering that it’s a class that can easily trade a dude to clean up the 1/1. The problem is that it’s a Control Paladin card, and that’s an entity we haven’t seen in a long time and find no reason to see return anytime soon.

Score: 2


Sandwasp Queen

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We’re looking forward to playing a bad 2-drop and then follow it up by playing bad 1-drops. That’s a bold strategy, Cotton. We’ll see if it pays off.

Score: 1


Ancestral Guardian

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A worse Piloted Shredder with Lifesteal. Sure, potentially healing us for 8 is nice, but it’s also nice to have minions that effectively fight for the board, and this one doesn’t. Not sure why this is a class card since it’s so incredibly boring.

Score: 1


Brazen Zealot

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Ah. Sand Wasp makes sense now. We play a bad 2-drop and follow it up with bad 1-drops so you can buff the attack of this menacing 1-drop, which dies to a ping. This is all very exciting.

Score: 1


Salhet’s Pride

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We now get to play a bad 3-drop so we can draw more bad minions that die to pings! To be fair, this card is better than Sand Wasp and Brazen Zealot since its draw effect could find its way to other decks rather than aggressive ones.

Score: 2


Pharaoh’s Blessings

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Blessing of Kings with taunt and divine shield. This is costed fairly, which is why it won’t see play. You generally want buffs in aggressive decks that can leverage their minions on the board to push more immediate damage. This card costs 2 more than Kings but doesn’t deal more damage on the turn its played. Its divine shield also encourages trading rather than pushing damage, so we just can’t see slower decks use this spell particularly well either. It’s no Spikeridged Steed.

Score: 1


Micro Mummy

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A slightly better and stickier Master Swordsmith. That doesn’t inspire confidence. It’s a mech we don’t want to play in Mech Paladin, and just a very mediocre aggressive card in general.

Score: 1


Tip the Scales

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Probably the most interesting Paladin card in this set. We can see a deck full of murlocs abusing this card with Prismatic Lens and cheating this out as early as turn 5. The problem is that it heavily restricts deck building, leaves us with a very one-dimensional tribal deck that’s extremely vulnerable to AOE. The deck thinning aspect is quite substantial with this kind of effect, so perhaps it will find another upside.

Score: 2


Sir Finley of the Sands

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Players with PTSD from Baku can relax. Finley is more of a Justicar than a Baku, in the sense that it can gain small advantages over time, and it’s dependent on being drawn rather than being consistently present. A highlander deck is also not built to abuse a specific upgraded hero power, especially tempo-focused ones such as Rogue’s or Paladin’s. Even if Finley is played on turn 2, he can’t snowball the game like Keleseth does. A strong card but a little overhyped.

Score: 3


Making Mummies

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We must include about 10 reborn minions to complete this quest at a reasonable time. Doing so forces us into running a decent number of mediocre minions that makes our deck underwhelmingly weak. And when we finally complete the quest, we receive an equally mediocre reward that is terrible when we’re behind, which we will be, since our deck sucks. It’s a hard pass.

Score: 1


Final Thoughts

Saviors of Uldum Set Rank: 9th

Overall Power Ranking: 9th

Somehow, Paladin managed to receive an atrocious set in an expansion that could be known as one of the strongest. It feels like the Shaman set in Knights of the Frozen Throne. Finley is clearly the best Paladin card in Uldum, but even he may not be enough to carry a highlander deck to success since Paladin’s card pool depth doesn’t compare to other classes. We’re also not sure what a Highlander Paladin deck even wants to do.

Outside of Highlander decks, there really isn’t much promise elsewhere. Mech Paladin, the class’ strongest archetype today, may try to incorporate the quest in its build. However, Making Mummies looks like one of the weakest quests available and there’s no guarantee it will be an upgrade. Only Tip the Scales feels like a truly worthy build-around to try and work on in a Murloc Paladin deck.

Paladin has already been suffering from stagnation in its strategies during Rise of Shadows, and in Saviors of Uldum, things could get worse.

 

 

6 Comments

  1. One more thing about the Warrior quest: Yes it does conflict with Madlad Boom but I think H4xx0r Warrior will be its own deck and even be very good (like tier 2). Warrior is already on the verge if being broken, and imo the Bomb-Control-Quest dark triad of warrior decks will dominate the meta. Madlad Boom will finally be nerfed.

  2. My 2 cents:

    – You’re overrating the Druid quest. You’re underestimating the huge tempo loss of having to spare mana on the first turns. Druid is a class that naturally struggles with tempo and this is making things worse. If there were more cards like Oasis Surger that are insane when the effects arr combined, it could hve been viable, but those that exist are too scarce. I can see it being viable later expansions.

    – Similarily you’re overestimating the warlock set. The quest sucks, we agree on that (it’s even worse than Lakaari Sac!) but the lackey synergy doesn’t compensate for that. Youre way too optimistic about EVIL summoner, its harder to activate than you think. Will see play for sure but its not insane.

    – Bug Collector is the sleeper neutral common of the set. It’s excellent tempo and fits in a wide variety of decks. I may be completely wrong but if im right i’ll take credit. Jar Dealer and Pit Crocolisk could see some fring constructed play.

    Apart from that, I agree with the rest of your analysis.

  3. I love that you all are doing this for every expansion now. love, love, love how informative it is for the reader. thank you.

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