Which card(s) were removed that made secret paladin unviable overnight in Standard? Is it just the fact that it doesn't curve perfectly to 8 anymore?

Surprised no one has tried to make renopally a thing

Minibot, muster and avenge

Avenge, Shredder, Minibot, Muster, and Boom.

Gotcha, so it was the curve that really made the deck

Although Avenge is pretty good as far as pally secrets go. Every secret pally I encounter in Wild runs it.

A ton of deathrattles rotating out was a big deal for secret pally. Secret pally needs a board presence on turn 5 to be great.

They had the best 2 drop and best 3 drop and both were removed. Guess what the best class is now, the one with the best 1, 2 drops and used to have the 3 drop. Warrior has the the 2nd best 2 drop and has always been viable.

it's essentially a 1 mana 3-2 with charge--tons of value so of course it's run in every secret pally deck and will always be run in every wild secret pally deck. it's so good their replacements for it have been the 1/2 divine strength which blows.

I don't think so.

Lets just take a look at what thinning your deck actually does. Imagine what happens if you would have the option to thin your deck for no resources at the start of the game by 2 cards.

That means you are playing a 28 card deck. It also means you can cut out 2 of the weakest cards in the deck. This makes the average power level of your cards go up. But by how much? After all, you have access to every card so you should be playing 30 of the strongest cards available to your deck archtype. There would have to be a pretty huge variance in power level in the top 15 cards to see a big difference.

Sure, for secret pally you got to thin out very marginal cards when you cast Mysterious Challenger. But to be able to get that thinning effect, you had to put those marginal cards in there in the first place. If you played normal mid-range pally, you wouldn't have any marginal cards. So saying that MC was good because it thinned out the crap is misleading. The crap was only in there because of the MC. The reason secret pally was strong was because you had a broken curve and because MC gave insane value for a single 6 mana spell.

All in all I think thinning gives a very marginal effect in added value, and unlike our theoretical example, it is never free. The downside of playing Patches is pretty significant. As is the downside of drawing many secrets before MC.

edit:
sorry for rambling, I've wanted to discuss this point with someone for a while now cause I see people saying this on reddit but I'm not going to respond to someone on reddit because why would anyone subject themselves to that

It's actually Buccaneer that's broken.

1 mana 3/2, summon a 1/1 with charge is ridiculous.

what even beats renolock right now?

there's nothing more tilting than having to play 20 min games where they rope every turn and you know you're probably not going to win anyway

Reno mage should do the trick.

the reno mage decks ive seen basically have no win condition.. how do they outvalue the basically infinite jaraxxus value?

i can kinda beat them with control warrior but i have to really, really, really out maneuver them and they cant draw combo pieces early. if the game goes late i lose. so i have to push face damage and hope to put them on the defensive which is basically impossible because i'm only really running 2/7 taunts as my biggest minion

i've seriously tried everything. various jade decks which i suck with and are not fun, reno priest, everything loses to it right now. i just concede when i see the brann'd kazakus because i just dont wanna lose anymore 20-30 min games.

maybe i should go back to miracle rogue. hunter? there are no good hunter decks

Aviana druid beats it.

Jarraxus really isn't a thing right now from what I've seen. You can pull a couple fire balls off Tony and burn them with Alex after they Reno.

I'm pretty sure I have run above expectations vs. Jade Druid this season but the past 3 games in a row they needed exactly 2 swipes in hand out of 2-3 cards for lethal (while I was setting up my own lethal) and they had it.

think you are missing the primary point of thinning a deck. a card can be strong early and weak late or vica versa. with mysterious challenger, putting cards into play immediately is insane, esp on a 6/6 body, but it's also that those same secrets were OK early and **** late, so if you thin them out, you never draw them late.

to a smaller effect, same deal with patches.

i think if people could play a 20 card deck they would.

Been playing exclusively arena since the expansion and can't quite get over the hump. Hanging around 6.75 average wins per run and only had one run go more than 9. Everything just right around 7.

Every class has seemed pretty viable and decent to me though. Mage is the only class I haven't played thus far.

With quests I've made a few hundred gold and I've got about 20 packs as rewards from the arenas. Forgot how enjoyable arena can be and how I used to do this even more to keep up as a F2P player. Right now there's no pressure since I don't really care about constructed.

I got 12 today for the first time with priest, the arena meta has completely transformed

Mage still the King of Arena

Mage always so boring

Warlock seems super good right now. Warrior too.

I think mage is fun when you don't get freerolled to 12 wins with a good draft.

I think warlock has usurped mage honestly, from what i've been seeing. been playing a ****load of arena

abyssal enforcer is just way too good. basically a flamestrike with a 6/6 body that hits your opponents face. it's nuts. power level wise it's like >>>>>>>>>> so much stronger than firelands portal. OH yea and the mage can't immediately take it out on his turn 7 with the portal. also the 4 mana kill anything card, cheaper siphon soul that pops up a lot in draft because of the expansion bonus. the buff all demons 4 mana 5/4 is also nuts.

i think mage and priest are on the same level now as well. in my 8+ runs i see a lot of priest now.

Take it to the Arena thread you clowns!

jk, I'm just salty cuz I'm the worst arena player ever.

I may be too greedy in my Renolock but I'm not sure what to take out.

Ragnaros and Jaraxxus seem too good to remove.

I feel like I need another heal to get to Reno and also a heal AFTER Reno. Cult Apothecary?

Ive cut both Ragnaros and Jaraxxas. Too many dead hands against aggro and jaraxxas is a dead card in the mirror.