I keep going back and forth as to whether or not Justicar is good in Paladin or not. It's like THE win condition in some matchups and then just a dead card in some. I really like Kings after not playing it for a long time, just seems like a great card.

i had to try this one out. i like ragnaros and havent been able to fit it in a deck for a long time and its a good deck i like it. unfortunately i kept on running into nothing but warriors and freezemage.
i think the ragnaros make both match ups a lot better but they are just not fun and i do not ennjoy the current state of the ladder at all.

so its propably back to arena for me

Getting sick of secret pally, really need to nerf Mysterious Challenger.

Play face hunter and stomp them.

Nah play Patron, lol. Kind of serious.

(Srsly I recommend Mech Mage, that deck is quite good against 'em.)

I do play mech mage and they stall to get to Challenger.

You should be way ahead by board at that point. Swap out a clockwork gnome for arcane missiles, it's amazing against muster and hunters. Those were most of my rank 3-1 opponents.

I will do that. Most mech decks have Fel Reavers which I lack so I use Clockwork Knight's instead. Most of the time they stall with muster for battle and consecrations which leaves my boards devastated.

When is it correct to keep Dr 6 in your opening hand?

If your certain that you are facing a slower control deck...then keeping Dr 6 is justified in your opening hand.

Generally, you can keep Mysterious when you have the coin and you curve out one, two, three...

Midrange Pally: TheoryCraft of the Week

Wanted to call out some testers for this version of midrange pally.

My first season hitting legend, I ran a control variant of solemn vigil paladin to great success when the meta was filled with Grim Patrons, Handlocks, and Control Warriors.

Currently, the meta is too aggressive to run that exact list, but with solemn vigil being such a strong card imo...I wanted to create a variant of paladin that utilized equal/cons/solemn vigil build but curved more to the lower end of the mana curve. So this is the list I came up with.

Perhaps Solemn Vigil could work EVEN BETTER with a lower curve. With more two drops and double chow, you're less likely to draw a bad opening hand while having strong midgame buffs to sustain early board presence. And with Solemn Vigil, you are less likely to run out of steam while having the ability to maintain tempo.

I'd love for you guys to give this a go and get back to me on your results with it. I think it has the potential to be more consistent than some of the other builds of midrange pally, but I don't have enough data to back that up yet.

My gut reaction is that vigil is too slow for the current meta. Whenever I try midrange pally I just get chewed up by hunters and casino mages and I can't imagine vigil making that any easier. That being said, maybe I'll give it a go.

Nevermind...the deck above sucks back to the drawing board

Kreme, I see you include Justicar a lot lately. Do you think it is really good in Paladin? My problem is that it loses a lot of tempo, which isn't as big of a problem in Warrior, but I've been feeling underwhelmed in Paladin outside of a few matchups. It just insta dies, and you gotta hero power like 3 or 4 more times in order to make up for it. IDK. I definitely like running Argus if you run Justicar.

Justicar becomes relevant in the control matches....and theoretically, if you run enough early game to stave off the aggro meta, justicar should help find value late game...hence the idea of running argus and various buff mechanics as well. I'm still tinkering. I think Justicar is good, but I'm not sure the perfect midrange build has been concocted yet.

i have been playing around abit with the midrange list including ragnaros you posted in here recently and also some midrange secret paladin and have come to the following conclusions.
i think normal midrange paladin is better than secret midrange mc just doesnt have that huge of an impact if it just draws 2 secrets a lot of the time i won most of my games with the secret midrange by simply curving out great and having some midgame burst potential with the blessing of kings.
so in summary i prefer midrange but i like the core of kings and coghammer over truesilver and argus.

I actually think I agree with you, donjonnie. I want to replicate the same great, early curve that secret pally has without sacrificing the mid, late game power that midrange standard bring to the table.

I'm so over playing secret pally...it's not fun. it was, but isn't anymore. Just curve out and win...not engaging...

So perhaps a midrange build that looks something like this, might be a nice hybrid:

Um....I think a found a little diamond in the rough above....loving the way it has been playing so far...so much tempo and sheer power. Am 9-1 with it so far with some good RNG in there, but I'm liking where this build is going

I used almost that list for a couple games today, not enough to comment much. I changed it too much heh. Did you like seal in that run? Didnt miss equality? I'll run the exact list a bit sometime tomorrow.

What do you think about Flame Juggler?

i will give that list atry later.
at first glance i wpould say it seems weird to run knife juggeler but no creepers.

Flame Juggler is only good in Arena. There are just better 2 drops in constructed. It's not a bad tempo play and good against hunters and maybe pally but otherwise I don't really care for it.

A few comments on some of the inclusions/exclusions above for JUGGLER PALADIN:

1) Seal of Champions: I thought about running two Blessing of Kings instead, but also understood that the four slot is just two crowded to overload, so instead I wanted a buff mechanic that smoothed out the curve a bit and gave a second divine shield giver to increase the chances of adding a huge turn three tempo swing and keep the opponent on the back foot. Helps with trading up and getting fee kills from time to time.

2) Flame Jugglers: My initial list had haunted creepers instead, but I wanted to experiment with a different two drop with more haste. The idea of the deck is to mimic the strength of Secret Paladin by creating a much smoother, early curve than the traditional Midrange Paladin typically has. I've experimented with Flame Jugglers in the past, but I did this by taking out Knife Jugglers/Zombie chows instead. But with the combination of chow/flame/knife/minibot...the opportunities of locking up the early board control skyrocket. It gives you so many options depending if you are on the coin or not.

Without coin, you obviously want chow turn one, but with the extra proactive two drops included in my build, the instances of having a bad early draw drop with 8 playable two drops on curve.

With coin, you have a lot of options. You can play your curve if you open with zombie chow into mini/flame/knife. zombie into flame gives you opportunities to turn one chow into turn two flame juggler, which can give upside in killing a minibot/mana wyrm/northsire cleric/darnassus/etc. You can also coin out a minibot follow up with a flame juggler, get a huge tempo kill...you can coin out knife juggler then play flame juggler turn two to rng your way into killing a two health minion. Either way, you get some added utility in locking down early board control and now you have 6 early drops with either three health or divine shield without sacrificing the early and late game power of knife jugglers.

3) No owl: Owl obviously has its benefits without saying, but I wanted a more proactive card turn two. I experimented with running double owl instead of double flame juggler, but I just liked the body of flame juggler more in having better early trades even if i don't get the 50/50 ping. This deck is a proactive deck with a lot of haste and burst....owl can often be a reactive card in most situations, so he made the cut (if i had an extra spot that would be the first card to include).

4) No Equality: With OTK Patron out of the game, and Handlock phasing out of the meta, equality was proving to be less useful than it once was. I also wanted to limit the spells and include more minions in order to create the tempo this deck was built around. I still have tools like BGH and Aldors and they do just that in making efficient trades or having huge tempo swings-->both contributing to this deck's win condition

5) One Truesilver + Greenskin: Really wanted Murloc Knight/BOK/Coghammer to make the cut, so I opted to take out one Truesilver to fit in those cards. Coghammer is just SOOO strong in combating aggro/creating tempo, and Murloc Knight can create such card advantage. And with muster/cog/truesilver/ashbringer I haven't found instance where Greenskin hasn't provided value. He is, in nature, an aggressive card, and having weapons with multiple charges helps protect your board much more aggressively.

6) No Healbot: With Coghammer, double sludge belchers, and Lay on Hands, I haven't missed healbot all that much. This deck is a tempo deck in nature, and often you are putting your opponents on the backfoot...you don't necessarily need the heal in order to outlast your opponent. Sludge/early drops/coghammer/lay on hands proved to have enough to keep you and your board alive without losing tempo.

Still cruising along with it...looking forward to grinding next season with this build. Week matchups can be control priest/rogue...face hunter is closer than you think it would be albeit still slightly unfavored...most others seem to be pretty strong so far though. Will need to play for it longer to balance out any variance effect, but definitely more consistent.

Great writeup