Basic Paladin Deck

While there are obvious weaknesses due to the Basic-only limitation, this deck is balanced, and quite strong. It should allow you to defeat the AI (in both Normal and Expert modes), and it can hold its own against players using Rare, Epic, and even Legendary cards in Play mode.

In addition to listing the deck, we will also explain why some cards have been included or excluded, how some of the minions in the deck are best played, and what changes you can make to the deck.

Note that to succeed with this deck (as with all decks), you need to make the correct decisions while playing. For this reason, we advise you to also read these two articles: Card Advantage and Why Am I Losing?.

Strategy

Paladin is a superb choice for a Basic deck due to the strength of many of their Basic cards, especially in the 4 Mana slot, as well as the consistency and utility of their Hero Power. It can also teach you strong lessons about exploiting value and how to play the long game.

The Paladin Hero Power is key to success with the class when playing any deck but particularly in a Basic only deck. Getting strong and consistent value out of your Silver Hand Recruits can help you bridge the gap between you and opponents who are playing more expensive and higher value cards. To facilitate this, you should try and use your Hero Power on each turn where possible. For example, on 6 Mana, playing a 4-drop plus your Hero Power is usually better than playing a 6-drop.

Card Choices

In this section we will discuss some of the cards that have been chosen, how to use them effectively, and why they are chosen over other possibilities. Hopefully this will both help you to succeed with this deck, as well as inform your own deck building decisions in the future.

Shattered Sun Cleric is a powerful card in Paladin since you can almost always guarantee a target for it with your Hero Power.

Truesilver Champion is one of the most efficient Weapons in the game, and is almost guaranteed to 2-for-1 your opponent. It can also combine with your Hero Power to kill 5 health minions like Chillwind Yeti.

Blessing of Kings is a powerful buff card and can turn any minion into a serious problem for your opponent. Avoid using this card preemptively, before your minion is able to attack, since it leaves you very weak to direct removal. You should also take care to spread out the power on your board for the same reason, usually it is more beneficial to buff one of the smaller minions on your board, or a Silver Hand Recruit than to make an already big minion even bigger.

Consecration is an excellent AoE tool, and can help you to recover the board if you fall behind. Again due to the strength of your Hero Power, you can combine Consecration with your Silver Hand Recruits to kill 3 health minions.

Hammer of Wrath is another strong removal tool that also provides card draw to cycle you through your deck a little faster. Although the 3 damage alone is often not enough to remove a problematic minion, you have other tools at your disposal to do the remaining damage, such as Truesilver Champion and Silver Hand Recruits.

Paladin is one of the classes that is able to use Frostwolf Warlord effectively. Since the 5 Mana pool is fairly weak in the Basic set, many basic decks struggle to find an efficient 5-drop. However, since Paladin has access to Silver Hand Recruits to always maintain a board presence, the chances of being able to play Frostwolf Warlord as at least a 5/5 is extremely high.

Guardian of Kings is a strong late game card that can provide some much needed stability if you are low on health.

Stormwind Champion is your finisher in the deck, it has great synergy with your Silver Hand Recruits, and if your opponent is unable to deal with it immediately, the power of changing your Hero Power from summoning 1/1s to 2/2s cannot be overlooked.

Card Omissions

Here we will talk about some of the cards that are not included to help you understand and identify weaker cards, hopefully improving your deck building skills.

Humility is not included in the deck because when using it, you are spending an entire card and not completely removing one of your opponent's minions. Although there are opportunities to preserve your card advantage by attacking your minions into the minion you cast Humility on, keeping them alive, the card is generally too situational to use effectively.

Holy Light is not included, since spending Mana and a card on doing nothing but healing is usually not enough to save you. In the situation where you are low enough on health to want to heal, there is a good chance you are also behind on the board. In these situations, spending the time healing will just leave you further behind on board. Guardian of Kings is a preferred option to heal since it at least establishes some board presence at the same time.

Card Swaps

Obviously, as a Basic deck, this list has a lot of room for improvement. As you progress with the game and gain access to more cards and Arcane Dust, here are some additions that you may consider.

Other welcome additions from the Expert Set are listed below. However it should be noted that these cards should be added only if you open them from a pack. Spending dust to improve a Basic only deck is not particularly efficient, and you should instead try to save dust towards one of our low, or mid-budget decks.

• 2 x Equality for 2 x Bloodfen Raptor. Equality is an extremely powerful effect and combines with Consecration for a full board clear.
• 2 x Aldor Peacekeeper for 2 x Razorfen Hunter. Aldor Peacekeeper is a card with all the strengths of Humility, with none of the weaknesses. The ability to play a 3/3 body alongside the effect of Humility is a much stronger play in terms of tempo and card advantage.

For other strong cards to consider, look at our full budget Paladin decks, or our Crafting Guide.

Changelog