Quest Recruit Paladin

Wild Hearthstone has thousands of cards, and a wide variety of possible decks. This incredible deck diversity is sometimes lost when only looking at the few decks common in the highest ranks. Wildest of Days is a series aiming to highlight a different off meta deck each week with an in depth guide into its strategy and gameplay. The decks are selected for having interesting synergies and using rarely seen cards.

Today, we are rising to the occasion. The occasion is to play with the Rise to the Occasion quest, in a deck which goes all-in on completing it early along with having a few silver hand recruit synergies. The quest is complete by the end of turn 4 about 80% of the time meaning Lightborn Cariel is usually played on turn 5. From there, the deck uses buffed recruits to take over the board and win. 

Compared to the Pure Recruit Paladin which was on the series earlier, this Quest version of Recruit Paladin is a lot slower at getting large boards and pressure, as it's mostly playing 1 drops the first 4 turns. However, its midgame is stronger since all your recruits will permanently be buffed by +2/+2 by the quest reward and you will have an upgraded hero power which summons two recruits instead of one.

Now, let's get into a guide on playing the deck. It's going to go through major overarching strategies to keep in mind, how to mulligan, gameplay tips on key synergies, and card choices.

Strategies

Quest Recruit Paladin focuses on completing Rise to the Occasion as fast as it can to get to the powerful Lightborn Cariel whose battlecry gives your silver hand recruits +2/+2 for the rest of the game. This is a very powerful reward that can let you dominate the midgame. Due to your hero power summoning 2 recruits after the quest is complete, it gives a consistent source of pressure even if your initial waves are cleared. The deck is mostly 1 drops, and many of those 1 drops either draw or generate more 1 drops to your hand for fast and consistent quest completion while fighting to keep the board in the early game.

Before Quest Completion - Play different 1 drops to complete the quest as fast as possible.

After Quest Completion - If the deck loses the early game, it can comeback by using Animated Broomstick or Lord Barov. Another important aspect of the deck is that Taelan Fordring will consistently get Lothraxion the Redeemed, which will make your recruits even better and harder to remove. The deck will keep on 

This deck starts out slow with playing different 1 drops and has a powerful midgame of summoning 3/3 recruits which you can buff further with various other cards.

Mulligans

• Always keep the quest.

• Keep any of the following cards that are good for multiple ticks of quest completion: Blessed Goods, Crystology, Desperate Measures, Fire Fly, First Day of School, Knight of Anointment, and Pen Flinger.

• Only keep one copy of Blessed Goods and don't keep any if you have a Knight of Anointment.

• Consider keeping Animated Broomstick and Lord Barov if you have both in the mulligan.

Gameplay

The key to playing this deck well is to use your 1 drops effectively to complete the quest faster, but overall it's one of the easiest decks to play in the series and a lot easier than Pure Recruit Paladin.

Below are gameplay tips regarding many of the synergies in this deck and how to use them effectively.

Use Pen Flinger and spells strategically so you can use him once for each stage of the quest.

Remember that each quest stage resets which unique 1 drops are counted.

Desperate Measures does not count as a different 1 drop without the twinspell, but you can use it twice in 2 different quest stages to get 2 overall quest ticks.

Keep in mind that Lightborn Cariel will buff existing recruits on the board in addition to all future ones, while Lothraxion the Redeemed only works for future summoned recruits.

Animated Broomstick and Lord Barov is often a full clear.

Knight of Anointment always draws Blessed Goods.

Animated Broomstick is great with Lightborn Cariel and buffed recruits to take back board control.

You usually want to complete the quest as soon as possible, don't use your upgraded hero power after stage 2 and instead focus on playing more 1 drops.

The exception is when you are against a control deck, they may have Dirty Rat. In these cases try to complete the quest on turn 6 with a 1 drop and then play Lightborn Cariel immediately.

You usually want to get a secret from Blessed Goods as it's a 1 drop for the quest, but don't rush, sometimes you get a good 1 drop divine shield minion. After the quest is complete, you may even want to consider choosing the weapon to push some extra face damage or use it for board control.

Card Choices

This section is going to go through the main packages of cards in the deck. Each package has cards that help the deck with a specific goal. When playing the deck, it's useful to know what purposes each card serves and what other cards in the deck have synergy with it or help achieve the same purpose. This section might also be useful if you're interested in the reasoning for why each card was included in the deck.

Quest Completion

These cards either draw or generate more 1 cost cards. Either way, getting one of these means you can use them to complete multiple ticks of the quest. Since there are so many 1 drops that guarantee 2 or even 3 ticks of quest completion when drawing them, this deck has a good amount of consistency in completing the quest quickly.

Recruit Synergy

Most of these cards summon silver hand recruits, which will be buffed by Lightborn Cariel and by Lothraxion the Redeemed after you play him. Lightfused Stegodon is great for closing out games especially if he offers you Windfury or +3 attack.

Powerful Minions

Taelan Fordring will draw Lothraxion the Redeemed for you, and if he was already drawn Lightfused Stegodon which is also good to have for the midgame. Lord Barov is included to be able to take back lost boards by using your small recruits to trade or by comboing him with an Animated Broomstick. Animated Broomstick is great in general for taking back a lost board by giving rush to your buffed minions in the midgame.

The deck is mostly focused on consistently fast completion of the quest, and in addition contains extra recruit generating cards and cards that buff them. Although the curve looks low, cheap recruit generators and your hero power will be able to generate multiple powerful boards in the midgame. If you have a question or comment, or are wondering about a card substitution, post below.

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