Hearthstone
What is your Paladin Wish List?
Submitted 4 years, 6 months ago by
JackJimson
Hey there,
Just for the sake of discussion, what are your wish lists for Paladin?
For me, here are cards I would like to see in future expansions:
- Early/mid game draw - The best draw engine of Pally is Lay on Hands which cost 8 mana. Compare that to Battle Rage and Skull of Gul'dan, it is significantly weaker.
- If they want to create a class identity, maybe make the card draw a Libram.
- Spell: Libram of Insight. 6 mana. Draw 3 cards. - Sprint with Upside -or-
- Spell: Libram of Insight. 4 mana. Draw 2 cards. - Slower Arcane Intellect with Upside
- If they want to create a class identity, maybe make the card draw a Libram.
- Un-situational Good 1 drops - Imprisoned Sungill is a decent card, but isn't as impactful if you aren't running synergy builds. Maybe something like:
- Minion: 1 mana 1/2 with divine shield. - A sticky minion turn 1, as a possible buff target turn 2.
- Minion: 1 mana 1/2. Battlecry: Summon a 1/1. - 2 tokens to contest the board. Can synergize with existing cards like Righteous Cause
- More libram discount cards
- Minion: 1 mana 1/2: Battlecry: Reduce the Cost of your Librams by (1) this game
- Spell: 3 mana: Draw 2 cards. Reduce the Cost of your Librams by (1) this game
Before going hiatus from HS, Paladin used to be my favorite class (particularly Mid range paladin before standard started). So my wish list leans towards that archetype.
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Hey there,
Just for the sake of discussion, what are your wish lists for Paladin?
For me, here are cards I would like to see in future expansions:
Before going hiatus from HS, Paladin used to be my favorite class (particularly Mid range paladin before standard started). So my wish list leans towards that archetype.
I also like to play Paladin (my only golden hero besides Rogue). I wish Paladin to gets SOME win condition. Currently aggro decks have no comeback mechanics, control decks have decent board control tools and healing, but has no big threats other than good old Tirion, midrange decks are too slow... Paladin is in the middle of nowhere. Give us something, please!
The pleasure is mine.
My last standard decks: nothing special right now.
You pretty much nailed most of what paladin currently needs, but to be honest we'll most likely only see only some form of one of the 3 you listed. Reasoning below;
- For some weird reason hearthstone has never really followed up with the theme of previous expansions, ever since Ungoro. So the libram train probably ends here. I dont particularly think the librams needs expansions; Libram of Hope and Libram of Justice are pretty strong in their own right, and Libram of Wisdom is flexible enough to fill in the gaps. Also, any further discount cards for librams will just break the game. If Libram of Hope ever gets to 0 mana, you can easily picture a few turns of cycle with Lady Liadrin and bounce cards. Not what I would call as balanced.
- Good 1 drops are needed, but your suggestions is just a little too much. With the exception of cards like pre-nerf Undertaker, Patches the Pirate and Small-Time Buccaneer, team5 have never really printed anything too good in the 1 mana slot, and from experience that's probably a wise choice. Even so, I think with the nerf to Battlefiend, a regular Blazing Battlemage or Argent Squire can easily fill paladin's 1 slot without making it overpowered. Hand of A'dal is already too good a follow up and most class can't deal with one on curve.
- I will agree that card draw is the one thing paladin really struggles hard right now, but again from experience, we would probably get some kind of conditional card draw option. Maybe 1 mana draw 1, draw 2 if you have a dragon in hand. Or 2 mana draw 1, reduce its cost by 3. Or maybe even 2 mana, draw 2 spells from your deck. I like your idea of a libram card draw, but even you would concede that its pretty much broken with the discount cards.
Just to add a few suggestions of my own to boost paladin's sorry state;
- Buff Libram of Wisdom to 1 mana
- Create a paladin class Wild Pyromancer. Maybe a 3-4 mana 3/4 with pyromancer effect.
- More secrets, and by god, please let them be playable. Maybe a secret that summons two 1/1s after enemy attacks your face/minions, any secret that builds board somehow. And no, this is not solely motivated by the fact that I have a Commander Rhyssa gathering dust in my collection.
Ahh, Paladin. I have so many wishes for Paladin.
In your first suggestion you hit on something people often miss: spells that deal damage are not part of Paladin class identity (in fact I don't think they have had a single one since Classic), and that alone motivates a bit of a rework of the core sets. The same goes for destroy effects, which are almost non-existent in the class.
This observation also goes some way towards answering your 4th suggestion: 1-card AoE requires dealing damage to kill things, which the class just does not do. Its version is to debuff minions (e.g. Equality, Libram of Justice and Shrink Ray), which of course leads to 2-card AoEs if you actually want to kill the minions. This design angle makes Paladin unique and I hope they don't give the class any conventional AoE beyond Consecration.
Regarding your 5th suggestion, I don't think it would be good for the class to have great value generation. It's mix of great healing and value would then look a bit too much like priest. Instead I want its control tools to deal better with aggro from the start, while leaning into what pally does well: minions. It should have more things like Benevolent Djinn as proactive control tools rather than the reactive tools of priest. Sure you might still usually lose to more value-heavy control decks, but it gives you the choice to try to go midrange to win those instead of waiting to lose to value.
Totally fair points. I completely agree that direct damage and single-target damage (aside from weapons if you count those) isn't really a part of Paladin's class identity. I do like that the class uses mass debuffs as it's AoE, I think my frustration is that they always seem to rely on Wild Pyromancer or Consecration to actually clear anything. I think Libram of Justice is a great example of the kind of AoE I want more of for the class, since it equips the 1/4 weapon so you can by default remove at least one thing without combining it with something else.
I would personally be fine with Paladin being positioned as the "midrange" class and tries to win games that way, I just think it needs a little bit more support (such as the proactive control tools or sturdy minions) to get there.
Libram Paladin is a midrange deck, but it's way too slow. The cards are also too fair compared to the competitive metagame. I want to see cards like a "1 mana 2/2, battlecry: Discover a Libram" or a "3 mana 3/4, everytime this kills a minion, reduce the cost of your Librams by 1".
TBH, I'd be happy even just one of those were implemented lol/
You have a point here which sucks for us lol. I liked the concept of the Libram when it was first announced, cautiously optimistic Blizz breaks the trend and add more support. But even if they don't go with the Libram track, just better support cards (e.g. card draw, better early drops) could make Librams work.
Unless pally gets insane draw mechanisms like OTK pally, I doubt more discounts would break the game. Drawing and playing all 4 existing cards only has a total of 6 discount, so I believe there is some room. In a normal game it it highly unlikely you will draw all of them anyway. I had countless games that ended with Libram pally where I didn't even draw a single Libram discount cards (with a hand full of libram. no less). Also re: Lady Liadrin, in the course of the game you will more than likely pollute your pool with Libram of Wisdoms, so you will unlikely get that broken number of [Hearthstone Card (Libram of Hopes) Not Found].
Even if they don't print more Libram cards, I hope we get more ways to tutor out the discount cards. Librams without the discounts are highly inefficient cards.
I admit I erred more on overpowered than underpowered when I stated those examples, but I think paladin needs more broken cards. The other classes do broken things while pally is stuck with OK cards.
The ones you mentioned are OK cards in the current meta, but OK doesn't cut it I think. Otherwise they would be widely used. I don't think I have ran into a pally which run Blazing Battlemage or Argent Squire.
I think broken is relative, if every class has broken cards, then I don't think its broken. I mean they printed Skull of Gul'dan, draw 3 with 9 mana worth of discount.
But I'll leave it up to team 5 what they consider balanced or not. The samples I stated are just my opinion.
I agree with proactive tools. I also want Paladin to go for the mid range route.