Hearthstone Year of the Hydra, the 2022 Core Set, and Voyage to the Sunken City are almost here and it's about time we give Paladin a review of what is to come. Below you will find our thoughts on Paladin as they pertain to the brand new Hearthstone year. We're going to go over the archetypes we expect to see play, the heavy-hitting cards, a general overview of Paladin, and a theorycraft deck for you to try out on Day 1.
Before we jump straight into our review though, we've got a few pieces of content you may want to check out.
- If you haven't seen the whole Core Set for 2022, check out our guide.
- All the cards have been revealed for Voyage to the Sunken City.
- You can build decks with all these cards in our deckbuilder.
- Need a set rotation refresher? Learn more about card set rotations in Hearthstone.
- Open your card packs early by creating your own Fireside Gathering.
- Check our pack opening simulator to test your luck.
Now with that done, let's jump into it!
With that covered, let's get to it!
Year of the Hydra Paladin Quick Impressions
- Voyage to the Sunken City has quite a bit of support for both a new archetype and a returning old one, these being Holy Paladin and Mech Paladin respectively.
- Paladin's Core set is relatively the same, with minor additions of a couple dragons, cheap cards that cantrip, and the return of Ragnaros, Lightlord, an old midrange finisher.
- Handbuff Paladin does not get a ton of support, but will help provide the core of many of paladin's new deck archetypes.
- While Paladin has definitely gotten quite a few new powerful options to play with for the next year, it cannot help but feel like there is not enough, with Holy Paladin losing cheap buffs and Mech
- Paladin not having enough of its namesake tribe to guarantee its synergies working well. We rate it a 7/10 for its power level, there is plenty of strong tools that will almost assuredly see play at some point, but it does not feel like that will happen immediately.
Paladin Power Level
Year of the Hydra Paladin Archetypes
Voyage to the Sunken City provides paladin with support for 2 classic archetypes, these being Holy and Mech paladin, as well as providing cards to support the backbone for Handbuff paladin.
- Holy - Kotori Lightblade allows you to double up on any holy spells to out tempo the opponents.
- Mech - Voyage to the Sunken City brings plenty of mechs to Paladin, with the haymakers such as Radar Detector and Bubblebot.
- Handbuff - Most of cards that carry Handbuff Paladin are from last year, but there are several cards that will help bolster the deck.
- Silver Hand - The Core Set provides a decent amount of cards to support a dedicated Silver Hand deck, as well as several cards from last year rounding up the deck.
Holy Paladin in Year of the Hydra
While Paladin has always had holy cards since the inception of spell schools, the class has not had many cards dedicated towards filling the deck up with holy cards until now. With payoffs like Kotori Lightblade allowing you to double up on every holy spell and The Garden's Grace providing a large buff to either threaten the opponent's life total or favorably trade, there is a solid reason to play a deck dedicated towards Holy spells.
While both the Core Set and Voyage to the Sunken City provide great payoffs, there is not as many enablers in that are staying in standard, resulting in an archetype that looks incredibly fun to play, but just will be significantly more clunky in practice.
Mech Paladin in Year of the Hydra
Towards the end of the Year of the Dragon, Mech paladin first saw proper success as a mix between a handbuff and mech deck, utilizing magnetic to have a deceptive amount of burst. This time around, Mech paladin appears to focus more on a midrange strategy with cards such as Bubblebot either helping you blow out other board-focused decks while also helping evade board clears. When cards start running low, The Leviathan and Radar Detector aim to provide a fair amount of refill to hopefully close out the game.
The issue arises with the lack of Mechs currently in standard, with there only being 13 different Mechs to run, 2 of which being legendaries and several not being good options to run. This hurts the odds of Radar Detector quite a bit and potentially making a dedicated Mech Paladin deck awkward.
Handbuff Paladin in Year of the Hydra
The core of Handbuff Paladin still comes from United in Stormwind, but it gets some new support with Acolyte of Pain, which turns your handbuffs into possible new cards, and Seafloor Savior, which helps ensure good draws as well as making the chosen card more of a threat. The core of the deck still remains in standard after rotation and so it can be expected to see the deck rise up once again if none of the archetypes can take off.
Silver Hand Paladin in Year of the Hydra
Silver Hand Paladin has always been a fringe deck existing in the background and with both Warhorse Trainer and Stand Against Darkness staying in the Core Set, alongside Rise to the Occasion, provide a decent backbone for the archetype. However neither of these cards help with the core issues of the deck, that being lack of draw and the fact that even when buffed up, silver hand recruits do not finish out the game fast enough.
Year of the Hydra Paladin Heavy Hitters
Both the new Core Set and Voyage to the Sunken City provide a bunch of strong cards, here are what we expect to be the heaviest hitters for Paladin
Kotori Lightblade's Impact in Year of the Hydra
While unfortunately losing most holy spells during rotation, Kotori Lightblade helps ensure the remaining few will still be able to pack a punch. While there is always the dream of doubling up on cards such as The Garden's Grace, even doubling the effect of smaller cards can still push you far ahead in a class that is able to fight for the board so effectively. Where Kotori is going to do the most work however is with smaller spells such as Flash of Light, which goes from a mediocre tool to keep yourself or a minion healthy to a tool that enables plenty of risky trades and helps find more action. As more holy support gets printed this year, Kotori will only become stronger and more of a must kill threat.
Seafloor Savior's Impact in Year of the Hydra
Two mana 2/2s usually are not anything to write home about, but Seafloor Savior has plenty of synergy with preexisting paladin cards, as well as helping usher in the classes Mech support for this expansion. Giving a +2/+2 buff to a minion played in the future is great for midrange strategies where the opponent can have issues with overstatted minions in the early to mid-game. Combine this with the fact that it scales off of preexisting handbuff cards and is a mech itself and you have a powerful card that helps the backbone of the class.
Radar Detector's Impact in Year of the Hydra
A long time ago, Divine Favor was the core to many different aggressive paladin builds, allowing for the player to dump and quickly refill whenever against a slower deck. However, it had the downside of being near useless in more aggressive matchups. Enter Radar Detector, which while not having the chance to draw 6-7 cards like Divine Favor did, does have the upside of crushing other aggressive decks off of such a massive reload. The downside of requiring to run mostly mechs is somewhat costly now, due to the lack of mechs in the coreset, similar to Kotori the further we go in this year the more support will be printed, allowing Radar Detector to become the 2 mana draw 5 it always wanted to be.
Neutral Cards for Paladin in Year of the Hydra
Two of the most welcome returning cards in the new Core Set also turn out to be two that have worked very well in Paladin in the past, these being Wild Pyromancer and Acolyte of Pain. The former pairs well with Paladin's abundance of cheap spells to wrath the board, as well as Equality to nuke everything, while the latter helps fill up Paladin's lack of card draw with a body that works incredibly favorably with handbuff effects.
Mech Paladin also gets some support in Click-Clocker and Security Automaton. Click-Clocker helps the curve tremendously as a solid 1 drop that can easily be buffed on the battlefield, and not only buffs a card in hand but also loves being buffed due to its Divine Shield. Security Automaton is a card just asking to snowball out of control, which for a midrange deck such as Mech Paladin, it is exactly what the deck needs.
Mech Handbuff Paladin - A Theorycraft Deck for Paladin in Voyage to the Sunken City
Using the core of Handbuff Paladin, adding the new mechs allow for more refueling in the form of Radar Detector. Many of the mechs have either already have divine shield, such as Annoy-o-Tron, or can get divine shield later on through the use of Bubblebot, all of which allows us to run Prismatic Jewel Kit to buff every minion in our hand. As for additional payoffs for all the handbuffing, Sunken Mooncatcher is capable of dumping a ton of stats into play with relative easy, First Blade of Wrynn helps control the board, and Blademaster Samuro turns into a 4 mana one-sided board clear after a couple of buffs.
Other notable inclusions in the deck are Ini Stormcoil, which lets us essentially double up on the stats we have given to a minion, Taelan Fordring, which helps draw either Varian, King of Stormwind or The Leviathan for more reload, and lastly Lightforged Cariel, which helps clean the board, keep us healthy, and have a hero power that contributes immediately to our main gameplan.
Final Thoughts
While Paladin gets plenty of strong cards from Voyage to the Sunken City, many of the strongest cards feel like they are not quite there yet in terms of having enough support. Mech paladin has two incredibly strong tools in the forms of Radar Detector and Bubblebot that is unfortunately being held back by miniscule 13 different mechs, two of which are legendary, in standard. A similar case can be seen with Holy cards, where there are only 4 spells that work with Kotori. These archetypes will assuredly become much stronger as this year goes on, for now they both feel rather lackluster compared to Paladin's current shtick with Handbuff.
Thanks for taking the time to read our review on Paladin for Year of the Hydra. Do you agree with our take? Let us know your thoughts on our review and Paladin in the comments below.
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Comments
Twin-fin Fin Twin might be an interesting addition to a handbuff deck.