Agro Paladin
In Hearthstone, there is one style of deck that always has at least a few variants running around, the “agro” deck. So called agro because you are the aggressor, usually attacking the opponent’s face every turn. This week, we have the Agro Paladin.
While the agro hunter is always present on ladder, I chose the paladin version to mix things up a bit. With warrior, warlock, and hunter ruling the scene right now, a lot of tournaments are forcing players to bring more than three decks in order to keep things interesting. I came across this deck at Team Archon’s website, brought by RDU.
The Basics
Like I said at the beginning of the article, basically, you just slam down minions and attack your opponent’s face. Of course, there’s a little more too it than that, and paladin likes to get things done its own way. In particular, they like to use the Divine Shield buff, where the minion takes 0 damage from all sources, combined with Blessing of Might, to give a minion +3 attack.
Take the Shielded Minibot for example. Dropping this on an empty board alone is great. It trades with most other 2 drops, but doesn’t die thanks to it’s Divine Shield. Well, give that minion Blessing of Might, and suddenly your opponent is staring down a 5/2 minion that will take 2 hits to kill. That’s some serious agro.
After You Attack the Face
Once you’ve flood the board in the early game with 1 mana minions or a Muster for Battle, keep the pressure on. You will only rarely want to be the one trading minions, as in most cases your board presence will force your opponent to trade or be overrun. Bear in mind though, around 4 and 5 mana, a lot of classes will have access to their board clearing spells. So keep the pressure on, but don’t overload the board.
The other thing to keep in mind is your card count. With so many 1 and 2 mana cards in this deck, it’s easy to use them all and end up with an empty hand. This is where Divine Favor comes in. This lets you empty your hand then draw as many cards as your opponent has. While it’s not a good keep in your opening hand, you want to have 2 of them in the deck so you’re more likely to draw into one copy when you need it.
Finishing the Game
Because of the very nature of agro decks, the longer a game goes, the more likely you are to lose. You have a couple finishers in this deck including Truesilver Champion, Arcane Golem + Blessing of Might, and Blessing of Kings. While you should be attacking your opponent directly when you can, try and save your charge minions for that final burst of damage.
This deck also runs two Ironbeak Owls. These will be important to get past the taunts that your opponent will play to slow you down. They can be used other times, like to stop a Mad Scientist, but taunts are the biggest threat to the success of this deck.
Right now, it’s hard to find decks that can compete with the “Big 3” classes in the meta. The nice thing about agro decks is that if they get the right cards, they can beat any kind of deck. Just understand, some games will be over after only a few turns if your opponent has all the answers.
I hope you enjoy trying out some paladin, a class that doesn’t see much play these days. If you want to challenge me to a game, look for AGRitterific. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below or find me on Twitter @AGRitterific.
