Dragondin
After covering all nine classes and a competitive deck for each, Deck of the Week is going to start featuring some fun or unorthodox decks, at least until the Grand Tournament expansion launches. This week is going to be the dragon paladin deck.
Dragon paladin decks have been around since the Blackrock Mountain adventure, and while many people have tried, including noted player Brian Kibler, dragon decks always seem to be lacking just a little too much to be truly competitive. However, if fun is your goal, dragon decks have that in spades. This particular dragon paladin deck was recently played by Savjz.
The Basics
As the name implies, the focus on this deck is dragons. Several of the card choices have special effects if you have a dragon-type card in your hand. Blackwing Technician for example is a fairly standard 3 mana minion with 2 attack and 4 health. If you have a dragon in your hand however, she gets a battlecry of +1/+1, making her a beefy 3/5 for 3 mana.
The Blackwing Corruptor is another card with dragon synergy. If you have a dragon in your hand, he has a battlecry to deal 3 damage, making him similar to the Fire Elemental in shaman decks. This 3 damage is targeted, so you can use it on enemy minions, the enemy hero, or even your own minions if necessary.
Paladins also have a class card that synergizes well with this deck, the Dragon Consort. Not only is it a dragon to activate other cards, but when you play it, you get the effect of your next dragon played being reduced by 2 mana. This effect stays active until you play a dragon, so you can save it until you need it. Unfortunately, because Dragon Consort is a dragon, you can’t stack the effects as playing the second Consort consumes your first effect. No 5 mana Yseras.
The Dragons
In addition to Dragon Consort, this deck has three heavy hitting, legendary dragons. These are Alexstrasza, Nefarian, and Ysera. All of these dragons have powerful effects and will often end up being your win condition with this deck. Ysera in particular is good at ending games because she constantly generates you very strong cards. If you can bait out their removal spells with the other two dragons, it is very hard for most classes to deal 12 damage before you have enough dream cards to win the game.
Supporting the Dragons
Of course, it’s very difficult to get to 8 or 9 mana to unleash your dragons without some help along the way. This deck also runs some other midrange legendaries, Sylvanas, Thaurissan, and Loatheb. Against aggressive decks, there are some taunts and board clears. The key board clear spell in a paladin’s arsenal is Equality, which reduces every minion on the board to 1 health. Combine this with Wild Pyromancer to completely wipe the board or Consectation to just clear the opponent’s side.
Finally, there are a few cards included for healing, drawing cards, and weapons. Coghammer is a very strong weapon in this type of deck. It gives a random friendly minion both taunt and divine shield. If you manage to land this on a huge dragon, your opponent better hope to have a Big Game Hunter in their hand. Of course, Coghammer can be used early in the game to keep board control as well, so don’t be too greedy with it.
To bring this deck together, it is a type of control deck. This means that you don’t want to let your opponent overrun you, but it’s not a huge deal if you don’t have board control early on. There is quite a bit of healing in this deck, so it’s ok to get a little low. Using your board clears wisely is also key to winning with this deck. Ultimately, you want to run your opponent out of removal, then use a big dragon to finish them off.
That wraps up this Deck of the Week. Now that the next expansion is on the horizion, the meta game is going to be changing soon. Until then, I’m very open to suggestions for fun decks to try. Mill Rogue might make an appearance, or perhaps Majordomo Mage. If you have a cool deck, please tweet it to me @AGRitterific. Thanks!
