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Hearthstone7 years agoGosu "GosuGamers" Gamers

A Month in The Wild - Week Two: Recruit Paladin

A Month in the Wild continues with a different deck each week. This time we're grinding out our opponents with an endless supply of 1/1's

Last week, I started this series by playing a bunch of games with N’Zoth/Reno Shaman. When I put out the first article I had been pretty successful and had enjoyed playing a fun deck against a vast array of different archetypes. Things went a little downhill from there. By the time I stopped the deck to begin research for week two, my win rate had sunk to almost exactly 50%. I had 12 wins from 23 games. So what went wrong?
 
I made a few changes to help out my aggro match-ups, but it simply wasn’t enough. I only played against a single Pirate Warrior but the game wasn’t even close. I lost against Aggro Shaman and Recruit Paladin (this week’s deck of choice) and I lost against Dragon Priest. All of those losses were because I couldn't match their board in the early stages. The only deck I lost to multiple times was Quest Rogue. In fact, I lost even more games to that deck than I actually recorded, but I started conceding immediately if my opponent played a rogue quest on turn one. I had basically no chance of winning those games and the deck is super not fun to play against.


The trouble is, my sample size was very small. There were only three decks I played against more than once, and I went 1-1 against two of those. Even more awkwardly, the 1-1 records were against control decks, which I had otherwise felt quite favoured against while playing. I did get quite a good feel for the the deck's overall strenghts and weakness, but the diversity of the format actually hurt my research into the nitty gritty details.
 
Before I go on to discuss this week’s deck, I’ll summarise N’Zoth/Reno Shaman by saying that I don’t think it’s a competitively viable deck. If you’re trying to grind the ladder it’s just too slow and if you’re playing in tournaments its matchups are too swingy. Maybe a better player than me could tune the deck to more accurately target control players, which I think is the deck’s strong point. Aggressive decks are too fast in Wild and, with only one copy of each of your AoE spells, you can easily die with Reno in hand. The games where that doesn't happen sure are fun, though.
 
Week 2 - Ready for Action!

[deck]63736[/deck]
 
I started off with a tweaked version of the list used in the Wild Meta Snapshot and so far my win rate has been very good. A busy week meant I haven’t had time to fit in as many games as I would like, but as I write this I have 11 wins from 17 games with the little yellow and blue dudes. No, I don’t mean minions.
 
The deck is in a really sweet spot where you can be both aggressive and reactive depending on the situation, though it definitely excels at being on the front font. All of my losses came against aggressive decks, though I am happy to report that my one Quest Rogue matchup was a win. Part of the problem with the aggressive matchups is that the deck’s early plays are really just setting up for mid-game buffs. If you have to trade your Minibots and Recruits into pirates and totems you run out of targets for Quartermaster and Steed. I don’t really know how to solve this problem without going Zombie Chow-style control, as Midrange Paladin just isn’t really equipped to out-race hyper aggressive decks.
 
Make no mistake, by the way, Recruit Paladin is definitely a midrange deck. Yes, you can get on the front foot early, but even my best draws against opponents who did next-to-nothing couldn’t end a game particularly fast. Your best starts, really, are the ones where you get minions to stick around to punish your opponents later in the game. The deck is generally pretty good at that, whether it’s from Steward handing out free bubbles or Hyrdologist returning things to your hand.
 
Like all good Paladin decks, you have a very sturdy late game. Tirion is still excellent, Steed is ridiculous, even on a Recruit, and the fact that you can turn a two-mana 1/1 into a genuine threat is what helps you grind out the control decks. Elise is a nod to that too, but I have a feeling her spot could be better used. She’s a bit of a pet card for me, and she did win me a game by granting me a Tyrantus when both players were down to five cards in our decks and an empty board, but in games where you’re just trying to survive, a vanilla 5/5 for five is too slow.
 
The deck is a lot of fun to play, with or without Elise, and it is genuinely competitive as well. It’s not too difficult to play, although knowing when to hold your token makers to get buffed and when to just play them onto the board is an interesting little nuance. There are builds that player less Quartermasters but I think playing all six Recruit buffers is too strong to ignore. It can lead to some awkward hands if you draw multiple buff guys and no Lost in the Jungles or Musters, but most of those cards are still just fine on their own. Steward will always draw a removal spell if they have one and Stegadon can do silly things.
 
So far I have made just one change to the deck list above: swapping out a Keeper for a Solemn Vigil. I often found myself running out of cards and, while this list topdecks pretty well, I’d still prefer to have some cards in my hand going into the late game. Before next week’s article I will definitely be looking into ways to not die to Pirates and Murlocs but the former in particular seems like it will always be draw-dependent.

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