I don't get legend very often. It is not something I have the time to invest in usually. Another problem is that I am too creative. I am the guy that refuses to netdeck and must play a deck that suits my own style. But with the summer holidays coming around, I found myself having enough time to invest in the grind. And as it so happened I had also found a deck sufficiently creative for my style. Secret Paladin C'thun.
The basic thought was to see to what extent the old secret paladin deck could be rebuilt in the standard format. The first I looked at was to see which 7 drop could best replace [card]Dr Boom[/card], for the good old Dr. 6-7-8 Curve. A tall order indeed but it was when I looked at [card]Twin Emperor Vek'lor[/card] that I realised just how well the minions of C'Thun seemed to fit the lost pieces of Secret paladin. [card]Beckoner of evil[/card] s for the two mana spot previously held by [card]Shielded Minibot [/card] , [card]Twilight Elder[/card] and [card]Disciple of C'Thun[/card] to replace [card]Muster for Battle[/card] and [card]Coghammer[/card], [card]Crazed Worshipper[/card] taking the 5 mana taunt spot after [card]Sludge Belcher[/card] and finally [card]Twin Emperor Vek'lor[/card] taking the spot as the new “Doctor 7” in the deck. All left was to find a room for [card]C'Thun[/card] .
The overall playstyle of Secret paladin really suits C'thun, as the core strength of the deck have always been how Mysterious Challenger empties the deck allowing the stronger cards to pour forward. While other C'thun classes must either stall or gather up a lot of draw power to reach C'thun this deck manages that by thinning the deck through tempo. And [card]Divine favor[/card] is also still criminally powerful in this regard.
Obviously this deck was never going to be as strong as Secret Paladin in its prime. That deck boasted itself on having the strongest curve in the meta with effective cards at every mana slot. This would be more like a bunch of average minions with a stronger late game. But maybe it could still be good enough. That was the thought. For me at least it ended up being good enough that I was able to reach legend.
Secret paladin has never been a hard deck to play but the toughest part of this deck is definitely the mulligan. For high aggressive classes like Shaman you need to aim for solid early game never wasting any point of mana. For slower classes like Warrior or Priest you are often better off trying to reach for a mysterious challenger. There is one instance where the mulligan becomes easy. If you got a Secretkeeper in hand, search for secrets like a tabloid newspaper. This can often just snowball into an early win.
It's best matchup is without a doubt Hunter. Between [card]Noble Sacrifice[/card] and [card]Disciple of C'thun[/card] there is no hope for decks whose early game is based on 3/2s rather than the standard 3 health minions. [card]Call of the Wild[/card], while having gotten a lot of praise, is also shockingly mediocre against any taunt minion with 6 health and this deck happens to be able to summon 5 of those over the course of a game.
As far as actual competitive use goes, I have my doubt about. I think its overall winrate is too close to 50% to be useful for tournaments. But if you are looking for something unique to play, this might just be the deck for you.
