Hand Buff Elemental Paladin
- Last updated May 24, 2017 (Un'Goro Launch)
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Wild
- 27 Minions
- 3 Spells
- Deck Type: Ranked Deck
- Deck Archetype: Handbuff Paladin
- Crafting Cost: 7680
- Dust Needed: Loading Collection
- Created: 4/4/2017 (Un'Goro Prepatch)
- TheScot
- Registered User
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- 5
- 16
- 44
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Battle Tag:
N/A
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Region:
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Total Deck Rating
202
Giving this deck (which I originally posted before Un'Goro Launch) another chance this season. Made a few substitutions. I'll keep it updated if I find something else needs to change.
Core cards of this deck type: Smuggler's Run, Grimestreet Outfitter, Fire Fly, Tol'vir Stoneshaper, Servant of Kalimos, Blazecaller, Fire Plume Phoenix, Tar Creeper, Aldor Peacekeeper. These cards are mostly necessary if you are running this type of deck.
Very strong cards: Tirion Fordring, Wickerflame Burnbristle, Stonehill Defender.
Beyond the cards listed above, there is room to experiment, and you can even try switching out the cards listed above for others, if you really want to.
Cautionary note: The handbuff playstyle takes practice. If you have not tried a handbuff deck before, I'd suggest either not trying this variation, or else having patience with the necessary learning curve to discover how to play it well. This is NOT intended to be an easy win deck. You will have to make some pretty hard calls at times.
Mulligan Advice: ALWAYS keep Fire Fly and Grimestreet Outfitter. Always play Fire Fly turn 1 if you have it. Smuggler's Run is usually good to keep, but don't necessarily play it turn 1, and don't necessarily play Grimestreet Outfitter on turn 2. Sometimes it's better to save the hand buffs so they buff more cards. If you are running Loot Hoarder it's a good early card. If you run Hydrologists, they are also good early on. It's really important to have at least one elemental that costs 3 or less very early in the game, because they are needed on the prior turn to activate the Tol'vir Stoneshaper and the Servant of Kalimos.
Tar Creeper is also great to have in your opening hand, if you have some smaller stuff also. If you have the coin, and if you have the curve to activate it on turn 4, then keep a Tol'vir Stoneshaper as it is one of the strongest cards in the deck, especially if it gets a handbuff or 2. If you get Wickerflame Burnbristle on your opening hand and you think you are facing an aggro deck (or if you have a handbuff card also) you could keep it.
Do not keep Aldor Peacekeeper as it will almost never be used on curve. Obviously, don't keep big minions in your mulligan.
Specific pointers: Only use your Grimestreet Outfitter and Smuggler's Run if you can buff at least 3 minions with them. Plan ahead and make sure you play an elemental on the turn prior to wanting to play a card that requires being activated by an elemental on the previous turn. Loot Hoarder and Fire Fly can easily be played unbuffed for early board presence and "card draw." Igneous Elemental is also fine to play unbuffed. Make sure to only play the Servant of Kalimos and the Tol'vir Stoneshaper if they are activated by an elemental on the previous turn.
Use Fire Plume Phoenix for reach, to help remove minions that need removal, or to help finish off the enemy hero if s/he is low health. Same for Blazecaller. It should be obvious, but save Aldor Peacekeeper for any big, menacing minions, especially quest rewards (I'm looking at you: Megafin, Amara, Queen Carnassa).
Substitution Notes: If you do not have Tirion Fordring, you could maybe do Primordial Drake or possibly Baron Geddon, or something else that creates strong pressure for late game. If you lack Wickerflame Burnbristle, nothing else at low cost has as much value as it, so I'm not sure I have any solid advice on replacing that one.
See the comments below for variations that others are finding successful.
Editing Notes: If you want to see the many different cards I've included in the deck throughout it's history, feel free to look through the revision notes tab.
Gameplay videos: These are two videos, one submitted by a player named Kadakk using this deck. Kadakk Elemental Paladin, and the other submitted by TheSynch Versus Murloc Shaman. These matches are fairly representative of the sorts of decisions that you have to make when you play this kind of deck. They are both, admittedly, rather one-sided matches, but they do show some basic aspects of the gameplay for this deck.
Ownership note: I posted this deck before the launch of Un'goro and before any pro player tried using Paladin Elemental Handbuff on their streams. This was my own idea, based on some success I had with Handbuff Paladin in MSoG expac. Here is the original discussion thread that I created on April 4 to hash out the idea with other users, whose pointers were really important to building a successful deck: Elemental Handbuff Discussion Thread.
I'm trying to mess as little as possible with the decklist, as quite a lot of people are paying attention to this particular deck right now. I don't want to change it much unless I find strong reason from my own experience to change the list on here. If that free Fight Promoter ever shows up, I want to put him in the 6-slot. Also looking to put in a Grimestreet Informant too. I'm thinking I might drop a TSC and an Enforcer for those two cards. But we'll see.
Disagree. With +2 Stonehill Defender you have enough taunts to hide your Enforcers behind, making them a worthy inclusion in the deck.
Have you played whole MSG expansion as handbuffadin? I had. Card is not worth it and too slow for current meta. Period.
I have, yes. I play paladin almost to the exclusion of everything else, buffadin in particular. It's a sickness. Enforcers are great IF used properly, which means getting more than one round of buffs from them. And the key to that is hiding them behind taunts. Hence my inclusion of Stonehill Defender. Without the Stonehills I probably would not include the Enforcers. Your play style may work for you but it's not THE only correct one.
But ask yourself... What is this good against?
Rogue? no.
Mage? no
Shaman? no
Warrior? Pirate HELL NO. Taunt? Yes
Warlock? zoo - NOO ; handlock - yes
hunter - no
other paladins - also depends but mostly no
Youre right. There is no such thing as correct playstyle but there are better and worse results. Enforcerers grants worse results, is not good in current meta, and doesnt fit the deck too much.
I've been beating all the above. So results haven't been an issue for me. And Enforcers that buff for 2+ rounds is pretty much an automatic win. But hey, keep being super defensive about people playing differently than you. Clearly it's your thing.
so what would you add instead, Fight Promoter? I'm gonna try 1 of each.
I would like to put ozruk in this deck, any good replacement suggestions?
Just dont. This card is not worth 9 mana.
Probably you would want to remove one of the many 3-cost guys - I'd guess you wouldn't miss an Igneous Elemental very much if you are replacing him with Ozruk.
How are you winning with this deck? It's gotten run over by just about everything. If you don't get the hand buff cards you're dead in the water. And it's sooooo slow. Aggro crushes this unless they get a crap draw. There's like no removal. Nothing for hunters that flood the board and nothing for frost nova/doomsayer. Literally just lost to a quest hunter because there's no good answer for things like Tundra Rhino.
I'm not sure what to tell you. I have no problems with quest hunters, though I haven't seen that many of them. I finished off one quest hunter just as he was finishing his quest, right about turn 7 or 8. The elementals are decently strong even unbuffed, though you are correct that things get a bit hard if you don't get your handbuffs. The taunts are crucial to keeping aggro at bay, especially the Tar Creeper.
Either keep experimenting with the play style, or do a different deck. There are quite a lot of decks that are seeing good success right now. If you didn't read the tips and pointers in the deck write-up, take a look there; I had several weeks of practice with handbuff before Un'Goro, so I already knew how to play it. It is completely intended that you have no hard removes; spells don't get the buffs, and Pallies don't have any hard removes anyways. This is a pure minion deck; as such it has certain limitations that come with that kind of deck. But the minions chosen for this deck are all in there because the minions themselves provide answers and counters to a lot of different deck types.
Youve got a lot of buffed taunts, weapons, 4 mana deal 2 dmg elemental. If you cant win with it then get beter at understanding the deck and its tactic and dont say its weak.
Btw... Just throw away enforcerers. As you said deck is too slow because of them. Try adding 2 frost elementals.
The taunts don't do anything though. Pirate warrior just runs through them with weapons and upgrades. Shamans hex. Rogues eat it up. I don't understand how you can say that the elementals are strong unbuffed. I almost never have a board. It gets cleared every time. I read all the tips and suggestions but they don't seem to work that's why I'm asking. Can't get past rank 10 with this. The aggro decks kill me before turn 6 and the control decks out value me in the long game.
The buffed taunts are useless though. Every time I've played a taunt, buffed or not, it gets cleared easily. The taunts just can't stick long enough to help. Or if they do, they get eaten up by the enemies next big minion. This is in some weird middle ground where it's not fast enough to keep up with aggro but not enough value to last the long game. Just went to turn 12 against a quest Rogue and played almost all my taunts and still lost cause this deck can't do enough in the early game. he simply killed everything I played. Tar Creeper is great at defense but not actually doing damage to anything.
I took out both TSC, and added Sunkeeper and fight promoter, just won 10 straight games from rank 16 to 12. The 2 weakest cards left are no doubt the grimstreet enforcers, not to say they arent good, but they are slow, and im wondering if there are 2 cards that could put the deck over the top even more.
If you come up with any good options, do post them here. This deck has turned out to be really quite promising; one of the best options for Paladin right now. If it can be honed down to the best possible form, it may even turn out to be a top 10 deck for the start of the expac. I do find it amusing that the site Admins have yet to feature any form of it. Maybe it is considered too niche or too difficult to play well. But clearly almost everyone in the comments here is finding it to be quite successful.
i think this deck needs heal i think ivory knight maybe a good idea i will try it
Thunder Lizard might work well in place of Wickerflame Burnbristle!
i really want to add tarim,what should i take out ?