Regionals Primer-Part 3

Today I want to talk about a deck that I think is the best deck in the format. I know what you're thinking. I've already covered all the Top 8 decks from GenCon so how can I not have covered the best deck. It's really very simple. Despite being the best deck, the deck I'm going to talk about is not widely played for several reasons. I'll address those reasons before I dive into the deck itself. The reasons the best deck in the format is not a popular choice are, cost of building the deck, lack of fun playing the deck, and the amount of time your rounds will take. Over a third of the cards in the deck are rare and/or epic. It's an incredibly expensive deck to put together unless you are the world's greatest pack cracker. The deck, despite winning a lot, is just not very much fun to play. I believe if you're going to be playing 7 or 8 rounds during the day, the deck you play should be good, but you should also enjoy playing it or you'll be so burned out by the end of the day you won't care anymore. Finally, the deck takes a long time to win so most of your matches will go to time, which means no breaks during the day. It also puts you in the precarious position of being virtually unable to win a game 3 that starts after time has expired. In case, you haven't already figured it out, the deck I'm talking about is solo Paladin, or as it has been affectionately termed on the net, Gold Farmer.

First, let's discuss the proper build of Gold Farmer. Obviously there will be no allies. So that just leaves us with equipment, abilities, and quests. For our equipment suite, we're going to want a healthy supply of armor since all the damage our opponent can unleash will be for Graccus. We'll start off with the two most efficient pieces of armor, Golem Skull Helm and Draconian Deflector. The next piece of armor is one of the best that this deck has to offer, Herod's Shoulder. The deck needs four of these to operate at peak efficiency. From there, we've still got a few slots to fill. Girdle of Uther serves two purposes. Early on, it fills another armor slot and prevents two more damage. Then as the game starts to drag on and you have lots of resources, it serves as a second attack per turn. You don't want to play more than two and you can probably get by with just one. In the hand slot, I like 2 Stronghold Gauntlets. They make all your opponent's equipment removal take them out first, plus they give all your attacks a little extra. For the chest armor slot, I like Truesilver Breastplate, but Deathdealer Breastplate and Invulnerable Mail are both options. I prefer Truesilver because it helps in the Shaman and Warrior matchups where they will try to race you with their Annihilators that get through your armor. One last important piece of armor that will give you tons of options later is Lionheart Helm. I know you can't use it and Golem Skull Helm at the same time, but Lionheart Helm will give you so many options against Warriors and Shamans since it allows all your weapons to get through their Draconian Deflectors. I'll talk more about this in a moment.

Next up is our weapon selection. Our main weapon of choice is going to be the Annihilator due to its cheap price and ability to pierce armor. If you expect fewer Warrior and Shaman decks, you can make Krol Blade your main weapon and drop to one Annihilator since the one resource you save striking can make a big difference while the game is still in doubt. After the main weapon, we're going to run a toolbox of great weapons due to the search ability of Herod's Shoulder. In the rush matchup a Flame Wrath is usually the death blow, so we'll run one of those. We have access to Seal of Protection and Seal of Wisdom, so Thrash Blade is a good option since it will trigger them twice per turn, so we'll put one of those in. Sword of Zeal may be the first broken card in this game, so we might as well use one of those two. If you play Sword of Zeal, you may want to play Deathdealer Breastplate as your chest armor since it will essentially allow you to get two free resources per turn. Wraith Scythe is another good card in the Warrior and Shaman matches (and can also come out after your Flame Wrath has cleared the board to undo early damage against rush decks) because it's another way to stop their Annihilators. This and Thrash Blade are the reasons that Lionheart Helm is in for the Shaman and Warrior matchups since they are good answers to the Annihilators plus armor that they have. I also like one Aracnite Reaper for the casters to just beat them down in a couple turns with Girdle of Uther. So we're looking at something like this:

3 Draconian Deflector
3 Golem Skull Helm
4 Herod's Shoulder
2 Girdle of Uther
2 Stronghold Gauntlets
1 Deathdealer Breastplate
2 Lionheart Helm

3 Annihilator
1 Flame Wrath
1 Thrash Blade
1 Wraith Scythe
1 Sword of Zeal
1 Arcanite Reaper

Next, we're on to the abilities. The first ability we're putting in is one of the best in the game, Holy Shield. Early this serves as a removal spell since you don't have much to do on turn two anyway. Later, it's great against Fury and Tewa Wildmane who I see popping up in more and more decklists on the internet for late game shenanigans. The ability to prevent damage and deal it back is one of a kind in this game on a single card, and we're definitely glad to have it. Since we don't have anything to do on turn 2 we need some more abilities to keep us going. Hammer of Justice is a great card in the rush matchup as it counters two attacks from one ally and replaces itself in your hand. With 4 of each we should be able to almost always play one of them before we start setting up our equipment. Next, we'll look at the Paladins Seals and Auras. The two Seals are both very good. Seal of Wisdom let's us draw a card every time we deal combat damage with a weapon. In combination with Thrash Blade or Girdle of Uther, Seal of Wisdom tends to overwhelm other control decks with 2 and 3 extra cards per turn. Seal of Protection helps undo any damage a rush deck did early to make sure they don't fire any huge Aimed Shots your way, but it's more important in the Warrior and Shaman matchup. Since they both have access to Annihilator your armor doesn't do much in those matchups. The Shaman specifically may commit to just racing you since you will probably need to kill off his allies as he plays them and he can keep hitting you with his Annihilator. Seal of Protection essentially takes the Annihilator down to 1 ATK and in combination with Wraith Scythe shuts it off completely. The 2 Auras are both fine cards, but neither really seems to help a matchup where we need some help. Retribution is good against rush decks but too expensive to really change a game there. There is one huge vulnerability in this deck. Medoc Spiritwarden + Moira Darkheart. So we need a way to kill Medoc. Vanquish is pretty much our only option here, so it has to go in. It also kills nasty Lorekeeper Dorians before they get a chance to deck us. We're going to round out our abilities with 3 Shattering Blow. With some decks the only way they have to deal damage to you is Annihilator. Removing it is basically winning. Before I move on, there are 2 abilities that I see in most Paladin decks that didn't make it into this one. They are Divine Shield and Blessing of Protection. Divine Shield didn't make it because it costs 3 resources and that's the time you want to start bringing your armor and weapons online. By the time you have three open resources again they shouldn't be able to deal damage to you anyway. Blessing of Protection didn't make it because it would be used on turn 2 to get you further along into the game but Holy Shield is better since it removes an ally Hammer of Justice draws a card. Divine Shield can go in the sideboard for the Warrior match to stop Mortal Strikes, but you should be able to stop quite a bit of the damage unless it's something like triple Heroic Strike, triple Mortal Strike. If you do side them in for the Warrior matchup remember that Mortal Strike is an instant, but Heroic Strike isn't. If you wait until the first Mortal Strike to play Divine Shield, Shield will stop that one, but they can play more in response. You need to be aware what it will take to kill you. If it only takes one Heroic Strike, play Divine Shield in response to Heroic Strike so that they will either have to Mortal Strike you before Heroic Strike resolves or waste the Heroic Strike. If it takes 2 Heroic Strikes to kill you wait until the second one and play Shield in response to the second Heroic Strike. Whew, let's move on.

To finish up this deck we're going to need some quests. We've got 16 slots left which I think is a good number for a control deck to run. We're obviously going to start off with 4 Big Game Hunter. From there, I like 1 Blueleaf Tubers just in case. We could run In Dreams, but I'm not sure we would ever have 8 resources for it. Plus by that time Seal of Wisdom should be drawing us plenty of cards anyway. Zapped Giants will miss a lot since less than a third of the deck is abilities. Right now, we have absolutely no plays for turn one so we should look to the cheap quests. A Donation of Wool and It's a Secret to Everybody will fit in nicely to make sure we are using all of our resources every turn early in the game. So that finished off our quests.

So here's the final decklist:

3 Draconian Deflector
3 Golem Skull Helm
4 Herod's Shoulder
2 Girdle of Uther
2 Stronghold Gauntlets
1 Deathdealer Breastplate
2 Lionheart Helm

3 Annihilator
1 Flame Wrath
1 Thrash Blade
1 Wraith Scythe
1 Sword of Zeal
1 Aracnite Reaper

4 Holy Shield
4 Hammer of Justice
3 Seal of Wisdom
2 Seal of Protection
3 Vanquish
3 Shattering Blow

4 Big Game Hunter
3 Sunken Treasure
1 Blueleaf Tubers
4 A Donation of Wool
4 It's a Secret to Everyone

For the sideboard we should probably run some Burn Aways. Another thing I like to do is bring in Lady Jaina Proudmoore and King Magni Bronzebeard out of the sideboard. After game one your opponent will likely board out all of their ally removal meaning they will have no answers to the Alliance's big nasties. Then if it goes to three they have the tough decision of bringing their ally removal back in or leaving it out. If you think they bring it back in, take the allies back out. Then they are left with dead ally removal. This sideboard also gets to basically cheat. If you win game one, bring in Hearthstone and just set up your board for game three. If you can win game two, by all means do it, but if you can't just concede and start game three with a free weapon and some armor.

That's it. What I think is the best deck in the format. I still don't think many people will play it, especially at Regionals. It's very expensive to build, and a lot of people won't want to put a lot of money into a deck that they won't play for fun at the kitchen table. The deck is no fun to play, so unless you want to spend a miserable 8-10 hours at your Regionals look elsewhere. And, if you want a lunch break, this deck is definitely not for you. But, if you have the cards (or the money) and going to Nationals is really important, take a hard look at this deck because it is very good.