Episodes
Saturday Feb 20, 2016
The Secret Paladin Deck - Episode 66
Saturday Feb 20, 2016
Saturday Feb 20, 2016
Hello!
- Kevin is on the show this week
- Topic: Deck battle!
- Reasons to be happy this week
- News: We updated our show notes for the previous episode
What is a Deck Battle?
Once a month, a guest host brings their favorite deck onto the show to battle the current reigning champion deck for control of the Happy Hearthstone Deck Battle Throne!
If the challenger wins the best-of-3 series, their deck becomes the new Reigning Champion Deck and will fight off future challengers until it loses, or until it’s earned its place in the Happy Hearthstone Hall of Fame!
View the Deck Battle Archive + The Happy Hearthstone Hall of Fame
Defending Deck: Andrew’s Warlock Demon Zoo deck has reigned supreme for 8 months, and has beaten 6 decks before this episode.
Challenger Deck: Kevin’s Secret Paladin deck relies on flooding the board with sercets and minions for a sudden mid-game kill.
The Deck
Creatures
- 2x Secret Kepper
- 1x Haunted Creeper
- 1x Ironbeak Owl
- 2x Knife Juggler
- 2x Shielded Minibot
- 2x Murloc Knight
- 2x Mysterious Challenger
- 1x Dr. Boom
- 1x Eadric The Pure
Spells
- 2x Avenge
- 2x Competitive Spirit
- 2x Noble Sacrifice
- 1x Redemption
- 1x Repentance
- 1x Coghammer
- 1x Divine Favor
- 2x Muster for Battle
- 2x Blessing of Kings
- 1x Consecration
- 1x Truesilver Champion
Sideboard
In case you don’t have some of the ideal cards, here are some quality back ups and alterations you can make that keep with the same theme and strengths of the deck.
- 2x Stormwind Champion
- 2x Mukla’s Champion
- 2x Grand Crusader
- 2x Raid Leader
The Duel
Community
- Question: None this week!
- iTunes Reviews
Donations
- None
Card of the Week
Farewell
- Contact Kevin on Twitter and listen to his WoW podcast Darkmoon Herald
- What you want to see in future episodes
- What hosts you want to visit the show
DECK GUIDE:
You’ve seen it. You’ve hated it. You may have even played it. Kevin’s own take on the infamous Secret Paladin deck makes some interesting changes to keep it fresh and add a few other threats to the deck. But the core of the deck — that wonderful Christmas-tree-building Mysterious Challenger — is still here and ready to rock.
Check out how this deck did in our deck battle on our latest episode of Happy Hearthstone!
Note from Josh: The rest of this article was written by Kevin. Thanks!
Secret Paladin
The Secret Paladin is a low-cost, low-skill-cap deck that’s incredibly diverse in its win conditions and ability to counter many popular deck on the ladder. It’s not a “cheater” deck like everyone on the forums would like you to believe and it’s been used at the World Championship levels of gameplay. It’s a fun and fast deck to play and there are some mind games involved in getting your opponent to waste cards in bad trades because of what you might have in your hand.
Let’s get straight into the cards I used in my deck for the mighty showdown with Josh. You can find a completely plain deck list on the podcast episode. Here, I’ll provide additional commentary where I feel it’s helpful or necessary.
Minions
This card is a great opener and is the main defense to early aggro aggression. Drop this card and watch it attract top-tier removal from the enemy’s hand. If they don’t remove it, it can be buffed significantly by the secrets.
Tough little minion that likes to stick around and make your opponent make bad decisions on how to clear it.
1x Iron Beak
Iron beak owl is a great card to have in your pocket. You never know when you might need a Silence effect.
A staple for most paladin decks. It helps with board control and combos with many other cards like Muster for Battle, Noble Sacrifice, and Murloc Knight.
Best two drop for Paladins with plenty of staying power, which means it’ll stay on the board for awhile to buy you time.
Murloc isn’t the theme of the deck, but this card plays two big parts in our strategy. It will either: 1) Fill your board with minions and you win the game. or 2) Be a lightning rod for your opponent to use all of their removal on and clear the way for more powerful cards like Dr. Boom or Mysterious Challenger to remain unscathed.
One of the greatest (but not the only) win condition to this deck. If you have 2-3 minions on the board and drop this card on turn 5-6 you will most likely win the game.
I love the lore and WoW-reference with this Legendary. If three or more minions are affected by Eadric’s battle cry you got value from it (his own stats are 5 below the Vanilla test, so you want to reduce enemy minions by at least that many). There’s also the fun of playing this card at a face to face tournament and seeing their reaction, since it’s so unexpected.
1x Dr. Boom
Need I say more?! He’s just awesome!
Spells + Weapons
2x Avenge
The strongest of the Paladin secrets, this is used to make your opponent think about who they must kill and in what order and anything it lands on, even a 1/1, becomes a real threat.
This secret takes your minions from good to great! As long as you have more than one minion on the board when this secret activates you get your value for it. It’s important to note that if you don’t have any minions on the board, the secret will not activate — so it will never be wasted.
This secret lets you keep the most precious minions and yourself alive. Drop this secret with a Murloc Knight or Knife Juggler to keep them on the board and get a combo or two off.
1x Repentance
This secret is a late-game game-changer. When their Dr. Boom turns into an 7/1 and is killed by a silver hand recruit, you get your value!
1x Redemption
This secret is the best for backing up your value minions, Dr. Boom, Murloc Knight, and Mysterious Challenger
1x Coghammer
Gives you a decent amount of board control and minion buffing early on.
1x Divine Favor
Can be incredibly powerful when playing against a Handlock deck. Use in early game if the opportunity presents itself to try to get Mysterious Challenger in hand by Turn 5/6.
The greatest anti-aggro card out there (besides Consecrate). You can combo with Competitive Spirit to get 2/2s on the board or Knife Juggler to deal 3 bonus damage right away.
The gold standard in Paladin weapons, must include one in every deck
A huge buff to a small minion = huge board presence. If you can get your opponent to trade 4 or 5 mana worth of cards to get rid of it, it has value.
1x Consecrate
Another amazing Paladin card that helps you handle early aggression decks
Possible Additions
There are many win conditions with this deck which is what makes it a strong ladder deck. You can build it on the cheap cheap or throw in your strongest Paladin or Neutral Legendary Cards. Even Hogger has a home in this deck!
This card is a fantastic minion buffer and lightning rod all in one. Plus it’s common quality but gives you epic-level value.
Since the main purpose of the deck is to gain board control, Stormwind Champion is a perfect substitute card. It’s a major body on the board and makes your hero power, Muster for Battle, and Murloc Knights way, way more powerful
Final Thoughts
Secret Paladin is a easy to learn, cheap (cost) deck to build and is very competitive in the current ladder whether you have the legendaries or not. It is fun to make your opponent play around your secrets that you are almost guaranteed value from. An excellent staple deck for anyone’s library!
Saturday Feb 13, 2016
The Best Livestreams and Podcasts - Episode 65
Saturday Feb 13, 2016
Saturday Feb 13, 2016
Hello!
- Rob May is on the show this week
- Topic: Podcasts and Streams!
- Reasons to be happy this week
- News: Normal and Wild Modes (follow-up interview)! Red Bull Team Brawl!
Why We Love Streams
- Over-the-shoulder experience
- Free teaching/coaching
- Smaller streams read chat more often and provide insight into questions live as the game develops or as a deck may be built on stream.
- Deck Doctor: Zalae and Firebat serving community with small tips to help players.
Livestreams for Getting Better at Arena
- Hafu
- Kripparian
- Ratsmah
- GuardsmanBob
- ADWCTA
- Commentated Tournaments like Redbull Team Brawl
Livestreams for Getting Better at Ranked
Why We Love Podcasts
- Rob wrote an article about this!
- Join a community
- Learn in a more directed way
- Make your commutes fun!
- It’s good to listen to more than one
Podcasts for Getting Better at Arena
Podcasts for Getting Better at Ranked
- The Golden Wisp: For players interested in the very highest level of play, in both Ranked and tournaments.
- Velen’s Chosen: For players on a budget that really want to get to be competitive in Ranked.
- HearthCoach: For players who are eagerly trying to fight their way into Legend Ranked.
Podcasts for New Players
- Hearthaholics: For players interested in learning the fundamentals of the game and gaining confidence one step at a time. As a perk, these are timeless episodes that can be used like an audiobook. Their website walks you through the order to listen.
- Legend of the Innkeeper: For new and casual players who want to learn how to get better in a fun and enthusiastic environment. Everything from deckbuilding to beating the PVE Adventure content.
- Happy Hearthstone: This is us! For players who want to find new decks to try, learn the basics of strategy, and hear from new hosts from the community every episode to share different perspectives and expertise.
Podcasts for News and Esports
- The Angry Chicken: For players looking for an extremely polished and well-made show with entertaining hosts that covers all the news in the Hearthstone scene.
- Well Met!: For players who like strategy mixed in with their news. This show covers a lot of topics to make sure you’re keeping up with everything from casual play to pro tournaments.
- Value Town: For players who want to hear from pro players and high-profile streamers directly. They do Q&As regularly, and focus on the higher-level of play.
- Coin Concede: For players who like a broad range of topics, Coin Concede tries to cover everything from PVE to high-level pro play. Great coverage of the esports scene.
- Top Deck Kings: For players who like spontaneity and personality mixed in with their news discussion and meta analysis. They’ve played Hearthstone matches with commentary during the show, and even devoted an entire recent episode about the Super Bowl.
- 1600 Dust: For players who like a lot of strategy mixed in with their news. Their recent campaign for #KnowYourRole2016 is breaking down specific game elements in each episode. Hosts are entertaining and keep it fun.
- Hero Power: For players who like hands-on learning alongside their news. The entertaining hosts host two segments a week, one is audio and focuses on news and deckbuilding. The other is a live play segment, where they play an entire match with a different class, walking you through the thought process and helping you get better at it. Both the audio and video content can be found on their site.
Podcasts for Casual Discussion
All of these shoes have great discussions, focused on being entertaining and building a community instead of the academic analysis and walkthrough strategy guides that other shows sometimes offer. They’re all great, so we recommend you try all of these out and find the personalities and style that work best for you!
- The Unstable Portal
- A Worthy Opponent
- Raid Warning
- Whirlwind
- Walk to Work
- Drawing Dead
- Hearth of the Cards
- Hearthcore
- Death Rattle Crew
- Innervated
Podcasts to Find other Podcasts (Podcast-ception!)
- Realm Maintenance: Rho schedules guests on his show for WoW, Starcraft, Heroes, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Diablo every week.
Ways to Support Your Favorite Podcasts and Streams
- Leave them 5-star iTunes reviews
- Support them financially (Patreon, Paypal, etc.)
- E-mail the shows for topics, ways to help, or questions
- Listen to the show all the way through
- Follow them on Twitter (#1 social media used by Hearthstone people)
- Talk about and share the show with friends!
Community
- Question: Best way to keep up with the meta on limited time?
- iTunes Reviews
Donations
- None