The Paladin set is upon us, and for once it's... fairly focused? They have a mechanic, they've mostly stuck to it, and they've only added in a couple of Murlocs this time!
As always, our reviews come from a deepspace transmission which we have been slowly decoding since 1978. It has thus far accurately predicted the winning lottery numbers 768 times, the outcomes of every dice roll that has ever occurred, and the results of exactly two Casino Mage games. As you can see, this is the most accurate prediction system the world has ever seen, so you can trust our reviews to be 100% accurate.
The Aldor can't see you right now, they're fully booked.
Quote From linkblade91 The first of two Libram-reduction minions, Aldor Attendant is a perfectly reasonable vanilla 2-drop. There's not much to say here, as she does what she sets out to do: an early-game card that functions to improve your turns later on. Pure Paladin (and Buffadin, if you go that route) have both lacked an early game in the past, so this could help "fill the time", as it were, until you're ready to start playing the good stuff.
Be A'dal and give me a hand, would you?
Quote From Demonxz95 This card is just simply strong. A +2/+2 buff for 2 mana with a cantrip? Sign me up. We already had Mark of Y'Shaarj which saw play where the card draw was conditional, and Fresh Scent is currently seeing some play now with card draw and only being able to target Beasts.
There's absolutely no way to doubt that this card is strong and I reckon it will be a 2-of in every Paladin for time being. The only disappointing thing is that we got no A'dal Legendary to go with it.
What do Paladins and Frost Mages have in common? Justice.
Quote From linkblade91 A one-sided Equality combined with a Light's Justice…oh and you can reduce the cost of it by playing Aldor Attendant or Aldor Truthseeker. Yeah, this card is pretty good. The Paladin has been looking for a way to destroy the enemy board without mirroring the effect back on himself for some time now. Combine Libram of Justice with Wild Pyromancer, and this time your side of the battlefield might actually survive! Hooray :D The only major downside is that you won't be able to rely on Lady Liadrin to acquire new copies of this card…but there's always Lightforged Crusader.
Put that thing back where it came from or so help me...
Quote From ShadowsOfSense Paladins don't get to play with the Demons this expansion; instead they imprisoned… this. For good reason.
This card is bad. Delayed a full turn over the already fairly unplayable Murloc Tidehunter for the scant bonus of an extra 1/1 Murloc. Yippee! Being able to play this on turn 1 is no consolation for its frankly abysmal stats when it finally turns up. Where other Imprisoned minions deal large amount of damage to the enemy's face or board, or give your other cards large bonuses, this gets you a bad stat pile of badness. I wouldn't run this in a Murloc Paladin deck, and I don't even expect one of those to exist post-rotation.
We're gonna be enriched!
Quote From linkblade91 Essentially a reprint of Explorer's Hat, except in the class that wants to buff things and it's called something different. Turns out the name is pretty important, because with the combination of Aldor Attendant and Aldor Truthseeker you'll be able to reduce the cost of Libram of Wisdom to zero quite consistently. And because both minions specify the cost reduction occurs "this game", as opposed to singularly, you'll be able to continue casting this card at 0-mana again and again and again, until you run out of minions (or someone drops a Silence on ya). Play Libram of Wisdom a bunch of times, then reload your hand with Lady Liadrin and do it all again!
Turns out he's 100% that bitch.
Quote From linkblade91 The second of two Libram-reduction minions, the Aldor Truthseeker is a fairly vanilla card otherwise. Thank the almighty Blizzard gods that he came with Taunt, because otherwise I would struggle to have nice things to say about him. A 5/4/6 "do-nothing" is a hard sell, even if it's for something as powerful as mana-cheating/cost-reduction. As things stand, he's a decent play in the middle of the game, and, should he survive, he'll make an excellent candidate for using the Libram of Wisdom on. If the Libram "mechanic" succeeds, the Truthseeker will be the one getting things done.
Try it once and you're hooked.
Quote From Avalon After Tip the Scales and Scalelord, another specific support card for Murloc Paladin, an archetype that has had its time to shine in the past as an hyper aggressive strategy but didn't make the cut in the long run. Being offensive-statted (3/2 instead of 2/3), this weapon supports the aggressive strategy of the deck and, in the meantime, gives you something to play in order to not empty your hand too quickly. As we've seen many times in the past, value generators are good for offensive builds, and Murloc decks are no exception (see Underbelly Angler). Even if you don't get a valuable unit, it will still be a body to slam on the board and to hit your opponent with. Moreover, Murlocs have insane synergy between themselves (see Murloc Warleader, Murloc Tidehunter and Toxfin), so if you include the core cards in your deck by yourself, even just an additional vanilla minion with the tribe tag could be really useful.
It's a lot easier to have hope behind a blazing guardian of purity.
Quote From linkblade91 With two copies of Aldor Attendant and two copies of Aldor Truthseeker, you could theoretically drop the cost of this card by 6-mana, a full two-thirds of its original cost. That's absolutely huge, and could very well be the back-breaker one needs to stabilize against an aggro assault. Even a slight adjustment to the cost is significant, as the original cost of 9-mana is pretty reasonable for what you get. You can create multiple additional copies with Lady Liadrin, and it can even count towards Lynessa Sunsorrow or The Last Kaleidosaur if you want it to. A great card for Pure Paladin, and possibly a great card for Buffadin. I'm a happy camper.
Murgur murgurgle? Murgurgle murgur!
Quote From ShadowsOfSense This card is very deceptive at a quick glance. I'll forgive everyone their ignorance of how good the average Murloc is - I'm sure Battlegrounds has ridiculously skewed our perceptions of the little buggers. In general however, Murlocs are very small and quite weak minions, especially so when denied some of their Battlecries.
However, the key to making a Murloc deck work is twofold; density and velocity. You need a lot of Murlocs, and you need to get them out there as quickly as possible. In the past that might have meant specific combinations of Murlocs with a card like Anyfin Can Happen; overwhelmingly recursive waves of Murlocs through Murloc Knight and Vilefin Inquisitor; or more recently splurging out a deck of Murlocs onto the board through Prismatic Lens and Tip the Scales. Murgurgle Prime is a little Murloc engine all on its own, and it even protects them too.
While fantastic in a Murloc deck, it should be said that it does well on its own - it does summon enough Murlocs by itself for them to be a reasonable threat to the opponent even without inherent synergy from your deck. This could easily find itself slotting into a Midrange list that just wants a bunch of bodies every once in a while. The fact that it could potentially recur itself infinitely by summoning another Murgur Murgurgle makes it an especially juicy option for consistent value.
Got a problem? She'll sword things out for you.
Quote From linkblade91 Now that we've seen the Libram cards, my interest in Lady Liadrin has increased significantly. I was already intending to try her with Lynessa Sunsorrow and The Last Kaleidosaur in Wild, but now…now she might have some hope in Standard after-all. The first thought that comes to mind is a Pure Librarian Paladin, utilizing the cost reduction of Aldor Attendant and Aldor Truthseeker to play a seemingly-infinite number of Libram of Wisdoms, which you can then replace with Liadrin. A combo not unlike Sound the Bells!, only cheaper if you can believe it. Note that Liadrin says "friendly characters", so spells you play on your hero also count (like Libram of Hope). Finally, an archetype of the Paladin is seeing significant support! A singular vision, instead of a bunch of scraps…*looks at the Murloc cards*…well, I tried.
Comments
What's with the number "768"? hmm.
Okay, good ol' Pally. Let's see;
Imprisoned Sungill, practically unloved by all, is a 1 mana Murloc Tidecaller that summons an extra 1/1 murloc, but comes 2 turns later. Its easy to see why its considered a weak card; its slow, the effect is subpar, and its weak all on its own. But theres something to be said about a card that swarms the board, happens to be in a class that needs a board to work, and is a murloc. This card curves well into Coldlight Seer, can be buffed by stuff like Scalelord, and Righteous Cause, and your opponent can't prevent it from being buffed. Three 1 health murlocs is not remotely threatening, but buffed up with 3 health or divine shield and the card is suddenly threatening a Murloc Warleader comeback. Im already concerned about paladin's ability to keep a board in the early game thanks to the new class demon hunter, which is why I think cards like Imprisoned Sungill and Imprisoned Vilefiend deserves a second look in the class.
On the other hand, while I do love the concept of a librarian paladin, I'm not as optimistic. Paladin has serious issues about maintaining tempo in the early game, which is exactly why rogue preys on the class even today. Add dhunters being everywhere day 1, there's got to be a way for paladin to make a comeback around turn 3-4 and in my opinion the librams aren't contributing to that cause. You need two attendants or 1 truthseeker to make Libram of Wisdom remotely playable and the famed Libram of Hope comes much much later, so if you drawn both of them but not your discount cards, its effectively a dead card. In short, I'm already having problems with paladin's consistency thanks to their abysmal draw cards (no Acolyte of Pain, Prismatic Lens and Crystology rotating) and now we're supposed to jam a few more value cards for a late game that does little to nothing on the early game. To illustrate further, the higher winrate card in pure pally is not the famed and frankly insane Lightforged Crusader, but good ol' reliable Lightforged Zealot. It doesnt take alot to understand why a mere additional 4/2 body with truesilver champion is the better card.
I find it funny that Paladin got 3 Murloc cards, yet Shaman got 0 this expansion... even though Blizzard specifically listed Murlocs as one of Shaman's strengths.
Also, as excited as I am to try the Libram mechanic, "cost reduction" was listed as the "limitation" to Paladin. Having an entire mechanic for one class built around cost reduction doesn't sound like a limitation to me...
Did they already forget the class identities they put in place just last year?
Source: Class Identity
Paladin got the worst cards.
Looks like someone read Vicious Syndicate's set review lol
I can't believe everyone is underestimating Sungill.
For Murloc decks it's basically a set up for future board buffs that cannot be interacted with before it spawns. YOu can use it to play around boardclears, and more importantly to be used with cards like Felfin Navigator and Scalelord.
It's not even that bad of a topdeck compared to most other imprisoned minions. If you're relying on topdecking answers in a Murloc deck and this is the thing you get it's probably just as bad as anything else, so it doesn't even matter.
Murloc win by staying on the board, and this just does that.
Remember that awaken minions can't immediately attack unless they had charge or rush. And by turn 3, your opponent's already have a way to defend himself knowing you will summon 3 - 1 health minions (which is pretty low) on board.
And that's only the case if you summon it on 1st turn. What if you summon it on later turn, where you need immediate active board minions. And I hope that answered why this card is bad. (Personally, I think it's bad because this is actually a 3 mana 2/1 body summon 2 1/1 body on board).
To be honest I have the same opinion that poor Imprisoned Sungill may turn out to surprise everyone, mostly because paladin happens to be a buff class and sungill swarms the board.
I really hope the forced Pala archetype works this time.
So I was watching some Transformers Prime clips before coming here, and let me tell you, Megatron's voice makes this infinitely more entartaining than it already is. Especially when you start critiquing cards. Keep up the great work!
Of course Lady Liadrin doesn't allow you to go infinite, as your hand size is pretty finite, and i guess you will have cast several other spells other than Libram of Wisdom