Hearthstone Paladin Class Guide:Introduction to the Paladin Class
The Paladin class in Hearthstone represents noble warriors devoted to the Holy Light, combining powerful minions, healing, and buffs to dominate the battlefield. Led by the primary hero Uther Lightbringer, Paladins are known for their adaptability, capable of excelling in mid-game dominance while also supporting aggressive or control-oriented strategies. Their signature Hero Power, “Reinforce,” summons a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit, providing consistent board presence and synergy with various Paladin archetypes. With access to Divine Shield minions, healing spells, and board-wide buffs, Paladins can effectively sustain their forces and outvalue opponents over time. Their versatile nature makes them an excellent choice for new players, helping to develop key strategic skills like board control and resource management.
Paladin’s Hero Power: Reinforce
The Paladin’s Hero Power, Reinforce, costs two mana and summons a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit, providing a steady source of minions that contribute to board presence throughout the game. This ability is particularly effective against opponents who struggle to remove small minions efficiently and can be used strategically to break Divine Shields, trade into weakened enemies, or deal the final point of damage. Reinforce synergizes well with Paladin’s buff spells such as Blessing of Kings and Blessing of Might, which can turn recruits into formidable threats.
Minions like Shattered Sun Cleric, Frostwolf Warlord, and Stormwind Champion benefit from an established board of recruits, enhancing their effectiveness. Paladin-specific cards such as Quartermaster and the weapon Sword of Justice further amplify the strength of Silver Hand Recruits by boosting their stats. The Pure Paladin archetype maximizes their potential by restricting the deck to class-exclusive cards, while special interactions, such as Vilefin Inquisitor, can convert recruits into Murlocs for a different synergy. In Dungeon Run, Treasures like Captured Flag, which grants all minions +1/+1, and Justicar’s Ring, which upgrades Reinforce to summon two recruits, provide additional power to this strategy.
Key Themes and Mechanics of the Paladin Class
Paladins in Hearthstone are defined by their ability to enhance their minions through buffs, sustain board presence, and control the game with strategic mechanics. Their buffing spells, such as Blessing of Might (+3 Attack) and Blessing of Kings (+4/+4 for four mana), strengthen individual minions, while the Handbuff mechanic, introduced in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, allows minions to be empowered while still in hand, exemplified by Smuggler’s Run and the weapon Val’anyr. Paladins also make extensive use of Divine Shield, a mechanic that lets minions absorb damage without losing health. Cards like Tirion Fordring, Argent Protector, and Hand of Protection reinforce this, while weapons such as Rallying Blade provide synergy.
Paladins also have strong support for Silver Hand Recruits, the 1/1 minions generated by their Hero Power. Cards like Warhorse Trainer, Level Up!, and Crystal Lion enhance them, while Muster for Battle provides an early-game tempo boost by summoning three recruits and equipping Light’s Justice. In addition to board presence, Paladins excel at healing, with spells like Lay on Hands and minions such as Guardian of Kings restoring health. The weapon Truesilver Champion also heals the hero upon attacking, offering both sustain and removal.
Murloc synergies are another key aspect of Paladin decks, with Vilefin Inquisitor transforming Reinforce to summon 1/1 Murlocs instead of recruits, supporting tribal strategies. Paladins can also manipulate stats, using Aldor Peacekeeper to set an enemy’s Attack to 1 or Equality to reduce all minions’ Health to 1, often setting up devastating board clears. Their Secrets, costing only one mana, provide defensive and tempo-based effects, such as Noble Sacrifice, which summons a 2/1 Defender to intercept an attack.
Paladins wield powerful weapons, with Truesilver Champion offering a balance of damage and healing, while Sword of Justice buffs minions upon summoning, reinforcing the Paladin’s ability to maintain a strong board presence. These core mechanics make the Paladin class a versatile and resilient force in Hearthstone, capable of adapting to multiple strategies while maintaining board control and durability.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Paladin Class
Paladins in Hearthstone are a resilient class with strong healing capabilities, allowing them to recover from aggressive opponents and sustain through longer matches. They excel at board control, using powerful board wipe combinations such as Equality paired with Consecration or Wild Pyromancer to efficiently clear the battlefield. Their late-game potential is significant, thanks to value-generating cards and high-impact minions that can dominate extended matches. With access to a variety of buffing spells, Paladins can enhance their minions for efficient trades, maintaining control over the board. Additionally, their ability to manipulate enemy minions—such as reducing attack or setting health to one—gives them strong answers to threats.
However, Paladins rely heavily on maintaining a board presence to maximize their buffs and synergies, making them vulnerable if their minions are consistently removed. Their early game can be weaker compared to aggressive decks, as they often lack strong standalone minions in the opening turns. Unlike some other classes, Paladins have limited burst damage from hand, making it difficult to close out games without board control.
They also depend on weapons like Truesilver Champion for mid-game stability, leaving them susceptible to weapon destruction effects. Additionally, Silence effects can nullify their Divine Shield minions and stat buffs, significantly weakening their board presence. Despite these weaknesses, Paladins remain a versatile and durable class, capable of adapting to various playstyles and excelling in board-centric strategies.
Different Paladin Deck Archetypes
Paladin decks in Hearthstone span a variety of playstyles, each leveraging the class’s strengths in board control, buffs, and sustain.
Aggro Paladin is a fast-paced archetype that aims to establish an early board presence and overwhelm opponents with cheap, efficient minions and early buffs. Divine Favor is a key card, allowing Aggro Paladins to refill their hand and maintain pressure, making them particularly effective against control decks. Variants like Shockadin or Eggro prioritize aggressive damage output, often ignoring trades in favor of hitting the opponent’s face. The general strategy revolves around relentless aggression, summed up by the motto: “Go face when you can.”
Midrange Paladin balances early-game development with strong mid-game threats, using the Paladin Hero Power to generate tokens that can be buffed for sustained board control. This archetype relies on efficient trades and board presence to gradually build an advantage, often leading to a dominant position in the mid-game.
Control Paladin focuses on surviving the early and mid-game through healing and board clears, setting up for late-game domination with powerful threats. The Equality + Consecration or Equality + Wild Pyromancer combo serves as a reliable way to clear large enemy boards. Sustain is crucial, with cards like Lay on Hands and Guardian of Kings ensuring survival. Control Paladin is particularly effective against decks that rely on burn damage, as its healing capabilities allow it to withstand prolonged aggression.
Secret Paladin revolves around playing cheap Secrets and capitalizing on synergy cards like Mysterious Challenger, which pulls multiple Secrets into play at once, creating disruptive and high-tempo turns.
Murloc Paladin is a tribal deck that focuses on flooding the board with synergistic Murloc minions, using their natural buffs and aggressive playstyle to overwhelm opponents quickly.
Handbuff Paladin capitalizes on the Grimy Goons mechanic introduced in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, enhancing minions while they remain in hand to create stronger threats when played. This deck thrives on careful hand management and explosive turns where multiple buffed minions enter play at once.
Pure Paladin is a more recent archetype that benefits from only including Paladin class cards, avoiding neutral minions and spells. This deck often focuses on Silver Hand Recruit synergy and powerful buffs, with cards like Boogie Down and Muster for Battle helping to flood the board. Holy spells further discount The Garden’s Grace, allowing for impactful turns with large, buffed minions. With its resilient Divine Shield units, Pure Paladin boasts strong matchups against many meta decks, making it a consistent and formidable choice.
Budget and Basic Paladin Decks
Basic Paladin decks are built using only the starter cards available to the class, making them an excellent way for new players to learn the fundamentals of Paladin gameplay. These decks emphasize core mechanics such as board control, buffing minions, and sustaining through the mid-game. Budget Paladin decks expand upon this foundation by incorporating common and rare cards, making them more accessible for players who are still building their collection while adding more depth and synergy to their gameplay.
A Beginner Basic Paladin deck typically revolves around the Reinforce Hero Power, using it to generate a steady stream of Silver Hand Recruits that can be buffed with cards like Blessing of Might and Blessing of Kings. The strategy focuses on establishing early control and using buffs to create strong mid-game threats capable of overwhelming opponents.
A Budget “Miniatures” deck would likely emphasize cheap, efficient minions combined with buffs to flood the board quickly and maintain early aggression. Meanwhile, a Budget Handbuff Paladin deck would take advantage of early handbuff cards like Smuggler’s Run, enabling even small, inexpensive minions to become significant threats as they enter play with boosted stats. These budget-friendly approaches allow new and returning players to experience Paladin’s core strengths while providing a stepping stone toward more advanced deck archetypes.
Key Paladin Cards to Consider Crafting
For Paladin players looking to optimize their decks, certain cards are considered essential across various archetypes. Sword of Justice stands out as one of the best weapons for both aggressive and control-oriented Paladin decks. It buffs Silver Hand Recruits and other low-health minions as they are summoned, improving their survivability and making them more effective for trading. This weapon also helps push minions beyond key damage thresholds, ensuring they can avoid certain removal spells while effectively popping Divine Shields.
In aggressive Paladin decks, Argent Protector is a valuable tool, granting Divine Shield to an early minion. This allows for more favorable trades and protects key minions from early removal, helping to maintain board presence.
For mid-to-late-game and control-focused Paladin decks, Equality is a crucial card, forming the backbone of powerful board clears when combined with Consecration or Wild Pyromancer. Aldor Peacekeeper is another essential tool, reducing the attack of strong enemy minions and neutralizing key threats. When considering crafting decisions, it’s often more impactful for newer players to prioritize multiple key epic or rare cards rather than a single legendary, ensuring a more consistent and well-rounded deck.
While the Pure Paladin archetype avoids neutral cards, many other Paladin decks make use of strong neutral minions. Knife Juggler synergizes well with token-based strategies, providing additional chip damage whenever a minion is summoned. Argent Squire serves as a resilient early-game minion with Divine Shield, making it an excellent buff target. Harvest Golem is a sticky minion that provides consistent board presence, while Defender of Argus offers both Taunt and stat buffs to adjacent minions, helping to reinforce board control.
When deciding on crafting priorities, players should focus on cards with a high impact within their chosen archetype. Generally, it is better to craft multiple essential epics and rares before investing in a lower-priority legendary, ensuring the deck has a strong foundation. Additionally, crafting decisions should align with the intended playstyle, as aggressive decks and control decks require different key pieces to function optimally.
Paladin in Specific Game Modes
Paladin is a consistently strong class in Arena, benefiting from its well-rounded toolkit. The ability to draft multiple copies of powerful Paladin cards, such as Truesilver Champion for efficient removal and healing or Consecration for reliable board clears, makes Paladin a solid pick. The hero power, Reinforce, provides a steady stream of Silver Hand Recruits, which can be used for trading, buffing, or applying pressure, ensuring the Paladin maintains a presence on the board throughout the match.
In Dungeon Run, the Paladin’s starting deck includes a mix of early-game minions, buffs, and strong sustain tools, featuring Righteous Protector, Hand of Protection, Blessing of Might, Consecration, Truesilver Champion, and Guardian of Kings. Throughout a run, powerful Treasures can enhance the Paladin’s natural strengths. Captured Flag, which grants all minions +1/+1, complements the class’s ability to flood the board with recruits and other minions. Crystal Gem, which provides an extra Mana Crystal each turn, allows for faster development and quicker access to key cards. Justicar’s Ring upgrades the hero power, doubling the Silver Hand Recruit generation, making it an excellent pick for strategies that rely on board presence.
When selecting Card Buckets during a Dungeon Run, Paladins benefit from several key choices. The Justice bucket often contains removal tools like Equality, enabling effective board control. The Silver Hand bucket enhances Silver Hand Recruit synergy, making it ideal for token-based strategies. The Divine Shield bucket includes minions and spells that leverage Divine Shield, reinforcing survivability and favorable trades. The Sacred Arms bucket provides access to powerful weapons and buffs, further strengthening the Paladin’s ability to control the board and apply pressure. With these tools, Paladin can consistently succeed in both Arena and Dungeon Run formats, offering players a versatile and well-rounded experience.
General Tips and Tricks for Playing Paladin
Mastering board control is essential for playing Paladin effectively, as many of its strongest cards depend on having minions in play. Learning to trade minions efficiently is key to maintaining board presence and maximizing value, ensuring that Paladin can leverage its buffs and synergies. Weapons like Truesilver Champion are invaluable tools for both board control and card advantage, allowing for multiple efficient trades while also providing sustain. Managing weapon durability and knowing when to swing is crucial for maximizing their impact.
Paladins thrive when utilizing buffs on Silver Hand Recruits, turning small minions into legitimate threats that force opponents to respond. Understanding the balance between attacking the opponent directly (going face) and trading with enemy minions is critical; aggro-focused decks will prioritize pushing damage, while control-oriented Paladins should focus on clearing threats and maintaining a dominant board state. Equality combos remain one of the class’s most powerful board-clearing tools, enabling a full reset even against overwhelming enemy boards.
Recognizing the Paladin’s mid-game power spike is also important, as many of the class’s strongest cards come at four mana. Establishing control during this phase allows the Paladin to transition smoothly into a dominant late game. Playing around removal, anticipating the opponent’s responses, and utilizing synergies effectively will maximize the class’s potential in any matchup.
Matchup Analysis (General Advice)
Aggro Paladin excels at applying early pressure, making it particularly effective against decks like Miracle Rogue, which rely on assembling combos over time. By overwhelming the opponent before they can stabilize, Aggro Paladin can often close out games quickly. One of its biggest strengths is Divine Favor, which allows the deck to replenish its hand against slower control decks, maintaining pressure even after expending resources.
On the other hand, Control Paladin thrives against aggressive decks due to its strong healing and board-clearing tools. Cards like Equality + Consecration can reset the board, while sustain options like Lay on Hands and Truesilver Champion help Paladin outlast aggressive opponents. Historically, Control Paladin has been a solid counter to Control Mage, as its healing mitigates burn damage, allowing it to outlast the Mage’s finite resources.
Classic Aggro Paladin, known for its relentless early-game aggression, has traditionally performed well against control decks. The combination of efficient minions, buffs, and Divine Favor ensures it can keep up the pressure while refilling its hand. Mastering the strengths of each Paladin archetype and adapting to shifting meta trends will allow players to maximize their effectiveness with the class.
