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Pure Paladin deck list guide - Darkmoon Faire - Hearthstone (November 2020)

Open your Librams to turn 1.

Pure Paladin is a Hearthstone deck that's pretty reliant on Lightforged Zealot and Lightforged Crusader. These minions' powerful effects and an aggressive gameplan to overwhelm your opponent and take them down before reloading with your No Neutral synergy cards.

It’s a weird one to pilot but is well worth a shot. The ability of Lightforged Crusader to refill your hand whilst also offering a 7 mana 7/7 statline is key to your success, as it often gives you that final bit of damage to get you over the line.

Thanks to Ashes of Outland's Librams and a couple of new toys in Darkmoon Faire, Pure Paladin should continue smashing it.

In the latest version of our Pure Paladin guide, we’ve got the deck we’re going for in Darkmoon Faire. It uses the Libram package liberally, and we’ve added High Exarch Yrel for a bit of representation of the new expansion - that Lifesteal and Taunt is very reminiscent of Shirvallah, the Tiger from Rastakhan’s Rumble back in the day, and can save you in a pinch. If you don’t have Yrel though, just switch them out for a second Hammer of the Naaru, or maybe a Blessing of Kings.

PaladinNeutral
2 x First Day of School
2 x Aldor Attendant
1 x Murgur Murgurgle
2 x Hand of A'dal
2 x Libram of Wisdom
2 x Shotbot
2 x Goody Two-Shields
1 x High Abbess Alura
2 x Consecration
2 x Lightforged Zealot
2 x Libram of Justice
2 x Aldor Truthseeker
2 x Blessing of Authority
1 x Hammer of the Naaru
1 x Lightforged Crusader
1 x Lady Liadrin
1 x High Exarch Yrel
2 x Libram of Hope

Select and copy the long ID string below, then create a deck in Hearthstone to export this deck into your game.

Deck Import ID: AAECAZ8FBpuuA/y4A4TBA8PRA4XeA4jeAwzcA5yuA422A8q4A/24A+q5A+u5A+y5A8rBA57NA7/RA8rRAwA=

General strategy

Pure Paladin utilises powerful spell synergies with Libram cards to gain both excellent value and tempo. You’re trying to kill your opponent early with aggression, but you’ve got a backup plan in case this doesn’t work.

The two staple cards for this deck - Lightforged Zealot and Lightforged Crusader - are hugely powerful if you manage to get them played. There’s a chance you won’t need them, but they’re perfect for those games where your aggression needs a tiny bit extra to finish your opponent off.

Early game: Starting off, you want to be playing your small minions and buffing them up to pile on early pressure. When it comes down to it, you’re looking for Aldor Attendant and Shotbot, as they’ll give you decent stats on the board and bodies to buff up with your librams and spells. Goody Two-Shields is tough to make the most of if we’re honest - often your opponent will just ping the Divine Shield and kill the minion, but its existence forces your enemy into action, as if you still have the Divine Shield available on your turn you can kill a minion, cast a spell, and bring it back. It’s very possible to run away with the game early on, and cards like First Day of School can help with this a lot - those 1-drops can really highroll, as well as activate Spellburst effects.

Mid game: Keep flooding the board. Libram of Wisdom is a constant small buff which might cost 0 mana now, making it perfect to play alongside High Abbess Alura. If Alura is lucky enough to gain Blessing of Authority from her Spellburst effect, your opponent had better have some hard removal in their pocket or it’s game over.

Remember, you can’t hit face the same turn you use Blessing of Authority, but if you’ve already attacked that turn it means you can use the spell and deal big face damage the turn after.

Make sure your Aldor Truthseeker is played out too, as that’ll keep discounting your Librams for when you need them. Libram of Justice whacks enemy minion health down to 1, so keep that in your pocket for when they put a big Taunt up in front of you.

Late game: At this point, you might be running low on fuel. You've played a bunch of Librams for cheap, buffed your minions, and generally done pretty well to survive this long. No worries though. Luckily, Lightforged Crusader is here to save the day, giving you 5 cards and a 7/7 body for 7 mana. If you’re lucky, you’ll get impactful direct damage too, like Consecration or Hammer of Wrath, but most of the Paladin cards available should be useful in some way. You can also use Lady Liadrin to fill your hand with Librams and other buff cards you’ve used on friendly characters, which will ideally be super cheap by this point in the game and help you finish strongly.

This should help you get that last bit of damage out there, and take down your enemy before they can stabilise and run you out of resources.

More great Paladin guides:

Pure Paladin Mulligan guide

These are the cards you’ll want to make the best possible start with Pure Paladin:

  • 1. Aldor Attendant and Aldor Truthseeker are great keeps. Even though Aldor Truthseeker isn’t a 1-drop, your win-rate skyrockets when it starts in your hand.
  • 2. Shotbot is an ever-reliable early card to have in your hand, as it trades well and is sticky and annoying, perfect for buffing.
  • 3. Hand of A'dal on a small minion both cycles your deck and gives you some scary early board presence.
  • 4. First Day of School allows you to activate Spellburst effects like that of High Abbess Alura for free, and also gives you some handy fodder to fill the board with early.

Pure Libram Paladin tips, combos and synergies

Here’s an overview of the synergies to look out for in this No Neutral deck. We’ll keep this updated over time as different archetypes come to the fore, so keep an eye out!

- Aldor Attendant and Aldor Truthseeker are super important in this deck, reducing the costs of your Librams for the entire rest of the game.

- High Abbess Alura will cast a spell on herself if possible, meaning Blessing of Authority can give her +8/+8 immediately. Play her alongside First Day of School on turn 4 and you might be able to absolutely ruin your opponent’s day early.

- Devout Pupil is discounted every time you cast a spell on a friendly character, meaning it costs 1 less when you cast anything from Libram of Wisdom and Hand of A'dal to Libram of Hope when targeting your face. Remember though, it doesn't work on non-targeted spells like Libram of Justice.

- Lady Liadrin puts all spells previously cast on friendly characters (like Blessing of Authority and Libram of Wisdom) back on the board - this includes ones you've cast on your own face, such as Libram of Hope.

- Hammer of the Naaru is 6 mana but plops a 6/6 Taunt minion on your side of the board, which lets you protect your face and hit enemy minions off with the 3/3 weapon.

- Goody Two-Shields has a Spellburst ability, which gives her Divine Shield when you play a spell. Make sure she's lost the initial Divine Shield first though, as they don't stack.

- Lightforged Zealot is essentially a free 4/2 minion on top of a Truesilver Champion. Try to get all that damage in the opponent’s face and they’ll be running scared very swiftly.

- Lightforged Crusader can add random Paladin cards to your hand, but only if you’ve got absolutely no neutrals in there. Unfortunately, this means decks like Albatross Priest and Bomb Warrior cancel out this enormously powerful Battlecry.

- Murgur Murgurgle is a great option for the later game, as shuffling Murgurgle Prime lets you refill your board with a bunch of Murlocs when your opponent might’ve thought they could survive.

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About the Author
James Law avatar

James Law

Former Guides Writer

James was part of Rock Paper Shotgun's guides team from 2020-2021, bringing his expert knowledge about FPS games, Hearthstone, Path Of Exile and more from his time at Metabomb. He's also a dab hand at Hitman 3, and making his own jam - things which may or may not be related to one another.

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