Odd Paladin Deck List Guide – Rastakhan’s Rumble – March 2019

Odd Paladin Deck List Guide – Rastakhan’s Rumble – March 2019

Our Odd Paladin deck list guide for Rastakhan’s Rumble expansion features one of the top lists for this archetype. This Paladin guide includes Mulligan Strategy, Gameplay Tips, Card Substitutions, and Combos/Synergies!

Introduction

Odd Paladin deck was first created in The Witchwood, where Even (Genn) and Odd (Baku) decks have been one of the main themes. It was quickly overtaken in power by its brother – Even Paladin – but after Call to Arms nerf, it was back as the #1 Paladin deck, and one of the best lists in the entire meta.

Odd Paladin’s main power is the upgraded Hero Power activated by Baku the Mooneater. The deck is built around flooding the board all the time – with 2x 1/1 Hero Power and a bunch of other ways to summon multiple small minions, the deck takes advantage of all kinds of AoE buffs, even cards that were only used in Basic decks before, such as Raid Leader or Stormwind Champion.

The deck was dominating the early Rastakhan’s Rumble meta, which was followed by the quickest nerf patch in the history of Hearthstone. Level Up!, nerfed to 6 mana, is no longer playable in Odd Paladin. While a lot of players though that it might be the end of this deck, as it turned out, the card was quickly replaced and – while not as dominating as before – the deck is still one of the most powerful options on the ladder.

Table of Contents

Odd Paladin Deck List


Deck Import

Find more versions of this deck type on our Odd Paladin archetype page!

Mulligan Guide and Strategy

Higher Priority (Keep every time)

  • 1-drops – Lost in the JungleFire Fly, Argent Squire, Righteous Protector – You absolutely want to open each game with a 1-drop, that’s why you keep so many of them. You will most likely play Hero Power on Turn 2, then either a 3-drop or a Hero Power + another 1-drop on Turn 3 (the second option is more likely) – that’s why keeping two is fine. However, don’t keep more than two, as their value goes down in the mid/late game, and you want to have some other plays too. Keeping a hand full of 1-drops might make you run out of steam too quickly. As an extra note, if you get Fire Fly, you can keep it alone – it can act like two 1-drops after all.
  • Acherus Veteran – Unlike the other 1-drops, it’s not a great T1 play, as you don’t get any value from the card’s Battlecry. Ideally, you want to keep it with another 1-drop already present in your hand, but if you get no other 1-drop, you still keep it.
  • Unidentified Maul – Your deck is heavily based around the board flooding, so basically 3 out of 4 effects of Unidentified Maul are good, and given that you should have up to 3 bodies going into your Turn 3, +1 Attack or Divine Shield options are very juicy even so early in the game. Taunt is the only mediocre option, but it’s still useful vs some aggressive decks.
  • Corridor Creeper – Who would have thought that the card will still be good after the nerfs. It’s so easy to get it down to 0 mana with this deck, and a 0 mana 2/5 is still a great tempo play.

Lower Priority (Keep only if certain conditions are met)

  • Blessing of Might – With Argent Squire, in slower matchups. Attack buffs are much more powerful on minions with Divine Shield. In slower matchups, having a 4/1 with DS can be difficult for the opponent to clear, while it puts a lot of pressure.
  • Fungalmancer – With a good early game hand (like a 1-drop and a 3-drop). Fungalmancer is a win more card, but dropping it at the right time, if you are already even or ahead on the board, can seal the game completely. The card is nuts in the right scenario, but don’t keep it with a slow/bad hand – if you fall behind, it’s nearly useless on curve.

General Playstyle and Strategy

Vs Aggro

When you face faster decks, the most important rule is to play the board control game. Lots of your cards rely on having some sort of board. Cards like Unidentified MaulFrostwolf Warlord or Fungalmancer are usually just bad when you have no minions (Summoning 2x 1/1 with Maul is an exception, but options like Divine Shield or +Attack benefit heavily from the board). That’s why falling behind often means losing the game.

And that’s also why, and I can’t stress it enough, it is very important to NOT hit your opponent’s Hero if you can do some efficient on-board trading. When you’re the one doing trades, you can dictate how they go. With so many 1/1’s on your side, you can easily make the best trades possible as long as you’re ahead. Your opponent being at 30 or 20 health does not matter at all, Odd Paladin is not a face deck, it doesn’t pack lots of burn to finish the games. It relies on minions to deal damage.

But you can’t really dictate the trades if you aren’t ahead, and you can’t stay ahead if your plays aren’t high tempo. Once you get ahead, you can start playing slower, using your Hero Power more, but during the early turns, you want to go all-in on the tempo. A good example would be – it’s Turn 2 and you play in the mirror matchup. Do you press Hero Power of play Fire Fly + the 1/2 token? It might seem that Hero Power is a better idea, after all, you’re only gaining +1 health on both minions and losing a card you can use later. But it would most likely be wrong – your opponent is very likely to play either Hero Power or drop some 1/1’s like Protector or Mecharoo. In that context, +1 health on your minions matters A LOT – you can get trades without your minions being killed, which means that you get ahead on the board. If you get ahead enough, you will get back your value – you will be able to buff your stuff efficiently while your opponent will struggle to get onto the board.

That’s why in Aggro matchups, don’t Hero Power that much – try to play faster and drop the actual minions instead. Hero Power only once you get ahead or when it’s the best (or your only) play anyway.

Another thing is that against Aggro there is a much higher chance that you can go all-in on the board, as they rarely run board clears. If you face a deck that MIGHT run a board clear – e.g. Zoo Warlock with Despicable Dreadlord – then you might consider playing around it to a certain extent. In the Dreadlord example, you want to put as many minions that will survive the 1 AoE damage as possible, so playing your Hero Power is not a good idea. You might want to buff something with Fungalmancer or play Frostwolf Warlord to go tall instead of wide (or drop Stormwind Champion if it’s later into the game). But if playing around it would put you behind, you might consider ignoring it, as not every Zoo list runs it, not to mention that he might not have drawn it yet. Meta knowledge plays an important role here – you need to know common builds of your opponent’s deck and whether they play AoEs or not. If not – go all in. If yes – it really depends on the situation you’re in.

Most of the Aggro matchups are decided by a single big swing turn. Let’s say that you have a 1/1 Argent Squire and a 1/2 Fire Fly on the board going into Turn 5. Your opponent drops a 3/3 and a 2/3 minion. Normally, those would trade really well against what you have on the board. However, if you now drop a Fungalmancer, you get two free trades, and get massively ahead on the board. That’s another reason why staying ahead is important – if you’re on play, because you’ve been playing proactively for the entire game, making the good tempo plays, then a swing like that should be game over. Your opponent will rarely have a way to comeback, because no matter what he plays, you will now always be one step ahead.

Generally, weapons are one of the best ways to gain the tempo advantage over your opponent, but not necessarily in this case. Unidentified Maul is best when you’re already ahead (only summoning 2x 1/1 is still good when you’re behind), and Vinecleaver, while great, might come too late (in Aggro decks, games are usually decided around Turn 5-6, but if you’re even going into Turn 7 it’s still amazing). Probably the best early game tempo swing in faster matchups is provided by the Corridor Creeper. Given that your opponent tends to have lots of small minions on the board, the fact that it only has 2 Attack doesn’t matter that much, and getting it out for 0 (or close to 0) mana is big. That’s why keep Corridor Creeper in your mulligan, even two if you can. In the best case scenario, you can drop those for 0-2 mana on Turn 3-4, which is a nice swing in your favor. 2 attack might seem low, but it’s enough against lots of aggressive decks, not to mention that it’s a great card to buff with Fungalmancer. Bumping it to 4/7 means that you can trade into nearly anything and it’s hard to kill too. You can also drop it on the same turn as Fungalmancer, so if you have only 1 target to buff ready on the board, you don’t waste the +2/+2.

One more thing is that when playing vs Aggro, you shouldn’t worry about killing them as quickly as possible. Once you get the board control, you will win the game anyway. It’s often better to stay safe and kill everything they play, while slowly chipping them away. If you’re REALLY ahead, Aggro decks have no way to comeback anyway – however, ignoring their board and going face might give them a way out (like Odd Paladin might get a random Sunkeeper Tarim out of the Stonehill Defender, or your opponent somehow having a perfect burst hand and killing you) and you don’t want to do that.

Vs Control

Even though Odd Paladin might seem like a a rush deck, it’s actually not THAT fast – it’s more of a board flood deck. You tend to Hero Power often, and even though 2x 1/1 for 2 mana is good for a Hero Power, it’s still a low tempo play (compared to Lost in the Jungle it costs +1 mana every time you do it). That’s why you can often afford to go for a longer game. Unlike the games vs Aggro decks, you don’t need to drop everything and play for the tempo. In this case, a slower deck can really punish you if you overcommit onto the board.

When playing vs slow decks, your Hero Power is very important. Try to take advantage of the fact that you can flood the board time and time again without using any cards. Most of the slow decks have a limited number of AoE board clears, so forcing them to waste it on just a few 1/1’s is a great way to win the game. On the other hand, if they don’t do it, you can easily punish them with e.g. Frostwolf Warlord, +1 Attack Unidentified Maul and such for more burst damage or a bigger board. Before the Level Up! nerf, it was one of the best way to capitalize on big boards, but sadly it’s no longer possible.

Another difference between fast and slow matchups is that in the slow matchups, you’re the beatdown deck – you want to kill your opponent before it’s too late. Which means that in this case, face damage is much more important. Against Aggro, you want to clear everything – against Control, you want to clear only the highest priority targets (OR make trades in order to protect an important minion on your side). Let’s say that you have an average board with Corridor Creeper and some small guys. Your opponent drops some 5/5 minion. Yes, you could trade your entire board into it… or you could just ignore it and go face. In the first example, you’d probably need to sacrifice most of your minions. In the second example – your opponent needs to trade off your minions one by one, meaning that you get lots of free damage in the meantime. The only exception is that when you think that he might be setting up a board clear (which isn’t mirrored like Hellfire – because in that example, Hellfire would also clear his minions) – e.g. if you play against a Mage who might Flamestrike your board, because you’re approaching Turn 7, then it might be worth to do some trades in order to not fall behind completely.

Talking about the board clears, meta knowledge is very important when playing a deck like that. Your whole game plan revolves around your board, so you absolutely need to know what kinds of board clears your opponent might or might not have, what do you need to play around. For example, against slow Warlock builds you absolutely need to play around Defile and Hellfire, but you also need to keep in mind that some of the builds might have Lord Godfrey and Twisting Nether. Cube or Control Warlock are kind of the worst case scenario, but let’s say that you face an Even Shaman. The only board clears they might have are Hagatha the Witch and Kalimos, Primal Lord (technically they can also get a random 3 AoE damage from The Lich King, but you play around it in the same way as you do against the other two). You know that they will be able to deal 3 AoE damage at one point, so you can plan ahead around it. While it will obviously clear all of your small guys, you can, for example, try to keep your higher health minions out of the range, as well as utilize Fungalmancer buff to get other stuff out of range – e.g. you could buff that Fire Fly to 4 health so he would survive the 3 damage AoE, instead of buffing your Recruit to 3 health, which would be in the range. Before their Turn 8, you can also decide to go tall instead of wide by playing a big minion like Stormwind Champion or Frostwolf Warlord.

This build runs a single copy of Divine Favor, which is a very meta-dependent card. If you mostly face Aggro, it’s a dead card most of the time – they will be getting rid of their hand as fast as you do on average, so something like 2 cards Divine Favor is usually as good as you will get (with it being 0-1 card draw most of the time). However, even in the best case scenario, it’s still 3 mana to do nothing immediately, which is a tempo loss. On the other hand, the card is insane vs slow decks. You can consistently draw 3-4 cards for 3 mana, sometimes even more. That kind of refill is very helpful, because normally you can run out of steam quite quickly, especially if you got lots of 1-drops in your starting hand. You should adjust the amount of Divine Favors to the meta you face. You can’t really go wrong with putting only 1, but you might want to put 2nd if you face a lot of slow decks, or remove them completely if you face Aggro.

Card Replacements

Odd Paladin is a relatively inexpensive deck, and it can be made even cheaper. There is only a single Legendary that’s absolutely necessary – the one that makes it an Odd deck in the first place. I will go through every Epic & Legendary and try to list some alternatives.

  • Leeroy Jenkins – Despite being a rather fast deck, Odd Paladin doesn’t have too many great ways to close out the game. Once the opponent deals with your board and stabilizes – your best chance is to kill them with weapons. Leeroy adds another win condition – if you get them low enough with the board, Leeroy can be used to burst them down. You can also combo it with Blessing of Might or two, to increase the burst damage to 9 or 12. However, the deck is not that necessary – you can use cards like Ironbeak Owl, Prince LiamCobalt Scalebane or a second Stormwind Champion to replace it.
  • Baku the Mooneater – You technically COULD build a generic Aggro Paladins that doesn’t play Baku, but this is not a deck like that. This whole list is built around Baku, so you need it or else you have to build a completely different deck.
  • Corridor Creeper – Another very important card. I know that lots of you have disenchanted it when it was nerfed, but I’d say that it’s a key card in this deck. If you absolutely don’t want to craft it again, you probably want some 1-drops or 3-drops instead, because extra Tempo is really important. Dire MoleBlood Knight or Void Ripper would work best, but you can also try out a Vicious Fledgling.

Stonekeep

A Hearthstone player and writer from Poland, Stonekeep has been in a love-hate relationship with Hearthstone since Closed Beta. Over that time, he has achieved many high Legend climbs and infinite Arena runs. He's the current admin of Hearthstone Top Decks.

Check out Stonekeep on Twitter!

Leave a Reply

41 Comments

  1. Aramat
    January 27, 2019 at 5:33 AM

    This deck is a joke. I played it with 0 expirience with Aggro decks, simply because hunter annoy me right now. Im 16-9 on Rank 3 while doing so many mistakes in retrospective. This shouldnt be able to work while playing like shit but it does. Kinda broken imho.

  2. Feival
    January 12, 2019 at 10:52 PM

    Worth it to try to tech in a Chief Inspector or 2?

  3. Vélin
    January 10, 2019 at 5:43 AM

    This deck is as good as is boring…

  4. EpicNinja
    January 8, 2019 at 7:21 AM

    This deck is still Tier1.
    Even better with Prince Liam and a Witch Cauldron.

    • MewtwoInATutu
      January 8, 2019 at 9:32 AM

      What cards would you remove in order to add Liam and Cauldron?

      • EpicNinja
        January 9, 2019 at 12:08 PM

        -1 Divine Favor (for the Cauldron)
        -1Stormwind Champion (for the Prince)

      • Jas
        January 12, 2019 at 1:07 PM

        Divine favor and stormwind champion

  5. Kaden
    December 21, 2018 at 5:01 AM

    Sooo… what do we do now that Level Up has been changes to 6 mana?

  6. Eatenbyapuma
    December 15, 2018 at 6:45 AM

    Y’know, I hated on Odd Paladin all year until I actually started playing with it and went from Rank 19 to Rank 5 in two days with above an 80% winrate. Now my male pattern balding is starting to fill back in and my impotence is cured- I think my marriage is saved! Great deck!

  7. AntoParvo7
    December 8, 2018 at 4:57 AM

    No update for rasta release?

    • WildRage
      December 18, 2018 at 7:01 AM

      Nothing changed, you run the same build as before.

      • Kidkaboom1
        January 5, 2019 at 4:28 AM

        Bar the mana cost change for Level Up.

  8. Brenden
    November 28, 2018 at 6:16 PM

    Anyone else always gets sacred maul from unidentified maul,
    I swear to god, I think its cursed or something

    • WildRage
      December 18, 2018 at 7:02 AM

      My opponents always get the Divine Shield one, so I guess it is cursed.

  9. AntoParvo7
    November 27, 2018 at 1:49 PM

    I noticed quite often i dont end up getting a good chance to play stormwind. How necessary is it to the deck, if at all? How does adding maybe a witch cauldron seem instead of it? I tried cauldron instead of divine favour but it just solved one problem to replace it with another. Maybe removing stormwind for it would be better? Asking for a friend 😛

  10. Igor
    November 23, 2018 at 5:31 AM

    Hi,

    I tried this build and it’s very efficient (when I’m playing it, when I’m playing against it’s quite annoying). I tried to use Frostwolf Warlord instead of Stormwind Champion and Prince Liam. Actually, I haven’t thought about Stormwind Champion before 😉 What do you think about such a replacement?

  11. Troesoe
    November 15, 2018 at 8:30 AM

    I play it a little bit different after i tried many variation and its great fun. Now without Liam, Raid Leaders Stonehill defenders and Stormwind Champions. But with two Blood Knights and two Witch’s Cauldron and Leeroy. I get great value! Witch’s Cauldron won me many many games. Windfury on Leeroy, change all minions in Legendaries etc. etc.

  12. Brenden
    November 6, 2018 at 7:39 AM

    Soo… Prince Liam, Void Ripper or Leroy
    most people are playing Leroy and I play Void Ripper to go against all the druids
    So, uh yea, which one do you guys play the most

  13. GlosuuLang
    October 9, 2018 at 4:45 AM

    I always thought Prince Liam would be meme, but now it looks like it’s Odd Paladin’s best Hail Mary available. How ironic.

  14. Dragon Emperor 7
    September 14, 2018 at 12:11 PM

    Try Tholw’s list every season high legend both on EU and NA servers
    AAECAZ8FAq8EnvgCDkbzBfkK68ICg8cCuMcC48sC+9MC0eEC1uUCteYC/eoC9v0C1v4CAA==

  15. Eisenheim40K
    September 2, 2018 at 2:55 PM

    I really enjoy this deck and it’s variants but i can’t even make it out of the door in ranked with the shear amount of druids that just pass on by. I’ve tried going wide and tall on board presence. Spreading Plague is a nightmare and you either have to have a Void Ripper in your opening hand or pray for one by turn 6. On top of which i just cant seem to burn through the amount of armor druids can generate.

    • MajesticLime
      September 18, 2018 at 4:08 PM

      Welcome to Boomsday

    • Niklas Bergström
      November 22, 2018 at 4:14 AM

      I go for that 5cost hard that thats down every Ones hp and ad to 1 and break through and a cauldron on the side to snap up some Good stuff

  16. AOB
    August 23, 2018 at 2:00 PM

    Would recommend using Frostwolf Warlord if you don’t have Corridor Creeper.

  17. JStokes24
    August 21, 2018 at 2:53 AM

    With all your divine shield potential, wouldn’t it be worthwhile swapping void rippers for blood knights? Thoughts pls.

  18. ONE L COOL J
    August 12, 2018 at 10:26 AM

    What’s a good card to sub out for Divine Favor? Still playing a lot of slow decks in Rank 15

    • SEBO23
      August 12, 2018 at 12:46 PM

      If you don’t need draw I would add more firepower. 🙂 Leeroy or something like that. 🙂

    • Brenden
      November 7, 2018 at 7:12 AM

      Isn’t Divine Favour good against slow decks..???

  19. AntoParvo7
    August 10, 2018 at 7:56 AM

    What would u guys say is the best replacement for void ripper? Until i get enough essence to make the 2 of them i need a replacement. Thanks 🙂

  20. Danilo
    August 9, 2018 at 5:10 AM

    Why not Zilliax?

    • Gerrion
      August 9, 2018 at 11:14 AM

      Zilliax is best used for value trades with larger minions. Using 5 mana on a 3-attack buff is bad in most cases. Odd Paladin doesn’t need healing as well – board presence is more important than health.

    • Stonekeep - Site Admin
      August 9, 2018 at 12:37 PM

      Zilliax is good if you run a more Mech-heavy list with Kangor’s Endless Army (the buff carrying through resurrect is pretty big). It’s a bit too defensive in this list, though.

  21. willfred
    August 9, 2018 at 4:31 AM

    Just went 9 win in a row with this deck. Lost again a kalaseth lock in the end. It’s fast, fun and the opponent doesn’t know what hit him/her.

  22. AntoParvo7
    August 8, 2018 at 12:51 PM

    Right so.. when i try to copy the boomsday deck.. it just tells me “copied deck is not available in this format”. Tried it for both wild and standard. Any advice or fix?