Ramp Paladin Deck List & Guide – Darkmoon Faire – February 2021

Check out alternative versions of this deck on our Ramp Paladin archetype page!

Ramp Paladin Mulligan Strategy & Guide

Vs Aggro Decks

Higher Priority (keep every time)

• High Abbess Alura – Your way to cheat out Tip the Scales and almost instantly win the game. By far the best keep in every matchup.
• Nozdormu the Timeless – Your ticket to ten mana.
• Armor Vendor – Ramp Paladin’s main strategy is so strong that Armor Vendor is the only anti-aggro card worth keeping over just mulliganing for you proactive pieces.

Lower Priority (keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Wandmaker – Keep with High Abbess Alura if you do not have the Coin.
• Redscale Dragontamer – Keep if you do not have Nozdormu the Timeless.
• Tip the Scales – Keep with Nozdormu the Timeless.

Vs Control Decks

Higher Priority (keep every time)

• High Abbess Alura – Your way to cheat out Tip the Scales and almost instantly win the game. By far the best keep in every matchup.

Lower Priority (keep only if certain conditions are met)

• Nozdormu the Timeless – Your ticket to ten mana. Keep against everything except combo decks with Gadgetzan Auctioneer, most notably Mozaki OTK Mage.
• Wandmaker – Keep with High Abbess Alura if you do not have the Coin.
• Redscale Dragontamer – Keep if you do not have Nozdormu the Timeless, except against Mozaki Mage.
• Tip the Scales – Keep with Nozdormu the Timeless.

General Strategy

There are several ways to win the game with Ramp Paladin, and while the deck has some high-roll aspects to it, knowing when to use your tools can lead to improved success.

The easiest way to win the game is with High Abbess Alura, especially when you’re on the Coin. The only spell in the deck is Tip the Scales, so Alura’s Spellburst will always cast that and summon a boardful of Murlocs for you. At four or five mana, this is enough to beat almost every deck in the game, especially as Crabrider and Fishy Flyer provide some Rush power for you. If you’re not on the Coin, you need to find Wandmaker to give you a spell that you can use to activate Alura’s Spellburst.

Things get more complicated in the games where you do not have Alura.

Your ramp tool is Nozdormu the Timeless, and you have a fairly good chance to get it early either directly or from Redscale Dragontamer. Depending on the exact list that you use, Nozdormu is either the only dragon in the deck, or there may be some Circus Amalgams there as well, so Redscale Dragontamer is either a somewhat reliable or a guaranteed tutor for Nozdormu.

However, you need to be careful with Nozdormu the Timeless: it gives both players ten mana crystals, but the crystals start empty, so it is your opponent who gets the first ten-mana turn. It is not always correct to play Nozdormu even when you have it in your hand!

• You can freely play Nozdormu the Timeless against passive control decks who are not able to be proactive regardless. There are not many of those in the meta, though.
• Most of the time, you need a good follow-up to Nozdormu in your hand. For example, Tip the Scales or Scrapyard Colossus and Carnival Clown (that gets corrupted by the Colossus).
• In the mirror, you should avoid playing Nozdormu, and instead make use of the opponent’s Nozdormu effect.
• Against combo decks that run Gadgetzan Auctioneer, you should avoid playing Nozdormu because the opponent will likely draw their entire deck and have lethal damage before your follow-up has an impact. Mozaki OTK Mage is the most common such deck right now. In such games, you should aim for Murloc pressure instead.

The flexibility of the deck really shows in the scenarios where things are not working out for you. Sometimes you find neither High Abbess Alura nor Nozdormu the Timeless. Is it time to concede? No! You have a lot of Murlocs in the deck, and they can be enough to win the game on their own.

• Crabrider‘s Rush and Windfury can give you some early board control or even threaten the opponent, especially in combination with Murloc Warleader.
• Fishy Flyer gives you two Rush minions in one for some more board control.
• Underlight Angling Rod helps you to control the board while generating additional resources, including synergy Murlocs from any class, such as Underbelly Angler.

Even when your Murlocs are unable to win the game, they may be able to stall the game long enough for you to get some of your big guns on the board.

If the game turns into a war of attrition, you have a lot of minions available. At this point, the Old Gods become significant:

• Y'Shaarj, The Defiler gives you new copies of all Corrupted cards you have played during the game. Note that if you play any Corrupt cards without corrupting them, you will not get them back. The main use of Y'Shaarj, The Defiler is to give you more copies of Carnival Clown.
• N'Zoth, God of the Deep resurrects a friendly minion of each minion type. Circus Amalgam is a minion of all types, but it will primarily fill in for any empty slots, such as Mech, instead of appearing over minions of specific tribes. Therefore, you can reliably resurrect tribes that you only have one copy of, such as Nozdormu the Timeless as a Dragon and Darkmoon Rabbit as a Beast. Darkmoon Rabbit from N’Zoth gives you a bunch of removal power at the same times as you get a strong board.

Note that Animated Broomstick can give any of your big minions Rush to help you fight for the board. You need room on the board for it, so you cannot combine it with Carnival Clown unless you have a minion on the board that you can trade off after summoning the Clowns. With Tip the Scales, you will get a Rush Murloc that you can trade off before playing Animated Broomstick to give your other Murlocs Rush.

One more note about Murlocs and Tip the Scales. Think carefully about what you want to do with Murgur Murgurgle. Much of the time, it is correct to play Murgur for tempo, but sometimes you may want to hold it back until you have played Tip the Scales so that do not accidentally pull the Prime and can get the Battlecry effect of Murgurgle Prime later in the game.

Vs Aggro Decks

In aggro matchups, you are under a lot of pressure early on until you can get some big swing turns and crush the face-hitters. Use your Armor Vendor, Underlight Angling Rod, and any Murlocs you happen to get to fight for the board early on and try to survive until you can get your big minions on the board.

Tip the Scales from High Abbess Alura‘s Spellburst effect usually ends the game immediately, or if you can survive until Carnival Clowns, you’re also good.

Vs Control Decks

Against control decks, you are the beatdown. Play one threat after another until they crumble.

Against combo decks, it is much of the same, but you’re on a timer, and giving your opponent ten mana can be fatal to you. Try to get steady pressure on the combo deck and hopefully you can get there before they find their combo.

Ramp Paladin Card Substitutions

Unfortunately, Ramp Paladin is an expensive deck that is based on synergies between Epic and Legendary cards, so most of the deck cannot effectively be replaced.

• High Abbess Alura and Nozdormu the Timeless are key ramp pieces, and Alura’s main synergy is with Tip the Scales for a wide Murloc board, which in turn is much more effective with Murloc Warleader. Grimscale Oracle can be used as a substitute for Murloc Warleader if absolutely necessary, but all the other pieces are mandatory.
• Carnival Clown is one of the main ways for the deck to build boards, and it is further enhanced by Y'Shaarj, The Defiler. There simply are no cards in the game that would have the same effect on the board. Runaway Blackwing and Living Monument are as good as it gets on a budget, and that is not good at all.
• Darkmoon Rabbit can corrupt Carnival Clown and makes your N’Zoth board proactive. There are no other Beasts that can do either of those things.
• The least core expensive cards are Murgur Murgurgle and Underlight Angling Rod, and even they are difficult to replace because they synergize so well with your Murlocs. You don’t want to add any spells or any small Beasts or Dragons into the deck. You’d rather skip Mechs too, and the replacements would ideally cost less than four mana so that they do not overlap with your big turns. That leaves cards like Frozen Shadoweaver, Overconfident Orc, Vulpera Scoundrel, and Acidic Swamp Ooze as potential replacements: cards that can help you tech against some of the more aggressive matchups that you face.