Ramp Paladin has taken the Darkmoon Races meta by storm and it is now by far the strongest deck according to all statistics. It has an Edwinesque high-roll opener with High Abbess Alura casting Tip the Scales and if it reaches ten mana, either through regular gameplay or through Nozdormu the Timeless, it has threats for days.
However, all is not lost. There are clear pockets of resistance out there, decks that can claim to defeat this evil, at least more than half of the time.
While I wager that there is a decent chance for Ramp Paladin to be nerfed in the near future, I’d also like to win some games in the meanwhile, and be ready for the unthinkable, a future where Ramp Paladin perhaps is not nerfed after all.
In this article, I take a look at the best decks to beat Ramp Paladin!
Plan #1: Just Kill Them
The most consistent plan when taking the overall ladder into account is to simply beat the Ramp Paladin down before they have a chance to do evil things.
Token Druid
The best way to beat Ramp Paladin quickly is with Token Druid, preferably something like this:
2,920
Ideally, you should try to build an early board with Gibberling, but even something as slow as a Glowfly Swarm can win against Ramp Paladin more than half of the time, so your usual mulligan for those two cards and Fungal Fortunes and Guess the Weight is completely fine for the matchup.
The Gibberling variant shows better results against Ramp Paladin than the Treant variant because cheating out a board on turn one is an effective way to get things done before your opponent can cheat out a board on turn four. Treant Token Druid lacks this early pressure and finds it more difficult to contest the best Ramp Paladin draws.
Aggro Rogue
Alternatively, you can always go Rogue:
In order to maximize your odds to beat Ramp Paladin, you want to use the fastest possible Rogue deck. Sorry, Steeldancer is just way too slow, we need to get the job done in just a few turns. Some decks are even cutting Self-Sharpening Sword for Hooked Scimitar, that’s how fast we’re talking about. Ramp Paladin has no way to interact with Stealth minions, so getting your minions out there early means guaranteed targets for Nitroboost Poison, and the win.
Aggro Demon Hunter
Finally, Aggro Demon Hunter has the tools to destroy Ramp Paladin before they get going:
There are a couple of things Aggro Demon Hunter can do to defeat Ramp Paladin. First and foremost, playing minions on the board early and getting some Wriggling Horror buffs on them is a good start. From there, continuous pressure and the threat of Kayn Sunfury can secure the win. Kayn Sunfury is the most important individual card in the matchup, as it can help you win the game even after Taunt minions arrive, should your initial assault fail.
While Skull of Gul'dan is often too slow against Ramp Paladin, there is one last chance with Il'gynoth, Aldrachi Warblades, and some attack buffs to push the final points of damage.
Plan #2: Oh-Tee-Kay
Another way to humble Ramp Paladins is to reduce their Health to zero in a single turn. Ramp Paladins want to give you ten mana, so why not use it to pull off a one-turn-kill? As an unfortunate downside, OTK decks often take a beating from fast aggro decks, which happen to be one of the other main ways to defeat Ramp Paladin.
ETC OTK Warrior
Warrior has some sweet tools to contest Ramp Paladins: there are multiple OTK finishers available for the class, and Brawl is one of the few immediate answers to Tip the Scales from High Abbess Alura.
Once again, Warrior is the slow class that can deliver. ETC OTK is the most reliable against Ramp Paladin, but Silas can pull off some wins as well. Enrage Warrior’s Charge finishers are notably less reliable, and C’Thun, well, does nothing against huge boards.
For the Ramp Paladin matchup, ETC Warrior returns to its earlier builds. Brawl, Bladestorm, and Bulwark of Azzinoth are suddenly able to shine again, and dropping Rattlegore at ten mana can win the game almost on its own. There will always be ample targets for the combo, so once you have all the relevant friends of E.T.C., God of Metal, it is time to let Bloodsworn Mercenary, Pen Flinger, and Animated Broomstick Rush into battle.
There is a small problem in that these older, non-Enrage versions of the deck are not as good at fighting against pure aggro decks as the more recent variants, but for the Ramp Paladin matchup, they are extremely effective.
Mozaki OTK Mage
In the current meta, Mozaki Mage has one job: kill Ramp Paladins. Sadly, the deck lacks other good matchups, so I cannot recommend it for laddering, but it can pull off some nice moves against Ramp Paladin.
Gadgetzan Auctioneer is the key. Keep it in the mulligan against Ramp Paladin, and should they give you ten mana, just draw your entire deck. That’s it, that’s the plan. You should also keep Incanter's Flow to make your spells cheaper to get even more value from the Auctioneer.
Plan #3: Play The Bigger Man
Some people have opted to fight fire with fire, and simply load their own deck full of huge threats for an epic showdown of whose green man is the biggest. There are many classes that can aspire to pull off this strategy, and Big Warrior and Big Priest are able to have a roughly even matchup against Ramp Paladin. However, there is only one deck that has the biggest men, and that deck is Clown Druid.
Clown Guardian Druid
Clown Druid loves mana, and is completely fine with getting buffed to ten mana early: if the Paladin does not give Druid ten mana, Druid will simply ramp ahead of the Paladin anyway. As a downside, Druid has no answer to an early Tip the Scales, but other than that, Druid is perfectly happy to go into a big minion contest.
Pardub’s take on the archetype includes Moonfang for some extra spice, especially when it comes to big minions fighting each other, but the good old Teacher's Pet remains a fine option if you do not have the new Legendary card.
While other Big classes think they know what big means, Druid just laughs at them in Survival of the Fittest.
We’re Out Of Plans!
I’m afraid that’s it. Ramp Paladin is very, very strong, and while it has weaknesses, it will warp the meta around itself if it is allowed to reign freely.
It is not possible to reliably contest Ramp Paladin with any control or midrange decks. Highlander Hunter gets the closest with its around 46% win rate in the matchup, and Highlander Hunter is really fast for a midrange deck. Control Priest always has a chance, but they need to generate multiple new copies of Soul Mirror to actually pull off a win.
This leaves us with only three options: aggro decks, OTK decks, and other big decks. Druid is the only big deck that seems to have an edge over Ramp Paladin, OTK decks tend to die to aggro although ETC OTK Warrior looks promising, and aggro decks have to be really fast to succeed against Ramp Paladin with Token Druid and Aggro Rogue leading the way.
Looking at the entire meta, here are the top four counters to Ramp Paladin:
#1: Token Druid
#2: Aggro Rogue
#3: ETC OTK Warrior
#4: Clown Guardian Druid
I hope you will be able to challenge the tyrant and reclaim the ladder with these decks!
Old Guardian
Ville "Old Guardian" Kilkku is a writer and video creator focused on analytic, educational Hearthstone, and building innovative Standard format decks. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/OldGuardian Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/old_guardian
Would the card “Oh my yogg!” be a somewhat counter to Ramp Paladin?
I make legend today with ramp paladin, i always make legend during the season and this time, from diamond 5 to legend i choose pala.
To me Nozdormu is perfectly balance, if you’re not careful you kill yourself giving mana to you opponent.
Now the problem is Alura and the coin (you can activate with wand maker but it’s more tricky), if you want a nerf to me there are 2 solution: 1) coin is no more a spell; 2) Alura spellburst work only with spell that start in your deck.
Yes, you can simply nerf alura so she works only with spell that cost 7 or less, but i don’t like this solution for a deck that simply rotate out in about a month and a half.
3) Alura only casts spells that cost *less* than the spellburst trigger.
Thanks god for the ramp paladin – I managed to get to legend on February 3rd with my own penflinger rogue with score 34-13. Usually, if I make legend, I make it on the 25th-31st … Out of the 47 matches, I met 19 paladins, 17 of them were ramp paladins … with score 15-4. But I was kind of lucky, the majority played the Nozdormu game (why do they give me always 10 mana crystals to kill them in that one turn?). The 4 losses were probably Alura+coin, which I managed to beat only once.
That says for me that Ramp Paladin is an OK, balanced deck that can be beaten … with the only single problem being Alura + coin. However, this combination must be nerfed.
I found I was beating the deck consistently with quest warlock with ALL OF THE REMOVAL.
I put together a libroom pally that has pyros in and they do a pretty good job of clearing out those pesky murlocs / barrier of clowns. I’m like 5-1 with it against ramp paladins specifically. Pyro + libram of Justice is great and you also have barov and consecration for more clear if needed
Highlander Mage has been doing pretty well for me
Miracle priest has been destroying them for me.
decklist?
Rez priest is good as well, from what I’ve seen
Definitely missing big warrior, since a blackwing will easily clear a pesky nozdormu, and dimensional ripper is quite a punish.
Great!
Have both token and clown druid. I just wasn’t sure if clown guardian druid was an ideal counter.
Does any one know if spell druid stands the chance in countering?