Giordy’s Weekly Deck Review: Zilea’s Control Paladin

Hello guys, Giordy here! Welcome to my third Weekly Deck Review!

I’m a Season 3 Legend player and a huge Hearthstone fanatic. I’ve had a lot of success running a variant of Ek0p’s Savage Roar Druid and I designed its Season 6 updated version (you can find it here).

This week I want to talk about Zilea’s new Control Paladin deck! Zilea is a 26-year-old Hearthstone player and streamer who plays only control paladin. He states: “I was born a paladin. Yup, right out of the cradle I was wielding a miniature Ashbringer and casting Blessing of Kings to all of my loved ones.” I really enjoy his streaming and I think that if there’s anyone who knows a thing or two about Paladin, it’s certainly Zilea.

You can find more information about him on his Twitch page and on Twitter.

If you want to learn how to play Control Paladin (pre-Naxxramas), check out CowPimp’s guide on it.

If you are looking for a detailed matchup guide (pre-Naxxramas), check out Magnechu’s Legend Control Paladin guide.

But enough with the chitchat: let’s talk about Zilea’s latest build!

The Deck

Paladin is unfortunately one of the least played classes: that is mainly due to the fact that Uther’s hero power doesn’t impact the board as well as some other heroes’. It is also due to the lack of class-specific cards meant for the early stages of the game. Moreover, paladin secrets aren’t great.

Despite all that, though, Control Paladin has always been a hard-to-master but rewarding archetype. Zilea has succeeded in using it when no one was playing it, and now that Naxxramas is out the deck is certainly more viable than it ever was. As a matter of fact, I really enjoy playing it and it is certainly one of the decks that no one can call brainless, since it requires a lot of thinking and planning.

The great thing about Control Paladin is that it is able to deal effectively with a variety of decks, from Zoo to Ramp Druid, from Face Hunter to Handlock.

Cards suchs as unstable-ghoul and sludge-belcher can slow down aggro decks, while cards such as aldor-peacekeeper and big-game-hunter can easily deal with big threaths. acolyte-of-pain represents a great draw engine, thanks to its synergy with Unstable Ghoul.

Previous Paladin decks were either taunt-heavy decks or stuffed with healing spells (hence the name “Healadin”). This particular build, on the other hand, doesn’t focus on either taunts or heals, but it has a little bit of both, as well as removals and nice tech choices.

harrison-jones, for example, is really good against hunters, miracle rogues, shamans and control warriors, while stampeding-kodo can always be combined with aldor peacekeeper to remove any threat on the board.

Loatheb doesn’t need an explanation, while 2x spell-breaker really helps your games against zoo, hunter and pretty much any other hero: since Naxxramas has shifted the focus of the game on deathrattle minions, spellbreakers really make a difference.

I’ve come to learn that this deck is full of “answers,” so much that if your foe doesn’t play any threaths, many times you find yourself unable to play something useful on your turn: the deck has more answers than actual threats. Anyway, this is a Control Paladin that is capable of defeating both the incredibly slow Priest and the amazingly fast Zoo, and this is why I like it so much.

Videos

I have recorded three matches in which  I show how Zilea’s deck performs against various foes. You can check them out at the top of the article if you want to see the deck in action!

Conclusion

All in all, if you want a deck that is strong against anything in the current meta, there you have it. You need a lot of practice and skill to win with this deck, since using it is not that easy, but the victories you pull are far more rewarding than with any other deck. I encourage you guys to try it out: you won’t be disappointed!

I hope you guys liked this week review: as always, if you have any suggestions, tips, or questions, feel free to write in the comments section below.

Also, if you would like me to review a deck that is particularly dear to you at the moment, link it to me and I will check it out.

You can also contact me any time in-game: my battletag is Giordy#2566.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Peace out!