With lots of experimentation by the community over the weekend, Kobolds and Catacombs has allowed some interesting decks to come into the meta. Aggro Paladin (without the Murloc package), a deck that was meta several expansions ago has become extremely popular. Spell Hunter, a deck no one saw coming and many judged Hunter as a very weak class once the expansion cards were revealed.
The community and pros are often too quick to judge cards and By My Side is one of the cards we all got wrong. What seemed to be a very bad card turned out to be the highest winrate card in Hunter and one of the highest winrate cards from the set overall.
Aggro Paladin
Aggro Paladin made a comeback after several expansions thanks to several new cards. We mostly saw Murloc Paladin decks in the past few months and pure Aggro Paladin decks had fallen out of favor with core cards being rotated out from Goblins vs Gnomes in the first Standard rotation. The new additions include Drygulch Jailor, a card that allows you to refill your board with recruits, and valanyr which is a very high value weapon and being able to keep getting the weapon back without needing to pay its mana cost makes it a very strong pick. Consistent card draw has always been a problem for Paladin and Divine Favor doesn’t quite always cut it against faster decks. With call-to-arms in the deck, you not only have draw power but the card directly plays the minions into the battlefield.
Dragon Priest
Dragon Priest got a huge buff because of duskbreaker and twilight acolyte. Duskbreaker is a powerful board clear that is extremely effective against fast decks while Twilight Acolyte is good for shutting down big targets your opponent might play. Standard does not have as many dragons as Wild and despite a major chunk of the most powerful Dragon synergy cards being rotated out, we still have solid Dragon Priest lists available for Standard play that are powerful and effective. With the Inner Fire package thrown in, you can get a lot of burst damage off to close out games in one turn.
Miracle Rogue
Miracle Rogue is always viable in the early days of any expansion and Kobolds & Catacombs is no different. With kingsbane and cavern-shinyfinder having synergy among themselves, you can get decent value out of the Rogue legendary weapon due to the consistent draw engine even if you run minimal buffs. Elven Minstrel allows you to draw your minions which makes it a great addition to the deck which is known to have dead draws full of spells at times. Finally, faldorei-strider is a solid addition because of the powerful draw engine in the deck, allowing you to get free 4/4 minions very easily. With burst damage and enough tempo tools, Miracle Rogue is a fun deck to play right now and it has been working just great.
Deck Codes
Aggro Paladin: AAECAZ8FBLfpArnBApG8Aq8EDbfnAtblAvjSApXOAuPLArjHAtmuArEI2Qev B/UF1AWnBQA=
Dragon Priest: AAECAa0GArW7AoivAg786gKC6ALL5gLJxwLRwQLqvwLwuwK6uwKCtQKStALy DNEK5QT4AgA=
Miracle Rogue:Â AAECAaIHBoHCAq8E3QiyAu0Fu+8CDKQH3NEC2+MCmwXNA4gH5dECywOMAoYJ 9bsCtAEA
We will be back with more decklists from the new expansion soon so stay tuned to find out what decks are doing well in the current meta.
