Successful Paladin Decks - Hearthstone Arena

So I've been fiddling around in the closed Hearthstone beta, which has caused a lack of Magic: the Gathering content. I find that many Magic skills translate over to the Arena (Hearthstone limited), namely card advantage, board control, and mana curve.

I will fight with honor.

I've had particular success with the paladin class, which has a hero power of creating a 1/1. I will share a couple decklists and go over some play decisions.

When I'm drafting, I look for efficient, certain two-for-ones first, then inefficient or potential two-for-ones, then minions with solid stats. When putting together a control deck premium taunt minions and divine shield are usually high picks. Sometimes the Arena throws you a curveball of three terrible choices, but most of the time, there is at least a usable pick to be made.

I call this my divine shield theme deck:

Divine Shield guys/abilities
Argent Protector x2
Scarlet Crusader x3
Argent Commander x4

• My weakest cards were: Murloc Tidehunter, Booty Bay Bodyguard, and Blessing of Kings
• Obvious strong cards include Truesilver Champion, Dark Iron Dwarf, Spellbreaker and Kodo.
• The Argent Protectors and Commanders were amazing (even after the health was nerfed to 2 on the commander)
• Three Shieldmastas locked down the Villain's choices completely.

Check out this board state and try to imagine losing from here:

Boom-booms incoming!

I could care less that Rogue villain has a hand full of cards. I have a hand full of hasty two-for-ones at the least. And it is only my turn 4!

The Divine Shield deck went 9-3, losing to mage, shaman, and the mirror. We bested two shamen, two rogues, druid, priest, hunter, mage and warrior.

A few days later, I went back to the paladin and had quite the draft. I was VERY pleased with this deck. Again there was a theme, but not divine shield. This time, nearly every single card was a straight two-for-one or at least enabled easy two-for-ones in the right situation.

Zero Consecration in two drafts!

All of the one-drop spells outperformed expectations.

• Blessing of Wisdom enchants your guys into Ophidians. This means if they attack once, it cycles for 1. If it lives to attack again <cough, divine shield, cough>, you are in the money.
• Hand of Protection turns a trade boardstate into a one-mana removal spell. 
• Think of Noble Sacrifice as super taunt. Villain cannot remove the secret blocker, so in most cases they are powerless, even if they correctly identify its nature. It can protect lethal on-board damage or a minion or two that only has one or two health remaining. 

Powerful neutral minions:

• Acidic Swamp Ooze
• Faerie Dragon
• Shattered Sun Cleric
• Dark Iron Dwarf
• Gnomish Inventor
• Spellbreaker
• Silver Hand Knight
• Boulderfist Ogre

Hammer of Wrath is great in the late game. Kill a guy, draw a card, profit!
Don't sleep on Boulderfist. He's like a super-sized Chillwind Yeti. It's a natural two-for-one because it will usually take two decent-sized dudes to take him down.
See above for thoughts on Argent Commander.

The only taunt I had in the deck was Sunfury Protector and Noble Sacrifice. I usually don't leave home without Shieldmasta, but it was no problem, since the various Battle Cry effects kept a strong grip on board control.

How did we do?

Arena ends after 3 losses or 12 wins, whichever comes first. Yay!

We beat mage, hunter, druid, then lost to shaman and mage, then rolled off nine straight wins against 2x hunter, 2x mage, 2x paladin, rogue, warrior and warlock.

And now the loot drop (WoW nerds, am I saying that correctly?)

Ka-ching!

All that and a gold Dire Wolf (ah-oooooo!) I am really digging this game. Time to jump back into the arena!