Well, after one season in ranked play, that shouldn’t happen again because of the bonus stars you receive at the end of the season based on rank. I haven’t started below rank 20 in a while (whoo, look at me brag!). Even so, you move up through the ranks pretty fast once you start getting the bonus stars, and I have been trounced by obviously powerful decks more times than I care to admit.
Did I mention I hate Dr. Boom yet this week? I hate Secret Paladin as well, but not as much as Dr. Boom.
Now picture that happening turn after turn because you have a bunch of cards with animations, etc, and your opponent never gets to make a move. Tons of fun, eh?
Those two cards are just so ridiculously above-curve that it hurts.
Mysterious Challenger would still be stupidly good if he was a 4/4 or even a 3/3. But a 6/6 that’s all but guaranteed to give you a huge board advantage and a massive next-turn buff thanks to Noble Sacrifice+Avenge and Competitive Spirit, plus whatever other useful junk they’re running? That’s nuts.
And Dr. Boom just flips the field in one turn. Even if you manage to kill off the 7/7 dude, you’re still stuck with two 1/1s that are almost bound to kill something (completely at random, mind you). What a ridiculously good card. Gotta get my hands on one…
I just spent the last two days getting my ass kicked, predominately by Secret Paladin and any deck running a random Dr. Boom, which my deck is phenomenally bad at dealing with. 
Sucks. So much for hitting rank 12 any time soon…
Yeah, I really don’t get the thinking some times. Another instant-win card is the new “Anyfin can happen” that resurrects 7 murlocs that died this game. Assuming you played a bluegill warrior (or the other one with charge) and a warleader, you get 7 copies of those and just slam someone. Paladin really didn’t need that card.
Anyfin Can Happen isn’t quite that stupid, thankfully. If less than seven murlocs have died this game then you get less murlocs. There’s still a 30 damage OTK available (Put 2Grimscale Oracles, 2Warleaders, 2Bluegills and 1Old Murk-Eye, and have them either on the board or dead when you play Anyfin Can Happen) but you can’t run the other Murloc Paladin card in that deck without screwing up your combo.
It works well enough even with Murloc Knight. It’s just a dumb and broken card…for Paladin…again.
I mean to say this: If your opponent is still at 30 health on turn 10 when you play this, you’ve got bigger problems. If they’re at 30 health and played several taunt minions, you’re totally screwed.
Ooooh, you’re going to hate me. I had to clear out a couple of Paladin quests and I wasn’t getting offered the class in arena so I went into constructed. And finished both quests with a game where I had the dream turn 6 Mysterious Challenger -> Dr Boom -> Tirion. No one can deal with that draw! I felt dirty.
Seriously, Paladin has some crazy, crazy good cards. I hope Blizz spreads the love out to other classes next expansion.
I kinda wish that they didn’t do that for all the classes though. I don’t want games to be decided by whether one player drew 3 particular cards by turn 6 or not. That just means that to win, I need to win by turn 6.
That’s not fun for anyone.
Also, you can get cute and interrupt their combo by doing things like entomb, polymorph or hexing the warleader or Murkeye.
Or if all else fails, thoughtsteal the Anyfin and play it first. =D That was fun.
Or just run your own murlocs. Stick a Murloc Tidehunter in your deck and not only do you seed his resummoning pool with a 2/1 and a 1/1, but you get 2*bonuses from his Grimscale Oracles and Murloc Warleaders.
Made a few tweaks to my Facelock deck (dropped the wrathguards for Nerubian Eggs, added Hellfire and that one dude that can sneak in my Doomguards for free, started actually playing the thing like a midrange aggro deck instead of face) and had a run of nothing but wins from rank 14 to rank 10.
Merry fucking christmas. 
Quick note: Do not play Reno Jackson if you have an Auchenai Soulpriest in play. (Was grinding out a hunter quest with face hunter and saw someone do 30 to himself that way).
I’m a very slightly above average Arena player (average about 4.5 wins) but tonight I finally got a 12-win Arena. (Only took me 128 tries!)
It was a Paladin deck, but not the kind that seems to rip through arenas all the time. It did not have any:
It did have a Muster for Battle, a Murloc Knight, a Shielded Minibot, a Seal of Champions and a Keeper of Uldaman. It was not a bad deck. But it was a 12-1 deck almost entirely because of its great early game curve. I had almost no late game to speak of: three 6-drops, two of which (a Kodorider and a Frost Elemental) almost never got played. My two 5-drops were the Sentinel that has the +3/+3 deathrattle, and Mukla’s Champion. I knew I couldn’t win if the game went long, but it wasn’t a super-aggressive aggro deck, either. I still had to make good trades early.
I also won 12 because I got quite lucky. I never faced one of those truly silly Paladins, and one game I won because I got exactly the two top-decks I needed to not die on two consecutive turns.
Full decklist here: Paladin Arena Run - HearthArena
I hope I don’t go another 128 games before I win 12 again, though that wouldn’t surprise me. 
It sure is satisfying holding back an Alex for that Reno you know he’s going to pop.
Made golden with my mage, second class after warlock.
Does anyone else think the Tuskarr Totemic, the card that summons any random totem, seems to summon flametongue totems way out of proportion to actual chance? I rarely see searing totems or wrath of air totems out of that guy, almost always flametongue totems it seems.
So I’m back in. I had a Best Buy gift card from a recent phone upgrade and converted some of it into Blizzard gift cards. Went ahead and bought the latest adventure pack. It’s quite good - probably the most entertaining of the batch. I do wish there was a bit more in the way of content for each of these, though.
I’m an asshole, but I’ve been playing secret paladin. Yeah, it’s fucking stupid.* I got to rank 13 before I even ran into another one, that’s how quickly they climb the ladder. I have gotten my ass handed to me by anything built to control the board, though. If you don’t have at least a few minions on the board when you drop the challenger, the secrets largely go to waste.
*Of course, part of the reason it’s so dumb is because it’s an easy deck to build. Dr. Boom and Tirion? Those are top-pick legendaries for crafting regardless of your decks. The only thing you really need to craft are the two challengers. I wish Hearthstone had more top-tier decks that were so easy to construct. It’s a lot better than, say, handlock, which requires four different epics that are all but useless otherwise.
Reno Jackson is getting way more play than I ever thought he would. It’s so, so annoying when you’ve got an opponent at like, 1-5 health and then it comes down. “Of course he fucking has it”, I think, and smash my head into the keyboard.
Happy new year all you doping stoners!
Any new year resolutions for you guys?
I was just thinking, I’ve made legend one, but it was off the back of waker Mage, and frankly, I don’t like playing Mage. I didn’t manage to hit legend with Rogue or Priest, my two favorite classes, and you know what? It’s as good a time as any to tryhard and make it to legend with rogue and priest.
Anyone else aiming for legend this season/year?
Reno decks usually only run one of each card, so if you see your opponent playing strange cards like senjin, sunwalker, multiple tech cards (like mc tech, kezan mystic, bgh, all in the same deck) or aggressively tapping but not playing handlock, it’s probably a Reno deck. Save your burn but play normally otherwise, and your deck should win based on the fact that he’s running a whole deck of singles and you’re not.