TLDR I DONT WANT TO READ:

***** THE VISUAL GUIDE *****

• This visual guide is also posted further down in the post if you'd like to read about the build before being thrown into the decklist + curve. It is specifically located after the card-by-card breakdown.
• THE KRAKEN LIST: http://imgur.com/a/gTcgQ
• THE KRAKEN CURVE: http://imgur.com/a/Xk8OG
• THE KRAKEN KITS: http://imgur.com/a/Kw5G4
• THE KRAKEN COMBOS: http://imgur.com/a/F8MlB

Edit There are clearly people here that do not realize how elaborate, tedious or effective this build is. The only thing meme about this deck is the fact that it works. There are several players confirmed to be using this deck now, experiencing positive results and will post on my behalf later. Reddit blew up my inbox, I typed like 7,000 words and all I discovered was that I would seriously hate to work for blizzard, you guys have such miserable attitudes. Of course they raised the price on packs, they're going to die years earlier because they are surrounded by the people of r/competitivehearthstone all day. I am sorry for your children.

In-Depth Section

This deck took me the entire expansion to make. It is art to me.

It is sad that there are so few days left for people to see this...it took a lot of work. But to anyone that's been sad about the state of paladin, I have amazing news for you.

Dopplegangsters. Dragons. Curator. Wrathion. Aggro. I tried it all. I didn't believe that paladin could seriously lose all of the reno/aggro matches as poorly as it did...shaman is just shaman, but come on...it's pretty terrible to be able to draw your whole deck and still be a tier 2 aggro list. I don't think that's ever happened before. I didn't even really like paladin, I just refused to believe that all these good cards couldn't compete.

After a long stretch of disappointment, I did it. The build kind of clicked itself into place, cards I thought would never leave were immediately cut, and I started getting convincing wins against the big demons of the meta. I started yelling octopus puns at my computer screen. I started stabilizing consistently against strong shaman openers. I took priest back in time to the last expansion. Aggro started conceding against defender of argus drops. Jade druid has to hope and pray for a good Fandral. Renolock can sit behind on tempo from turn 5 to turn 10, play perfectly and still not have enough answers in hand for Jaraxxus to mean anything.

And that leaves aggro and shaman. This deck has great odds against aggro, but a good aggro hand is still gonna roll you if you draw terribly. That happens to everyone though, no sweat.

Depending on discovers, this deck fluctuates from upper tier 2 to what I personally feel like is the best build in the game. I would never put it below an upper tier 2 build, even when it draws poorly.

** And here's the list: ** http://imgur.com/a/gTcgQ

Let's go over what you're looking at, why this deck works and what you need to know for your matchups. This is an above-average skill build. It is not as difficult to play as something like an intense miracle rogue, but you will have to make a lot of value decisions that can swing the game at a moment's notice.

The Cards

• Smuggler's Run: Smuggler's Run is easily one of the most underrated cards of this expansion. It is the best spell in the game over a period of turns at its mana cost, bar none. There is no 1 mana spell in the game that can influence results as much as this other than power overwhelming. In the early game, this is used to turn 1/1s into 2/2s for trade purposes, but it is usually best saved for 4-6 minions in hand. It is also great for dumping 1 extra mana when the situation calls for it.

• Grimestreet Informant: This is the beating heart of this deck's late-game win rate. Grimestreet is a chance to fish for removal, a better curve, card draw, control spells, etc. It is the best discover card in the game, imo, because it's 2 mana and can fish for 8 mana cards (which means you can play this + lay on hands, tirion or rag lightlord on turn 10). This also opens up insane combos with brann and brew as shown in the visual guide.

• Grimestreet Outfitter: This card is just straight up the best buff card in the game. It is better than smuggler's run because of brann, but it's best not to compare the two. You want them both. These are good to save for later in the game for +2/2 and brewmaster shenanigans, more in the visual guide.

• Netherspite Historian: Win condition and taunt fishing. Netherspite historians at 2/4 and 3/5 are extremely effective, and these commonly hit 4/6 and 5/7 in the lategame. There are so many legendary dragons that you will almost always find something to do in the lategame from one of these. You ideally want to save them for brann, but you don't have to. There's other things to brann, and if you have a brewmaster, 1x of these can still discover 2 dragons for you.

• Youthful Brewmaster: This is one of the core cards of the deck. It's solid on turn 2, it's stupid overpowered with +2/2 and it supplements all of the win conditions this deck has. One of the most underrated cards in the game, no idea why people don't use this thing more.

• Aldor Peacekeeper: Aggro loses lol. This is very often a 5/5 in the midrange, it makes the game fully uphill for jade and stomps out common shaman aggro.

• Brann: who knows what secrets we'll uncover

• Sally: SALLY IS OVERPOWERED. This card is ridiculous. It is a 3 mana 4/4 deathrattle:flamestrike. Even if you play this as a 1/1 on turn 3, it's still passably ok (1/1 deathrattle: arcane explosion is not the worst thing ever). Using this as a 2/2 shuts down aggro, positions a dirty defender of argus and she's even potent in the late game. Worth 1600 dust easily.

• Wickerflame: I believe this is the best taunt in the game when used in this build. 4/4 is insanely common, and that's generally a heal for 8, 8 damage dealt and 2 hits absorbed. It puts antique healbot to shame. I would play this card at 4 mana in this build. 5 would be tough to call, but 3/3 for 5 sure. It's OP.

• Defender of Argus: Why run a taunt when we can run 2? One of the best targets for your buffs because it can sit in your hand for a few turns until the time is appropriate. This is stupid as a 4/5 or higher.

• Keeper of Uldaman: Your opponent's flamewreathed is now a 4 mana 3/3, overload 2. This is one of the most effective ways of dealing with minions on the board that we have, and it is overpowered with a simple +1/1. It often gets +2/2 and +3/3, has an insanely flexible battlecry and is both anti-aggro and anti-control. Come on now, this thing is clearly op.

• Twilight Drake: When used effectively, every 2 drop in this build will not interfere with twilight drake's health. Discovering and +1/1ing both maintain health, and it's very easy to see this as a 6/8 on turn 4. This gets amazing trade value and is a great argus target.

• Azure Drake: While we don't have any guaranteed spells, this offers a card draw and is generally a 5/5 for 5 mana. It pairs insanely well with consort, as explained in the visual guide.

• Dragon Consort: The most effective dragon in the game. You can curve dragon consort into Chillmaw or Chromaggus commonly, but even if you don't, the 2 mana reduction sticks forever. You have time.

• Grimestreet Enforcer: We only use 1x of these because it's the weakest form of buff. It isn't a 1 mana spell and it isn't a battlecry, and it also costs 5 mana. However, he's functionally a mini-thaurissan, so we'd be stupid to pass up one. If you want to tech in 1x dopplegangster, this is the card to do it for, but do not be surprised if you lose more games from holding dopple than you would have from playing a 5/5 enforcer on curve.

• Thaurissan: One last hurrah for the god himself. This card opens up some of the most ridiculous turn 7's in the build, including: Summon a 3/5, a 1/1, a 6/5, discover 4 class cards and give your whole hand +2/2. Yes, that's 1 combo of many. (Not in that order, see the visual guide.)

• Ivory Knight: Healing, spells, excellent target for buffs. Creates a lot of MVP situations, great with brann, sometimes is a 6 mana 7/7 heal yourself for 8 and add a copy of lay on hands to your hand. Also can discover humility, forbidden healing, enter the coliseum, etc. Insanely Flexible card.

• Eadric the Pure: One of the best cards in the game in the current meta. A 4/8 or 5/9 Eadric will lead to auto-concedes on a regular basis against some builds. Having them set to 1 attack is often worse than destroying them, because they have to sit there with a full board before they can do anything. This card destroys jade druid. You can even hold your brewmasters against druid just for this card to ensure that they cannot ever possibly win. It is hilarious.

***** THE VISUAL GUIDE *****

• THE KRAKEN LIST: http://imgur.com/a/gTcgQ
• THE KRAKEN CURVE: http://imgur.com/a/Xk8OG
• THE KRAKEN KITS: http://imgur.com/a/Kw5G4
• THE KRAKEN COMBOS: http://imgur.com/a/F8MlB

An Introduction to Imaginary Mana

This deck succeeds by adding as much imaginary mana into the value of the hand as possible. What is imaginary mana, you ask?

• Imaginary mana is a running total of buffs that exist on minions in your hand, primarily through emperor thaurissan and our buff kit, but grimestreet informants can pull other means of us modifying cards in hand.

• For example, if you were to play Emperor on a hand full of 6 cards, it is immediately "worth" 6 imaginary mana. If we play this over 3 turns, that's a theoretical advantage on board of 2 mana per turn. If all of these minions have +1/1, they are more in line with a minion of 1 higher mana cost, and so we would naturally be closer to 4 mana per turn ahead of our opponent. Most classes cannot come back from being 4 mana down on board for 3 turns in a row, that is usually enough damage for lethal. We do not need any spells if our opponent always has to answer our minions with cards in hand, and that is more easily achieved with a greater number of imaginary mana.

• A grimestreet outfitter that hits 5 minions (assuming 1x smuggler's run is in hand) is worth 5 imaginary mana. While mana reductions open up combos, it's better to just consider +1/1 and a 1 mana reduction to have the same long-term value as 1 imaginary mana for our mid-range win condition.

• This deck allows us to easily add 20-30 imaginary mana to our hand during the course of a normal game. If this mana is fielded over 3 turns, we should have at least a 7 mana-advantage per turn against our opponent. This type of advantage on board over 3 turns is an immediate win condition against priest, a common win condition against warlock and this strategy can still effectively run the tank out of a mage's hand and leave them without their own win conditions later.

• In theory, if we continuously add mana value to our hand beyond what other decks are capable of adding, they cannot possibly remove all minions fielded over a 3-turn span of time and still put threats on the board. If we have 50 imaginary mana in our hand (easier than you think, brann + outfitter on 6 minions is 12 imaginary mana), it is impossible for opponents to win in most cases. The closest thing that you'll see to an extra 50 mana in hand is kun+aviana, and sometimes these are only 40 mana-combos that win the game. This deck gets 10-20 imaginary mana in hand by turn 4 or 5 commonly, and this often puts opponents so far behind on tempo that they end up playing a reactive game from turn 4+.

• The reason I have come to call it "imaginary mana" is because I needed a metric to count how many total ticks of anything are in my hand and what that translates to in terms of the value played over the next few turns. It is very easy to remember that you hit 4 minions, then 5, then 7 and add all those numbers together. That leaves you with 16 imaginary mana in hand, and if you field all those minions over 3 turns, you should be 5 mana above curve each turn.

• Thaurissan is also insanely useful for combos, so it is a little wrong to just call him "imaginary mana," but the primary win condition of this build is being able to dump enough value onto the board for it to be impossible for your opponent to maintain tempo without extreme luck.

The Dopplegangster Dilemma

This was the hardest, most debated and harshest cut of the build. I believe this is the reason that paladin was held back so much this expansion. This card is so good in paladin that it's hard for people to believe there's literally no room for it in a meta-worthy build.

Dopplegangster is both a win and lose condition. If you run dopples in this build, you are not going to run dragon consort or azure drake. Consort+Azure Drake+Twilight Drake is one of the best low-midrange kits to have, and it opens up some of the most intense turn 6's and 7's that anyone can get.

That leads to Netherspite Historian. Netherspite historian is a late-game win condition, just like dopplegangster. Netherspite historian is overpowered with +3/3, just like dopplegangster. Netherspite historian is bad to play in the wrong context, just like dopplegangster.

The big problem here is that dopplegangster can slow down between turn 4-8, and that's the time we need a significant board the most. This deck most commonly wins and loses before and during those turns, so we cannot afford to have 2x dopples in hand if we can't afford to drop a win condition early. Again, this was the hardest cut in the build, and if I didn't make it, I don't think I would have discovered this deck. I do not recommend building down the dopplegangster path anymore even though it is magnificently OP in a vacuum, but I'm sure there's a version out there that works. I have tried and tried, dopple often slows the curve down and creates losing situations.

The Matchups:

• Jade Druid: Mulligan for grimestreet informants - you want an answer for Fandral. Fandral is the only reason druid has a chance in this matchup. Druid cannot consistently deal with pressure from buffed aldor peacekeepers and keepers of uldaman, nor do they have an answer for the turn 6's that this build has to offer. You can save Eadric + brewmaster for this matchup, druid gets all of its damage from jade idols after 6/6, so saving a couple of debuff cards is highly advised.

Kill fandral asap. Fandral -> nourish + wrath will lose you the game, but it isn't always auto-concede. With Fandral on 4 into a good turn 5, druid has an extreme advantage, but you are heavily favored in all games where fandral is drawn after turn 6.

• Reno Lock: Reno lock is the easiest match to get used to. You don't care about getting through to the face whatsoever, some damage is just to bait the reno so you can hurry up and win. Reno lock cannot deal with 3 rounds of 3 5/5 minions whatsoever. If you can achieve that, reno lock almost always loses. Renolock commonly NEEDS reno by turn 8, so you win a cut of matches right away just by the statistical lack of reno.

This match is so easy because while reno lock can win, its pressure means almost nothing until later in the game. Renolock pressure gets no additional mana value out of its cards, so you will always have the trade advantage on board. Force them to AOE asap and they will have no answers for netherspite historian or grimestreet informant + brann & brew. A simple 3-card combo will usually win you the game by this point. Once reno has no AoE, they have to use all of their single-target cards, and renolocks minions always lose to Krakadin's.

There is no universe in which renolock gets to field minions, play spells and still be ahead enough on mana to field any significant threats which can't be handled by our control kit. Renolock gets by on having options, not on having value. The longer it takes for renolock to pressure you, the more mana advantage you'll have in your hand. Stick to 3 minions of 5+ health over 3 turns and you will likely have closed out the game.

• Reno Priest: Easier than reno lock. We do not care about heals, we do not care about shadowform. Against priest, curve out as strongly as possible, force them to use all of their removal early on and lean on discovers to out-option them.

Here's the thing that you'll learn about this deck from priest: 28 minions is better than 28 spells when your opponent's spells cannot "symmetrically" deal with your minions on board. Priest has a lot of single target removal, and 1-for-1 is useless when I have a 4/6 netherspite historian that just gave me a ysera. Outside of an insane opener from the priest, this match is relatively unfair. Bait the dragonfire potion and SW:D by turn 8 and you can often close out the match by turn 11 or 12. SW:D will usually get used on thaurissan, if they don't know the match, they will get stupid and use it on dragon consort.

Because we run dragons, we can literally steal the game with a dragon consort on 5 and a consort+azure drake on 6. If these are buffed, the priest will have to AoE to deal with them, and the Krakadin is extremely punishing once it is ahead on board. Your opponent HAS to be able to 1:1 your minions which gets harder and harder as the match progresses. Dragon Consort has the ability to remove priest from the meta.

• Reno Mage: Do you want to cast a spell? This guy, this guy wants to cast a spell. If he gets the right spells, you lose. If he gets the wrong spells, you win.

Against reno mage, you're not worried about basically anything your opponent has. You have to get through the removal and AoE, so bait it with whatever you have as intelligently as you can. I know that sounds like a stupid, half-assed strategy, but it is the pinnacle of an expansion's worth of insight on paladin vs. mage. Just throw stuff at him and get information about his hand as early as possible, you don't need to be afraid of renomage but you do need to respect it. It wins if you field the wrong minions (ex using a keeper of uldaman instead of an aldor peacekeeper on medivh, fielding an important turn before the doomsayer has been played, etc.)

• Shaman: Haha. Hahahahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

So this deck has amazing results vs shaman. Aggro shaman has to worry about trading into 1/1s because of argus, has to worry about aldor peacekeeper, keeper of uldaman vs flamewreathed, eadric vs golems...

And? Shaman AoE is not enough for this build's pressure. Only hex gets a guaranteed minion removal, shaman has no way of answering eadric, shaman has no way of dealing with dragon consort turns...etc. Shaman falls short against this build.

Now, shaman can win. Flametongue is still flametongue, jade+brann is still jade+brann. It's just that we have one of the most effective kits in the game at forcing shaman to play reactively, and that pushes the clock back long enough for us to get to 30+ imaginary mana in hand. That's an extra 5 mana per minion over 6 targets, which implies that they'll all be +5/5 or +4/4 and -1 mana. Even with 2 hexes hitting 10 mana minions, your opponent is still down 16 mana against your hand. We just deduct the value of spells from the imaginary mana in hand instead of the board, because as long as our opponent isn't threatening lethal, it implies that our imaginary mana is running him down. We immobilize their options by playing more/better minions than them, force them to play reactive and then eventually encroach the board with minions that they cannot possibly compete with until their jade idols are at least 5/5s. Even then, we have 2x aldors, 2x uldaman and 1x Eadric, so it is implied that we can live through a board full of 7/7 + jades.

This deck is revenge on the shaman class as a whole. The days leading up to this expansion will be a rough time on the ladder for shaman after people pick up this build. By the time the first streamer pulls off the Vegan Calamari, word should spread pretty fast that paladin has a legitimate curve/combo/midrange build that can compete in the meta and can discover lategame options...that uses 28 minions. Shaman can win if they tech in 1x bloodlust and some deathrattle stuff because it's hard to deal with totems unless you get good discovers or a strong sally play.

Every other build currently in meta (rogue varieties, aggro lists, meme decks) are too rare for me to form an opinion on.

• TLDR; It was at the top stupid
• Any business/private messages will be responded to potentially in the order they were received.
• I am available for hire but already have a work request from this thread. I would just like to remind my haters, primarily /u/Snuffrix and some guy with 0's for a name, that I'm getting paid and you're fresh jelly.
• If you would like me to write things for your hearthstone or other-based association, the answer is maybe. PM me. I might not like you though.