Whack-A-Gnoll
A comparable spell to Runes of Darkness, but the +1/+1 upgrade on the discovered weapon is baseline, without requiring spending corpses. This means we can play Whack-A-Gnoll on turn 1, or whenever we want to, and enjoy its full benefits.
Runes of Darkness is a big source of damage for Death Knight, so Whack-A-Gnoll does seem tempting. However, there’s a good reason why Whack-A-Gnoll is less restrictive: Paladin weapons from the past are far worse than Death Knight’s current arsenal. Many of them have no synergy with existing Paladin archetypes, so the overall card quality here is far lower.
Nevertheless, putting a +1/+1 upgrade makes worse weapons playable, so Paladin shouldn’t have too much trouble finding decent value here. This is a filler card for an aggressive Paladin deck, or even a Reno Paladin deck.
Score: 2
Holy Glowsticks
Paladin gets a Void Shard that discounts to 1 mana if you’ve played another Holy spell on the same turn. Holy Glowsticks seems quite good in both aggressive or defensive Paladin decks, as it can both hit face and heal for cheap. The only limitation is the Holy spell requirement. Aggro Paladin doesn’t run a lot of Holy spells currently, but it does have a way to tutor them, which could help with Glowsticks’s consistency.
The bigger deal is that Holy Glowsticks provides off-board damage to a deck that’s currently very reliant on having board control to win games, so we like the idea of Paladin having some reach to finish off an opponent.
Looking further into the future, every defensive minded Paladin deck should love this card. It’s a flexible removal and healing tool that can help us get ahead on board. In most scenarios, a better Eye Beam.
Score: 3
Flickering Lightbot
A 3/3 body that gets discounted by every Holy Spell, which adds an 8/8 body with the same ability. This minion seems quite good in theory, as it helps you cheat out stats, and every minion that becomes “free” to play at some point in the game will draw interest from us. The only underwhelming part we can think of is that it produces plain stats without a defensive keyword.
Lightbot’s main issue is that it’s currently a good card without a deck. The current Paladin card pool does not have enough support to build around Holy spells and existing Paladin strategies do not run the large number of Holy spells required to discount Lightbot.
Lightbot would have been very strong alongside Holy Maki Roll, for example. It seems like a “big picture” card that’s going to become relevant at some point in the future, but unlikely to make an immediate impact.
Score: 2
Final Thoughts: This set looks like a hint of what’s to come for Paladin in the future, but some of these cards could see immediate play too. Not a bad set, but not something that’s going to spawn an entirely new archetype.
