Hearthstone Anyfin Paladin Legend Guide

by MightyMalte

Hi my name is M4lt3 and i wanted to share a deck type im in love with since its core card ‘Anyfin can happen’ was released. I normally play standart, but i’ve hit legend in wild (and standart when it was possible) with Anyfinpala quite some times and won about 500 games with it in total.

The reason I’m making this post now is the new Paladin legendary Highpriest Thekal, which allows you to play your Molten Giant for free as soon as turn 3 or even turn 2 on the coin, which gives the deck kind of a new touch.

Some highlights,stats and legend proof

In my current decklist i would consider the following cards core:

-1x Forbidden Healing: This card is essential against aggro/burn decks, and allows you to spend dead turns after thekal healing yourself. Also a good trigger for pyro when you are out of mana.

-1x Righteous Protector: Solid card to hide a doomsayer behind, good with tarim, call to arms and equality

-1x Bloodmage Thalnos:1-2 mana Deathrattle card draw is what you are looking for with call to arms + spell damage for consecration

-2x Loot Hoarder: Card draw, which gets pulled by CtA

-2x Bluegill Warrior: Your Combo

-2x Equality: The board clear of your choice, either with pyromancer or equality

-2x Doomsayer: Has a important role in about every matchup, especially big priest so a safe two of

-1x Wild Pyromancer: Gets often pulled by CtA where its rather weak, thats why i only consider 1 copy core

-1x Thekal: Molten Giant package

-2x Murloc Warleader: Your Combo

-2x Consecration: Solid card without equality, nuts with equality in hand

-1x Old Murk-Eye: Your Combo

-2x Call to Arms: Gets your Bluegill Warriors and thins your deck, super good card and easy 2x

-1x Finja: Way better than i expected, its really important to get your murlocs on time, much more than to have a reliable 30+ dmg combo on your second Anyfin

-2x Solem Vigil: Card draw for 0 after a board clear, 2x

-2x Anyfin:Combo

-2x Molten Giant: Together with Thekal

The last three cards in the deck are:

-1x Pyromancer: The card i would consider cutting first

-1x Truesilver: 8 damage to the face or fighting for board control is really valuable but not necessary in most matchups

-1x Sunkeeper Tarim: Really solid card, offensive and defensive, not really important but stronger than the other options (or not as one sided) in my opinion

Cards that belonged in older lists or i tested in other iterations of the decklist were:

-Spikeridged Steed: Doesnt really do anything in this deck, it rather blocks your combo because its sticky and you need your board space

-Ivory Knight: The card i used for the longest time in this deck to get extra anyfins, but its just bad the more spells you have in the cardpool, so not really an option anymore

-Arcane Dynamo: If all you face is odd and dead mans hand warrior this card is the one for you but i would not recommand it

– Shrink Ray: A little bit clunky in my opinion, and most of the time you got enough clears

EDIT: There are three cards which i forgot in my writeup because i haven’t actually tested them myself which are:

-Shirvallah: This is a card that would fit in perectly with your first anyfin, it would most likely cost 0 by that time and you only need 6 board space anyway, so Shirvallah is ideal to get taunts out of the way. The only question im asking myself is, which taunt is it clearing ? The two most annoying taunts right now, obsidian statue and voidlord, both don’t die with only shirvallah attacking them. If there are taunt minions with 7 or less health that you are struglling with (dude + steed comes to mind) Shirvallah is defenitly worth a try

-Timeout: A card which would go into the deck for forbidden healing which i haven’t thought of before it was mentioned here. Timout shines if you are often dying just the turn before you wanted to play anyfin or if you plan to clear a board but have/want to wait a turn. So the best case would be a turn 9 timeout to prevent you from dying and then play anyfin on turn 10. The question here is how often is that happening to you. The strong play with forbidden healing is to play your giants when you are low and then heal back up, so you have a board and life to work with. This works much better to slow an enemy down but not so well when you completly lost the board. Timeout is also game winning in the Mirror. I’m still not sure which of both is the better one, but i will sure try the timeout version.

-Flash of Light: Heal 4 and draw a card. Sounds pretty good for any control list. The 4 heal rarely do matter, there are not many burn decks out there so most of the time you are fighting for the board or are playing against a control deck. While it doesn’t help with fighting for the board its great to have more card draw against control. But the thing is you most often don’t need the extra card draw. You are fast enough to beat most of the control decks and the bad matchups like Cubelock will have a Voidlord up by turn 9 (or earlier) no matter how fast you cycle through your deck. The matchups where extra draw would be needed are jade druid and odd warrior because they have so much armor gain that you should hit them with 2 anyfins on turn 10 and 11 if possible. Keep in mind that you are not playing something like shirvallah where an empty deck is necessary to pull off the combo. In regards to card draw to get a board clear, Flash of Light is a good card, but than i would probably play shrink ray over it, if better accessability to clears is your intention.

Decklist:

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Why to play the deck right now?

The best reason i can think of because its really unexpected to most players and because its only real weakness is rogue, which i will discuss later in the Matchups/Mulligan section.

Other than that the Thekal/Molten Giants are really overperforming in this kind of deck with a lot of draw, so if you like little highrolls without it being the only wincondition, Anyfinpala is probably a deck for you

Why to play Thekal & Molten over other cards:

It’s basically a three card package which wins you games on the spot and neither of the three cards is useless without the other. Thekal is very solid on turn 3 vs minion based decks and the giants gain their value in the later turns when your life total is lower, so you can often play Giant + Forbidden Healing after a Doomsayer/board clear. It also provides a second win condition against decks where you would lose otherwise.

General Gameplan:

If you have played all 6 Murlocs and have at least 6 spaces on your Board, your first Anyfin will do 23 Damage, 22 without Finja. This makes it that you dont have to think about ruining your revive pool with finja on your second Anyfin, you would much rather have all your murlocs together faster and do 23 damage on the first Anyfin and a little more on the second dependant on the revives. Only if you hold both Warleaders and Old-Murk eye you shouldnt play Finja, since you get your Bluegill Warriors through CtA.

Your goal is to cycle through your deck, most of the times you are down to about 6-7 cards when it’s turn 10 which makes this combo deck really consistant. If you have Thekal in your opening Hand, always keep it, if you have Molten Giants (without Thekal) always throw it.

Your powerful plays in the Midgame are most likely, CtA which will get you a charger or a Doomsayer to play Solem Vigil for free most of the times, Equality clears and big boards with Finja.

For the exact playstyle you have to look into the matchups:

Even Shaman (favoured): You just need to make sure to stay out of their burn range, which most of the times is about 10 damage (1x Crackle 1x Jade Lightning). Mulligan for doomsayer, CtA, Truesilver and Thekal. Allways clear the totems in case you have to tarim at a later point. Don’t let all your card draw get caught in a devolve otherwise you are good to go, very straight forward matchup

Odd Warrior (even): In this matchup you are the aggressor, warrior is able to clear both anyfins easily so the second one has to do the trick. Assemble all your murlocs as fast as possible and go always face. CtA and Finja are the cards you want in your opening hand, also keep Old Murk-Eye since he is the strongest of your murlocs and necessary to have a chance. Use your clears to push some damage and clear taunts, you won’t be under much pressure.

Odd and Kingsbane Rogue (highly unfavoured): This are your two worst matchups and if your local meta is more than 30% rogue, i wouldn’t recommand this deck for you. It is really hard to win, since both can push too much damage before turn 4-5 which is normally where you’ll get the board back. The weapons and charge don’t make the matchup easier. You are looking for Doomsayer, Forbidden Healing, Truesilver and Call to Arms. If you have forbidden healing also keep molten giants, it won’t take you long to get to 10 life where you can play them and heal back up. The best way to win this matchup though is to win with Thekal and Giants, its where they really give you an advantage over a list without them.

Big Priest(favoured): This matchup is a little bit different then all the others, because you really have to think about your gameplay more since priest is so disruptive to your combo with statue and psychic scream. Hard mulligan for Doomsayer, its probably the most important card in this matchup, so i will throw everything except thekal to get one. Normal mulligan (Call to Arms, Finja) if you have a doomsayer. The reason why to get a doomsayer in the mulligan is so important is because

A) You need to set up your anyfin with a doomsayer to guarantee there is no statue when you play your Anyfin for the first time. You’ll then get scream’ed and play your second Anyfin for the win

B) Call to Arms pulls your Doomsayer if you dont have him in your hand. What is something you like in other matchups is terrible against bigpriest. You want to have minions to pressure and don’t lose your board to your own doomsayer.

Play around psychic scream all the time, except when you have all murlocs dead, and both anyfin + doomsayer and a clear in hand. Getting your cards shuffled back in the deck is really bad, especially when you already played your CtA or get dudes shuffled. The way you lose against big priest are insane high rolls where you dont have and equality clear. Or when they Scream your Anyfin and hit a Statue of resurrect. All in all the first deck i enjoy to play against big priest with.

Even Warlock(favoured): Mulligan for equality and doomsayer. You can but a doomsayer down the turn before they play their giant and clear if there is too big of bord. I don’t i’ve lost a game to Evenlock but i think i only played four of them so not so big of a sample size

Reno(lock) (favoured): You have to things in Renolock that can stop you from winning. A kazakus mass sheep potion with 3 resurrect. Only mass sheep is almost never enough since you set him to 7 life (if he was at 30 without taunts) and he spends his whole turn giving you 6 1/1s to directly attack him, if the potion also clears you just anyfin again. The second problem is voidlord into guldan into nzoth in combination with Malganis. Try to prevent him from playing Guldan/Nzoth with a doomsayer when you can. Use your giants, first Anyfin and Equality to clear. Sometimes you will get through but most of the times not, if Malganis is involved. Normal mulligan, they often give you a minion for free with deathlord which will sometimes win you a game.

Control/Cubelock(unfavoured): Same story as in Renolock, but now you are faceing 2 Voidlords, and multiple ways to get them consitantly. Just hope there is no Malganis on time otherwise you won’t win here.

The Mirror: If you are on the Coin, play your murlocs and always keep the coin so you can anyfin first. Without the coin don’t play any Murlocs until your opponent played the coin, since the player to first Anyfin wins if there have enough murlocs died. Remember that ALL murlocs that died this game are revived. Only played this matchup once this month, but often before so thats all i can say about it.

That covers my most popular and different matchups, the rest is relativly straight forward.

I think Anyfinpaladin is in a really good spot in the meta right now and not very popular. I would love to hear what you guys think about the deck. If you liked Anyfin back when it was in Standart, its also a very good step into wild, because it got a little bit easier with Old Murkeye.

Thanks for reading!