Aggressive decks have dominated the Hearthstone ladder since the game’s been a known quantity. Cheap both in terms of how they play and how much they cost, flooding the board with lots of tiny minions has done wonders for classes like Warlock and Hunter. How does this philosophy fit into a jack of all trades class like Paladin?
Aggro Shield Paladin deals with getting lots of small-health and usually small-attack minions on the board, and then using Steward of Darkshire to give these one-health minions a Divine Shield. With murlocs that summon multiple one health minions, cards like Magma Rager, and Charge cards like Southsea Deckhand, there are a lot of minions who will get that Divine Shield. A great play if your opponent can’t deal with it is using Blood Knight to gain 3/3 stats for each Divine Shield taken. That can be a lot in combination with Steward of Darkshire.
Like other aggro decks, your ultimate goal is to just overwhelm your opponent with hard to kill minions. Divine Shield means only removal like Brawl or Doom can take care of these minions in one go. These shielded minions go up against other aggro decks pretty well, you guessed it, because of the Divine Shield. They can essentially take as heavy of a hit as you want.
Aggro decks tend to run out of steam, which is exactly the problem you can find yourself in if your Stewards of Darkshire don’t end up in your hand. This deck has a good early-game curve, so it’s in your best interest to swarm the board as soon as you can. That being said, you’re going to want lots of one and two mana minions in your opening hand. Selfless Hero, Argent Protector, and Bilefin Tidehunters are all great cards early on in the game, with many of them playing along with the Divine Shield theme.