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| In the final hour, all must serve the one... true... king. |
The Lich King! Even if he was crap, this is going to be the card I craft first, no questions asked, if I don't get him in the first week of release. I'm a Lich King fanboy and I'm not ashamed of it. Well, now we know why Ragnaros got punted over to the Hall of Fame, because we've got a new Dr. 8! The Lich King is an 8-mana 8/8 with Taunt, which is Ironbark Protector... but that's just the least of his abilities. He adds a random Death Knight card (a subset of 8 cards that the Lich King picks randomly) into your hand at the end of each turn, making him basically be Ysera... on steroids, because these Death Knight cards are insanely powerful. It's like they had all these cool ideas about the abilities they wanted to adapt for the Lich King, couldn't decide and just ended up lumping them all into the Death Knight abilities that the Lich King gives randomly to you. And for the most part... the Death Knight cards are pretty fucking insane! The fact that the Lich King isn't understatted for his cost makes him pretty amazing, too -- and that's before you take into account the Death Knight cards. Add that to the fact that you can double the effect with the Drakkari Enchanter, and you can discover extra Lich Kings from Stonehill Defenders (the idea of a fat turtle man pulling the Lich King out of wherever it finds all those taunt minions is hilarious in my head)... yeah. Definitely a value minion, a card you would be absolutely happy when one of those 'get a free random legendary' cards like Sindragosa or Rotface rolls into. And you should! He's the fucking Lich King! He's supposed to be good! In brief, the Death Knight abilities are:
- Death and Decay: 3 damage, deal 3 damage to all enemies. Basically Consecration on steroids. I know Ysera Awakens is one of the best cards to get out of Ysera, and the Lich King's version isn't as powerful... but it only hits the enemy's side of the board. Also hits the face, which feels amazingly dirty.
- Army of the Dead: For 6 mana, you get the Varian Wrynn effect with the top 5 cards of your deck... but discard all non-minion cards. Which is a huge gamble, but you basically potentially fill your board with minions. Definitely extra-powerful in a deathrattle-centric deck provided you don't accidentally summon N'Zoth.
- Death Grip: 2 mana... steal a minion from your opponent's deck and put it into your hand. That's right, you don't gain a copy, you don't discover a copy. The Lich King's a villain. He's going to, to quote Ben Brode, "totally jack" the enemy minion. So yeah, move over, Gnomeferatu! Even if you draw a dud, it's still one card you deny your opponent and one card you get to play for yourself. Probably the most interesting design of the DK cards, if not particularly the best in most situations.
- Doom Pact: 5 mana Twisting Nether, but you discard a card from your deck for each minion discarded. Which sounds like a huge cost, but remember -- 5 mana Twisting Nether! Obviously you keep this until your Lich King leaves the battlefield, but it can definitely bail you out in a pinch. The fact that it's 5 mana also means that you free up the turn to do other stuff, which is amazing.
- Anti-Magic Shell: Where most of the other cards deal with the enemy's board in some way, or just build a board, Anti-Magic Shell's probably one that's a bit hard to use. It's 4 mana, does a mass +2/+2 and the Fairy Dragon ability buff. Which isn't terribly useful if the Lich King's the only minion on the side of the board because it's just a particularly expensive Mark of the Wild (exchanging Taunt for "spellproof") but, again, it's not a bad card to have.
- Obliterate: 2-mana Assassinate! Holy shit! The downside? Your hero takes damage equal to its health? That honestly seems a bit much, especially if you kill like another Lich King and take 8 damage to the face. Still, 2-mana Assassinate!
- Death Coil: Easily the most flexible of the cards here, and possibly the one you want to have the most if you're not trying to clear the board with Doom Pact or D&D. Death Coil either deals 5 damage to an enemy (not enemy minion! It can go face!) or restore 5 health to any friendly character. The flexibility of Death Coil is just amazing... but then, back in Warcraft III I did spam the ever-loving shit out of Death Coil in all the Arthas missions. Very appropriate.
- Frostmourne: Frostmourne is a card, yes! I was so worried it was going to be Warrior exclusive, or that the Lich King card will be a boring 'equip Frostmourne' and it's just Ashbringer 2.0. But as part of this set of possible cards to get, yeah, pretty awesome. It's a 7-mana 5/3 (haha, Ashbringer 2.0) which is pretty expensive because it might take up your whole turn, but on the other hand... it's 15 damage to the face! Failing that, if you use it to control the board, when Frostmourne shatters, you summon all the minions you kill, which is just so insanely cool.
Is he going to be an auto-include in every deck? Probably not, but I sure am putting him into any midrange and control deck I build. Again, a huge drawback of the Lich King's cards is that so many of them is has huge costs attached to them, but are pretty damn powerful nonetheless. Death Coil, Death and Decay and Death Grip seem to be the cheapest, most easy to spam ones, whereas Army of the Dead, Doom Pact and Obliterate can kind of be dead cards in your hand if you aren't in a situation that those can be useful. And Frostmourne is super-expensive. But shit, they're all pretty good, I think. I am just so, so excited for this card, perhaps even moreso than I should, but it looks insanely powerful while still being balanced.
Arfus
Arfus, on the other hand, while pretty fucking adorable... probably isn't particularly good. The statline of a 4-mana 2/2 is just so pitifully tiny! And, yes, it's a deathrattle so you do want him to die pretty quickly to get the Death Knight card, but I'm not really sure if that's honestly any good. If Arfus was a battlecry, maybe? But that wouldn't really make sense thematically. The fact that you only get one, and it's random, and unlike the Lich King you can't just wait for the next turn to maybe roll the one you need... Arfus just feels weak. Maybe in a dedicated deathrattle deck he would work? I don't know. Arfus is also painfully vulnerable to Potion of Madness, a card that's been run in relatively all of the Priest decks out there. So unlike the Lich King, I'm afraid his faithful canine companion might not really see that much play. Which is a shame. Arfus could've been, like, a 4-mana 3/2 or something, because he's still a legendary, after all, not an epic card or whatever.Strongshell Scavenger
And now my opinion towards Crypt Lord has to be neutered somewhat, because this is the piece of the puzzle that might actually make Taunt Druid's early game a lot stronger than it is. Strongshell Scavenger is basically Warrior's Bolster stapled onto a 2/3 minion as a battlecry, and costing one mana more. The slight increase in mana isn't super-relevant in druids, and you do kind of need a couple of turns to set up a board full of minions. So you can go from turn 2 Druid of the Swarm to turn 3 Tar Creeper or Crypt Lord, and turn 4 this guy. And a 3/7 Crypt Lord that has his health keep growing is suddenly a lot less funny. Also powerful with Strongshell Scavenger is the Spreading Plague card, which is a lot, lot more likely to survive to the next turn compared to the old cute Protect the King/Bolster combo. And that's not to mention the other powerful taunt minions that Druids have in their repertoire. Druid of the Claw, Dark Arakkoa, Shellshifter, Ironbark Protector, Ancient of War... this dude the turn after your Hadronox dies? Pretty fucking great, I think. Ultimately Strongshell Scavenger is a pretty powerful card, but I'm not sure if the deck that he lives in is going to be good or not.
Gnash
Haha, get it? Gnash? Because it's kind of like Bash? Well, Gnash deals 3 damage and gives you 3 armour, but it's a bit worse than Bash because you have to use your face to deal the damage. Of course, it's in different classes, but I honestly don't think I'd ever pick Gnash over Feral Rage as Druid's three-mana drop. Sure, Feral Rage only grants you the attack or the armour (with the possible Fandral value, but that doesn't come up every time) but Gnash is more comparable to cards like Bite and Claw, none of which ever saw play. It's just not really enough, and Druids just have far more powerful tools in their arsenal. Probably somewhat decent in arena, though.
Exploding BloatbatThe Bloatbat is like the Fiery Bat, but he's bloated! And explosive! People are kind of underestimating this card due to his relatively weak statline, but Exploding Bloatbat is more of a delayed Consecration or a non-secret Explosive Trap that you can sometimes trigger multiple times if you use Play Dead or Terrorscale Stalker. And both Explosive Trap and Consecration are pretty good! Hunters sometimes do have trouble with clearing huge boards because they kind of prioritize putting minions in their deck as compared to cards like Grievous Bite or Explosive Shot, and Exploding Bloatbat fixes it by being both! Exploding Bloatbat is a pretty interesting tool. Yes, the statline is weak, and the cost is slightly on the higher side, but Exploding Bloatbat, I think, is a pretty interesting board-clear spell that just happens to be bundled into a beast -- which means damage per turn if not dealt, and a possible buff target. I really like this card, I think.
Toxic Arrow
I don't like this card, though. Toxic Arrow's just weird all around. I get what it's trying to do, in that it's trying to give the Hunter class some extra thought beyond the brainless beast-buffing and face-rushing that the class is wont to do, but why would you ever play Toxic Arrow? Sure, the concept behind it is cute. Use the 2 damage to kill a minion, or if you can't kill it, shoot one of your own minion and then turn it into a poisonous minion to kill the big minion! But then... wouldn't you just run Hunter's Mark like, every single time? Because if you're using Toxic Arrow with the intent of giving your minions poisonous to remove stuff, that means you need a 3-health minion with the relatively large odds of killing your own minion during the trade, so why not use the far cheaper Hunter's Mark? And if you want the damage portion, wouldn't Arcane Shot (which I don't think is ever played) be better, because it has the flexibility of going face? Toxic Arrow's a cool concept because of the interesting effects being combined, but I think it's kind of a bad card.
Arrogant CrusaderThe Arrogant Crusader is going to be the first of the several 'if it's your opponent, get a deathrattle minion off' cards that we're going to talk about in this review. It's probably the most playable one out of the ones revealed, because I think the Skelemancer is crap and the Vryghoul is barely okay. But Arrogant Crusader isn't super-awesome, either. The way to think about Arrogant Crusader is that it's a more stable Piloted Shredder with slightly shuffled stats, but you can't ever use it to trade. Ever. He does have the far scarier 5/2 statline, meaning that unlike other examples of this mechanic the Arrogant Crusader's pretty scary. And if you total the stats it's definitely not shabby for a 4-drop. Of course, all you do is just swap the super-threatening 5/2 for the... pretty mundane 2/2, because your opponent's just going to trade in a smaller minion into the Arrogant Crusader. Which isn't terribly good. Of course, though, the Arrogant Crusader isn't horrible either, because it's still a card that more or less demands an answer. It's a card which won't shake the meta, but I won't be surprised to see him be used in a couple of decks here and there, and won't be necessarily bad to be brought back by N'Zoth. Paladins love their N'Zoths and bringing back Tirion, an extra 5/2 that hides behind Tirion (and likely to summon little baby ghouls after he dies) isn't a bad card to run.
Dark Conviction
Dark Conviction is basically the Keeper of Uldaman effect, but since Keeper is out of standard rotation, they turned it into a cheaper spell. I always felt that the Keeper of Uldaman effect is one of the more creative and most awesome effects Hearthstone has ever done, and Sunkeeper Tarim has proven to be a mammoth presence in ensuring Paladin's stability, but I'm honestly not sure if Dark Conviction is going to be good, mainly because it doesn't come with a body. Part of what makes Keeper of Uldaman and Sunkeeper Tarim great is that the 3/4 and 3/7 bodies they come with respectively basically ensures an answer to the 3/3 minion you debuff your opponent to. And, yes, while I think some Paladin decks might want to run this, I think it's strictly worse than Keeper of Uldaman, which wasn't even run in every single Paladin decks. What makes Sunkeeper Tarim so powerful is that it tended to build up your board as well. Some people suggest playing Dark Conviction as a card in a Quest Paladin deck and to that I say ha-ha-ha!
Bone Baron
Bone Baron's a pretty simple card, and one that looks decent, but not overtly powerful. He's a decent body a 5-mana 5/5, a mere point lower than the vanilla test, and as a deathrattle he adds two 1/1 tokens into your hand. The Razorpetal Lasher did a similar thing, except it added 1-mana spells, and with the exception of Gadgetzan Auctioneer, 1-mana cards are pretty useful for Rogue to activate further combos and help in making Edwins grow and Sherazins return to life. Speaking of Sherazin, maybe you run Sherazin and Bone Baron in the same deck with N'Zoth? Maybe. I guess Bone Baron is somewhat comparable to Tomb Pillager from LoE, but Bone Baron's a whole mana more expensive and doesn't add the far easily-chained coin into your hand. Definitely an okay card to pick in arena, and might actually see constructed play.
Doomerang
Oh my god, I love the design of this card! I don't necessarily think it's going to be super-good, because at the moment the only playable Rogue weapon with a battlecry you'd want to reuse is the brand-new Shadowblade, but the amount of weapon synergy cards Rogue has is pretty decent! Hopefully in a couple of expansions we'll get even more powerful Rogue weapons. Between the Runeforge Haunter and Doomerang, Rogues have gotten a fair amount of ways to cheat having a weapon be destroyed after its durability runs out, which is amazing. Doomerang, for one mana, basically attacks with the last durability your weapon has, sparing your face the damage, and then re-adds the weapon to your hand. I don't think it's necessarily great at the current meta, or even during the Frozen Throne meta considering the only real decent weapons Rogue has are the Shadowblade and Assassin's Blade (Perdition's Blade's not that good, Obsidian Shard needs a dedicated Burgle deck to get value, and... I guess Deadly Fork's okay) but Doomerang is a card that can potentially see much more value as more weapons are released.
Spectral Pillager
The Spectral Pillager is honestly a bit weird. It's a 6-mana 5/5 that deals damage equal to the number of other cards you've played this turn, but like Biteweed I don't think it's a card that's going to really have enough of a powerful effect to justify the trouble of playing multiple cards in the same turn. With Edwin VanCleef you get a super-massive minion, and with Sherazin you bring her back, and with Gadgetzan Auctioneer you draw a helluva cards. With Spectral Pillager, though, and especially considering she's 6-mana... wouldn't you rather spend all those cards being played in a Gadgetzan Auctioneer turn instead, and reload your hand instead of dealing like, what, oh, 4, 5 damage? I don't really see a great use for her. I guess a Shadowcaster-ed vision of her wouldn't be super-horrible since it'd be a 1-mana card that can be slotted far more easily into a Gadgetzan Auctioneer turn, but then you'd have to play a 6-mana 5/5 that maybe dealt 1 or 2 points of damage and that's a shittier version of Fire Elemental. Dunno. I think she's pretty bad.Avalanche
The final Shaman card to be revealed is Avalanche and it's... it's basically two Frostbolts stapled together with its effects split out? You freeze a minion, and then deal 3 damage to the minions on either side of it. It's like Cone of Cold and Frostbolt had a baby, but what made both Cone of Cold and Frostbolt useful (and Cone isn't even played a lot now) is that they deal damage and freeze an enemy, allowing you to stall down a minion for another turn while you draw into more damage. Avalanche's weird. Of course, the freeze mechanic is yet another that can play to Moorabi shenanigans, but I maintain that it's not going to be enough to really make a deck work consistently. The ability that Avalanche offers is definitely an interesting one that will require a bit more thinking, but in the same vein... if you want to take out several minions at the same time, why not play the cheaper and further-reaching Lightning Storm? It's not a bad card, it's just one that's outclassed by the other spells available to Shamans.Bloodreaver Gul'dan
Bloodreaver Gul'dan is a bit weird, because I honestly think he's just kind of... not worth the ten mana? But make him cheaper and he'll be overpowered. The initial battlecry (plus 5 armour, which is decent) just doesn't seem that strong with the current roster of demons available to Warlock, with half of the demons available being cheap early-game minions (the imps, Voidwalker) that you don't really want clogging up your board when you make a turn 10 N'Zoth-style play. Which leaves the only real powerhouses being Doomguard, Lakkari Felhound, Despicable Dreadlord, Dread Infernal, Abyssal Enforcer and Krul the Unshackled. Doomguard and Lakkari Felhound are very, very risky cards to play in a deck that also runs Bloodreaver Gul'dan, because they can both discard Gul'dan himself. Krul is kind of... not that great, going from Krul to Gul'dan would mean that you sustained yourself at turn 9 to play Krul, summon a bunch of demons, have them die over the course of a couple of turns, and then play Bloodreaver Gul'dan? I don't really think it's that realistic, although Krul would allow you to cheat all the self-detrimental battlecries that Doomguard and Felhound has. The 6/6 Infernal family would be decent to bring back with Gul'dan, I guess, and Despicable Doomguard's definitely a decent pile of stats. I guess you could go from Jaraxxus, summon a bunch of Infernals and have them die, and then transform to Bloodreaver Gul'dan? I'm not sure if your max health cap would be 15 or 30 in that case. Bloodreaver Gul'dan's hero power is pretty boss, basically Drain Life on steroids -- it's dealing 3 damage with Lifesteal, which is probably the best and most spammable hero power out of all the Death Knight heroes? It's just that it will take so, so long for Bloodreaver Gul'dan to really rack up value. It's a card that has the potential to be insanely scary and yet also be a huge, unplayable flop in the same breath. Definitely love this card from a design standpoint, though, and jeez, in wild? With Mal'Ganis? Man, this thing's best friends with Mal'Ganis.Drain Soul
Drain Soul, obviously, is similar to the old Classic Warlock spell, Drain Life, except it costs 1 mana cheaper, and it has Lifesteal built into it instead of having it written out explicitly. When it was announced that Wickerflame and Mistress of Pain are getting the Lifesteal mechanic added to them, people were asking if Holy Nova, Holy Fire and Drain Life would get a similar rebranding. Turns out that, nope, Drain Life will steal heal you for a fixed amount of damage, making Drain Soul a fair bit more powerful due to its cheapness and the ability to be scaled up with spell damage -- the set introduces a fair amount of (pretty sub-par for Warlock, TBH) spell damage minions. Worth noting that Drain Soul only does damage to a minion, as opposed to Drain Life that can go face... but Drain Life has always been relatively poorly costed, especially after the slow power creep that Hearthstone has gotten since Classic, and Drain Soul is definitely a far, far superior card in any incarnation. Will you run this? I'm honestly not very sure, but it does look like a decent card.
Scourgelord GarroshScourgelord Garrosh is a bit of an anomaly. See, last expansion we already got an alternate late-game hero power for Warrior, which is the Ragnaros hero power granted by the Un'Goro quest. Most of the other Death Knight heroes have new hero powers which basically allowed them to sustain themselves for the late game. How do they do that with Warrior? Making him have super-armour healing is kind of boring (also, done with Justicar Trueheart) and dealing even more damage than the Ragnaros hero power would be insane. So with Garrosh, the Death Knight version of him instead has a hero power that's 2-mana whirlwind. Whirlwind on demand is amazing, especially with the amount of enrage-friendly cards that Warrior got this expansion (somewhere in wild, the decaying corpse of Patron Warrior stirs as it hears the whispers of the Lich King) but how many times are you realistically going to whirlwind your board? Playing Scourgelord Garrosh is a bit tricky and a gamble, because at one point you might just whirlwind your board to exhaustion. The battlecry's neat, getting 5 extra armour, and you get a 4/3 weapon with the Foe-Reaper effect, which basically kind of means a mini-Flamestrike on the turn that Garrosh attacks with the Shadowmourne weapon, but I'm not super sold on the hero power. It's definitely interesting, though, and I really do hope this card works and gets a really cool deck going on.
Death Revenant
The easiest card to compare Death Revenant to, I think, is Frostwolf Warlord, who is a card who saw very little play -- only in budget Zoo Warlock decks -- and one that starts off as a far larger 4/4 that gains stats depending on the minions you have. Death Revenant only gains stat bonuses depending on the amount of damaged minions... but it gains stats for the entire board's worth of wounded minions. You need a bare minimum of 3 damaged minions on the field for Death Revenant to get to at least a 5-mana 6/6, which would be a 'fair' 5 drop (the 5-drop vanilla is Pit Fighter at 5/6, any less is terrible). Warrior does have a fairly large amount of new cards that can deal out damage to the entire board, but I honestly don't see Death Revenant being the big drop that'll act as the huge beatstick -- if nothing else, I'd rather put in things like Alley Armorsmith or Furnacefire Colossus instead. Even Bonemare. I dunno. This card just doesn't seem that good.Night Howler
And now we go to the neutrals. Night Howler is... honestly pretty m'eh, despite his absolutely metal artwork. He has a constant Enrage effect of gaining +2 attack every time it takes damage, but that means that it's realistically probably going to go to like a 5/2 and then dead. Sure, in Warrior you can dole out 1-damage pings to make him into a 5/3, then a 7/2 then a 9/1 before dying, but Warriors have so many better enrage minions. In Priest, maybe, with the aid of Power Word: Shield and constant healing you could have Night Howler trade off against smaller tokens and then slowly grow into an insane worgen of destruction, which doesn't actually sound back. More realistically he's probably going to be more of a gimmick card since other similar cards like Flesheating Ghoul don't actually see a lot of play in constructed. It's a pretty interesting and flavourful card, though, for a neutral common, and I'm happy that it exists. Better cards like this than Worgen Greaser.Hyldnir Frostrider
Hyldnir Frostrider (I will never get his name right without checking) is a very interesting card. He's a slightly-overstatted card at 4/4 for 3 mana, a single stat point higher than the standard 3/4 Spider Tank stats, but he has the battlecry of freezing your other minions. Which obviously has great synergy with Moorabi. Though I maintain my belief that Moorabi Freeze Shaman won't actually be a good deck, Hyldnir Frostrider is going to be a pretty good enabler. If nothing else, in shamans in general he's probably going to be a neat card since shamans do play a lot of totems that don't necessarily attack. On the other hand, though... if you're playing Hyldnir Frostrider for his stats, why not just cheat out a 4-mana 7/7 or a 0-mana 5/5 with Taunt? Why cheat something as mundane as a 3-mana 4/4? The only real use Hyldnir Frostrider really has in constructed is for freeze mechanics, and I don't really see freeze shaman working out. But maybe a couple of expansions down the line freeze shaman will work, and by that point, Hyldnir Frostrider will find a home.Furnacefire Colossus
The Furnacefire Colossus is interesting. The set has had a lot of weapon-interaction cards, especially in Rogue, and Furnacefire Coolossus seems to be a pretty powerful minion. In addition to the awesome art (he's a Flesh Giant, I think?) the Colossus is a 6-mana 6/6, one stat point lower than the standard Boulderfist Ogre, and as a battlecry, the Furnacefire Colossus will eat all the weapons in your hand and gain their stats. Feeding a single Fiery War Axe turns the Colossus into a 9/8 for 6 mana, which obviously is an insane amount of stats to beat your opponents with. You also save the mana that you would otherwise spend on the weapons, which is a neat bit of bonus. The biggest disadvantage is, of course, that the Colossus eats your weapon, and sometimes you just want the weapon more than you do a big minion in the field, which sometimes just means gets removed by the enemy's next turn. Still, if the Furnacefire Colossus survives he could just be an unstoppable beatstick who will deal your weapon's worth of damage over and over and over again without caring for the durability. He seems okay, I think, a neat way to interact with weapons and a possible end-game when you don't necessarily want to replace the weapon you already have but want some extra impact and value on the board, at the price of reducing the amount of cards in your hand by one.Deadscale Knight
A lot of these neutral card reviews will hopefully be a lot shorter, as these are the 'filler' cards of the set. The Deadscale Knight's pretty weak, honestly. A 1/1 with lifesteal isn't going to matter much in the long run, because lifesteal is a keyword that gains power exponentially -- a 4/4 with lifesteal is significantly better than a 3/5 lifesteal, which means, of course, that Deadscale Knight is unquestionably the worst Lifesteal card out there. Yeah, you could buff it with Warleaders and Megasaurs to get extra lifesteal value... it's not unplayable, and you won't really get pissed off if you get this out of a 'add a random Murloc' effect, but definitely not a card you put into your deck of your own volition.Drakkari Enchanter
This is a woefully understatted card, though at least it's statted defensively. 3-mana 1/5 is like a silenced Tar Creeper, but the Drakkari Enchanter's effect is amazingly terrifying. Your end-of-turn effects trigger... twice. The demo stream showed Drakkari Enchanter getting insane amounts of value with the Lich King, but there are a whole ton of amazing end-of-turn effects that you do want to use. Both Ragnaroses are the most obvious one, but there are also cards like Y'Shaarj, Ysera, Grimestreet Enforcer, Kabal Trafficker, Primalfin Totem, and the new Despicable Dreadlord... by the nature of her effect, she is a pretty dangerous card. Anything that doubles an effect, as Brann Bronzebeard has shown, has the potential to be really, really dangerous, and end-of-turn effects tend to be insanely powerful because they happen guaranteed and will always happen every single turn. Drakkari Enchanter's statline is pretty fair for her stat line, and jeez, this is a pretty scary card to think about. The biggest problem, of course, is that the big premier cards you want to hit with this are cards that cost higher than 7 mana (Ysera, Y'Shaarj, Lich King) but we'll see. I'm not sure if she'll end up being too fragile for people to consider running her in a deck, but I do kind of just want to put two of her in a deck with Lich King and just spam Death Knight abilities to hell and back. 
Bloodworm
Bloodworm, like Deadscale Knight, falls under the same vein of 'creature with a tribe tag and a single keyword'. Pretty boring, especially with a more severe stat penalty than Acolyte of Agony or Deadscale Knight. A 5-mana 4/4 with lifesteal? But on the other hand, it is a beast, which means druid and hunter synergies immediately. The fact that it has lifesteal, one of the few beasts with that keyword, might actually mean that more control-based hunters would be able to use it as a recovery tool. 4 health is probably a bit too weak for 5 mana, but then hunters do have ways to buff up the Bloodworm with Houndmaster or Crackling Razormaw, so making it any less fragile is probably going to keep it on the unbalanced side of things. Ultimately not sure if Bloodworm will see play in constructed, but definitely a decent arena card.
Tuskarr FishermanAwwww lookit that fat fat widdle Tuskarr with his fluffy mustache. I like him. The Tuskarr Fisherman is a far more efficient Spell Damage minion, stat-wise, compared to the Spellweaver or Tainted Zealot below, and even moreso than the standard Kobold Geomancer. The only downside that the Tuskarr Fisherman has is that he needs another minion to give the Spell Damage to, but otherwise he's got perfectly balanced River Crocolisk stats. Not really a lot of decks run spell damage, and the ones that do probably only run Bloodmage Thalnos (and Azure Drake in wild, naturally) but Tuskarr Fisherman can actually be a decent slot-in for a more midrange-y swarm the board style of Shaman. Mages have Cult Sorcerer in their repertoire which I think is a bit better than Tuskarr Fisherman... but on the other hand, Tuskarr Fisherman can actually put stats on things that are a lot harder to kill. Things like, oh, Mana Wyrms or Tar Creepers or Jinyu Waterspeakers. It's a rather weird card, the thing is whether you can fit the Tuskarr Fisherman into a 30-card deck, and how important is spell damage to your game plan. We'll see. I actually quite like the design of this card, it's deceptively simple, I think.
Spellweaver
The last minion we had with Spell Damage +2 was the pretty crappy 4-mana 2/2 Evolved Kobold. The Spellweaver follows that trend (and has a very awesome Nerubian artwork to boot) by being a 6-mana 4/4 with an identical effect. The problem is easily due to how expensive the cost is, especially considering how subjective the spell damage keyword even is. Obviously the classes that can make the most use of spell damage are face-burn classes like Mage and Shaman, but even then, do you really want to pay 6 mana for two tics of spell damage? I don't really think so. It's a better card than Evolved Kobold, but the sheer fragility of Spellweaver makes me think that he really won't see play outside of some really janky combo decks.Vryghoul
Vryghoul is the latest in a group of deathrattle cards that only trigger if your opponent trades into this. Vryghoul is a pretty... decent statline, I guess, a 3/1 that summons a 2/2 upon death. It's kind of like a Razorfen Hunter, more or less, except instead of summoning two bodies at once, it summons it over the course of a bit of time. Of course, cards like Vryghoul or Mountainfire Armour are thankfully gie offensive stats so they can smack face all day long, but honestly the Vryghoul isn't a very good card otherwise. Note that cards like this kind of dilute the pool of cards summoned by Journey Below or Shallow Gravedigger, arguably making those cards relatively weaker since you kind of want more powerful Deathrattles, the Cairnes and Xarils and all that jazz. Vryghoul is... perfectly balanced, kind of like an offensive Harvest Golem.Deathaxe Punisher
This is a bit of a weird card. The thing about Lifesteal is that... there's no obvious synergy with it yet, other than the Corpsetaker (but that works with Lifesteal cards in your deck, not in your hand). Deathaxe Punisher is an interesting neutral option that has an effect similar to the Grimy Goons hand-buffing in Mean Streets of Gadgetzan, where he buffs a minion in your hand by +2/+2. The Grimy Goons mechanic has been... not very popular, with only maybe Paladin seeing some kind of play right now, and even that is like a tier 6 deck or something. And obviously, a 4-mana 3/3 that only buffs a single target is pretty crappy. But it buffs specifically a Lifesteal minion, and Lifesteal is exponentially stronger as it grows bigger. A 5-mana Bloodworm with 6/6 is certainly miles and miles better than a 4/4, because a 4-attack lifesteal is a lot, lot worse than a 6-attack lifesteal. I dunno, though. Deathaxe Punisher's body is ultimately too weak in my opinion, but Deathaxe Punisher could actually give some really gross shit going on if it hits the right Lifesteal minion. Maybe with Lana'thel and the new Bolvar? He's interesting, but I doubt he'll see constructed play.Keening Banshee
Keening Banshee reminds me of a similar card from way back in GvG, Fel Reaver, an overstatted minion with the disadvantage of discarding cards directly from your deck whenever your opponent plays cards. Fel Reaver is insanely overstatted, with the weakness being the fact that your opponent can easily mill your deck dry by playing a bunch of things in a turn. Keening Banshee won't let your opponent do that, because her effect is pretty interesting -- she discards 3 cards from your deck if you play a card. The fact that she's a mere 4-mana 5/5, a single stat point higher than a Chillwind Yeti, means that it's honestly pretty pointless to play this card in your deck. Like, cards like Happy Ghoul or Thing from Below or Fel Reaver are great because they cheat a crapton of stats into the field, but do you want to go through all the effort of burning cards just to get an extra point of attack? Nope. Probably one of the few outright-bad cards in this set.
Skelemancer
There are a lot of these 'deathrattle that activates during your opponent's turn' cards, yeah? Skelemancer isn't the best of them, because whereas cards like Vryghoul, Arrogant Crusader or Mountainfire Armour have extremely offense-oriented stats that demand removal, who is going to kill your 2/2 that summons an 8/8? It's a bit silly, really. It is a deterrent against Doomsayer, but do you really want to spend 5 mana to summon a mere 2/2 to do so? I think not. I don't really see Skelemancer seeing much play unless you taunt him up with Defender of Argus or something, by which point it'd be like a 9-mana combo. Like, yes, a 5-mana 8/8 is pretty fucking strong, but you do let your opponent dictate what to do with it while still sacrificing the tempo on that turn. And it is so, so easy to ignore a 2/2 in the mid-game. Pretty bad card, I think.
Venomancer
Pretty boring, if I'm being honest, although I really, really love the artwork. Venomancer is essentially a cheaper Maexxna, who saw little to no play even back in the days of Naxxramas. The Venomancer is a 5-mana 2/5 with Poisonous... and the biggest advantage that other Poisonous cards have is that they're cheap. Stubborn Gastropod costs 2, Giant Wasp costs 3, Pit Viper costs 1, Emperor Cobra costs 3. And even then, the latter two never saw much play due to them being simple cards without any additional keywords (Gastropod's taunt, Wasp's stealth) that guarantees the poisonous to hit. Hell, even Druid's Webweave spell, which I mocked previously, is better because you get two tiny bodies with poisonous into the field, almost guaranteeing one to hit if they can't clear it. Venomancer is a rather weak 2/5 body, and honestly for 5 mana, 5 health is pretty weak... comparing him to Emperor Cobra, for two entire mana costs, all you get are two extra health, which is shit value. I dunno. If you wanted to run a card with Poisonous, literally most other Poisonous cards other than Venomancer would be a far better choice, wouldn't it?Wicked Skeleton
Okay, another pretty bad card. Unless you combo this with Unleash the Hounds, I don't really see this playing. A lot of the 'if X minions died this turn' cards from Blackrock Mountain struggle to even see play, cards like Volcanic Drake or Volcanic Lumberer or Solemn Vigil are a lot more powerful, with the discounts happening on their cost, and out of those only Solemn Vigil really saw play. Wicked Skeleton needs you to have a minimal of 4 minion die this turn to get itself to a 5/5, which is barely-above-average for a 4-mana, and that's pretty hideously bad. I know that there are a lot of tokens in this set, and that zoo decks are a thing, but even then, would you really want to play Wicked Skeleton in them? Wouldn't you just make use of the large board and drop like a Frostwolf Warlord or some shit? Like, I tried to make Volcanic Drake work in the past, and let me tell you -- it is a different meta, mind you, but even then getting more than a 3-mana discount on it is honestly a real piece of work. Pretty bad card. Absolutely metal artwork on Wicked Skeleton, though.
Grim Necromancer
A perfectly balanced card, I think. One of those cards that you would love in the old-style zoo Warlock deck with Knife Jugglers swarming the board. Grim Necromancer is a bit similar to Dragonling Mechanic, a 4-mana 2/4, but instead of summoning a 2/1, he summons two 1/1's. Which is great with Steward of Darkshire and Knife Juggler, both cards that reward the summoning of extra bodies. Warlocks seem to want to have disposable tokens in this expansion, so maybe the Grim Necromancer finds a home there? A pretty boring card, but probably not bad. She looks just fine, especially in arena. Doubtful if she'll find a place in constructed.
Grave Shambler
The Grave Shambler is... a bit weird. It's a below-average 4-mana 4/4, but it grows every time your weapon is destroyed. So it's like, oh, you don't feel so bad when your weapon gets Ooze'd, but on the other hand, I don't think a +1/+1 is super awesome enough to deter your opponent from playing an Ooze against, say, a Doomhammer or a buffed Arcanite Reaper. I dunno. This is strictly an arena card, I think, where it's not super-bad, but I don't really think this card will really see a home in constructed decks, unlike the Furnacefire Colossus. It is an Elemental, for what it's worth, so it's probably going to be a bit of a dead draw from Servants of Kalimos considering that Priest and Mage don't run weapons, whereas I don't really see elemental shaman lists that run Doomhammer. Jade Claws, maybe, but those tend to be destroyed before turn 4. And Jade Shaman decks probably want to run, y'know, Jade Spirit for their 4-drop. In Rogue? It then turns to basically Inspire: Gain +1/+1 and cards like Boneguard Lieutenant and Kvaldir Raider never saw any play. This card's a bit too weak, effect-wise, to really see constructed play. Awesome artwork, though.
Tainted Zealot
Huh, this is actually somewhat interesting. The Tainted Zealot has both Divine Shield and Spell Damage +1, and costs only 2 mana. Sure, the 1 health makes her extremely fragile, but for one extra cost from an Argent Squire, she gets Spell Damage +1... and that does mean that she's another option to be put into those Divine Shield Paladin decks (which I'm not sure will work, to be honest). The biggest comparison is, well, Bloodmage Thalnos, which is inherently superior with the draw a card effect as compared to a divine shield. Of course, the biggest problem here is really Paladins not using much in lieu of spells other than Consecration, and when they're not Consecrating Tainted Zealot ends up being just ultimately a more expensive Argent Squire. She's not bad, though, and while Kobold Geomancer never really saw much play (with Shamans having the free, if RNG-driven, totems and Mages having Cult Sorcerer) I feel that Tainted Zealot might actually be a somewhat decent alternative in arena. In constructed I don't see her really amounting to much.
Wretched Tiller
Oh, hey, Fiery Imp from Elder Scrolls: Legends! A cheap 1/1 that, whenever he attacks, will deal 2 damage to the enemy hero. If Wretched Tiller was able to attack face all the time he just ends up launching the Hunter hero power at the enemy hero every turn, something that Aggro decks would definitely love. On the other hand, though, unlike Elder Scrolls: Legends, Hearthstone is a different beast altogether where there aren't any lanes, and it's almost inconsequential to get rid of one-health minions for most classes. So while it's definitely an interesting effect, I really wished he'd been like a 2-mana 2/2 instead. Could see play in some more aggressive face-charging zoo lists, I guess? Also, he's like, an undead farmer version of Ben Brode isn't he?Archerus Veteran
So we end our review of all 135 Knights of the Frozen Throne cards with Acherus Veteran, which is... pretty unimpressive. It's kind of like the Abusive Sergeant of old, a 1-mana 2/1 that gives a friendly minion a bonus attack. Except Acherus Veteran only gives 1 attack instead of 2... but at the same time, the +1 Attack is permanent. It actually makes Acherus Veteran relatively a fair bit more relevant. It's a cheap 1-mana card, with offensive stats, which is what other cards like the Priest's Shadow Ascendant lacks. Definitely could see Acherus Veteran finding a home in zoo Warlock or face Hunter decks. I do like that they're finally reining in the power for 1-mana cards, by the way, and not print a new Tunnel Trogg every single expansion. They've been being very good with balance since Un'Goro, with sub-par cards more or less still seeing some play here and there.So, I'm going to try to do a little rating number thing after the break. This is going to be a pre-emptive rating before . Maybe I'll go back to this and see how accurate my predictions are when the next expansion is released? I'm going to rank cards from 1-5, with 1 being absolutely unplayable in constructed, 3 being an average card that'll see some play in viable decks on the ladder, and 5 being super-awesome-auto-include.
Druid Cards:
- 5: Druid of the Swarm
- 4: Malfurion the Pestilent, Ultimate Infestation
- 3: Crypt Lord, Strongshell Scavenger, Spreading Plague
- 2: Fatespinner, Hadronox
- 1: Gnash, Webweave
Hunter Cards:
- 5: Corpse Widow
- 4: Bearshark
- 3: Stitched Tracker, Professor Putricide
- 2: Exploding Bloatbat, Abominable Bowman, Deathstalker Rexxar
- 1: Call Pet, Toxic Arrow, Venomstrike Trap
- 5: N/A
- 4: Ghastly Conjurer
- 3: Ice Walker, Sindragosa, Frost Lich Jaina
- 2: Coldwraith, Frost Clone
- 1: Doomed Apprentice, Breath of Sindragosa, Simulacrum, Glacial Mysteries
- 5: Righteous Protector
- 4: Chillblade Champion, Blackguard, Uther of the Ebon Blade
- 3: Howling Commander, Dark Conviction
- 2: Arrogant Crusader, Bolvar Fireblood
- 1: Light's Sorrow, Desperate Stand
- 5: Obsidian Statue
- 4: Shadowreaper Anduin
- 3: Eternal Servitude, Devour Mind
- 2: Acolyte of Agony, Shadow Ascendant, Spirit Lash, Embrace Darkness, Shadow Essence
- 1: Archbishop Benedictus
- 5: N/A
- 4: Shadowblade
- 3: Lilian Voss, Runeforge Haunter, Valeera the Hollow, Bone Baron
- 2: Plague Scientist, Doomerang, Roll the Bones
- 1: Spectral Pillager, Leeching Poison
- 5: Thrall Deathseer
- 4: N/A
- 3: Voodoo Hexxer, Snowfury Giant, Ice Fishing
- 2: Brrrloc, Moorabi, Cryostasis
- 1: Drakkari Defender, Ice Breaker, Avalanche
- 5: Despicable Dreadlord
- 4: N/A
- 3: Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Defile
- 2: Gnomeferatu, Sanguine Reveler, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Drain Soul, Unwilling Sacrifice
- 1: Howlfiend, Treachery
- 5: Forge of Souls, Blood Razor
- 4: Scourgelord Garrosh
- 3: Animated Berserker, Mountainfire Armor
- 2: Rotface, Val'kyr Soulclaimer, Death Revenant
- 1: Bring It On, Dead Man's Hand
- 5: The Lich King, Saronite Chain Gang
- 4: Phantom Freebooter, Bonemare, Rattling Rascal, Cobalt Scalebane
- 3: Acherus Veteran, Arfus, Tainted Zealot, Deathspeaker, Shallow Gravaedigger, Corpsetaker, Grim Necromancer, Bloodworm, Bone Drake, Corpse Raiser
- 2: Fallen Sun Cleric, Tuskarr Fisherman, Drakkari Enchanter, Happy Ghoul, Hyldnir Frostrider, Mindbreaker, Vryghoul, Skelemancer, Sunborne Val'kyr, Tomb Lurker, Furnacefire Colossus, Necrotic Geist, Nerubian Unraveler, Skulking Geist
- 1: Snowflipper Penguin, Deadscale Knight, Wretched Tiller, Prince Keleseth, Prince Taldaram, Prince Valanar, Deathaxe Punisher, Grave Shambler, Keening Banshee, Meat Wagon, Night Howler, Ticking Abomination, Wicked Skeleton, Venomancer, Spellweaver
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