The Comprehensive Death Knight Core & Path of Arthas Preview – Page 2

Core: Commons

Body Bagger

The glue 1-drop of the Death Knight class, with no rune requirement. Body Bagger offers a strong early body and an extra corpse attached in its battlecry, so it’s worth two corpses. Death Knight has a lot of powerful corpse spenders in the early-to-mid game, so being able to generate an immediate corpse without having a minion die can be very valuable, especially for decks that specialize in the Unholy Rune. In addition, it’s an Undead, so its death triggers other potential synergies for the tribe.

Every Death Knight deck, or nearly every Death Knight deck, is going to play this card. It’s essential for aggressive or board-centric archetypes. It could be important for decks that don’t have great corpse generators and still need to accumulate corpses for specific payoffs. Body Bagger should be ubiquitous.

Score: 4

Heart Strike

A Holy Smite that generates a corpse if the target is killed. One of the most interesting things to keep in mind about the Death Knight class is that it’s highly incentivized to run minions over spells, since minions generate corpses. Heart Strike’s ability offsets the downside of running a spell, mimicking a 3/1 rush minion that can go past taunts. This is solid early game removal, and defensive Blood Death Knights may want this, but it’s an entirely reactive card since it can’t go face.

Score: 3

Skeletal Sidekick

This is a strong card for an aggressive Undead deck, comparable with Beaming Sidekick in terms of stats. At a pinch, you can Ghoul Charge and deal 3 damage with Sidekick, but you’d rather stick the permanent buff on a minion that stays on the board. This means you need a deck that’s dense with Undead and swarms the board early to get this going. Likely a good fit for Unholy with no rune requirement, but you need your curve to be low.

Score: 3

Battlefiend Necromancer

This card should be a staple in every Unholy deck. An activated Necromancer is very strong. You get a 2/3 that protects itself with a 1/2 taunt body and can potentially generate another if not removed. The tricky part is to activate it on 2, which makes Body Bagger/Plagued Grain amazing for that purpose. Otherwise, you’d generally need one of your other minions to die. While not 100% consistent, Necromancer has solid baselines stats, demands an answer from the opponent, and should be trivial to activate at any point later in the game. Remember that Risen minions do not leave a corpse behind when they die, so Necromancer doesn’t fuel itself forever. Thankfully.

Score: 4

Frost Strike

Costs twice as much as Heart Strike but has a much more powerful effect. Discover in Death Knight should generally be extremely valuable due to its small card pool, and any cheap Frost spell carries inherent synergies for Frost decks because of Deathchiller and Horn of Winter. Should be a staple in Frost DK decks, though it’s not an amazing card as it can’t go face, so not at the versatility level of card like Tooth of Nefarian.

Score: 3

Harbinger of Winter

Loot Hoarder with extra health that specifically tutors Frost spells. Any 2 mana 2/2 that gives you card advantage is constructed worthy. Frost Death Knights don’t have a very robust plethora of early game minions, so this should always go in and add consistency to these decks. No brainer.

Score: 4

Chillfallen Baron

Another runeless card that we suspect will be extremely ubiquitous in Death Knight. A 3 mana 2/2 that gives you 2 cards, with the small drawback of the 2^nd card being attached to a deathrattle, so we don’t draw it immediately. Still, in most situations, this will be stronger than Arcane Intellect in a class that should be desperate for card draw and doesn’t have too many other options unless it taps into a Frost Rune. Nearly every Death Knight will play this.

Score: 4

Death Strike

A giant Drain Soul. Death Strike doubles up on the mana cost and the effect, which usually makes a card mathematically better (because two Drain Souls cost 2 cards). This is a huge health swing for Blood Death Knights and a perfect fit for their sturdy playstyle. However, with just a single Blood rune requirement, it’s not crazy to think defensive Unholy/Frost decks might be tempted to tap into Blood if their win condition isn’t bound to a Triple Rune payoff.

Score: 3

Remorseless Winter

Consecration that draws a card at no extra cost. This is a very powerful AOE effect. The ability to devastate a wide early game board while also cycling to find the next answer is valuable for Frost Death Knights who are expected to fall behind in the early game. There is very little downside to running this card.

Score: 3

Army of the Dead

Unholy Death Knights excel at seizing board control and leveraging it to victory. Army of the Dead is one of their best cards for that purpose. 5 2/2 rushers for 5 mana make for an insanely good deal, at the level of Scale of Onyxia. Of course, we require 5 corpses to get the most out of the card, but Unholy Death Knights shouldn’t have a difficult time accumulating enough corpses by turn 5. This is also a very important enabler for Stitched Giant. This card is Unholy Death Knight’s very identity.

Score: 4

Possessifier

This card reminds us of Corrupt Elementalist. When it comes to board impact, Possessifier is even better, since the 1/1 rushers with Reborn can more efficiently clear boards compared to 2/1’s. The main difference is that Elementalists were huge Galakrond enablers, and we didn’t really play them as standalone cards. Still, Possessifier represents 5 corpses in one card and is a great infuser. It might be a little too slow for some decks, but if we have great interest in maximizing corpse generation for big payoffs, we might find space for it.

Score: 2

Corrupted Ashbringer

This weapon seems fairly underwhelming on the surface. Libram of Judgment had 3 charges, could be significantly discounted, and it wasn’t even that amazing of a card. What does make us ponder more on Ashbringer is that it still represents a 20-health swing, which could be huge for defensive Blood DK’s. It also just offers a lot of damage for a strategy that may struggle to close out games. Runeforging could also help this card a bit. We can’t write this off.

Score: 2

Gnome Muncher

This 6-drop is a massive threat in fast matchups that could just end games on the spot. Gnome Muncher essentially guarantees a value trade, a 5 health heal upon entrance to the board and threatens a 10-health gain the next turn if it’s not removed. Aggressive decks are going to scratch their heads trying to trade into it. It just seems like a nightmare to deal with if you can’t kill it with direct damage that bypasses the Lifesteal.

In slower matchups, in which boards are more likely to be clear, it can put just as much pressure on the opponent since it can go face. It is also a prime target for Blood Death Knights utilizing handbuffs. It’s just a superb all-around card that should fit different kind of strategies and represents one of the best payoffs for tapping into one Blood Rune.

Score: 4

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