The Comprehensive Death Knight Core & Path of Arthas Preview

Core: Rares

Noxious Cadaver

Noxious Cadaver

This instantly becomes one of the best 1-drops in the game. Arcane Shot costs 1 mana. This is an Arcane Shot on a 1/2 stick for no extra cost. Losing 2 health matters very little. If you’re a Blood Death Knight, you have so much healing that you don’t care. If your main rune is Unholy, your game plan is aggressive, so you don’t care either since you’d love to have an Undead Flame Imp in your deck.

This card significantly boosts Death Knight’s ability to control the board in the early game and might be the cleanest way to kill an Irondeep Trogg on curve. A single Blood Rune is looking good.

Score: 4

Plagued Grain

Plagued Grain

The cheapest way to quickly gain corpses is only available to those who fully spec into Unholy. Plagued Grain offers an immediate boost of 4 corpses for 1 mana, and 4 more corpses potentially drawn from the deck thanks to Zombies. It’s a great enabler to several 2-drops that require a corpse to activate, such as Battlefiend Necromancer.

The issue of Plagued Grain is that it has no immediate impact on the board, which makes us question its inclusion in the fastest aggressive decks. Vibrant Squirrel wasn’t good enough for Aggro Druid, so this shouldn’t be good enough either. The card makes more sense if we’re playing a proactive deck that is comfortable going into the late game, such as a Renathal minion pile topping out at Denathrius…

Score: 3

Runeforging

Runeforging

Solid tutor for weapons that can help equip them earlier if a corpse is spent, thereby effectively costing no mana. This makes weapons a bit more consistent in Death Knights, though we’re not sure there is any weapon available that we’re that desperate to draw. It’s a card that’s likely to find a place in a deck once that scenario occurs but it’s not good enough to accommodate by playing weapons we otherwise wouldn’t.

Score: 2

Bonedigger Geist

Bonedigger Geist

Totem Golem without Overload is a very strong early game minion. As in the case of Necromancer, the tricky part is to activate it on turn 2 where it is strongest, but for Geist it becomes critical as its baseline stats are very bad and it’s only useful thanks to its battlecry. The deck that utilizes Geist needs very consistent and unconditional triggers (Bagger/Grain), or simply a lot of 1-drops. For this reason, this card may not be as well-rounded as Necromancer, but very powerful in decks that can accommodate it.

Score: 3

Defrost

Defrost

One of the only sources of card draw in the class, Defrost is a 2 mana Arcane Intellect with a corpse requirement. This makes it difficult to play early, but quite consistent later in the game. With Chillfallen Baron the only runeless alternative available, some decks might be tempted to tap into Frost and grab this spell too. We don’t think Defrost is ‘that good’ for most Death Knight decks, but it’s likely important for combo strategies. Should be a staple in Frost Death Knights due to its accessibility and fit.

Score: 3

Anti-Magic Shell

Anti-Magic Shell

Our issue with AMS is its extremely expensive cost and low payoff. You need to be lightning fast to get on the board and spread wide to be able to leverage it, but even then, it doesn’t prevent the opponent from casting what this deck archetype should fear: AOE spells. At 2 mana, this is very good. At 3 mana, it’s very questionable.

Score: 2

Graveyard Shift

Graveyard Shift

A couple of Murmy’s for 3 mana sounds like a very bad deal, but Death Knights have different priorities compared to other classes. Shift produces 4 Undead bodies, which means constant activation of Undead synergies as well as 4 potential corpses. In a class with Tomb Guardian and Army of Dead, it might be worth making a slightly slower play to get them to connect. It’s also a very sticky board on which you can land buffs. We expect it to be surprisingly effective.

Score: 3

Rimefang Sword

Rimefang Sword

3 mana 2/3 weapons tend to be much worse compared to 3/2 weapons since they can’t deal with many early game minions. These weapons need very high upside to be powerful, such as Aldrachi Warblades’ synergy with Demon Hunter’s hero power and its insane scaling with attack modifiers.

Sword does have a potentially powerful ability that synergizes well with Deathchiller and Frost’s plethora of strong spells, but we can’t help but draw a comparison with Auctionhouse Gavel. Gavel was a 2/2 weapon for 2 mana with a very similar ability. We saw a lot of promise in it on paper, but the incremental mana discounts weren’t worth the weapon’s lack of impact on the board. Three damage is a very important breakpoint for early game weapons and Rimefang Sword just doesn’t have the game changing ability that overcomes it in our eyes.

Score: 2

Ymirjar Deathbringer

Ymirjar Deathbringer

It’s important to note that Deathbringer’s deathrattle triggers after the addition of the corpse. This means that if you have 2 corpses and Deathbringer dies, a Risen Ymirjar will be summoned.

A conditional 3 mana 6/6 in taunts is pretty good. Our problem is that it competes for corpses with an even better taunt card in Tomb Guardian and makes it less likely we will be able to play Army of the Dead on 5. Death Knight has a lot of strong turn 3 plays and it’s going to be tough for Deathbringer to make the cut.

Score: 2

Rime Sculptor

Rime Sculptor

Sculptor might have an important role in Frost Death Knights utilizing Marrow Manipulator. It is the best source of corpses for an archetype that isn’t well equipped with generators, and it can be played on turn 5 to directly set up a Manipulator, putting a lot of pressure on the opponent. As a standalone card, it is solid but not particularly amazing, looking comparable to a 5 mana Cold Case in terms of board impact.

If Manipulator did not exist, Frost DK may not have cared about corpses at all, and Sculptor would have been less valuable, but context is important.

Score: 3

 


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