After yesterday’s disappointing Hearthstone card reveals, Blizzard’s pulled out a few Knights Of The Frozen Throne surprises to keep fans happy. Since Ticking Abomination was the only card revealed on the first day, four new cards have been thawed out and have finally been released into the world. Here’s my take on the four-man squad and whether they will be auto-included in every deck or are just utter trash.
Blood-Queen Lana'thel- The first Warlock Legendary of the set , the Blood-Queen is another push to make Discard warlock a thing. Instead of gaining attack for each minion that dies in the battlefield while it’s in your hand, like Bolvar Fordragon, this five-mana point sink gains attack for each card that’s been discarded this game. She gets buffed while still in your deck, which makes it slightly better than Bolvar, but her weaknesses outweigh her usefulness.
As long as every card has the potential to be thrown away, Discard Warlock will never be a viable archetype. Hoping your Doomguard doesn’t drop your super important combo pieces is impossible, and makes planning around discards an impossible strategy. Not to mention that dropping one or two cards for each minion being played can be devastating for your hand count, using two-mana in the early game while you try to stabilize from the leg that you just cut off isn’t good strategy. With the Blood-Queen potentially losing all of its power by ending up in the trash, it loses so much of its viability.
At least she’s got Lifesteal, though it’s not enough to save her life.
Plague Scientist- My favorite card we’ve seen so far, this green-haired Frankenstein fan is a great tech choice for Miracle Rogue decks. Giving a friendly minion Poisonous, the best buff in the game, is extremely useful. Everyone’s trying to get poison from an Adapt buff, while Rogue just gets it for playing a card. Until we see the full set, we won’t know how powerful this card is, but powerful strategies have already started to roll around in my head. Swashburglar and Patches , into Coin on turn three clears any minion and threatens your opponent’s board state. Stonetusk Boar takes out the Pirates entirely, giving you a Charge minion to do your bidding.
These are the sort of cards I like, the ones that aren’t too powerful while being viable and useful.
Ice-Breaker- You’re at a company event that’s making you do improv exercises to build team morale, but instead you're playing Hearthstone in the corner with your own Ice-Breaker. Shamans don’t really freeze enemies; they currently only have Frost Shock and Glacial Shard to get the job done. Unless new ice-themed cards are coming in the Knights Of The Frozen Throne expansion, this card will be extremely useful. It’s a good thing that we are going to the coldest place in World Of Warcraft , or else I’d say Blizzard was trolling us after this card reveal.
Blood Razor- Since Death’s Bite moved to the Wild format, Warriors have been looking for a new weapon to play on turn four. This seems like a solid choice, since it deals one damage to every minion twice. Acolyte Of Pain and Frothing Berserker can be be played the turn before, getting buffed by Blood Razor’s Battlecry. If Warriors don’t get some game-changing card that all future decks will have to be built around, this will be a staple in every Control version of Garrosh.
How do you feel about these new cards? Tell us in the comments.
