Hello everyone, some of you may be familiar with me and what I do but I wanted to do something a little different than making a concept that would change the entire landscape of Hearthstone.
I wanted to make a Death Knight concept. This one is based off my previous iteration that was featured in Hearthstone, The Tavern has been renovated.
Without further ado, let's jump in.
Kaln Vilehoof is not a very notable (well not really notable at all) Death Knight in World of Warcraft lore, but Hearthstone is severely lacking in badass, Tauren hero portraits. This is why Kaln takes center stage. I could have made an iteration using Arthas or Ner'zhul, but no. Look at the eyes on this beast, he's here to kick ass, raise the dead and slay Demon Hunters while jamming out to Khemmis. (Seriously check them out if you're into doom metal)
Speaking of raising the dead, let's talk about his hero power. The Death Knight's hero power is based off the Unholy Specialization Tree in World of Warcraft. The Hero Power by itself allows the Death Knight to have one Companion Ghoul. You may have noted that the Death Knight's Hero Power costs 3 mana instead of 2, I'll get into why down below and showcase some cards on why it costs 3. Cards that work like Youthful Brewmaster could be teched in to get more than one but I doubt there would be enough advantageous opportunities to even try the combo. I wanted something to be a persistent threat but not entirely too oppressive, as you can see the Companion Ghoul cannot attack Heroes. It can if it's silenced, but it will lose whatever buffs that were stacked onto it so it becomes just two damage. If it's taunted with Defender of Argus, then dies, it loses the Taunt. Simple to understand. Support cards for the Ghoul are not in the Death Knight's core set since it could easily spiral out of control with enough support, so whatever support the Ghoul gets needs to rotate out of Standard at some point.
The Death Knight also gets a new mechanic exclusive to its class, unless it gets burgled of course.
I cry every time that damn slash gets inserted into my text.
A rune charge amplifies your equipped weapon's abilities depending on what it does, mainly if it has a number. If you apply a Rune Charge to say your Sphere of Sapience, that would allow you to cycle through an additional card for each charge (up to three) applied to the weapon. These charges only disappear once the weapon is destroyed. If you think this is broken or unbalanced, it probably is because this is more of a proof of concept. I did not spend days upon days going through everything in this post with a fine-toothed comb to fix all the nitty-gritty shenanigans that can be had.
Now let's get to the Core set, I'll talk more once you've had a look at them.
So going back to Rune Charges with Howling Hatchet, its Deathrattle would do 1 + Rune Charge(s) damage to all enemies. With weapons such as Leeching Dagger, you would heal however much damage the weapon caused + Rune Charge(s). On the other hand weapons like Frostmourne and Atiesh would remain unaffected.
The cards of the DK's Core set are self explanatory. I wanted them to be sort of strong but not auto includes. Most of them are there just to get the player used to Rune Charges.
Along with the Core set, the Death Knight get's an additional set, the Undeath set, to help boost it's collection of cards to help it keep up with the other classes. These will rotate after one year in Standard.
We'll stop here and talk about these legendary cards. Frostbeard is a board clear, plain and simple, he can be a control tool as well but I'm not trying to figure out where he realistically fits since this is just a fan concept.
Earlier I said that I'd explain why the Hero Power costs 3, Gravewalker Gie is one of the reasons why. Herself, and other supporting cards below, change the Ghoul for the rest of the game. The Companion Ghoul goes from a little 2/2 minion that can't attack heroes to a POWERHOUSE OF DESTUCTION AND CHAOS THAT CAN BEND THE FABRIC OF TIME, DRINK GOD's TEARS, AND still can't attack heroes. That part should never change since it'd likely break wild.
The Frozen Heart is pretty much what it reads...... except when you apply Rune Charges to it. I'm still iffy on whether or not it was good choice but none of my ideas will never make it into the game so might as well explore ideas.
Frozen Giant will become self explanatory with the Rare and Common Cards.
Heartwarming doesn't sound all that great, but a 3 mana 2/3 or 2/4 aint a bad deal. You picking up what I'm throwing down?
Bloodied Blade is a healing tool. Couple that with Rune Charges you could go from healing yourself from 4 to 8 for one charge or 4 to 16 if you got three charges on it, that is of course if there are a sufficient amount of minions on the board.
Vampiric Blood is that "I just need one more turn" card for when you might survive an opponents lethal long enough for you to either heal up or deal lethal damage yourself.
I thought the Undeath set could have some frost synergy in it to start out then it went all over the place as time went on, but there are only so many Freeze mechanics you can create before you want to make something else like some of the Epic cards. Man, I wonder if we can reprint Moorabi as a Death Knight card.
For the Common cards Frost Warrior stands out the most with Freeze synergy and could probably be game winning of the you're lucky enough.
Sterner stuff is again a card to support Companion Ghoul. So combine this with the other Companion Ghoul cards in the post we have 5 mana Hero Power that Summons a 4/6 minion that can't be targeted by spells or Hero Powers. I'm sure someone is going to tell me it's broken.
Everything else is your run of the mill common cards.
So yeah. I've been sitting on this one for a while and decided to take the idea further.
Thank you for reading,
-Grif
