Getting 3 corpses in time to play both Malignant Horror or Nerubian Swarmguard may be difficult, plus the 2 mana investment means you're likely to skip that turn. And unlike in rush warrior, DK doesn't seem to have anything that helps with coming from behind.
But I've seen handbuff cards work before, despite their costs, so Im not going to dismiss this entirely for now. I'd just say that Chum Bucket in murlock was the most powerful card in that deck and that deck is currently unplayable.
Very likely its not good. Again, for the same reasons as many of its ilk, you'll never really not play this on turn 2 just to get value out of it because your gameplan isn't value. Even in full blood decks we're asking questions as to whether a random spell from Venomous Scorpid is more valuable than a blood rune card.
And the blood rune cards differ vastly in gameplan so the pool isn't exactly as solid as frost or unholy. You'll just as likely get a handbuff card as you are a control card.
It needs corpses and it only costs 1 rune, so you'll play it in unholy decks because there's plenty of targets there. Nerubian Swarmguard can be converted from a useless card to an amazing one. And this having a 2/5 body helps.
But I still think a blood unholy deck may not make it to tier 2 even. There's no draw, and there's no rush minions so you're really full on tempo in the first 5 turns before your opponent turns the tide with value. Resembles enrage warrior in that respect, and I cant see a blood unholy deck do better than even that.
Its not really that amazing, but will see play regardless because its a removal card and blood decks dont really have a boatload of them. Even if this was 4 mana it'll still likely see play.
But of course, its not really that good. Removal options often need to be consistent and this isn't it because you cant control what it kills. Any smart player will actively play around it.
Oh yes. Just another broken ass card for DK because of course it is.
Basically this encourages you to play full control while having this as a win con. Resembling the old bomb control warrior where you run galakrond just to kick 3 damage to the face every turn. Unfortunately, full control often means attrition style gameplay that will take up over an hour in the mirror that conceding out of real life fatigue, or because you have to catch a bus, will likely be the win con here.
So, is there any way to play around this? Yes. If you theotar this away, or eat it, the entire gameplan is off. Meaning, unless blood decks get a secondary win con its highly unlikely to ever be tier 1, or tier 2, unless Theotar, the Mad Duke is completely gone from the meta. I guess we know why team5 pre-emptively nerfed it now.
But less facetiously, doing 3 damage to the face, even if unstoppable, will take at least 5-6 turns realistically to kill the opponent. So your opponent can try race you, and in all honesty it may not necessarily be impossible. Most games tend to take around 13 turns to complete, so even if this comes on curve you'll still need to play defence before your auto win is secured.
There's no way of putting this, its broken as hell. Its just Twisting Nether with a body, and you can do it twice because for some reason its an epic card.
If blood decks are playable then this card would be in it. Might even get nerfed, because look at it, its a 5/5 that destroys everything and gives you corpses.
DK design is really insane. An 8/8 for 8 plus a board full of taunts? What is the thought process behind this? Even paladin can't generate board as well as DK can.
But is this card good? Well, it depends if your motivation is to make up a handbuff unholy blood deck then there might yet be a reason to play this because just look at it. At least there's no way for them to play Grave Strength as a follow up.
Its only weakness is not slowness. Its redundancy, as with most DK cards it seems. It might not feed into plans and its rune requirement basically squashes its viability.
How does this work? Split an enemy in half and that counts as two corpses?
Pedantry aside, this weapon is core in full blood decks because of the absence of corpse generators. Since most hearthstone games dont tend to last all that long, and blood decks needing at least 6+ corpses, this weapon is the only way to do it without having to play minions the deck may not ever need aside from them being dead.
But soon as there's better corpse generators, I'd imagine this to be chopped off itself.
Is this varok saurfang? Didn't know he got converted on death lorewise
But this card is not good. Overpriced at 5, and then costing 5 health each time you drop it. The only way you'd play it is youre facing a massive devourer and you can't get rid of it without dying.
Not sure what the interaction is with all the handbuff available. If it keeps it when it returns to hand, then it makes the card a little better, but paying 5 health to play it stings hard.
So fully blood decks is somewhat control-ish, with a very convincing end game and plenty of lifesteal to try to outlast the opponent. Will still be weak to combo decks, and in particular if your Alexandros Mograine gets eaten up or stolen then you've just technically lost the game. The funny thing is if this deck is tier 1 those tournament mirrors will be either 1.5 hours each or someone lucks out and finishes the game in 15 minutes.
Unlike unholy and frost, blood decks need further convincing to me, because there really isn't alot of control cards for a typical control deck and conventionally a deck that relies almost entirely on one card usually isn't good.
Seems like there's a lot of handbuff cards and by the looks of the other revealed cards blood decks are not control but feature some sort of lifesteal, handbuff, midrange archetype not dissimilar with handbuff pally from stormwind, but substantially better at controlling tempo.
In other words, DK is now fully in my mind, just the better paladin. If Uther doesn't receive anything convincing in the next expansion we might actually have an argument as to why even bother playing pally at all, when DK is just simply doing everything it does, but better.
For all intends and purposes this is just a rez card comparable to Revenge of the Wild, except this is almost twice as good because when it works it puts in a lot of work.
Getting extra corpses, removing a minion, triggering deathrattles/reborn. One card, 3 mana, so many applications. The only reason not to run it is redundancy, in case there are better cards.
This is not the next incarnation of Rager Christ the redeemer. Even if you bring this back with a rez effect, one really has to start questioning the motives here when you can get neptulon, or anything else for that matter, back.
Im sure there's going to be some stupid achievement that forces us to repeatedly raise this card.
Its not like we can't already cheat it out using the same Barbaric Sorceress method as big spell mage. The thing is that if you want to run an unholy deck that focuses on this card you can, but if you want to run a blood deck (which is, I suspect, mostly a control archetype) with it, you can't, because of the 2 rune requirement.
I still think the requirement should be 1 rune, or none at all. The card itself isn't really that good to be honest, because the undead pool is hardly small. So I can't think of many reasons why this should stay a two rune card.
Frost decks would rather just kill you and their spell pool is too good so youre likely never running barbara in it. Certainly not for this card anyway.
Probably shit if Im honest. Comparable to Dendrologist, even in dedicated treant decks. Its just not a good card if you cant just play it on 2 for tempo, and for unholy decks that's a massive deficiency. Will anyone keep this in hand just so it can get value?
Even with the smaller pool, what indeed are we looking for? Nothing specifically curves out from this on turn 3 (because most will need corpses which this does not generate) and theres just better 2 drops. Can't even hope for a second Lord Marrowgar, because the first one takes off all your corpses.
Its main usage is for other rune decks to gain corpses quicker and easier, for the mere inclusion of one unholy rune.
So you play double frost + one unholy, for some board, burn and if you need more corpses you can play this card. Because its a spidertank, you dont lose tempo doing it, and an aggro-burn deck is hardly ever going to miss one card from their deck.
But in unholy decks itself, this is a bust. No way will anyone do this when other better options are available, like Plagued Grain
Its potentially Spreading Plague, except a little slower and weaker. But cheaper as well.
But I dont like its chances. Very rarely are cards like these, that depend on your opponent's board, be good. Even worse still when it needs a follow up to do anything at all.
This card is nuts. Practically powercreep Bonedigger Geist if you have the target for it. And it has rush as well, which means you'll take tempo immediately on two without exceptions.
Only problem being that you need a target for it to work. But there must be some sticky turn 1 undead minion, there usually is every expansion according to theme.
Handbuff or bust. Quite useless in a world where Tomb Guardians exists. Even outside of a dedicated unholy deck, this card is still hard to justify. 1 damage doesn't kill anything, and 3 health is hardly blocking out much. Doesn't even at least resist the common 3 damage AoE every class seem to have nowadays.
This card is nuts because it provides massive amount of taunts to go through and cheapens Stitched Giant, potentially to zero. And if played together you get an 8/8 that is only realistically removable by spells.
Play this against paladin and watch as they helplessly try to remove four taunts while you put double 8/8s behind them. And good luck with that. Just another day of thumbing your nose at Uther, sort of a pattern with DK cards.
Getting 3 corpses in time to play both Malignant Horror or Nerubian Swarmguard may be difficult, plus the 2 mana investment means you're likely to skip that turn. And unlike in rush warrior, DK doesn't seem to have anything that helps with coming from behind.
But I've seen handbuff cards work before, despite their costs, so Im not going to dismiss this entirely for now. I'd just say that Chum Bucket in murlock was the most powerful card in that deck and that deck is currently unplayable.
Very likely its not good. Again, for the same reasons as many of its ilk, you'll never really not play this on turn 2 just to get value out of it because your gameplan isn't value. Even in full blood decks we're asking questions as to whether a random spell from Venomous Scorpid is more valuable than a blood rune card.
And the blood rune cards differ vastly in gameplan so the pool isn't exactly as solid as frost or unholy. You'll just as likely get a handbuff card as you are a control card.
It needs corpses and it only costs 1 rune, so you'll play it in unholy decks because there's plenty of targets there. Nerubian Swarmguard can be converted from a useless card to an amazing one. And this having a 2/5 body helps.
But I still think a blood unholy deck may not make it to tier 2 even. There's no draw, and there's no rush minions so you're really full on tempo in the first 5 turns before your opponent turns the tide with value. Resembles enrage warrior in that respect, and I cant see a blood unholy deck do better than even that.
Its not really that amazing, but will see play regardless because its a removal card and blood decks dont really have a boatload of them. Even if this was 4 mana it'll still likely see play.
But of course, its not really that good. Removal options often need to be consistent and this isn't it because you cant control what it kills. Any smart player will actively play around it.
Oh yes. Just another broken ass card for DK because of course it is.
Basically this encourages you to play full control while having this as a win con. Resembling the old bomb control warrior where you run galakrond just to kick 3 damage to the face every turn. Unfortunately, full control often means attrition style gameplay that will take up over an hour in the mirror that conceding out of real life fatigue, or because you have to catch a bus, will likely be the win con here.
So, is there any way to play around this? Yes. If you theotar this away, or eat it, the entire gameplan is off. Meaning, unless blood decks get a secondary win con its highly unlikely to ever be tier 1, or tier 2, unless Theotar, the Mad Duke is completely gone from the meta. I guess we know why team5 pre-emptively nerfed it now.
But less facetiously, doing 3 damage to the face, even if unstoppable, will take at least 5-6 turns realistically to kill the opponent. So your opponent can try race you, and in all honesty it may not necessarily be impossible. Most games tend to take around 13 turns to complete, so even if this comes on curve you'll still need to play defence before your auto win is secured.
There's no way of putting this, its broken as hell. Its just Twisting Nether with a body, and you can do it twice because for some reason its an epic card.
If blood decks are playable then this card would be in it. Might even get nerfed, because look at it, its a 5/5 that destroys everything and gives you corpses.
DK design is really insane. An 8/8 for 8 plus a board full of taunts? What is the thought process behind this? Even paladin can't generate board as well as DK can.
But is this card good? Well, it depends if your motivation is to make up a handbuff unholy blood deck then there might yet be a reason to play this because just look at it. At least there's no way for them to play Grave Strength as a follow up.
Its only weakness is not slowness. Its redundancy, as with most DK cards it seems. It might not feed into plans and its rune requirement basically squashes its viability.
How does this work? Split an enemy in half and that counts as two corpses?
Pedantry aside, this weapon is core in full blood decks because of the absence of corpse generators. Since most hearthstone games dont tend to last all that long, and blood decks needing at least 6+ corpses, this weapon is the only way to do it without having to play minions the deck may not ever need aside from them being dead.
But soon as there's better corpse generators, I'd imagine this to be chopped off itself.
Is this varok saurfang? Didn't know he got converted on death lorewise
But this card is not good. Overpriced at 5, and then costing 5 health each time you drop it. The only way you'd play it is youre facing a massive devourer and you can't get rid of it without dying.
Not sure what the interaction is with all the handbuff available. If it keeps it when it returns to hand, then it makes the card a little better, but paying 5 health to play it stings hard.
So fully blood decks is somewhat control-ish, with a very convincing end game and plenty of lifesteal to try to outlast the opponent. Will still be weak to combo decks, and in particular if your Alexandros Mograine gets eaten up or stolen then you've just technically lost the game. The funny thing is if this deck is tier 1 those tournament mirrors will be either 1.5 hours each or someone lucks out and finishes the game in 15 minutes.
Unlike unholy and frost, blood decks need further convincing to me, because there really isn't alot of control cards for a typical control deck and conventionally a deck that relies almost entirely on one card usually isn't good.
Seems like there's a lot of handbuff cards and by the looks of the other revealed cards blood decks are not control but feature some sort of lifesteal, handbuff, midrange archetype not dissimilar with handbuff pally from stormwind, but substantially better at controlling tempo.
In other words, DK is now fully in my mind, just the better paladin. If Uther doesn't receive anything convincing in the next expansion we might actually have an argument as to why even bother playing pally at all, when DK is just simply doing everything it does, but better.
For all intends and purposes this is just a rez card comparable to Revenge of the Wild, except this is almost twice as good because when it works it puts in a lot of work.
Getting extra corpses, removing a minion, triggering deathrattles/reborn. One card, 3 mana, so many applications. The only reason not to run it is redundancy, in case there are better cards.
No.
This is not the next incarnation of Rager Christ the redeemer. Even if you bring this back with a rez effect, one really has to start questioning the motives here when you can get neptulon, or anything else for that matter, back.
Im sure there's going to be some stupid achievement that forces us to repeatedly raise this card.
Its not like we can't already cheat it out using the same Barbaric Sorceress method as big spell mage. The thing is that if you want to run an unholy deck that focuses on this card you can, but if you want to run a blood deck (which is, I suspect, mostly a control archetype) with it, you can't, because of the 2 rune requirement.
I still think the requirement should be 1 rune, or none at all. The card itself isn't really that good to be honest, because the undead pool is hardly small. So I can't think of many reasons why this should stay a two rune card.
Frost decks would rather just kill you and their spell pool is too good so youre likely never running barbara in it. Certainly not for this card anyway.
Probably shit if Im honest. Comparable to Dendrologist, even in dedicated treant decks. Its just not a good card if you cant just play it on 2 for tempo, and for unholy decks that's a massive deficiency. Will anyone keep this in hand just so it can get value?
Even with the smaller pool, what indeed are we looking for? Nothing specifically curves out from this on turn 3 (because most will need corpses which this does not generate) and theres just better 2 drops. Can't even hope for a second Lord Marrowgar, because the first one takes off all your corpses.
Its main usage is for other rune decks to gain corpses quicker and easier, for the mere inclusion of one unholy rune.
So you play double frost + one unholy, for some board, burn and if you need more corpses you can play this card. Because its a spidertank, you dont lose tempo doing it, and an aggro-burn deck is hardly ever going to miss one card from their deck.
But in unholy decks itself, this is a bust. No way will anyone do this when other better options are available, like Plagued Grain
Its potentially Spreading Plague, except a little slower and weaker. But cheaper as well.
But I dont like its chances. Very rarely are cards like these, that depend on your opponent's board, be good. Even worse still when it needs a follow up to do anything at all.
This card is nuts. Practically powercreep Bonedigger Geist if you have the target for it. And it has rush as well, which means you'll take tempo immediately on two without exceptions.
Only problem being that you need a target for it to work. But there must be some sticky turn 1 undead minion, there usually is every expansion according to theme.
Handbuff or bust. Quite useless in a world where Tomb Guardians exists. Even outside of a dedicated unholy deck, this card is still hard to justify. 1 damage doesn't kill anything, and 3 health is hardly blocking out much. Doesn't even at least resist the common 3 damage AoE every class seem to have nowadays.
This card is nuts because it provides massive amount of taunts to go through and cheapens Stitched Giant, potentially to zero. And if played together you get an 8/8 that is only realistically removable by spells.
Play this against paladin and watch as they helplessly try to remove four taunts while you put double 8/8s behind them. And good luck with that. Just another day of thumbing your nose at Uther, sort of a pattern with DK cards.