14 DAY TRIAL // The Hearthstone team at Blizzard is ending 2022 with a bang. The new March of the Lich King expansion introduces a new Death Knight class, a new Manathirst keyword, and, more importantly, 145 new collectible cards. Obviously, every new Hearthstone expansion brings changes to the meta too, and March of the Lich King is no exception to this unwritten rule.
But is the new Death Knight class powerful enough to compete with the other classes? The answer is definitely NO, but that’s probably not what the team behind Hearthstone wanted in the first place. What the newly added Death Knight class offers is more variety for those who love building their own decks to spice up their gameplay experience.
While Death Knight decks remain competitive up until a certain level on ladder, it’s almost impossible to make it to Legend using this specific class. That said, it remains a pretty fun to play class, especially since it comes with three main archetypes: Blood, Unholy, and Frost. All three archetypes come with the same 2-mana power: Ghoul Charge, which summons a 1/1 Ghoul with charge that dies at the end of turn.
The main use of the power is to generate “Corpses,” which are used by some of the Death Knight’s unique cards. The more corpses these cards consume, the more powerful they can be. The Death Knight gains a corpse each time a friendly unit dies. The upgraded power of the Death Knight will summon a 2/1 Ghoul with Charge that dies at the end of turn.
It’s when you start building your own deck that the Death Knight class becomes a bit more complex. The new class comes with three types of Runes: red (Blood), Blue (Frost), and green (Unholy). Death Knight’s class cards have one, two or three runes attached to them, which can be of different colors.
Before you start adding cards to your Death Knight deck, you must select a combination of three Runes, which will determine the cards you can add. There are powerful Unholy cards that require three red Runes, so you won’t be able to use these if you select a different combination of Runes (like two red and one blue).
This makes room for even more theorycrafting and variation. Giving up on the most powerful archetype cards to make room for cards from another archetype will make your deck more versatile, but you’ll probably lose the ability to make powerful comebacks that these cards offer.
The new Manathirst keyword introduces a mechanic where a card offers an additional benefit if it’s played when you have at least a certain amount of mana. For example, Arcane Bolt is a card that typically deals 2 damage, but if you have at least 8 mana when you cast it, it deals 3 damage instead. The same goes for the Legendary card Astalor, which deals 8 damage in his final form, and an additional 8 when you have 10 mana.
Another interesting change announced by Blizzard is the fact that the Undead minion type will appear regularly starting with March of the Lich King expansion. On top of that, it’s now possible for cards to have two minion types. Older and new Undead minion cards have a second type like Undead Dragon or Undead Beast. Similarly, non-Undead minions have a second type added as well, which adds another layer of strategy when building decks and more synergies.
All these changes and the number of cards added make Death Knight a very fun to play class. Although it’s far from being in the top three competitive decks on ladder, Death Knight decks are quite versatile and can beat many of the top-tier decks from other classes, but only if the latter doesn’t draw too well.
I’ve been trying different versions of Death Knights decks, and I found Blood and Frost are the most enjoyable. Full disclosure: if you don’t like to lose a few games while playing on ladder, don’t even think about building a Death Knight, especially if you plan to grind your way to Legend.
It’s not uncommon for Blizzard to release a new class in this state. Demon Hunter wasn’t as good as it is now when it was initially released. Based on previous history, the Death Knight isn’t supposed to be among the best classes on ladder, but I strongly believe that things will change next year, as more balance patches and other expansions are rolled out.
The good news is Death Knight continues to be played, even if it’s not a top-tier class, which means people do enjoy the new class. This statement is based on the huge amount of Death Knight decks that I’ve played against while playing on ladder.
Just to give competitive players an idea of how good the Death Knight class is right now, it’s worth mentioning that none of the players present at the 2022 Hearthstone World Championship brought any Death Knight decks.
Conclusion
That’s not unusual at all, and while Blizzard is trying to find a way to make Death Knight great, there’s a lot of fun to be had if you don’t mind losing a few games here and there. For those who took a long pause from the game for various reasons, I believe that returning to Hearthstone after the release of March of the Lich King is a great idea.
The only disappointment is the so-called Signature cards. These were supposed to be very rare cards with a unique design. In this case, the design, an icy sepia tone, doesn’t match Hearthstone’s overall visual design. Thankfully, Blizzard has already addressed this and promised to infuse future Signature cards with more colorful art. The way these cards are obtained will also suffer some changes to make it more fair for players.
Bundle and Tavern pass provided by the developer.
