The Knights of the Frozen Throne is coming to Hearthstone in August, and with it comes a new type of card that looks to occupy your deck! The Death Knight Hero Card is new and likely exclusive to Knights of the Frozen Throne and our guide will get you acquainted with this new card type and will be updated as soon as other hero cards are revealed!
Death Knight Hero General Information
Death Knight Hero Cards are a totally new type of card, they aren’t a spell or a minion so cards like Counterspell (works on spells) or Mirror Entity (works on minions) will not effect these cards. Each of the cards comes with a Battlecry, five Armor, and a brand new Hero Power!
Another unique thing about these Hero Cards is that you will only transform into the particular hero from the card. If you were to steal Deathstalker Rexxar from a Hunter player with Priest, you would turn into Deathstalker Rexxar when you played the card and not a Death Knight version of Priest.
A lot of people compared these cards to Lord Jaraxxus and Majordomo Executus, but the big difference is that Hero Cards do not change your Health and this means Jarxxus and Executus will not have their type changed.
Death Knight Hero Cards also have all new emotes for that particular hero. I expect them to sound quite evil!
- Each Death Knight Hero Card comes with 5-Armor.
- Not all Death Knight Hero Cards will cost 6-Mana. [Source]
- All Death Knight Hero Cards come with a unique Hero Power. [Source]
Death Knight Hero Cards
Deathstalker Rexxar
When playing Deathstalker Rexxar you receive the new Hero Power: Build-a-Beast. When used you will discover two beasts and combine them together to create a new beast with all the stats of both creatures sewn together: mana cost, attack, health, and card text. The card is then added to your hand.
- When building a Beast you will not be given a choice of Beast that costs more than 5 mana (because the mana cost would be above 10 and mostly unplayable). No Savannah Highmane combinations unfortunately! [Source]
- The first card you get to choose from are cards with text, and the second is cards with Keywords or are Vanilla (no text)! [Source]
- The odds of receiving a Hunter or Neutral Beast card to choose from are equal. [Source]
Watch Deathstalker Rexxar in Action
Frost Lich Jaina
Icy Touch allows you to Deal 1 Damage and if it kills a minion it will summon a Water Elemental!
Malfurion the Pestilent
Plague Lord allows you to choose either +3 Attack for the turn, or to Gain 3 Armor!
- Malfurion the Pestilent’s Hero Power WILL work with Fandral Staghelm. [Source]
Shadowreaper Anduin
Voidform allows you to deal 2 damage and after you play a card your Hero Power is refreshed!
Thrall, Deathseer
Transmute Spirit allows you to transform a friendly minion into a random one that costs (1) more!
Uther of the Ebon Blade
The Four Horsemen allows you to summon a 2/2 Horseman, and if you have all 4 Horsemen on the board you DESTROY the enemy hero!
Valeera the Hollow
Death’s Shadow adds a ‘Shadow Reflection‘ to your hand and will copy any card you play that’s 5-mana cost or below. [Source]
- You can only copy 5-Mana or less cards with Shadow Reflection.
- A new Shadow Reflection is added to your hand every turn. It will disappear at the end of your turn.
- The copied card will not carry over cost reduction effects like from Emperor Thaurissan.
- You get a Shadow Reflection the turn you play Valeera. You could use this to play something like an extra Arcane Giant.
Watch Savjz reveal the card and show a bit of gameplay with it:
Don’t want to badmouth Deathstalker Rexxar’s hero power, but why wheren’t they able to do it exactly as is but with any combination of beasts that mana costs combine to a maximum of ten?
For example, if you choose Savannah Highmane as your first pick, maximum mana cost for the second pick will be 4.
That way, possible combinations would’ve been much more diverse.
Nonetheless very excited about the concept, will be fun to play with those.
I think it’s because they don’t whant a savagna higmaine with charge oder a swamp king drad with poisionous. Over 5 Mana Beasts are mostly heavy tempo cards, combining them with another beast will be an overkill.
Most likely because they couldn’t code it in to dynamically change the discover criteria on-the-fly after the first choice because it’s part of the same effect. It’s essentially a Brann’d “battlecry: discover a beast” and there is no phase in the game between the two in which to apply a restriction to the second choice.
If the technology is there and it was a decision made on purpose then it’s probably because the more expensive beasts have gigantic stats and Stonetusk Boar exists.
Well they could always adapt the software – they built it afterall (not saying it would be quick or easy but it would be possible)…
… but can you imagine Stone Tusk Boar + Giant Sandworm? That’s probably a board clear and 9 face damage all at once 😀
You want them to adapt the software to fit a card rather then having a card fit the software? That card would have to have a serious ROI to the game.
This is in no way a software limitation. Code runs line by line so allowing information to pass from 1 choose to the next is elementary. The only way it wouldn’t work would be if they used some sort of choose matrix to determine both options before the first is selected which would be stupid.
Besides… This functionality is already included in the choose. Think of kazakus Information is passed about the first choice as you cannot get the same effect twice for kazakus spells but the same options can appear twice if that are not chosen.
The 5 Mana cap must be a balance concern so that extremely powerful 5+ Mana effects can’t be combined with lower cost keyword cards. Volcanosaur and stonetusk for example