The Guy Before the Lambs: The Diary of my Journey to 1000 Death Knight wins (Part 4)

I must say, playing the Standard version of the Unholy deck just doesn’t feel right after experiencing the glory of the one-mana version of the hero power. It’s a good deck with a playstyle that is attractive to me, but right now, I’m having more fun with the return of the Frost burn deck. Blood DK still needs a real win condition, and for efficient climbing purposes, it’s just painfully slow. That said, it’s also as close as we’ve got to an old-school control deck in a very long while!

Limited Formats, Unlimited Possibilities

Arena is in a better place than it used to be now that Malignant Horror is gone, and though Death Knights are still dominant, they are slightly more beneficial overlords than they previously were. Part of this is due to how the play patterns changed in the format: going fast is more viable than it was earlier, and the right application of aggression is a heavily skill-testing element of Arena, allowing good players to find edges even with poorer decks and less-likely classes to succeed. The flexibility and mega-initiative of Death Knights still makes them the superior choice over the field, but you will no longer groan and run for the concede button when you go up against them. A nice change.

Meanwhile, in Duels, a mode that is somehow still marked as beta, Death Knights continue to dominate, leveraging the Ghoul Blitz hero power for strong results. (What do you know, Malignant Horror is still around here and continues to be a very nasty card!) Mostly, it’s the Unholy rune builds that pose the biggest threats, but the other options are also worth exploring. Part of the beauty of Duels’ relatively low popularity is that the format isn’t fully gamed out, and you can more easily find unique but workable approaches.

Rotation Trepidation: Should We Be Afraid?

Schematically, Death Knight was always going to benefit from the upcoming Core set rotation. The number of cards available in the Standard pool will diminish, and with it, many powerful synergies and combos will disappear. So, now that the class is topping the charts even in the tail end of the Hearthstone year – does this mean the scourge of DKs will dominate these icy wastes forever and ever?

Well, not so fast, imaginary young grasshopper-slash-strawman. First, there’s going to be a mini-set to consider, and if the timing of the loathsome gold sink Heroic Tavern Brawl is anything to go by, it is right around the corner. It makes sense that the new class would get a couple of strong and impactful cards so shortly after its release – keep in mind that the development process of these sets happens long before they are actually launched, and there is limited room to take the ripple effects of successive balance changes into account along the way.

But even from a thematic and marketing perspective, it would make sense to see DKs get a few strong additions. It’s still new and shiny, and the class clearly released in a healthier state power-level-wise than Demon Hunters did, so the developers have more room to explore.

Of course, the growth in power level is always going to be relative. The other classes could also get significant tools to upgrade their arsenal, and the handpicked selection of cards to include (or remove) from the Core set also offers additional levers for the developers should it seem like that things are getting out of hand.

Right now, Death Knights are strong but not insufferable – which honestly feels like a very nice place for them to be, and I’m not just saying that because they make up a very significant portion of my playtime in the game! Once again, it feels like the mini-set comes hot on the heels of the balance patch that finally got us an enjoyable metagame to experience – and once again, by the time the devs figure out the best state of play, it’s time to throw something new at us to mess things up again.