How Weak Are The Death Knights in Hearthstone? 

You look fantastic! Have a good friday!

Bloodreaver Gul'dan was actually insane when Cubelock was the meta. Your board could never be empty; just insane amounts of value.

Fun fact: Rexar’s aoe has a secret interaction, "the arrows" acquire whatever properties the bow (weapon) he is currently using, like lifesteal or poisonous.

I think a more accurate title for this is "How Weak Are The Death Knights in today's meta". I think it's fair to compare not their design by today's standards but instead how efficient they were in the meta they were released in versus how efficient the current hero cards are in our meta today. Power creeping has always been a thing in games and that affects the card design alot as the years go on, making alot of old cards incomparable to newer ones. I think a more objective way to view whether each Death Knight was "weak" is by seeing how good they were in the meta they were in because they were surrounded by roughly the same power level of cards. For example, alot of the "weaker" Death Knights in the video didn't really account for the cards surrounding each class during the time that I believe were big factors in the design of the death knights: Warrior had more cards with benefits if damaged, with Rotface, Death Revenant in addition to classic cards like Battle Rage and Frothing Berserker. Additionally, the weapon was great removal because it provided 3 charges of on average 8 damage spread out, or just 12 damage face. Since warrior ran dead man's hand as their answer to fatigue, a slightly more expensive whirlwind each turn enabled cards like the raptor summoner into special armor strong and shiny, blood warriors, Queen Mosh (if I remember correctly they nerfed her to 9 mana because of the hero power Mosh combo), the list goes on if we include other cards from expansions at that time because warrior constantly had these cards that benefited from being damaged. Rogue was especially fun and strong in my opinion because of A. It's ability to grant you immunity for a turn and B. it's ability to copy cards you're normally restricted to only having 1 or 2 copies of. If I remember correctly, thief rogue was popular after the obnoxious quest rotated out so constantly having a way to either easily trigger combos by using the combo card before activating it with the shadow, or by generating extra value with battlecry value gens was very good. Just listing things I think are worth noting. I agree that because of power creeping, the majority of the death knights are obsolete in today's meta but I don't think we could really call any of them "weak" in design. I still loved the video and like how you put your thoughts across Rarran!

It's worth noting, there was a developer interview where they stated Shaman's DK was originally going to revolve around a freeze mechanic. This is further supported by their legendary seemingly feeling out of place with how the kit is supposed to work, essentially becoming the laughing stock of the class legendaries even to this day. I can't recall exactly what the original design entailed but we can hypothesie even by Thrall's VA that it involved freeze effects. I believe they mention his battlecry would have revolved around freezing the board and his hero power would have most likely given him the ability to freeze any minion, which would makes sense and synergise really well with Morabi. But obviously your opponent being unable to do anything to you and your entire mechanic revolving around that for a single class proved really boring so they went with an unexpected evolve mechanic which kinda ended up working? Like Evolve Shaman is fun but it always odd to me how it felt a big inconsistent with the whole DK theme that everyone class shared.

I really loved Knights Of The Frozen Throne just because of the DK Heroes.. Midrange Hunter with DK was the best deck I have ever played. The fact that you could craft your own minion was just incredible. There were some spicy combos when you mixed some specific beasts. Control Warlock was my favourite deck as well back in the days. It was really good, but it required some skill for sure. God.. I miss these good old days.. :D

8:25 you for real?? Deathstalker Rexxar was, from what I remember of his time in standard, THE reason Hunter was so consistently viable. Sure, Zuljin’s battlecry is immediately more impactful, but Deathstalker Rexxar was able to solo against control decks basically. Hunters actually ran both Hero cards in the same deck back in Rastakhan because of this I think basing the viability of these cards in current-day Standard purely off of 1 game in Wild is… a bit of a flawed way to evaluate the true strength of these cards, I guess? But then again, I guess there’s really no other options we can work with

Man the only Hunter deck what i loved is that Spell hunter was with deathknight card

I got Deathstalker Rexxar from a pack, made a face hunter (got it from a Kripp video) and included him, and fucking won against an entire priest deck basically using only his hero power lmao. Genuinely the most cheese-filled experience I've ever had in Hearthstone. Will never forget it.

Bloodreaver guldan was so broken when it had access to doomguard. In cubelock you could often summon like 3-4 doomguards for insane burst (not to mention a value board) when you played it.

I love Deathstalker Rexxar, sadly Blizz seem like doesn't want Hunter to have good late game deck and only push for early game face hunter.....which I really hate it.

Frost lich jaina with wildfires and teckless apprentices would absolutely see play if any relevant elementals actually existed. Varden is broken, so is jaina....at least for standard, I'd think Waaaaaaaay too slow in wild.

I agree on all except frost lich jaina. That dk was so good and would be even better with the hero power enhancements mage has now

I think Valeera got underrated a bit. Copying cards becomes stronger when the cards you have are stronger, totally possible there are some incredible combos with it atm

Here as a wild player to note the cards in the current wild meta: The 2 cards that have seen play since forever and have their own win conditions: - Bloodreaver guldan has seen the last amount of play and in the current meta is too expensive to play in the Tier 1 reno-warlock. - Shadowreaper anduin has been replaced with the priest quest for reno priest and therefore bringing an end to the Tier 1 raza-priest deck. The rest of the death-nights see no play, you might play deathstalker rexxar in reno-hunter, ... but reno-hunter is not viable in the wild format. And you addressed the rest in the video already: the cards are too expensive and the current hero cards are just better.

One thing that came to mind for me - and it depends on the how the mechanic works - but if Guff permanently sets your max mana to 20, I could see people being Guff for a couple of turns then swapping to Malfurion for the hero power flexibility. There comes a point where Guff's button just loses a ton of value and having the armor / attack may help you close out games.

What do you mean!? The death knights are strong. Jaina, Anduin, Gul'Dan and Malfurion DKs are good. Sure, they got power crept, but that is another story all together.

I haven't played Hearthstone in 7 years and never had any intention of playing it again as a thing called LIFE got in the way lol, but I recently discovered your channel and have been binging your vids like crazy. Just the other day I told myself "Damn these videos are fucking amazing but I don't think I'll play again" cut to me binging a couple of more videos from your channel "Fuck it I'm getting back in". All that was just to say your videos are amazing and I hope you continue to make great content!

what a nice trip down memory lane, those were (almost) the days when playing a 5 mana 2/2 and destroying it yourself the following turn to summon a voidlord on turn 6 was considered extremely broken, now i can get stoneborn general down on turn 2 and still risk losing the game! i definitely like the new cool mechanics we got but the nostalgic feeling 2017 hearthstone gives me will always warm my heart

Ah such mixed memories of Frost Lich jaina and Shadow Anduin....Loved it when I played it, hated it when my opponent did 😅

Deathstalker Rexxar was definitely one of my all time favorite, it's free minion out of vacuum every turn, and most of the time the combined minion effect make it incredibly strong.

I remember playing alot of deathknights cards back then. Funky paladin exodia deck and mill rogue with Valeera were my absolute favourites.

Love the posters in the background!!

I loved playing the Death Knight Paladin OTK-Deck. Basically you played a heavy control paladin with brewmasters and stuff to get the horsemen back to your hand. onve you got 3 different ones in your hand and your hero power summoned the 4th you would OTK your opponent by playing the remaining 3 for 2 mana each and get the "destroy enemy hero"-effect. hillarious and insanely funny.

I wish that theyd release these as hero portraits. Id get them...

Love Valeera in Tesspionage Rogue, still play it sometimes in Wild.

Have you ever thought about making a video about old cards that would do well in this standard? You briefly touched on this in this video and so i thought if this could apply to some old cards also. A great example of this is lotheb, i think he would still do great, but would like to hear bout other cards as well

Good memories. Reno Mage with Jaina was the most fun I've ever had in Hearthstone.

Deathknight Priest, Raza unchained, and any infinite spells, my beloved

I really want to play death knight again in standard. Uther was my favorite.

Would love to see you discuss Hagatha, Dr Boom, Zul’jin, Reno and the Galakronds

I feel like a couple of these didn't age too well lol Uther of the Ebon Blade with Jailer basically guarantees your exodia, Frost Lich Jaina is much better with elementals like Lokholar, Geddon and Neptulon. The rest are pretty accurate though and its interesting to see how much has changed

Shadowreaper Anduin is still to this day my favorite card in the game, i have so many good memories playing heartstone back in the day

Nice video. Try to build serious decks with old heroes(include Hagatha, Boom, Zul'Jin) and new cards. Also try to build deck with old quests. Could be some un-expected discoveries.

Blood Reaver Gul'Dan was great in Fatigue Warlock back in the day. You would summon 2 Voidwalkers for taunt and you would summon 2 Despicable Dreadlords that would deal 2 damage to your opponent's minions. It was such a great deck and I loved playing the mirror match because it came down to who would lifetap less. I think it would see play in standard, don't forget Mo'arg Forgefiend.

frostlich jaina mage control was one of my favorite decks of all time and bringing her back with wildfires would be based

It probably wasn't at release, but I remember playing the rogue hero a lot, as the reflection was just insane with one of the weapons that kept all its buffs (that deck was busted). Also, the warrior hero I remember getting really far with in ladder, in mill warrior, where the whirlwind effect was crutial late game. A lot of your videos have been popping into my feed lately (I don't know why), but what it really has thaught me is that whatever hearstone has become now, Im glad I left it long ago, because the structure it has now just seems...bad. or worse.

Would you do a vid on smaller card pools (eg post rotation) vs larger card pools (end of rotation, wild) have meant for hearthsone over the years?

Maaan cubelock and raza priest were one hell of a thing, also malf made jade druid a thing together with spreading plague

So one thing to note for Frost Lich Jaina: Wildfire exists. I use her in a wild deck that is very hero power centric, and can force through a 4 damage hero power a few times a game. Sometimes more. And with Jan'alai summoning Ragnaros for 7 Mana, arguably the strongest elemental in the game, it's difficult to die once I've flipped, barring instakill effects like Purified Shard. I had Chef Nomi in an older itteration of the deck, since he summons 6 6/6 elementals when the game is near it's end. Typically I'd do this right after a Dragon caller Alana baited out the holdout sweeper effect in their hand

Can you do this With the Galakrond Cards too? I Just Love Them and would be nice to give him some Spotlight

The thing with the mage death knight, is if you increase its damage, you can overkill and still get the elemental, so if your able to play a slower deck, where you pump up the deathknights hero power, you can use it to control the board getting you water elementals and they can keep you healthy enough to keep chugging along the value train.

I don't see anyone mentioning Uther. I remember playing the combo deck with the tiger to deal 25dmg holy fires by digging through the deck with immunities heals and draw. The hero card was simply a secondary win condition against ice block or big armor warrior/druid. One of the more fun decks I've played in hearthstone.

I just randomly saw your video, I dont know any of new hs cards, I havent player this game for like a year and a half, but I played a shit ton of old hero cards, actually I started this game when Blackrock mountain came out, good times xD

I currently play uther exodia paladin in wild and while it’s not as broken as some wild stuff it does get wins and can even pull off the combo (it’s Reno, the combo cards are Zola, big brewmaster, blackwald pixie and fencing instructor.)

I remember the good old days of KOFT, Exodia Paladin was suuuuper niche, but god damn I loved playing it. Playing Burgly Bully to get coins and then using Auctionmaster Beardo to OTK the enemy was just great.

Cariel and frost linch jaina are my favorite cards of all time. Hope paladin gets one more good control card at the mini set so I can grind control paladin:)

My thoughts about DKs: Warrior: really situative. Board clears? Warrior has plenty. And sacrificing armor stacking didn't worth it. Paladin: OTK was fun. But otherwise... two 1/1 instead of 2/2 sounded better. Even in late game. And lifesteal? Pal had plenty of heal. Mage: Elem mage was good deck. Very good. Priest: we all know about miracle-style damage under Raza. 0-cost hero power, refreshing when you play a card? Totally OP. Druid: overall great DK. Good for control and midrange. Shaman: RNG fiesta continued. Warlock: 1 patch and it went crazy! Hunter: Great card for midrange decks. Totally was worth it. Rogue: Kingsbane arch, guys. Kingsbane arch.

Blood reaver guldsn in a control deck where tou summoned an entire board of those 9 mana void walkers was judt *chefs kiss*

Frostlich Jaina is still one of my all time favorite Hearthstone cards and I wish we could get back to a meta like that one

I feel like with the recent focus on elemental and freeze mages the Mage DK could see play again

Having played a lot of HS back then here's my personal rankings of the death knights at the time: 1. Shadow reaper anduin - allowed for absolutely degenerate level burn in reno priest, got raza nerfed at the time. 2. Malfurion the pestilent - Almost every druid deck (which were op) played this guy, the 1/5s allowed for really good stall and then just gave you a hero power upgrade. Not game breaking but it didn't need any synergy and so it ended up being played everywhere. 3. Bloodreaver guldan - Resummons doomguards and voidlords that you cheated out, excellent finisher, gives a pretty good hero power. 4. Deathstalker rexxar - Pretty good value engine + a board clear in hunter which previously lacked this for the most part. Could let you win value matchups you previously wouldn't have. 5. Frostlich Jaina - Was often played in control mage back then but that deck was not t1 for the majority of its lifetime. Gave really good survivability but overall a really slow card. 6. Valeera the Hollow - Ice block for 9 mana is still kinda playable. Besides stall, was mainly used to duplicate burn cards (or draw to fish for burn) to end the game. 7. Scourgelord Garrosh - The weapon is really good in control warrior but the hero power is not... in fact, sometimes it was worse than armor up depending on the matchup. 8. Uther of the Ebon Blade - Only really good for meme otk decks. Otherwise too slow. The weapon is good but not enough tempo to justify spending 9 mana. 9. Thrall, deathseer - RNG evolves tend to be underwhelming, especially as more and more lowrolls got added to the game. The hero power isn't that good either. Decks using evolve synergy cards like the 5/5 taunt guy that got cheaper tended to come out to slow to be good aggro but run out of steam to fast to be a good midrange deck.

IT'S ALREADY BEEN FIVE YEARS SINCE KNIGHTS? JESUS

The shaman one was really stronge with the Evo shaman meta coming this is I loved so much play it

When these cards came out and you were at comic con san Diego they had a full Death Knight theme section with the frozen throne for pics, it was cool i think you got something if you attended, it was such a huge comic con with it being the comic con before Thor Ragnarok and Infinity War other companies brought their A game too. Nintendo, Blizzard, Netflix, Rick and Morty it was one of the best comic con and you didnt even have to attend Marvel and DC Pannels. There were celebrities everywhere, it was a memorable one wnd Blizzard went all out. The following comic cons wasn't that good since Marvel pulled back... And game of thrones hype died down. 2017 was a great year when Stranger Things was also was blowing up. Rick and Morty Season 3 coming out, they actually had the sauce too.

jaina + geddon ended up being such good tech. I also ran this with Pyros & Nzoth and could basically always win vs control.

5:58 I would too pick Spirit Guide on my rogue decks. Drawing both my holy and shadow spells would accelerate my wincon by a lot

I believe that Blizz acknowledged that the Shaman and Warrior death knights were underwhelming by then introducing Hagatha and Dr. Boom hero cards into the meta. And then they gave Zul’jin to Hunter, just so that Hunter could run two hero cards in their deck, and that was actually really fun.

Honestly is a rogue main I use both of those I actually have a c'thun deck with both with the regular c'thun and the consumed that gives you spells having that said using the 8 cost one to reduce the cost of the lira is actually pretty decent not to mention since it makes a copy of each card that you you can simply use the Spells twice now it doesn't necessarily make it to where it fills up faster but you are using double of whatever the Spells give you so like instead of destroying one minion you do two cause of valera the hollow or instead of 7 damage split among enemy's its 14 etc

Rarran my man you forgot the ultimate control warrior hero card, the man himself Dr boom with that insane 7 armour

i used val the hollow in a elemental jade rogue deck, it was so fun

Honestly, the time where Deathstalker Rexxar was around was the only time I really played the game. He was so much fun to play and it felt great to build the perfect beast to help you out. I stopped playing after the Deathknights were rotated out.

I've always loved the original DK hero cards. After returning to the game I still own those cards, and got almost all of them (only missing Warrior and Druid Heroes). I even somehow managed to win som Wild matches using a janky evolve shaman with the Dk card. Can't wait to see what Hero card would give to the newaly added Death Knight. I feel something like a corrupted Ner'Zul, The Bolver with the Helmet or Zooval would be perfect IMO.

Raza Anduin is an INSANE combo. You can try a challange: put core cards from this deck (two above and some removal) and all the other cards must come from basic set. Such a deck is still OP.

It just heavily dependent on matchups, Frost lich can be comparable with Varden as long you can throw in a lot of wildfire, Shadow Anduin is just Quest Hunter currently. Out of all these death knights I can say that Thrall needs RNG to win the game and Garrosh just get power crept by better cards nowadays.

valeera is definitly still playable i think. the stealth kinda nullifies the mana cost since your opponent can only buid board or deal with yours. If you don't have board the only option is to build. I don't know if rouge has any good board clear since i haven't played pretty much since the deathknights came out but if they have a decent one valeera can double it up and the value from doubling up your topdeck phase also makes her pretty strong, maybe not as good as rexxar's beast generation.

How about a video about "THE BEST HS DECK OF ALL TIME" which features unnerfed aggro demon hunter. I really liked your video where you compared classic cards with their power creeps. I saw some comments saying "Why would you compare them?" "It's clear which card is better" but I understand the idea and really liked that video (part 2 when? 0w0). That's why I'd love to see gameplay of demon hunter when he was first introduced, preferably against a class that's not demon hunter and how he obliterates them. I hope you still have gameplay from that era because I just searched it on RU-vid and I couldn't find any early demon hunter gameplay, that's why I thought it would make a good "timeless video"

It's such a shame that Thrall is so weak considering how fun Evolve Shaman is. Also, Knights of the Frozen Throne might just be THE best expansion we ever had just due to the DK Heroes and how much content they gave us.

I solely play wild and forgot that standard was a format at all, so this video confused me for a bit to say the least lol

I would love to see the Death Knights back in standard

Valeera would probably see play alongside Naga Giant. Play her and 2 8/8s, followed up with Rogues huge amount of value it has these days.

This man is a master at miscommunication with what the title is and what he actually does in his videos

Uther was actually quite broken and easy to exodia. With the auctionmaster to refresh hero power on a spell you only needed to collect a couple of coins which at the time was easu to kill someone regardless if you started the board empty on your turn.

Could you do a video on the Old God Cards?

What seems cool with druid is you can run both hero cards. Play gruff 1st to for the battlecry then play Malfy when you're past 10 or 11 mana for late game

My favorite was easily Rexxar, but that's probably because I was a largely a f2p player when I played, so I always valued these types of cards that allowed me to "cheat" out cards that I might not have in my collection. Sure, prince malchezaar probably hurts more than he helps due to stuffing your deck with legendaries you probably won't be able to use optimally, but without him I wouldn't be able to play with those legendaries at all. That's probably also the main reason I spent so much time playing that one challenge in blackrock mountain with the 30 unstable portals. Ultimately, of course, whizbang is probably the best single card for new/f2p/budget players due to giving you an actual full, synergistic deck that you otherwise wouldn't be able to play at all if you didn't unpack the right cards.

Thrall deathseer might be a meme or worse than Brukan, but god he is the first card I like so much that I have to craft him in golden. He’s basically my first crafted golden card ever. And I still play him to this day in my wild evolve shaman. I just like the evolve mechanic that much to ever craft it golden.

I recently played some random game with Good Old Rexxar against the new Tavish. I felt pity for how underwhelming his hero was.

Shaman's DK had such a good adaptation from WoW The identity CRYsis archetype

I always hated Frost lich Jania. Guldan was my go to for warlock Shaman I had to have that repayable epic evolve card and kragwa for really cool effects. Shaman was gimmicky but I could get insane value off the 0 cost Murloc and unstable evolution on turn 9. Valera I had a crazy jade deck that was fun. Wild is just too wild these days, blizzard should release legendaries like Baku or Whizbang that add effects but limit the amount of Legendaries you can add to your deck.

Deathstalker Rexxar is even more absurd when you combine with the questline.

Can you do one comparing Quests from Ungoro, Uldum and Stormwind?

Frost lich jaina's best decks were things like big spell mage and other mage control decks. Elemental mage was at best a fringe deck, while jaina was a great standalone card, being the wincon for every single control mage deck at the time

Once I lost my DK priest Anduin, I stopped playing hearthstone. I couldn't cope with the lost

A wild player watching this with intrigue even tho i dont play standard XD

Actually, in wild, Jaina is pretty strong in control mage decks because of the lifesteal swings and interaction with hero power buffs.

The mage Death knight hero is my favorite. It's a bit slow but If you can survive to use it while a decent elemental is on the field then you are set to win. I myself win 3/4 of my games with it. The downside of it is that it isn't good versus fast-paced decks.

To this day I love to play with DK Jaina. Love her emotes and with all those elementals that came out she is fun deck (even if not always best).

I missed the attrition based Frost Lich Jaina deck bakc in frozen throne ngl

for some reason i remenber some really good rogue decks back then, i remenber they were fun aswell, cant exactly name them, long time ago

For the brief time I played Hearthstone (which was during Frozen Throne) I lucked out with an Anduin card. Any time he made it to the table I was able to win the game and I was trash at Hearthstone. Never got to try out the others

It would be cool if arena had an event where every class would have one card slot dedicated to a Death Knight for like a week or month.

Would be nice to hear explanation for newer heor cards, am watching this video as an old player who only played with the older death knights so don't always understand your quick comparison

Hey, really enjoyed the video, however, you can't really test the Death Knights in Wild to accurately compare them for Standard. This is especially true for synergistic Hero cards such as Anduin and Gul'Dan, as they would be either incredibly powerful or REALLY bad depending on their support. Playing Raza to gain a 0 Mana Hero Power is such a Colossal difference. It genuinely is the difference between having a reliable OTK finisher or just a meh chip damage tool. Without good demons, Gul'Dan suffers a similar fate. It's also not a good environment since, if you were to be matched against Meta Wild decks, all Death Knights would feel awful to play. The only way to properly test it is to make a custom game against a friend who plays Standard decks. Due to the massive difference in power level, I don't think Standard and Wild are comparable. I'm sure you put a lot of effort into the video. Sorry if this was too negative.

i miss my secret hunter, summoning 4 3/3 wolves for 5 mana was the spice

As far a i remember rexxar was fun but there was too much tempo so spending 6 mana to deal 2 damage and gain 5 armor was not enough. For tempo/face hunters sometimes losing the basic 2 damage heropower was infact horrible.

Can you run multiple hero cards in one deck?

Scourgelord Garrosh was my free legendary from KotFT. I'm still disappointed about it to this day.

I played warrior dk in my own control dragon nzoth warrior. It was really good against jade druid and razakus

a better way to try the hero card would have been a friendly match with the standard cards but you have access to the death knight instead of the hero cards that we have now