Hearthstone recently announced the March of the Lich King card set. The undead-themed set is built around an all-out assault by the Lich King on Quel’thalas, with each deck class swearing allegiance to either the Undead Scourge or the Blood Elves of Silvermoon. In addition, March of the Lich King is finally adding the Death Knight as the 11th playable card class in Hearthstone.
Like other classes, the Death Knight has a unique Hero Power and a whole set of class-exclusive cards to build decks around. However, the Death Knight has two mechanics not seen in any other class: Corpses and Runes. Corpses are a special resource the Death Knight uses for many of its cards, and Runes are special classifications of cards that provide restrictions and synergies when building decks. Mastering these mechanics will be crucial for understanding Hearthstone’s newest class.
Every Body Matters for Hearthstone Death Knights
Corpses are a new resource used exclusively to the Death Knight class in Hearthstone. Death Knight players gain one Corpse whenever a friendly minion dies, regardless of where it came from, though some minions summoned by cards that consume Corpses do not leave one when they die. A player’s Corpse counter is located right below their Mana Crystals.
The Death Knight’s Hero Power is called Ghoul Charge. The Hero Power costs two mana to summons a 1/1 Ghoul with Charge. The zombie invasion is short-lived, as the ghoul automatically dies at the end of the turn if it is still alive, giving players a Corpse to use for future cards.
Certain Death Knight cards consume Corpses for various effects, from summoning creatures and dealing damage to drawing or discounting cards. Collecting Corpses to empower certain Death Knight cards will be vital for Death Knight strategies. Cards that summon additional minions when they die, or minions with the now-evergreen Reborn keyword, work well with the new Hearthstone class.
Death Knight Runes Make Three Hearthstone Classes in One
Many of the Death Knight’s new cards have additional symbols beneath their mana costs. These symbols are the Runes required to add the cards to decks. Runes are a new deckbuilding mechanic that restricts and directs what cards can be in a Death Knight deck.
There are three different Death Knight Runes in Hearthstone: Blood, Frost, and Unholy. Each deck has three Rune slots which can be filled with the same or different Runes. Some cards require one or two of these slots to be aligned with a specific type of Rune, while the strongest cards may require all three to be a single type. There are 10 different combinations players can make with Death Knight Runes, each leading to a unique play style.
Blood Death Knight cards are the biggest and baddest of the bunch. Players who use Blood Rune cards will have big, tanky minions, board control effects, and life total manipulation. Some examples include Vampiric Blood, which increases the player’s maximum health and draws a card if they have enough Corpses, or the Legendary Patchwerk, who destroys a minion on the opponent’s battlefield, deck, and hand all at once.
Death Knights who focus on Frost Runes will find plenty of spell synergies in their cards. Direct damage and Freezing spells, mana manipulation, Frost school synergy, and card draw are all over Frost Rune Death Knight cards. Frostwyrm’s Fury, which deals five damage to a target, freezes all enemy minions, and summons an undead dragon, and Horn of Winter, a free Frost spell that refreshes two mana crystals, are two examples of Frost Rune cards.
Finally, the Unholy Rune is all about summoning an endless swarm of undead minions. These cards make the most out of the new Undead minion type and are all about mastering the Corpse mechanic with ways to generate and spend Corpses. Cards like Battlefield Necromancer give a constant supply of zombies with Taunt, while Lord Marrowgar is a Legendary Death Knight card that raises all of a player’s Corpses as minions, using those who don’t fit on the board to buff those that do.
Some Death Knight cards require no Runes. These cards can be included in any Death Knight deck, regardless of Runes. These cards have useful utility for any deck by supporting Corpses, card draw, and Weapons. Body Bagger, a one-cost 1/3 Undead minion that generates a Corpse when played, and Frostmourne, the Lich King's iconic runeblade that appeared in Knights of the Frozen Throne, are two examples of Runeless Death Knight cards. Combining these staples with cards from the three Death Knight Runes will allow players to make more varying decks than any other class in Hearthstone.
Death Knight Deck Building Tips
Since players can’t play every Death Knight card in a single deck because of Runes, the new class’s Core Set is larger than any other class in Hearthstone’s history. The Year of the Hydra Core set for Death Knights will include 32 cards, free for all players who complete the Death Knight Prologue coming with March of the Lich King.
In addition, 26 extra Death Knight cards are coming in the Path of Arthas mini-set. These vital cards cannot be opened from packs, so players must either craft them or purchase the Path of Arthas for 1500 Hearthstone Runestones or 2000 in-game gold. With 10 more cards coming in the March of the Lich King set, Death Knights will have 68 class cards to choose from when building their decks.
As Death Knight players build their decks in Hearthstone, their Runes will adapt to the cards they add to their decks. Their libraries will automatically filter out any cards that are incompatible with their current spread of Runes unless they toggle “Show All Runes.” Collections can be easily sorted using certain search commands for simple deck-building management.
- The “runes:uu” search pulls all double-Unholy cards while “runes:f” would show all single-Frost cards.
- Searching “Unholy:1” or “Frost:2” does the same, but players can also use “Frost:1-2” to pull up a range of all single- and double-Frost Rune cards.
- Players can use “school:frost” to pull up all Frost school spells without pulling Frost Rune cards.
With these tips in mind, players will be able to easily navigate their card collections as they build their new decks. Of course, if players don’t want to mess with the new Rune system, they can still use pre-built Death Knight decks, use Hearthstone deck codes, or the auto-complete system.
Hearthstone is available now for mobile and PC. March of the Lich King launches on December 6.