Hearthstone Death Knight Class Cards Ideas!!!

UPDATE (22.07.2014): I wrote this post many months ago so changing some cards would be like cheating; however, if I had a second chance I would remove all the current class specific mechanics from the cards I designed for Death Knights like overload and combo. And now that I think more on it, I even have a completely new mechanic for Death Knights and more creative minions; however, I currently don't have the time to put everything together again :( While I'm very satisfied about some of the cards that are on this post, there are also many others I'd love to just change. When I designed these cards, I admit I wasn't as experienced at HS as I am right now so I have deep regrets about adding those such class specific mechanics and I sincerely apologise to all my readers out there. I wish I wasn't hasty on this post :'( 

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I promised that I would come up with a Death Knight class for Blizzard card game Hearthstone. As anyone who plays the game already knows, Death Knights aren't yet implemented in the game so there are a lot of theories being thrown on forums as to how they could be and what kind of cards they could have.

So I wanted to join in on this brainstorming frenzy and thought I'd throw my theories to the mix. Let me tell you that my initial theory had something to do with diseases and dots (damage over time). So my first cards were something like "deal 1 damage to an enemy character for 3 turns" or "deal 2 damage to all enemy minions for 3 turns". I also had cards that would have better effects if they were used on a minion with a disease or a dot effect. Like if it dealt 2 damage initially, it would deal 2 or 3 more for every disease a target has so basically a card could deal like 6-7 damage if a minion had 2-3 diseases but I thought keeping track of this would be too difficult for both players and the system (I am not a developer so I have no idea about the viability of implementing something like this), and hell even me! Besides there are a lot of other dots classes like Priests and Warlocks but they don't have any cards with dots effects so I gave up on that idea.

Whether you like it or hate it, I know I'd love to play a class with these cards I designed. When you see some of them you might go  "WTF", which is sort of the intended reaction I was going for with some of the cards. However, please don't forget that this is done for entertaining purposes only so naturally some of the cards might be completely over the top. Also don't forget that Blizzard uses professional players to test the balance of the cards they designed, so if my cards seem over or under balanced compared to other classes, please forgive me and feel free to give me your ideas as to how to fix it.  

Believe me designing these cards took a long time which wore me down quite a bit and I'm sure the latest cards I designed might actually show that :/ Nonetheless I had a great time and I was chuffed to have taken upon a project like this. I should also note that this post will contain 46 Death Knight cards. I know it's a lot considering that each class has only 25 cards (26 if you count Curse of Naxxramas) currently in the game, 46 is a whopping number. But I thought I'd want to get all of it out of my system and I'm pretty sure I still missed a spell or two here and there. I am not sure if I should have reduced it down to 25 but I still wanted to share everything I came up with. (I'm itching to add more!)

On a last note (I can hear you saying "get to the bloody cards already"), I don't own the rights to any of the graphics I used on these cards. All the copyright belongs to Blizzard and their respective designers. I took these pictures from official Blizzard websites or used visuals from Warcraft's Trading Card Game.

DEATH KNIGHT HERO

I created the cards using achievementgen, however I didn't know how to create the hero and its ability. I don't know how to use Photoshop or similar software so I'll share hero pictures and write the hero power. I am so sorry about this.

A lot of ideas suggest that Arthas Menethil should be the DK hero. But I'd personally prefer Teron Gorefiend. As the first Death Knight, I think Teron would make a great hero. Apart from Teron, I also had Lord Darion Mograine in my mind. I think these two options are really viable. I'd prefer to see either of them rather than Arthas. Some would prefer "Lich King" but I think LK HAS to be a minion.

            Darion Mograine                                                                                      Teron Gorefiend

                                     

                                           

DEATH KNIGHT HERO POWER

Death Knight hero power could be "Raise Dead" and it summons 1/1 Ghoul with Charge for 2 mana. It could very well be a spell that "choose one: deal 1 damage to an enemy character or heal a friendly character for 1" but when I think about Death Knights, I immediately think of their summoning undead sort of abilities so that's why I wanted to go with this. Besides DKs also have some healing and transformation abilities that can be used on these undeads they summon so I thought it would make the gameplay more versatile.

DEATH KNIGHT CARDS

DEATH KNIGHT BASIC CARDS

These Death Knight basic cards are the free cards that can be earned by levelling up your Death Knight. The basic Death Knight Cards include:

1 Mana: Chains of Ice, Icy Touch

2 Mana: Corpse Explosion, Frost Presence

3 Mana: Unholy Presence, Dark Command

4 Mana: Blood Presence

5 Mana: Death Gate, Dark Transformation (stats and mana cost are up for debate)

7 Mana: Acherus Deathcharger

DEATH KNIGHT WEAPONS

I had tons of fun while I was designing these weapons. I think I've come up with some brilliant ideas here. I know some of them have loop holes and I raised my concerns about them at the end of this section. There are endless possibilities in my head when it comes to Death Knight weapons which is weird for me because I don't even like playing with melee classes in Hearthstone. Little note about Frostmourne, I thought of it being available to a player as a "Deathrattle: Equip Frostmourne" type of weapon so don't mind its 6 mana cost. It's merely for show. I also wanted to come up with more weapons but I couldn't find appropriate pictures for them.

3 Mana: Dancing Rune Weapon, I originally thought Dancing Rune Weapon as a minion but then I thought it might be more interesting if I made it a weapon. The effect doesn't consume any durability so in theory you can use this weapon till the end of the match, now that I think about it this weapon most likely needs a modification. Its durability can be raised and make it work like it'll lose 1 durability for each card you receive. Otherwise this can very well be an OP card.

4 Mana: The Hungering Cold (my favourite transmogrification weapon :D)

6 Mana: Shadowmourne (my favourite concept among the 4 weapons), Frostmourne (don't mind its mana cost, it'll be equipped only when Lich King minion dies, other than that it'll be unobtainable)

As well as being an effective removal Shadowmourne can even be used as a finisher. Imagine using it on a very powerful minion and your low health opponent doesn't have any Taunt minions on the board but has a very powerful minion with high Attack. You destroy it and gain its attack and immediately attack enemy hero. Use it on a Deathwing and you get a 13/13 weapon, I mean this is insane.... It's got great potential as well as a risk of being wasted in your hand if your opponent doesn't have any good minions. 

DEATH KNIGHT MINIONS

I had some good ideas for DK minions but I struggled a lot to find names and graphics for them. So I checked mob names from Icecrown Citadel and such in order to get some ideas. In the end some of the mobs I came up with are pretty strong and I'd LOVE to have them in my deck but some of them are pretty risky cards and it's completely up to the RNG. I wanted some of them to have completely random effects to maintain some sort of balance :D I am not sure if I succeeded in that, it's up to you. But I think they turned up pretty okay.

3 Mana: Plague Scientist; this minion will also give your own minions -1/-1. Gluttonous Abomination; the idea behind this minion comes from the Undead racial ability "Cannibalism" that heals you when you eat a corpse. Also the name of the minion suits the purpose well :D

6 Mana: Shambling Horror; this minion is definitely my favourite. It can be my all time favourite if something similar like this makes it into the game. Yes there is Faceless Manipulator that lets you copy a minion but of course it doesn't silence anything. And Faceless Manipulator is completely useless if there is nothing worthy of copying, cause otherwise it's a waste of 5 mana. However Shambling Horror can also stand on its own even if there aren't anything worthy but most minions do have some sort of ability anyway, and this one can also charge. Imagine a bloody Healing Well that has been buffed all the way up to 15/15 (I've seen that happen...) and you have less than 15 health left. Would you rather use Shambling Horror or Faceless Manipulator? Shambling Horror will nullify the Healing Well, it'll gain all its Double Health and Inner Fire as well as healing at the end of every turn buffs and it also has charge! What more can one want? This is an outstanding minion!

6 Mana: Harbinger of Horror is also a great minion I came up with. Its mana cost is 6 which means he can only be played in later stages of the game when your opponent "might" not have any minions with 3 or less Attack. So it's a bit of a gamble. It is fair if you'd go with Boulderfist Ogre instead. 

7 Mana: Kel'Thuzad; this minion could be a neutral one but I thought it would be fit for Death Knight class. I think his mana cost and health might not reflect very well on its special ability so they probably need some modification. Mana cost could be reduced along with his attack so he can be played earlier in the game. In its current state he can easily be two shot and I don't know if that's the desired effect here. It still means 2x 2/2 skeletons though but still.

7 Mana: Sindragosa (considering his Charge ability and high health, his mana cost can be increased), Frost Wyrm

9 Mana: Lich King; here is the risky RNG card. At the end of every turn, he will destroy a random minion. This could be YOUR minion as well! The idea behind this card is his dreaded Shadow Traps. I am sure many of you or almost all of you died AT LEAST once to those bloody traps. I thought I would get inspired by them. If you don't have any minions on the board when Lich King is present, he'll definitely give you some breathing room by taking out one of your enemy minions at the end of your turn, and another one if he is left alive at the end of your opponents turn. When he dies he'll also let you equip Frostmourne that I introduced above under Weapons header.

On a side note, I really thought about doing 4 Horsemen as DK exclusive legendary minion. I mean they are the best option after LK aren't they? However the only thing I could think of was working around a concept I have seen on a forum. And it would be like stealing it if I worked around that idea so I decided against it. The idea was basically Cairne Bloodhoof type of minion. You summon a Horsemen and when it dies, you get the second Horsemen from the deathrattle effect of the previous one and so on until you get the 4th Horsemen. This idea is GENUIS! But as I said it would be like stealing so I didn't do it. It would also be a devastating advantage for you if you had all the 4 Horsemen on the board at the same time so that idea is out of the way. Although if that happened, I'd demand a special golden legendary card for killing all the 4 Horsemen in the same turn!

DEATH KNIGHT SECRETS

Here are the Death Knight Secrets:

Anti-Magic Shell; I also thought about doing an Anti-Magic Zone card but I decided not to.

Dark Simulacrum,

Icebound Fortitude,

Raise Ally; for this card I initially thought it would return a minion with 1 Health and give it Taunt but then giving it Immunity made more sense to me and it's only for one turn anyway.

Remorseless Winter; I wasn't sure whether to make it "when your hero is attacked" rather than "when your opponent plays a minion" but I guess the former is perfectly viable as well.

DEATH KNIGHT SPELLS

These spells are uncommon/rare/epic cards that can be obtained from expert packs. There are a lot so bear with me please. I've also got some question marks about certain cards which I'll be sharing with you towards the end of this section. (Also sorry about the placement of some cards. Placing pictures on Blogger is a horrible task and editing their layout is actually more difficult than writing these posts...)

Here are the Death Knight Spells and my thoughts about them:

0 Mana: Bone Shield,

1 Mana: Blood Strike,

1 Mana: Death Pact; this is a pretty straightforward healing spell. In WoW, when you use Death Pact it doesn't sacrifice your minion but it deals damage to it. So I didn't make this card into something like "Sacrifice a friendly minion and restore its equal Health to your hero". Let's say a minion has 8 Health, your hero will restore 8 Health but that minion's Health will be reduced to 1. I think this idea is better than the former.

1 Mana: Mind Freeze; I think Mind Freeze is a pretty interesting concept. It is another way of silencing your opponent. Mind Freeze will disable your opponent to draw any cards in their next turn. This also applies to card drawal spells. For example when Mind Freeze is active, a Mage won't be able to use Arcane Intellect.

2 Mana: Death Coil, Frost Strike

3 Mana: Death Strike; this one is actually among my favourite spells at the moment. It's a really good damage and healing spell. You can deal 2 damage and heal your hero for 2 Health but if you have a weapon equipped you will deal 4 damage and heal your hero for 4 Health. It's pretty great.

3 Mana: Necrotic Strike; that's another favourite spell of mine. I think this one has great versatility and it can help you a lot. In WoW, Necrotic Strike greatly reduces the healing taken by your target. I tried to come up with a similar concept like "this minion won't be able to receive any buffs or heals" so let's say the affected minion from this card won't receive +1 damage from Raid Leader or +1/+1 from Stormwind Champion etc. But then I came up with this Choose One concept and I think it worked very well for this card. 

3 Mana: Pestilence; I agree there might be some question marks about Pestilence. For example let's think about Ysera, Ysera has 4 Damage and 12 Health, how would Pestilence work? Would her attack go below 0? I agree that this card needs modification. I think its text could be changed to "At the start of every turn give a minion -1/-1 until either Attack or Health reaches 0 then it dies". I think that would be much better.

3 Mana: Rune Tap; its healing effect could be reduced or its mana could be increased. As I noted before I am not good with balancing these cards. I agree some of them might require some changes to mana or other stats. 

4 Mana: Death Grip, Howling Blast

5 Mana: Plague Strike; this card is fantastic. Yes if your opponent has a lot of minions your hero will take some damage but in my concept DKs also have got some effective healing abilities. Well here is how this card works; imagine your opponent managed to put up 4 very strong minions, hell 2 of them even can be legendary. With this card you change their Attack and Health to 1 until the start of your next turn, but your hero will receive 4 damage because this card affected 4 minions. If this was a rush deck and your opponent had 6 minions, your hero would receive 6 damage. Pretty straightforward. 

5 Mana: Rune Strike; in WoW Rune Strike is an ability than can't be dodged, blocked or parried so a simple "destroy a minion" effect would suit it the best.

5 Mana: Horn of Winter

6 Mana: Death and Decay; first I thought of Death and Decay as a dot effect. But for concerns I raised at the start of my post I changed this. My original Death and Decay was "Deal 2 damage to all enemy characters at the end of every turn for 3 turns" which is actually a great AoE when you think about it because it would deal damage to recently played minions as well. But then I changed its effect and made it a simple AoE similar to Flamestrike. But of course if you have a weapon equipped, this will be even a better AoE than Flamestrike because it will deal 1 more damage for 1 less mana. In WoW Death and Decay has a damage increase based on your weapon so that's why I changed its concept to its current state.

6 Mana: Army of the Dead; a fairly similar card  to Unleash the Hounds. UTH should definitely get a mana increase by the way. UTH has 1/1 with charge, I made Army of the Dead 2/1 with charge and that's why I kept its mana high. But of course UTH could get to 2/1 with a simple 1 mana cost minion so I am not sure about this. Maybe the mana cost of Army of the Dead could be changed to 5 or maybe 4.

6 Mana: Obliterate; this is kind of like Warlock's Twisting Nether but with a different disadvantage. You have to discard 2 cards and have all your minions' Healths reduced to 1. But it still has advantage over Twisting Nether obviously because you'll still have your minions alive at the end of your turn.

 Are you ready for my WTF card? I merely did it for laughs.

I came up with this concept at work. I was busy with my translations and it suddenly hit me. I was like OMG I wanna make a card like this! I know "overload" is limited to Shamans for the moment but come on... Look at this card. It HAS to have Overload don't you think so? This card should only be used if you are 100% sure that you will win in the next turn. Otherwise it can give your opponent a significant advantage especially if they are holding on to some great cards. When it is your opponents turn, they will have 15 mana crystals at their disposal and 2 extra cards. Let me also point out that your opponent WON'T be drawing a card for the turn they skip. So when it is their turn, with the 2 extra they get from this card they will have drawn 3 cards. Which can be great if they ran out of cards...

Of course the original concept of Strangulate was a basic "silence" effect but come on... That's so boring -.-

So, lads. This is the concept I came up with and I had a blast writing this post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I sure as hell know that some cards can be changed and some need modification so if you have any opinions and constructive criticisms feel free to share them with me in the comments. I'd gladly appreciate and welcome them. I checked all the cards for grammatical errors but I couldn't find any, if there happen to be any, they must have slipped past me so accept my apologies (I am an English Linguistics graduate so I pay extra attention to this). Thank you for reading.