Hey everyone, with the release of the Military Quarter of Naxx we will be able to add 6 new cards to our collections. In this article I will be analyzing those cards to discuss how good they are and how they can fit into classes and decks.
Dancing Swords
The first card we will receive in the Military Quarter is the Dancing Swords a 3 mana 4/4 that allows you opponent to draw a card when destroyed. This is an aggressive card very similar to king-mukla with its low cost high stats and downside of giving your opponent cards.
However I feel that King Mukla is the superior card being that it has higher stats and only gives the opponent bananas while Dancing Swords allows your opponent to get a card from their deck, giving them the opportunity to mill through their deck and giving them more options in the coming turns.
The decks that will use this card to its greatest potential are decks that are either extremely aggressive or can buff this card enough to either draw out the silence from the opponent or give this card enough value to merit the opponent’s card draw.
Possible Decks
Aggro Rogue
The aggro rogue or backspace rogue has risen in popularity since it was used to hit Legendary rank 1 and dancing-swords would be a great addition to this deck. This deck plays very recklessly giving the opponent card draws, mana crystals and minions(whelps via Leeroy Jenkins).
This deck utilizes very aggressive cards such as arcane-golem, coldlight-oracle, and king-mukla. This deck plays very fast and relies on being able to finish the game before your opponent can take advantage of whatever you give them.
Dancing Swords has potential in this deck since it can be used to deal early damage to get the opponent in burst range to finish the game early and being that you can play two copies it may be more consistent than King Mukla.
Paladin
Aggro Paladin decks that focus on buffing minions could utilize the natural bulk of dancing-swords. With cards such as blessing-of-might, sword-of-justice, and blessing-of-kings, Dancing Swords would be able to receive significant buffs to either draw out the silence and removing the deathrattle.
Also the possibility of being an 8/8 on turn four it will be well worth the opponent’s card draw. Even with argent-protector this card could definitely become a threat if you allow a Paladin to buff it.
Druid
Similar to the Paladin the Druid has different ways it can buff Dancing Swords, however I feel that in a Druid deck it would best fit in a ramp/control style deck. harvest-golem is a common 3 drop in druid decks and is essentially a 4/4 minion however if you run mark-of-the-wild Dancing Swords would gain more value than the harvest golem.
Having such a strong 3 drop would be helpful in maintaining board control until you can get your bigger minions out. Also drawing out the silence early can protect your ancient-of-war from being silenced back to a 5/5.
Spectral Knight
Spectral Knight is the second card to receive the ability “can’t be targeted by spells or hero powers” the first being faerie-dragon. This card similar to loatheb being that it is going to cause serious problems against miracle rogue.
Miracle rogues focus on spells such as sap and eviscerate to remove minions until they can burst with leeroy-jenkins not being able to easily remove spectral knight makes it a huge threat. Forcing the Rogues to use up its weapons and take face damage and with the help of Loatheb this combo could cause some serious problems for the miracle rogue.
The Spectral Knight has solid stats but not being able to be buffed or healed there aren’t many uses other than countering rogues which is why it may only fit in certain decks.
Possible Decks
Rogue
Just as loatheb has made its way into miracle rogue decks I expect spectral-knight to pop up to help with the mirror match. With such a solid deck list it may be hard to find room to fit this card but being that is deck is so strong in a mirror match where not many minions are played the one who gets out the Spectral Knights out first will have the advantage. Having 4 attack allows the knight to trade with any unprotected gadgetzan-auctioneer.
Warrior
Spectral Knight’s natural bulk makes it’s a good fit in a warrior deck. Although Spectral Knight can not be targeted by spells he can still be buffed by cruel-taskmaster in addition with armorsmith they could have some good synergy.
Having a fairly high amount of health spectral-knight can easily withstand whirlwind or even trade with multiple minions to help build armor with armorsmith. Control Warriors run many minions with abilities that can be annoying if not silenced, buffing Spectral Knight creates another target, who can’t be targeted by other spells that could cause serious problems for the opponent.
Other
I noted that this card along with loatheb were strong miracle rogue counters so although I feel spectral-knight would fit best with rogue or warrior, just as Loatheb has found his way into almost every deck I wouldn’t be surprised to this card pop up in many different decks looking to counter miracle. Also with these two cards expect to see less miracle rogues and more minion based decks.
Deathlord
Deathlord just like Dancing Swords is another strong 3 mana card whose deathrattle benefits the opponent. For only costing 3 mana Deathlord has a good amount of health and with taunt he could be very good in mid-range or control decks.
Reynad noted on an episode on of Value Town that this card has the potential to be good against Druid and Rogue decks. Forcing minions out from the Druids deck doesn’t allow them to get the additional effects such as ancient-of-lore or keeper-of-the-grove and will cause them to lose value on their minions. Similarly against Rogue you have the potential to force out important minions such as si7-agent or their gadgetzan-auctioneer without protection could throw them off tempo.
Miracle rogue decks main strength is being able to combo their cards together and forcing their minions could disrupt them enough to gain some momentum. Additionally this could also be used to counter Zoo decks since they rely so much on the early turns of the game.
Once the game gets to the 6-7th turn if Zoo hasn’t made a commanding lead it is hard to fight back especially against control decks. With Deathlord’s high amount of health it could slow Zoo down enough to give control decks a major advantage against Zoo/Aggro decks.
Possible Decks
Druid
Druid control decks are known for their big taunts druid-of-the-claw, ancient-of-war and with the release of Naxx they have gained sludge-belcher and now deathlord for an early game drop have made this control deck even stronger. With such a high amount of health this card could easily trade with 2-3 early game minions that often have 2-3 attack and 1-2 health. Deathlord along with the Druid’s hero power and harvest-golem another sticky card that could help holding board control until the bigger taunts come out.
Priest
Although the Priest class is still waiting for arguably the best card of Naxx to be released the dark-cultist I believe the deathlord could be a great addition to a Priest deck.
Having a early taunt with a large amount of health could have some good synergy with northshire-cleric allowing you to trade with minions than healing him back up. Paired with Dark Cultist could provide the Priest with strong minions that can’t easily be removed.
Paladin
Control Paladin decks could definitely use a card to drop early with taunt. Right now Control Paladin’s have a weaker early game than other control deck so even with their high amount of healing they aren’t one of the top-tier control decks right now. However having a big early taunt could help them preserve their health and healing allowing them to out last the opponent even more than they already could.
Also Paladins have many ways to clear the board with concecration, equality, and wild-pyromancer so adding another minion to the board would be no problem for the Paladin.
Baron Rivendare
Baron Rivendare is the next legendary card we will receive in the Military Quarter causing all deathrattles to be triggered twice. Not having all the Naxx cards out yet the most potential I see for this card is in decks that have been able to successfully use the nerubian-egg and sludge-belcher.
Making strong minions or making more taunts to protect Rivendare would be the best way to use this card. Filling your board with 1/1’s with haunted-creeper is also a possibility allowing you to clear the board similar to Unleash the Hounds.
However many of the better deathrattle cards have negative effects like dancing-swords and deathlord so it may not fit in a complete deathrattle deck. Also if you aren’t running many deathrattles in your deck I don’t think Baron Rivendare is a good enough card to deserve a spot in most decks, alone it seems to be just to situational.
If you can manage to get Baron Rivendare on the board along with voidcaller you can get your flame-imp and doomguard without the damage or card discards. This could also merit running a deck with many of the warlock class cards whose battlecries seem like to much a cost now.
Overall I think Baron Rivendare has little value if he is not played perfectly and is most likely only going to be useful for one or two turns when the deathrattles activate. I predict Baron Rivendare will be one of the least used Naxxramas cards being that it is too situational and you can only have one in the deck.
Class Cards
Shaman – Reincarnate
This week the Shaman’s class will be receiving the Reincarnate card, a card that destroys a minion and return it with full health. This is a solid card and I feel it would do way better if it wasn’t confined to the Shaman class only. Most Shaman decks don’t run too many cards with deathrattles and it doesn’t seem worth it to waste room in your deck to add a nerubian-egg activator. Shaman decks typically have the same build with some variations so devoting a spot to this card just doesn’t seem worth it.
However this card does have potential if leeroy-jenkins or sylvanas-windrunner can find their way into a Shaman Deck. This would give the Shaman more ability to burst with Leeroy and rockbiter-weapon along with Reincarnate will allow the shaman to have a combo similar to the Rogues shadowstep.
Additionally with Sylvanas you can Reincarnate her steal a minion then have another Sylvanas. If you can fit either of these legendaries into the deck than there may be some reason to include reincarate into your shaman deck.
At first glance this card doesn’t seem too great and ancestral-spirit has more synergy with typical shamans but this is a card we will have to experiment with before we can see if different kind of shaman builds can work.
Warlock – Voidcaller
The final card we will receive this week is the Warlock card Voidcaller. When destroyed this card allows you to put a demon from your hand to the board. This card has the potential to be good however it may be too situational.
Since this card doesn’t seem to be a good fit in Handlock the only other options are Zoo or some sort of mid-range warlock. In a Zoo deck this card may be too expensive to work efficiently, the ideal situation would be to bring out a doomguard by using the deathrattle but by the time Voidcaller makes it to the board you can already play the Doomguard the next turn.
Additionally turn four is a big turn for Zoo decks to being putting some more pressure before the Doomguard comes out with dark-iron-dwarf or defender-of-argus. Lastly similar to the new Shaman card this card may give many players the opportunity to experiment with different deck builds.
The Warlock class has many low-cost demons with high stats the only reason they are not played is their battlecries are often not worth the card discards or damage to the hero. However there is the possibility to see a more mid-range warlock deck emerge utilizing Voidcaller and perhaps even baron-rivendare to get these strong cards out without the negative effects.
Closing
The Military Quarter of Naxxramas this week will be giving us some of the most interesting cards from the expansion. Many of the cards from the expansion can easily placed in certain decks and you can get an idea of how the card will do.
However with these cards we are being given strong minions with deathrattles that benefit the opponent and a new legendary that takes advantage of the new cards we have received in the past weeks. Lastly the new class cards reincarnate and voidcaller don’t fit into the common builds for either deck but aren’t necessarily bad.
I’m excited to get these cards and to see if any new decks emerge as a result of these cards. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any different opinions or general thoughts about these new cards.
