Dreadsteed: Is it Okay to Beat a Dead Horse?

radek

Published: Sep 3, 2015 07:32 pm

This article is over 9 years old and may contain outdated information

Introduction

The Horse

A four mana 1/1. At the first glance, it feels really bad. But the thing about this card is that it’s a huge investment that’s gonna pay off after some time. Unless enemy finds a way to deal with it, it’s going to get more and more value over the next turns. The most basic use of the card is to deal 1 damage every turn. It helps with the trades or lets you push for just a little additional damage every turn. The card also serves as an activator for a lot of other things – later about that. Obviously, one Dreadsteed is usually not enough. If you play a deck made around it, you aim to get a few of them on the board. Having more than two is not always easy and requires some tricks. But here is the good question – how many Dreadsteeds is too many?

Each side of the board is limited to 7 slots. If you have more – you can’t play any minions. And each Dreadsteed is taking one of those slots. When you have one or two, it’s almost never an issue. But the more you get, the more complicated it can be. My answer is: Five Dreadsteeds is too much. Even though it’s usually hard to make that many, there are some situations where you can. It’s probably tempting, but I think you shouldn’t get past four. Five is absolute maximum and getting more can lead to losing the game quickly. The problem with limited board slots is that you sometimes have to play a certain minion, but you can’t if your board is full. Normally you could just sacrifice a minion or two, but with the Dreadsteeds it’s not that easy. You can’t sacrifice Dreadsteed – it comes back to life all the time. And if your only other minion on the board has high health (Baron Rivendare for example) and you can’t sacrifice it – well, you can’t play any more minions. It means that you can’t heal up, you can’t play Taunt or Mal’ganis etc. Sometimes it’s not a problem because enemy can’t deal with value of the Dreadsteeds. But if you face a deck with a lot of burn – they can just start rushing you and you can’t do anything about that. So remember – never go full Dreadsteed.

Getting 4 Dreadsteeds on the board can give you free 4 damage every turn – that’s a lot and most of the decks won’t have a way to deal with that. But what are the flaws of the card? There are three biggest ones I want to mention.

First is the tempo. Dreadsteed is really slow. It’s the investment that doesn’t pay off until it sticks to the board for at least 3-4 turns. If you play against a fast deck, playing Dreadsteed on t4 often means death. You have to make some plays that instantly impact the board – Hellfire, Imp-losion etc. It’s really hard to fit the Dreadsteed in without letting enemy get really ahead.
The second flaw is Silence. The Silence changes your 4-drop into a 1/1, which can just be killed for free most of the time. I’ve heard people say that “it’s not worth to Silence the 1/1!” etc. No, that’s not how it works. It is worth if enemy is losing his whole turn 4 play because of the Silence. After the Silence, Dreadsteed owner falls back both in terms of tempo and value. Not something he wants.
The third flaw is that Dreadsteed is completely unplayable against Patron Warrior. Infinite 1/1 minions is a feed for Grim Patron. And the fact that they don’t die makes Frothing Berserker so much easier to get a lot of attack with the help of Whirlwind effects (normal 1/1’s would just die after the first one and not buff it further – Dreadsteed would just respawn and buff the Frothing even more after the next Whirlwind – it doesn’t seem much, but it can be 10+ additional damage).

Interactions

There are a lot of interesting combos you can make with the Dreadsteed. Some of them are stronger, some of them are weaker, but he makes a lot of cards work better (or even work at all!). It’s almost impossible to list all the interactions, but I’m gonna go through some of the tested and more popular ones, dividing them into a few categories. And obviously, you can’t fit all of them into one deck. You have to decide which ones you want to try. It’s hard to give the best combination yet, it still needs a lot more testing to decide that.

Killing Your Horse

Since your Dreadsteed can’t die, you can kill it as many times as you want to. Some cards benefit you from killing your own things, and since Dreadsteed comes back to life, those cards can work with it perfectly. Sometimes you also want to kill your Dreadsteed in order to clone it, but that’s gonna have be a different category.

Sacrificial Pact – Probably the most basic one. 5 points of healing for 0 mana. You can play it on Dreadsteed anytime you want. It works really nice as an emergency heal. And the good thing about this is that from time to time you’re gonna face another Warlock. And against another Warlock, Sacrificial Pact is a great card. Even getting rid of Imp Gang Boss and healing for 5 (and that’s all for 0 mana!) is a great value. Not to mention destroying a Doomguard or Mal’ganis. The best target you can get is Lord Jaraxxus – you can instantly destroy enemy Hero and win the game with your Sac Pact.

Mortal Coil – Even though you usually want to play Mortal Coil on enemy minions, Dreadsteed can always be a good target to cycle your Coil. When the quality of your hand is really low or when you need to draw a certain card in order to survive/win the game – using it on your Dreadsteed can be a way to go. You don’t lose anything and just cycle a card for 1 mana.

Void Terror – Void Terror is strong when you combine him with Deathrattle minions. Deathrattle that is indestructible is even better. Your 3/3 3-drop can be much bigger thanks to the Dreadsteeds. With 2 of them on th board, playing Void Terror between them means a 5/5 for 3 mana. If you buff the Dreadsteed before playing Void Terror, it also benefits from the increased stats. It’s not a game-winning play, but having a 5/5 for 3 mana is never bad.

Void Crusher – This one is pretty risky, because it’s random. It might work out really well – “crushing” enemy minions just by using the Hero Power, while not losing anything on your side of the board because Dreadsteed dies and gets back to life sounds really good. But sadly, Void Crusher can also get rid of… himself. This means that sometimes you pay 8 mana just to remove a random enemy minion. With 4-5 Dreadsteeds on the board, your chances of success are pretty high, but with 1 or 2 it doesn’t look that bright anymore. If you feel lucky, Void Crusher is a good thing to test out.

Killing Everything

Killing everything is great when you have Dreadsteeds on the board. Because you don’t really kill them. Enemy is left with nothing on the board and you still have your Steeds. Warlock is known from the AoEs that affect both sides of the board, and they work really well with Dreadsteed.

Hellfire – Hellfire is an interesting AoE, because unlike most of those, it deals 3 damage to EVERYTHING – the whole board and both Heroes. It has both strong and weak points, but we’re gonna focus on the Dreadsteed synergy now. Clearing the board with Hellfire is really easy thanks to them. Not only you can run them into anything that’s over 3 health first, after you AoE everything you’re still left with some board presence. And it’s also a solid card even with nothing on the board.

Shadowflame – Shadowflaming your Dreadsteed is bad – 1 AoE damage for 4 mana. But it gets much better if you buff it first. In the later turns, depending on the deck you run, you can easily get your Dreadsteed to 2, 3 or even 5 attack before Shadowflaming. 5 AoE sounds much more juicy.

Twisting Nether – Oh the Twisting Nether. I’ve waited so long to see this card getting some play, because I just love the animation. The problem with Twisting Nether is that it’s a big tempo loss. While you completely reset the board, you can’t do pretty much anything else that turn. 2 mana is simply not enough. And then enemy takes the advantage – he can play some big Legendary, he can flood the board again with small guys etc. And you’re once again behind on the board. Not any longer! With Dreadsteeds, you have some starting point after you clear everything with Twisting Nether. With the few 1/1’s you have and all the buffs etc. it’s much easier to remove enemy board after the “restart”. The bad thing about Twisting Nether is that if enemy also has some Deathrattle minions, he also starts with some board presence. Cards like Piloted Shredder, Haunted Creeper and Sludge Belcher are really popular and leave something behind after the death. That’s why Twisting Nether is not so popular in the first place.

Doomsayer – It’s like a mini Twisting Nether, but it doesn’t always work. It has to survive the start of your next turn to proc. And it obviously can be Silenced. Even though it works much better in Mage (because of the Freeze effects), it can get some value in Warlock. Later in the game it’s safe to drop him because your Dreadsteeds survive. Even if enemy has a way to kill him on the board, it’s like gaining 7 life for 2 mana, not a bad deal. Even in the early game, it’s great at stalling. When enemy plays a 2-drop and you answer it with Doomsayer, not only he’s gonna lose the 2-drop, but also has to pass, because anything he plays dies. Can also bait a Silence, so your Dreadsteeds are more likely to stay on the board without getting Silenced.

Buffing Your Horse

Dreadsteed is a perfect buff target – especially if you want to trade him right after buffing. Buffs also have a synergy with Shadowflame and Void Terror – increasing Dreadsteed’s stats makes it into a better Shadowflame or Void Terror target.

Power Overwhelming – Power Overwhelming is a great deal. +4/+4 is huge, even if it’s just for one turn. The problem is that the minion dies right after, usually meaning you have to make sacrifices. But no longer! You can transform your Dreadsteed into 5/5 anytime you want, because you don’t care whether it’s gonna die or not.

Abusive Sergeant – Abusive Sergeant’s only weakness is that if you don’t have any minions on the board, it’s just a plain 2/1 for 1. The buff is wasted if you have no board presence. Thanks to the Dreadsteed, you always have some – and Abusive makes it much easier to well, abuse that. Another minion with similar purpose is Dark Iron Dwarf, but the Dreadsteed Warlock decks are already heavy on 4-drops.

Defender of Argus – Defender of Argus on Dreadsteeds can serve two purposes. The first one is allowing some trades – if you lack 1 damage on one of your horses, Argus can give you that. But probably the more important one is Taunt. Dreadsteeds are good source of 2/2 Taunts. Yes, they aren’t big, but enemy has to use their resources – attack with minions, weapons, spells etc. to get through them. And they just respawn after that. You always have some targets to Taunt, even if you have no good minions to play from your hand or you just don’t have enough mana to play anything.

Mal’ganis – It’s like the ultimate combo. The more Dreadsteeds you have on the board, the bigger Mal’ganis value is gonna get. The 1/1’s aren’t that threatening – but 3/3’s are. 3+ Dreadsteeds into Mal’ganis means enemy HAS to answer your big Demon or he lost. But even if it gets removed, you should get a lot of instant value thanks to the buff. Running your horses into enemy minions allows some very easy, free trades.

Cloning Your Horse

One Dreadsteed is not really threatening. Two of them also often aren’t good enough. I mean, in the mid game they can be useful, but later in the game 2 damage per turn isn’t anything scary. But you can only have two of them in your deck – so you need a way to get more.

Baron Rivendare – Your main way to get more Dreadsteeds. The math is simple – one dies, two spawn. The easiest way to kill your Dreadsteeds is to just run them into some enemy minion, but the new ones don’t get charge. So instead of banking that Rivendare is gonna survive, you kill your own Dreadsteeds. I’ve already explained a lot of ways to do so – you can Mortal Coil it, you can use the Sacrificial Pact or even Hellfire. Remember that the number can quickly get out of Control. You don’t want to go full Dreadsteed, so if enemy doesn’t kill your Rivendare, you need to think about a way to get rid of him yourself. Having 6 Dreadsteeds + Rivendare on the board may sound pretty good, but in reality it can lose you a lot of games.

Faceless Manipulator – Probably the worst way, because of how costly it is. It’s like playing a 5 mana Dreadsteed. It’s worth only in really, really slow matchups – but it’s an option nonetheless. The good thing about Faceless is that it’s much more flexible – besides the Dreadsteed, you can either clone one of your bigger minions or some enemy high cost drop.

Kel’Thuzad – Another great way to clone horses. With Kel’Thuzad on the board, one Dreadsteed dies during your turn and it instantly gets back thanks to the Deathrattle. You end the turn. Kel’Thuzad resurrects the one who died, resulting in two Dreadsteeds. You can kill it as many times as you want on your own turn and all the dead copies are gonna get resurrected at the end of turn. The good thing about Kel’Thuzad, opposed to Rivendare, is that he’s a big threat by itself. Even if you’re left with 6 Dreadsteeds and Kel’Thuzad, you threaten 12 damage every turn, opposed to 7. It’s a pretty significant difference. But since it costs 8 mana, it’s also much harder to pull off.

Others

Other synergies that didn’t fit into any of the above categories.

Anima Golem – Anima Golem is a huge 9/9 for 6 mana. Besides the obvious flaw (dying to Big Game Hunter), it’s really strong. Not only it can get a lot of trades, but if you start pushing face damage, you’re gonna quickly kill your enemy. The problem is that usually all enemy has to do to kill your Anima Golem is to just clear the rest of the board. It’s pretty risky – if enemy does that, you lose your whole turn 6 play without any value. But here comes the Dreadsteed – it’s much harder for enemy to kill it. Especially if you clone it. Since you always have something on the board, Anima Golem loses its drawback. But the thing you need to consider – do you actually want a 9/9 for 6 in this deck? If yes, you probably won’t find a better one to play Anima Golem in.

Knife Juggler – The Juggler has a nice synergy with Dreadsteeds. Every time it resummons, Juggler throws a knife. It’s an infinite ammo – as long as Knife Juggler stays on the board, you can deal a few additional points of damage for free. Obviously the more horses you have on the board – the better it works. But Knife Juggler is an overall solid minion and has synergy with Imp-losion, which most of the Dreadsteed decks run, so it’s definitely not bad include.

Sea Giant – Another card that synergizes with a constant board presence. For example, 4 Dreadsteeds on the board means that the “base” cost of your Sea Giant becomes 6. Throw in one more minion, enemy has 3 minions on the board and boom, you get 2 mana Sea Giant. Just like the Zoo plays a lot of small minions, Dreadsteed Warlock has constant board presence that can allow you to play the Giant for almost free. You probably also play other cards that synergize with it, like Imp-losion, so it is a viable choice.

Decklists

In this section I’ll show you four example decklists that include the Dreadsteed – two from popular players/streamers, one I’ve found on the reddit and one that I’ve created and tested this season. Obviously all those decks share some similarities, but also differ in the approach to Dreadsteed’s role. Let me show the lists and explain what I mean.

Kripparrian

First one is the list created by Kripparrian – popular streamer and caster. He has a history of making a gimmicky, fun, not necessarily competitively viable decks. Dreadsteed Warlock was one of his first creations after TGT, which turned out to not be that bad. The deck has a very “Zoo” feeling into it – playing the Haunted Creeper and Knife Juggler. It has stronger early board presence than most of the other Dreadsteed lists.

The mid/late game also isn’t focused solely around the Dreadsteed – Piloted Shredder, Sludge Belcher and Dr. Boom are the solid cards you can always play on the curve without losing tempo. I think that was one of the things he had in mind when creating the deck – while the Dreadsteed combos are strong, it’s often too slow to just play it on turn 4 and pass. This way he has more options and ways to get some board presence before starting the Dreadsteed strategy. Even the minions that synergize with Dreadsteed can gain value elsewhere.

The deck runs a lot of Deathrattles, so getting Baron Rivendare value is really easy. Haunted Creeper spawns two additional 1/1’s, Nerubian Egg gives you two Nerubians, Piloted Shredder spawns another 2-drop, Voidcaller can summon two Demons from your hand etc. It can work even if you don’t ever draw your Dreadsteed. Kel’Thuzad is also overall a solid minion – 6/8 body and the ability to resummon anything makes it really scary if it sticks onto the board, whether you have the Dreadsteed or not.

Faceless Manipulator is very flexible. You can either get another Dreadsteed, which is worth it in really slow matchups, or copy one of your strong minions. Getting the Kel’Thuzad copy means winning the game unless enemy has a way to kill board at the same time or rushes you down. Not to mention that in slower matchups you can copy enemy big drops – getting the 5 mana Ysera is really strong. The problem with Faceless is that in faster matchups it’s a dead card almost all the time – you don’t really have a good target and Facelessing one of your Dreadsteeds for example is way too slow.

Mid game is pretty standard besides that – Voidcallers for the tempo swings and as another way to get the Dreadsteed out, Imp-losion and Bane of Doom in form of removals that also give you some board presence – good tempo cards to offset the Dreadsteed’s tempo loss. Hellfire serves as the AoE removal, it has synergy with both Dreadsteeds and Nerubian Eggs.

The list tops with board wipe – Twisting Nether (awesome in slower matchups, can also save you in faster matchups when enemy already dumped all his hand onto the board) and Mal’ganis, which is a great target to get out of Voidcaller and awesome finisher, especially if you already have some Demons (like Steeds!) on the board.

I think it’s a solid approach to the Dreadsteed brew. Like I’ve said at the beginning, it has more Zoo feeling to it. The strong points is that not completely focusing on the Dreadsteed strategy means a lot of games are going to be won without even playing it. More safe list, not banking on the success of the horse.

Savjz

Next one is Savjz’s decklist. He was playing this deck a lot lately on his stream. The list might be a little outdated, because he was doing some changes every now and then. Savjz goes much deeper into the Dreadsteed strategy, though.

The deck has much slower early game – the only “board presence” you can have early are the Nerubian Eggs. There are couple of ways to activate them – Power Overwhelming, Void Terror, but the last one is the most interesting – Doomsayer.

Savjz really likes his Doomsayers. He includes them into lots of lists. And with this one they have a quite nice synergy. The first thing is that they make up for the lack of real early game. Dropping one on t2/t3 means you stall the game if enemy can’t Silence it. Not only you can possibly get rid of their early drop, but enemy is forced to skip the turn because obviously he doesn’t want to play something into Doomsayer. There are few exceptions like the Deathrattle minions, but in theory you should end up against an empty board. And if you already have the Egg on your side, you get a 4/4!

Sense Demons is an interesting choice. Savjz only runs 5 Demons, 2 of which are Dreadsteeds. The point of this card is to pull them out earlier in case they are deep into your deck. Since the strategy is based around this card, Sense Demons helps with drawing it more consistently.

Savjz doesn’t include any other 4-drops besides the Dreadsteeds. Instead, he adds 2x Defender of Argus as a defensive option. Also, besides the standard Hellfire, Shadowflame is the second AoE option. This one is better at dealing with bigger boards, where 3 damage is not enough. Even though you sacrifice more resources, you can easily clear even the huge boards in case you don’t have or can’t afford the Twisting Nether.

Double Antique Healbot gives a way to survive against Aggro decks and since you should be Life Tapping a lot, even in slower matchups it works fine.

Sylvanas Windrunner is an interesting include, but I can see why it’s here. It synergizes very well with all the mass board clears. The good thing is that you always steal what’s left behind – for example if you Shadowflame her, not only you deal 5 damage to the whole board, but you might get some minion that came from enemy Deathrattle or some 6+ health guy that survived.

The curve ends with 9-drop Demons – Mal’ganis and Lord Jaraxxus. Mal’ganis I’ve already explained, but Jaraxxus is interesting. The point I have to make is that this deck doesn’t have Voidcallers so it’s impossible to get them out early. It’s also impossible to get Jaraxxus onto the board at all. You have to play them from your hand, which might be a big deal, but if you can stall long enough (and this list certainly can), it might work out just fine. Playing the tempo Mal’ganis is not always that strong – it can die without getting value. Playing him from your hand when you really need to do that will always get some value. Lord Jaraxxus, on the other hand, serves as the win condition. In the slow enough games, you can just play him, get a lot of Hero Power (a 6/6 for 2 mana is never bad) value and kill enemy after he runs out of ways to deal with your Infernals.

Savjz values mass board clears much more. He also takes more “stall before I can combo the Dreadsteed” strategy. With a lot of healing, defense and AoE removals, it’s possible to stall the game for very, very long in case you draw into the right cards. The deck would rarely finish the game early, because it simply doesn’t have the tools to do so. The main win conditions are Dreadsteeds and the 9-drop Demons – Lord Jaraxxus (which can get you A LOT of value over couple of turns) and Mal’ganis (which works perfectly with Dreadsteeds).

CNHphoto

This is the list I’ve found when browsing the reddit. The deck was created by the /u/CNHphoto and posted on /r/competitiveHS. Here is the link.

I’ve found it really interesting. It has even slower early game – besides the removal, the only thing you can do is to drop the Nerubian Egg, but the only way to activate it before t4 is Power Overwhelming. To offset the slow start, it runs A LOT of healing and removal.

Refreshment Vendor is one of the interesting cards. Since Warlock will pretty much never attack the enemy in the early game (often won’t attack enemy until the late game), the card could as well say “Gain 4 health” – you won’t likely heal your enemy anyway. So a 3/5 for 4 that heals you for 4. The healing itself is not the best, but the 3/5 body for 4 is big enough to get some good trades with the small drops.

The deck is really low on minions. It has pretty much no mid game threats, only the defensive cards. Antique Healbot allows even more healing and Sludge Belcher stalls the game. It runs a lot of removals – besides the standard AoE Hellfire and Twisting Nether, it has double Siphon Soul, which not only removes bigger threats, but also heals you.

With only 4 Demons in the whole deck, Sense Demons has even higher chance to get the Dreadsteeds out. The only way to clone them here is Baron Rivendare, but since you aim a really, really slow game, you should draw it eventually.

With so much stall, healing and removal, the deck can afford to play a really long game. And I guess that’s the aim, because it allows the Dreadsteed to cumulate a lot of value over time. The deck tops with couple of interesting choices. Besides the standard Mal’ganis (with one Voidcaller you can actually get it out earlier if you’re lucky, but I’m not sure if you even WANT to do that), it has double Sea Giant and Deathwing. Sea Giants are simple – the synergy with Dreadsteeds is very good. You are in no rush, so you can wait a long time before putting them into the board. Once you copy Dreadsteed a few times, they’re pretty cheap. They can also serve as a tempo play against decks that flood the board. But I think the most interesting one here is Deathwing. The card is really a hit or miss – clearing the whole board AND playing the 12/12 is a big swing, but on the other hand Big Game Hunter is still a thing. Obviously your Dreadsteeds survive, and the Warlock can refill his hand thanks to the Life Taps, but the difference between having a 12/12 and not having it is huge. If it survives, you’re very likely to win the game. What’s good about Deathwing is a surprise factor. If the game lasts really, really long, enemy might even throw the Big Game Hunter as a tempo play on the board. And the “clear the whole board” factor is also important – it can save you in the situations you’d just lose the game otherwise.

The deck’s approach is much more slow, Control, grindy game. Against faster decks it might win just thanks to the amount of healing and removals. Against slower decks, it might grind them out in a long game that goes up to fatigue.

Stonekeep

This deck is my own creation after some playing around with different lists. The first thing that is important in my list is that I’ve put a little more emphasis on 3-drops and ways to activate Nerubian Egg early. This way against fast decks, when you can’t really tap a lot, you can actually do something on the first turns.

Abusive Sergeant is the first addition – it serves a lot of roles, actually. The most basic one is well, making your trades better. Especially with Dreadsteed – the difference between 1 and 3 attack is pretty significant. The second one is activating the Egg. Turn 2 Egg into Turn 3 Abusive + Tap can be just enough to not fall behind in the early game. The third is to combo it with Big Game Hunter. The deck lacks single target removals, so being able to BGH the 5/6 attack targets can be important. Even the more aggressive decks run Loatheb and killing it for free (when you can’t use spells) is important.

The second big thing is running Imp Gang Boss in the 3-drop slot. The card is very good to drop on turn 3, it contests all the early drops and is really, really annoying to deal with. What’s also good is that a lot of enemies are gonna assume you’re playing Zoo Warlock and probably won’t expect the Hellfire on next turn (if you’re gonna need it). Another turn 3 play is obviously activating the Nerubian Egg with Void Terror – it leaves you with a pretty big board on turn 3 and allows you to take your time and prepare for the Dreadsteed shenanigans. You can also play tempo Big Game Hunter or Void Terror (not getting the Battlecry value) if you’re under pressure and can’t really Life Tap.

When it comes to turn 4, you have a lot of options. Playing the Dreadsteed so early is not always a good idea – for example Voidcaller might be better, especially if you have some Demons in your hand (getting Dreadsteed from Voidcaller is much more clean – you don’t fall back in tempo that much). Other viable turn 4 plays are obviously the Hellfire if you need to clear enemy board and Imp-losion to act as both removal and to put something into the board. Baron Rivendare is not really a 4-drop – 1/7 stats for 4 mana are very bad. But if you play against Aggro deck and you have no other things to do, playing him is a valid option. Later in the game you use him to clone the horses – if you play Dreadsteed on t4 in slower matchups you can start cloning as soon as t5. I’ve cut one Sacrificial Pact so clearing your own Dreadsteeds is a little harder, but you still have a lot of ways to do so.

5-drops are mostly defensive options – Sludge Belcher to stall the game/stop the aggression and Antique Healbot to not get rushed down. You generally prefer to play Belcher, because of much bigger body it contests the early drops, unlike the Healbot. Try to play a little more risky – don’t heal up until you really have to or it’s your only play. This deck has really bad tempo and Healbot is one of the reasons. If you fall too far when it comes to the tempo, no amount of healing is gonna save you.

Coming into the late game, I’ve put both big Demons. They have great synergy with Voidcaller and with the deck in general. Jaraxxus serves as one of the win conditions or healing in faster matchups (the life gain so late into the game is important when enemy is out of the steam already). This deck actually has a lot of Demons, so Mal’ganis, besides the standard Dreadsteed synergy, should also combo nicely with other things too. Kel’Thuzad can make more Dreadsteeds OR be your another win condition. It can get a lot of value even with couple of minions on the board. High priority removal target.

Obviously the deck is built around Dreadsteed, but that’s not the only way to win the game. You can use most of the cards that synergize with Dreadsteed to boost other things. For example, Baron Rivendare has a good synergy with Nerubian Eggs and Voidcaller. Kel’Thuzad is overall a solid card. Sacrificial Pact can be used on the Imp tokens or on the Voidcaller to instantly pop it if you need one of your big Demons on the board (especially Mal’ganis). Other ones also work even if you never draw the Dreadsteed.

The deck still needs a lot of work and testing, because it’s just a quick brew and there is much room to improve, but I’m quite happy with how it works.

Closing

It’s incredibly hard to judge whether the card is good or not, that’s why most of the initial reviewers gave it really low score. It needs a perfect deck to work, a lot of testing and refining. Is a deck like that in the game right now? I don’t think so, but a lot of people are trying to get the results. I have to say that Dreadsteed turned out much more viable than I’ve initially thought. Right now it’s still a base of a pretty gimmicky deck, but maybe in the future, especially when more cards are added, it can be turned into a viable Warlock archetype.

So, those were my thoughts on the card. I hope you had a nice read. If you have any questions or suggestions, leave them in a comment section below!

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Author

radek