Introduction
Hello everyone and welcome to my 3rd part of Knights of the Frozen Throne card reviews for Arena. As always the cards are reviewed and put into one of these categories: Terrible, Bad, Below average, Average, Above average, Good, Amazing. For this set I will not be reviewing legendary cards for reasons mentioned in part 1. Let’s jump straight into reviews and see what KotFT has to offer.
Card reviews
Fallen Sun Cleric
In total Fallen Sun Cleric provides 3/2 stats which is usual for 2 drops, however the distribution is a bit funky. 2/1 stats aren’t good at all since the minion can die easily to many hero powers or 1 damage pings. That’s the reason why most 2/1 minions aren’t picked often in Arena. Besides the major weakness Fallen Sun Cleric has is that it’s very bad if played on curve. If you didn’t play a minion on turn 1, going into turn 2 Fallen Sun Cleric will only be a 2/1 minion which is obviously awful for a 2 drop. The +1/+1 buff can have charge if you use it on a minion ready to attack, however curve weakness outweighs this advantage.
Rating: Below average
Deathspeaker
Deathspeaker is like argent-protector on steroids. It has better stats for its mana cost and on top of that it gives immune instead of divine shield. There are scenarios where divine shield would be better than immune. For example if you have an empty board, you can play a minion and give it divine shield without it attacking anything. However in those cases divine shield is kind of wasted since it’s so much more powerful if you use it right before attacking an enemy minion. Giving a minion immunity for a turn is really powerful. For example you have a 5/4 minion on board whilst opponent has another 5/4 too. If you use Deathspeaker and trade, Deathspeaker basically got 7/8 worth of stats for 3 mana since otherwise your minion would have died while it’s alive right now. In the early game Deathspeaker can swing the board if you give immune to a 2 drop and attack opponent’s 2 drop. Overall Deathspeaker’s ability is really powerful if used correctly.
Rating: Amazing
Play Dead
Play Dead needs a lot of synergy inside the deck to have good value. You need many deathrattle minions in the deck which could benefit from Play Dead. This is going to be hard to achieve since you’d want to have at least 7-8 deathrattle minions in your deck to reliably have a Play Dead target. If you don’t have a minion with deathrattle on board or in your hand, Play Dead will be literally unplayable and will sit dead in your hand with hope of you drawing a deathrattle minion.
Rating: Bad
Rattling Rascal
Very unique effect and hard to evaluate. In terms of stats the card sucks because you get 4 mana 2/2 as both you and your opponent are going to receive a 5/5. But stats isn’t the reason to play this card. The main purpose of the card is to provide tempo. You get 7/7 worth of stats for 4 mana right away which is huge. Of course the opponent can kill your 2/2 to get a 5/5 himself, however if he doesn’t have the damage in hand or on board, you will easily overthrow your opponent with tempo and win the game. If your deck focuses on tempo Rattling Rascal is going to be a great pick up. In other cases it’s not going to be good.
Rating: Below average
Wailing Felhound
It’s not worth discarding 3-4 cards for a 3 mana 3/6.
Rating: Terrible
Frost Clone
The first comparison that comes to mind is with arcane-intellect. With both of these spells you get 2 cards into your hand. The main difference is what cards you are getting. Arcane Intellect is way more reliable in terms of what cards you get since it depends on what you have in your deck. With Frost Clone your opponent can choose which cards you are going to get. Therefore by playing Frost Clone you put yourself at mercy of your opponent whether the card will be good or not. Of course it is a secret after all so it should mean it’s going to be hard to play around. However the problem is that mirror-entity is currently the most popular secret for Mages. And you play around Frost Clone the same way you do against Mirror Entity. This means that the opponent doesn’t even have to play around Frost Clone at all. He will simply play around Mirror Entity which will also play around Frost Clone automatically. Overall it has a lot of variance and it’s way better to draw cards from your deck rather than to hope opponent misplays.
Rating: Below average
Shadow Essence
Another example of card meant for constructed. For 6 mana you only get 5/5 stats which is very bad. The card is meant to pull powerful abilities or deathrattles, however that is impossible to reliably pull off in Arena.
Rating: Bad
Breath of Sindragosa
The problem with Breath of Sindragosa is that the target is random unlike other 1 mana 2 damage spells like arcane-shot or holy-smite. To compensate for that Breath also freezes the target it damaged. Usually you want to use cheap spells that deal damage to finish off specific minions. Breath of Sindragosa doesn’t allow to do that since the target is random. Because of that it’s not as good as the other 1 mana deal 2 damage spells.
Rating: Below average
Bone Drake
First off the stats. Bone Drake has 5 mana worth of stats but costs 6. Of course that isn’t great, however the deathrattle more than makes up for it. Adding a random dragon to your hand is very powerful. This is because there are many powerful legendary dragons such as ysera, deathwing or malygos. And because there aren’t that many dragons in the game overall it means you will get the powerful dragons quite often. Usually cycling a card costs 1 mana whether it would be on a minion like loot-hoarder or spell like hallucination. Bone Drake fits into this theme as well but on top of that gives not just any card but a dragon which is definitely more powerful than drawing a random card from your deck.
Rating: Good
Webweave
We’ve seen how powerful poisonous can be in Un’Goro with stubborn-gastropod. Poisonous spiders are similar to it with only the taunt missing. We know that Stubborn Gastropod is a dominant card in Arena. Even though losing taunt isn’t great it still isn’t enough to make this card go from amazing to bad. Besides Webweave gives 2 spiders which means the opponent has to have 2 small removals instead of 1 with Stubborn Gastropod. Nonetheless webweave does have its weaknesses. Firstly 1/2 stats aren’t threatening to opponent’s face at all. If you play a minion with 5 attack on turn 5 it’s going to be scary for your opponent since it only takes 6 turns to kill you if you take 5 damage a turn. With Webweave you aren’t going to get any face damage which makes it less powerful. Another weakness is that Webweave puts out two 1/2 minions. This makes it very susceptible to a AoE such as cleave or forked-lightning. Still despite the weaknesses it’s still a powerful card.
Rating: Good
Saronite Chain Gang
Right away you should forget returning Saronite Chain Gang to hand with vanish or some other shenanigans. Same goes for hand buffs with some exceptions like Paladin since it’s possible for Paladins to buff Saronite Chain Gang reliably. However on average you will still just play this card as 4 mana summon two 2/3 taunts. Nonetheless it’s still quite powerful. The card is similar to infested-tauren. It’s basically an improved version of Tauren. You spawn the 2nd part of the card with a battlecry instead of deathrattle which is more powerful. Then on top of that you get +1 health and taunt for the second part. Tauren is below average in Arena currently and Saronite Chain Gang is a way better version of Tauren which says a bit about their power level. They do have a major weakness, however, as whilst 2/3 stats are great in early game they aren’t as much in the mid game. If your opponent plays a chillwind-yeti for example, he can kill both taunts and still live. Still the card is very powerful against small minions.
Rating: Good
Despicable Dreadlord
Obviously an insane card. Dealing 2 damage to enemy minions costs 2 mana as seen by arcane-explosion. Dreadlord is guaranteed to cast it once which means it’s at least 3 mana 4/5. And also it has infinite potential. Not much to say about the card as it’s so powerful there isn’t anything to discuss. I think this is the most powerful card of the entire set.
Rating: Amazing
Happy Ghoul
Without the ability it’s a 3 mana 3/3 which is fair enough. That makes it at least average. For most of the classes that’s the way the card is going to be. But Priests have insane synergy with this card since they can heal their hero very easily. That is to say there are healing cards in other classes, however healing your hero isn’t powerful in Arena so you won’t pick it often. Overall amazing card for Priests and above average one for rest of the classes. Worth noting has good synergy with lifesteal.
Rating: Above average
Druid of the Swarm
Let’s analyze both options. As we’ve covered before 1/2 poisonous are very strong as seen in stubborn-gastropod. So the first option of this card is very good. 1/5 minion with taunt has 6 stats in total which makes it an incredibly strong card in the early game as it only costs 2 mana to play. So this card can either choose a Stubborn Gastropod which is one of the best 2 drops in the game or a very powerful 1/5 taunt. Obviously this card is incredibly powerful. It’s going to be among the best 2 drops in the game.
Rating: Amazing
Blackguard
Even without the ability Blackguard isn’t too bad. It has 3/9 stats which total up to 12 for 6 mana which is alright. The ability is just icing on the cake. Of course in Arena you don’t need health that much, however Paladins have some cards that you play because they are good and healing is just a nice bonus. A good example of this is truesilver-champion. You don’t play the card for the 4 health that it restores but rather because 4/2 weapon is very powerful. Healing is just a nice little bonus. Cards with lifesteal also behave the same. Blackguard allows to use those healing abilities to your advantage. Even if you heal for 2 it’s great value from Blackguard already since it will total up to 14 stats for 6 mana. The more you heal the better Blackguard becomes but even without many healing it’s still good.
Rating: Good
Forge of Souls
Drawing 2 cards for 2 mana is obviously very powerful. Not only that but it draws weapons which in Arena are even more powerful due to value they provide. When playing Warrior, it’s reasonable to exepct to have 6-7 weapons in the deck which makes Forge of Souls quite reliable. This card is especially good in mid game where weapons gain the most value. In late game weapons aren’t as good and Forge of Souls guarantees you can get your weapons in mid game. And that’s what makes it such a good card. The only weakness I see is that drawing 2 weapons can be clunky. You are going to be using one of them which means the other will be sitting in your hand without doing much until your current weapon is destroyed. But that is offset by the fact that Forge of Souls only costs 2 mana which isn’t a big investment. Overall this is a great addition to Warriors since their weapons are so powerful but they suck if you don’t draw them in time.
Rating: Good
Snowfury Giant
Like with any other giant in Arena Snowfury Giant isn’t going to be great since you can’t build your deck around it. For a 8/8 to be worth drafting you need to reliably play it for 6 mana. In Snowfury Giant case you need to overload 5 mana crystals in total before playing the giant. The condition for Snowfury Giant to be good isn’t as severe as other giants like mountain-giant which will make it the best giant in Arena. Still it’s not too reliable and you won’t be able to play it on curve most likely. But it can be very powerful in the late game. At the end of the day it all depends on your deck and how many overload cards are in there.
Rating: Above average
Closing
That’s all for this part of my card reviews for KotFT. Let me know what you think of the new cards in the comments below. Stay tuned for more reviews and thanks for reading. Until next time.
Published: Aug 7, 2017 11:41 pm