Predicting New Hero Powers in Knights of the Frozen Throne

Introduction

So, I was going to do another Top 10 article but time is running short so I will have to dump those in order to provide you with more articles on the upcoming cards. Remember, the spoiler seasons starts on Monday and I’m expecting a lot of cool cards. The new hero card type is something that, most likely, has everyone excited about and Blizzard has been giving us some info on the new hero cards during the last week. The biggest thing about these hero cards is that they will give your hero a new hero power, essentially making it a different class, and it today’s article I’m going to try to make an educated guess, based on several hints that I’ve found, on what some of the new hero powers are going to be. Remember, these are all my predictions, they usually turn out wrong but I keep doing them because one day I will get it right 😛

Sit back, relax, and let’s dive right into this! 🙂

Known Info

I’ve just mentioned that we have some known info about the upcoming hero cards. In order to make a proper prediction on them we’re going to quickly go over all of the known info and, at the end of this section, I will provide you with my source of information that I’m going to base these predictions around. All of this info can be found on various sites, mostly Hearthpwn, by a very quick google search and all of it is straight from the mouths of the developers (ok, there is an exception).

So, what do we know so far?

• Each class is going to have a hero card which replaces the original hero with a new one
• Each hero class comes with armor, a battlecry and a new hero power
• Rexxar is going to have a hero power ”craft beast”
• Jaina is going to cost 9 mana, is going to summon a water elemental as a battlecry and is heavily focuses on playing elementals
• Gul’dan’s and Uther’s hero cards are going to cost 10 and 9 mana but we don’t know anything else
• Hero cards are going to be available in the arena
• The idea behind them is that the heroes that we know have been corrupted by the Lich King and transformed into deaths knights
• There is a webcomic miniseries dedicated to these hero cards and the lore behind them

Ok, this is all that we know. So, what are am I going to base my predictions on? The comic, of course. You see, Blizzard had already gave us strong hints to the new hero powers. There wasn’t much to base thing off of in the first webcomic but in the second one we see Rexxar using his new hero power (after being transformed) which had led me to the conclusion that when we see heroes using spells while in their Death Knight form we’re actually seeing their new hero powers! What are those hero powers? We’ll let’s see.

Note: By the time that I’m writing this article the last webcomic still didn’t come out so I don’t have much to base the predictions for the last three classes on.

Death Knight Malfurion

Malfurion is going to be my first prediction.

Malfurion, in his death knight form, had showed up in the second webcomic where he had fought Rexxar (both as a death knight and in his regular form). As you know by now, Malfurion’s hero power gives him +1 atk and +1 armor, which is very solid, so what will the new one be? Well, on pages 3 and 6 we see Malfurion commanding an army of bugs which is, in my opinion, a strong hint at his new hero power. We’ve only once seen a bug like creature as a druid card so what are the lore implications behind this?

For those of you who don’t know much about the Warcraft lore, druid’s don’t have any sort of corrupted spells nor spells that deal with insects. That is nowhere in the lore and, even outside of the Warcraft universe, druid’s are rarely (or not at all) seen dealing with various insects, so what is going on here? Luckily, it didn’t take me too long to figure out what’s going on because this version of a druid is something that I’m quite familiar with due to years of playing Dungeons and Dragons. Malfurion, the death knight version, is not a druid at all but a blighter. What is a blighter? A blighter is an evil druid. While regular druids use their power to aid the nature and summon various animals, blighters draw their power from destroying the nature around them. They deal with insects, undead animals and various spells aimed at destroying the nature around them. After seeing those few panels with Malfurion I’m 100% certain that the idea behind his DK form came from the blighter.

With all that out of the way, what is his hero power going to be? He is going to summon an insect for 2 mana. Also, these insects are going to have poisonous as a keyword. Summoning regular bugs, like 3/3 minions with nothing, wouldn’t really be interesting so this is going to spice things up. This is also backed up by statement, in the comic, ”Poison burned through their veins and there was no cure.” (in the picture, Rexxar is looking at his dying animal companion). One more thing that I would like to note here. Malfurion is seen with bugs of various sizes and, since transformation is a huge part of the druid class, I believe that there is a chance that we will get to choose between two different bugs. I’m 100% sure about the poisonous bugs but I’m not completely sure about this. There is a chance, though a very slim one, but still a chance. 🙂

Death Knight Gul’dan

Ok, now let’s focus on the second hero that I’m most sure about and that is Gul’dan. We see Gul’dan, in his death knight form, in the very same webcomic. In fact, he is the one who had turned both Malfurion and Rexxar into death knights. What’s the deal with him?

For starters, we know that he is going to cost 10 mana, so his hero power really needs to be absurd to justify such a cost. Second thing that we know is that his design is heavily based on the concept of the Grim Reaper. Death is playing a huge part in his design. He has a scythe, a necklace made of skulls and a hood and cloak which is really similar to the one that the Grim Reaper has. Next thing to note is that, in the webcomic, Gul’dan kills both Rexxar and Malfurion (off screen) to turn them into death knights, stating that a price for such power is a single life. In summary: he is heavily based around the concept of the Grim Reaper and he is killing other characters and turning them into death knights.

What I believe is that death knight Gul’dan is going to have the spell, siphon-soul, as the hero power. Does that seem a bit too strong? Yes, but hear me out. Hero Gul’dan is going to cost 10 mana. That is insanely high and he needs a stupid powerful hero power to justify such a crazy cost. I’m sure that all heroes are going to have hero powers that are going to close the game in a few turns and this fits it perfectly. Besides, it is in the flavor. A huge cost, 10 mana, for huge power, siphon-soul on a stick. I’m 100% sure that I got this one correctly, but be sure to let me know what do you think in the comments below 🙂

Death Knight Uther

Ok, we’re going to wonder into a very dangerous territory here. I’m quite sure that I know what Uther’s death knight hero power is going to be and I hope to any deity out there that I’m completely wrong and that it is going to be something different.

First, what is the concept behind the death knight Uther. Uther is a paladin, a holy knight in a shiny armor, but when he is in his death knight form his armor becomes black, he becomes more vicious and violent and has that evil arua radiating from him (from his design. You look at him and you think ”that is one evil guy”). He wears a black cape and there are also skulls on his shoulders. Now, you may think ”well, yes, he is a death knight after all, of course that there are skulls” but this is hinting to something else. Just like Malfurion is a blighter, Uther is a blackguard. A balckguard is basically an anti paladin, a fully evil version of a paladin, beyond the point of redemption, which is a mockery of all that that character stood for in his previous life. Blackguard deals with undead and unholy magic which makes him a complete opposite of a classic paladin.

Unfortunately for us, the first comic was not so hard and heavy on hinting the new hero powers, but we’ve got some scenes with death knight Uther so let’s see what we’ve got, shall we? First, he is seen fighting with his hammer, quite a lot, which may hint to his hero power having something to do with his hammer but I don’t think that’s the case. Regular Uther also uses a hammer as a weapon and it has nothing to do with his hero power so I’m just going to conclude that the fight scenes with the hammer are just there for the show. The other scene is when he is fighting Thrall and there are ghouls jumping out from the snow. If you look closely, they seem to be attacking both Uther and Thrall, so I wouldn’t be too quick to judge and say that Uther had summoned those ghouls. However, knowing the trend of changing Uther’s hero power to summoning more 1/1 minions and summoning murlocs, I’m fairly certain that he is going to be summoning something in his death knight form, but that something is going to be either ghouls or some sort of undead minions or Knights of the Ebony Blade, an order of death knight and a total opposite of Knight of the Silver Hand. I’m sure that he is going to summon at least two of them with his hero power, but I’m not sure about the stats. Something tells me that they are going to have a deathrattle effect and that they are going to be, at least, 2/2 minions. I hope that I’m wrong because we really don’t need another ”unique” summon different stuff hero power for Uther.

Death Knight Jaina

Next up is Jaina and we know what her card is going to do. For those who don’t know, click here. Jaina is going to be all about elementals and, to get the most out of there, I think that she is going to freeze her opponents with her hero power. Wait, what? Didn’t I mean to say that she is going to summon elementals? Yes, but the problem is that there are already too many hero powers that summon things (if I’m correct about Uther). She is a complete frost mage now so she could be freezing her opponents with her new powers. That would make something like freeze mage quite insane 🙂 There is another possibility and that is that she is going to be focused even more on elementals and that she is going to summon elementals with her hero power. water-elemental is a staple elemental of all freeze mages so I’m sure that if she is going to summon elementals that she is going to summon a single water-elemental. I could be right, I could be wrong with this one, I’m not 100% sure but I’m more sure about her freezing her opponents. It would be a wasted opportunity to make a true frost mage 😛

The Rest

Ok, now it is some heavy speculation time.

Thrall was shown in the comics but he wasn’t in his death knight form so I have nothing to go on. Unlike with Uther and Malfurion, there is no anti shaman class in any fantasy franchise that I know about, so I’m left completely blind and I won’t even dare guessing what he might do because, at this point, it is really anyone’s guess.

Anduin is a simple guess. Anduin is going to enter shadowform when you play him and he is going to become a true shadow priest. He is going to deal damage with his hero power, just like with the regular shadowform card, but you won’t be able to upgrade this hero power. In return it is going to be much stronger than the one that you get from the regular shadowform.

Valeera and Garrosh are a mystery to me. I’m going to guess that, since she is in some sort of a shadowy form, that she is going to have a stealth like hero power. Maybe she will be immune when she is attacking or she will be untargetable by spell. I’m really not sure but I know, with a 100% certainty. that she is not going to be giving stealth. Garrosh, well, who knows. Anything is good as long as it is not summoning minions with taunt and giving minions taunt.

Conclusion

Well, that is it, these are my predictions for the upcoming hero powers. I’m fairly certain that I got the druid and the warlock correctly, I would bet on that, but I’m honestly not sure about rogue and warrior. At this point, just like with shaman, it could be anything but whatever it is it probably has roots in an archetype that isn’t used all that often. After all, these new hero cards and new hero powers are here to enforce the creation of new decks or enforce the rarely used ones (like elemental mage) so I doubt that any new hero power that we will see will have anything to do with a deck that is already very strong. I mean, it would be silly of them to enforce the already strong decks, right? We all want as much diversity in this game as possible.

Those are mine ideas for the upcoming hero powers and I would love to hear yours. Thankfully we won’t have to wait too long until we find out what are they all about because the spoiler season starts tomorrow and I bet that we will see at least one hero card 😀 I’m super hyped for this new expansion and I can’t wait to start brewing more decks for the wild format! What do you think about my predictions? What are you predictions? Leave your feedback in the comment section below. I’m looking forward to reading your comments 🙂

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