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Wrathgate Previews - Recruitment, Death Knight Style

May 4, 2010

by Brad Watson

School is ending and the nice summer weather is in full swing (for those of us in the Midwest / East at least).  I’m looking forward to the break and being able to churn out a quick gauntlet for a week full of testing with Wrathgate come late May. After all, only something like a new set could make an event like the Continental Championships more exciting.

In the online game, you learn new skills as you progress in levels. You go to class-specific trainers to learn new spells, and Wrathgate gives each class a “lesson.” Today, I’ll present you with the Death Knight lesson that’s ripe for use in today’s metagame.

A powerful Death Knight deck nowadays will almost certainly have its fair share of allies.  Powerhouse rares like Army of the Dead and Corpse Explosion work well with a board full of dudes.  We have several examples now of Death Knight cards that need to remove an ally in a graveyard from the game to properly function.  It makes sense to play our own slew of allies just to make sure our cards are always active.

In the case of Lesson of the Grave, our ideal situation is to apply early pressure. Your goal will be to drop a turn one or two ally or have some means of sending an opposing ally to the bin.  This is key; we “turn on” our powerful abilities like Lesson of the Grave and Corpse Explosion, two great abilities in our emerging, quick-paced Death Knight deck. 

Before we can continue building this deck, however, it’s necessary to have a firm understanding of what Death Knights are available.  Lesson of the Grave says non-hero Death Knights, so that leaves us looking solely in the ally department.  As a quick aside, I want to emphasize that the real power of Lesson of the Grave lies in fully utilizing the alternate cost. With that, I want to maximize this ability’s utility by first looking at Death Knight allies with a cost of one to three, and maybe four if it does something exceptionally niche.  Alliance has a nice opening duo of Wanda Darkfizz, from the Death Knight Starter Deck, and Danyssa Stillheart from Scourgewar.  Since utilizing that alternate cost early (along with the hero that we’ll discuss in the next paragraph) is so important, we might want to include two or three additional Death Knights in the form of Valeos Chillheart.  There are not that many allies to choose from, but this curve of 1, 2 and 3 will get the job done. 

Horde, on the other hand, doesn’t have anything impressive in the one drop slot.  Take a look at Rantuko Grimtouch if you really want that early jump, but he needs some help on the draw.  Along with Rantuko, the Death Knight Starter Deck also provides Grogmar Deathgore—clearly an ally that’s better when we’re wielding a weapon.  A better two-drop to consider is Drandus the Deathcaller.  He’s the same as Grogmar statwise, but he has some great abilities for our deck.  Since aggression is our goal, the fact that Drandus can exhaust for Lesson of the Grave to put a 3 ATK / 3 health Ghoul with assault 2 into play makes him a clear four-of in our deck.  What horde lacks in one-drop Death Knight allies it more than makes up for with a three-drop Death Knight.  Vanessa Fairgraves has a fantastic ability to spawn a 3 ATK / 3 health Ghoul when she dies.  We have eight great Death Knights on the Horde side, but we probably want a couple more.  Wrathgate will surely have more Death Knight allies for both factions, so we can wait and see what boosts our lineup gets when the set releases.

Now that we have a solid ally lineup, we’ll need a hero for the deck. Since we’re already playing a plethora of Death Knight allies, Erondra Frostmoon is the perfect candidate.  Our goal is to kill an opposing ally early, and this flip is perfect for that task.  Erondra is an unholy hero, so we’re all set including Corpse Explosion as well.  The Horde counterpart, Triton the Sacrilegious, works too and even fits an equally aggressive themed deck.  I’ll give the recommendation to Alliance in terms of hero flips because killing that early ally is essential to utilize Lesson of the Grave.

I want to touch again on one of the opening remarks; that Lesson of the Grave not only provides a quick burst of pressure, but it works to counter one of the most popular cards in the game.  Broderick Langforth is exceptional for both control decks and aggressive decks alike.  He’s early damage, great at defense, and has an immensely powerful effect even in death.  In fact, I have trouble thinking of many Horde decks that wouldn’t find a use for Broderick.  All that’s good about Broderick Langforth is good about Lesson of the Grave and our developing Death Knight deck.  We crave early allies hitting the graveyard to fuel our powerful unholy abilities.  Broderick Langforth is arguable one of the best possible turn one plays, and it’s also the ideal play that we, the Death Knight player, want to see from our opponent. 

On the play, we can lead with any number of turn one plays (preferably one that applies some pressure to our opponent).  As a generally extremely powerful defense to our aggressive strategy, our opponent drops his Broderick Langforth.  We can really explode on turn two by attacking with our ally, playing our two drop DK, using Erondra’s flip on the Horde ally, then using Lesson of the Grave to oust Broderick Langforth.  A quick recap shows our opponent has no board and loses the defensive advantage Broderick provides in death.  We also have an impressive board of three allies on turn two.

While I think Lesson of the Grave has its place in the aggressive style Death Knight deck, it will have an equally substantial impact on the limited environment.  An opponent may be able to overcome our early start with a properly built constructed deck.  If we can set up a similarly dominating position in limited, we’re much more likely to secure the win.  It’s quite plausible too, as the cards required to pull this feat off are only commons.  Be sure to grab those Danyssa Stillheart’s early when drafting for a vicious second turn play, where you flip on the opposing one or two-drop and spawn a health Ghoul ally courtesy of Lesson of the Grave. 

There are several reasons to pack Lesson of the Grave in your deck.  Whether you want to stop opposing recursion, turn off Broderick, or get some extremely early pressure via Ghoul express, Lesson of the Grave is the way to go.  Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of the Wrathgate previews.  Start forming those deck ideas and draft strategies now, the North American Continental Championships is right around the corner!