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Edit: Please pretend that the title says "24 Minion Midrange" or "4 Spell Midrange" instead.
Hi all, this is my first time posting here. I've found a way to build frost DK that I'm not seeing anywhere else. I've had extremely strong results with the deck during a very fast climb to legend ending with a 12 game win streak and am here to share those results and provide a loose guide.
Conceit: From what I have seen, people only seem to be building spell heavy FFF decks designed for big combo turns to burst the opponent down. In my experience, this is very clunky. You have very few proactive plays because your hand is always full of reactive spells, and you have trouble dealing with healing or armor due to a lack of minions.
FFF has access to 2 extremely powerful proactive cards, frostwyrm's fury and marrow manipulator, which current FFF builds don't use as effectively as they could. I have found that these cards are much more consistently powerful in a more tempo oriented list that deals damage primarily with minions and secondarily with from-hand damage.
Proof of Games
Legend Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/mUbznpW.png
Matchups*:* https://i.imgur.com/wNf8Aby.png
12 game winstreak: https://i.imgur.com/X3bMrob.png
Deck
2x (0) Horn of Winter
2x (1) Body Bagger
2x (1) Bone Breaker
2x (1) Peasant
1x (2) Astalor Bloodsworn
2x (2) Harbinger of Winter
2x (2) Infected Peasant
1x (3) Brann Bronzebeard
2x (3) Chillfallen Baron
1x (3) Rustrot Viper
2x (3) Treasure Guard
1x (4) Lady Deathwhisper
2x (4) School Teacher
1x (4) Thassarian
2x (5) Rime Sculptor
2x (6) Marrow Manipulator
1x (6) Sylvanas, the Accused
2x (7) Frostwyrm's Fury
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Notable Card Choices
Why only 4 Spells? Frostwyrm's Fury is the strongest card in the deck, and it is strongest when played with a board already established. We don't want to be spending mana reactively in this deck; We should always try to fight for the board with our minions. Running this few spells makes it much more likely that harbinger of winter will draw frostwyrm's fury.
Horn of Winter: Horn of winter is an extremely clutch tempo card. Against aggro, you can use this to eek out a little bit more board presence in a key turn. In slower matchups, you can combo with brann and marrow manipulator or astalor for enormous burst turns. Sometimes it's a dead card, but the same was occasionally true of unnerfed innervate way way back when.
Lady Deathwhisper: This card may look odd with so few spells, but in many cases just using this to get 1 extra copy of frostwyrm's fury is good enough. Playing two consecutive fury's is much stronger than just one, and this lets us do that a little easier.
Brann: Most powerful when combo'd with marrow manipulator or astalor to burn down greedy druids or BBB dk's. Manipulator is the only corpse spender in the deck, so getting 10 corpses is not difficult.
Sylvanas: This card is absolutely busted in this deck. Just having a way to destroy a big taunt is very useful, and the mind control will win games on the spot against most any deck. Irreplaceable.
Rustrot Viper: Purely included to counter cariel. Your mileage may vary and this can be swapped depending on what you're facing. Can be nice to have against hunter as well if that retains popularity.
Treasure Guard: I have not tried nerubian vizier in this deck, so it may be worth experimenting with over treasure guard. Treasure guard is still quite good though; drawing a card will usually be better than discovering a spell and the taunt is extremely relevant against aggro druid and other fast decks.
Mulligan
Nothing too complicated here, this is basically an arena deck so you can just mulligan for a curve. I never keep spells, the deck has no problem drawing them and you'd rather have a good minion curve.
- Peasant: Peasant wins games on the spot against some classes, but might not be worth keeping against classes that can easily kill it. If it's your only 1 drop, it's ok to keep, but if you have a body bagger or even a bone breaker, i'd consider mulliganing it against classes like rogue, mage, and especially demon hunter. You really want to stick cards in the early game so you can hit face. The deck also never really runs out of cards, so the draw isn't essential in many matchups.
- Bone Breaker: Against a fast deck like aggro druid, this card is a star and I'm very happy to have it in my opening hand. Any other class I'd prefer a different one drop, but I wouldn't necessarily mulligan it unless I have another 1 mana minion in the opener already.
- Sylvanas: If you have a good 1 and 2 cost card, this is worth keeping, especially against classes that struggle to take the board back after losing it (like paladin and hunter). That said, having a strong curve is the most important thing, so I will usually only keep this card if I'm going second and have a decent minion curve in hand.
- Viper: If you're against paladin and you have 2 or 3 other good minions to curve out with, consider keeping it. Otherwise, toss it.
Matchups
This is a midrange deck, so it will generally be stronger against slow decks and weaker against faster decks.
- Demon hunter and Implock are very unfavorable matchups.
- Aggro druid is hard but beatable. Bone breaker on 1 or 2 is very good. Astalor on 4 is helpful. Kill peasant on sight if possible, even if you need to hero power. You need to run the druid out of cards to win.
- Hunter is also hard but also beatable. Sylvanas is insane against mountain bear and is worth keeping in the mulligan if you have a curve to support it. Bone breaker is also very good here, just be careful with your life total.
- Ramp druid & BBB dk are favorable matchups. Brann is king here. Play for unrelenting tempo and always pressure their life total whenever possible. Get as much darkwhisper value as you can without sacrificing too much tempo. If you have the choice, try to use brann to get extra copies of 8 mana astalor instead of going for the 32 damage combo play. This is better against patchwerk and theotar and will be more damage overall. Asphyxiate is very good against druid's big taunt minions if you can pull one off school teacher.
- Paladin is very easy. Peasant on 1 often wins the game on the spot and viper is obviously here to counter cariel. As long as you can stay ahead on tempo and prevent the paladin from establishing a board, you will run them over.
-Thief Rogue is favored, but a little harder than paladin. Tempo is king here, and you can usually out tempo the thief rogue. If they play some insane jackpot spell on turn 4, then that's unfortunate, but otherwise this wasn't a hard matchup. Rogue has a very hard time against manipulator and fury.
- Spell Frost DK is favored, just be cautious of your health total. Stay ahead on board as much as possible. If you're ahead on board, then you don't have to trade into annoying minions like thassarian and rime sculptor. Be prepared for opposing frostwyrm's fury andconsider furying their drake if you're behind on health.
- Big/Evolve Shaman again, looking for asphyxiate with school teacher can be helpful here. Sylvanas will also steal games here and may be worth keeping in the opening hand. If you can develop a board early, you should be able to run them over and finish with manipulator and fury like normal.
- Enrage Warrior I fought once and won easily. Not enough games to comment thoroughly on the matchup but I think it will be favored as long as you kill their minions before they can be buffed with the weapon. Extremely vulnerable to being frozen with fury.
- Priest is something I faced very little of. I don't know where priest stands in the meta post nerf, so I can't comment on this matchup.
Strategy
- When prompted with the choice between tempo or value, go with tempo. Don't hero power to kill a 2/1, play a 2 cost minion instead.
- If you have an opportunity to get value out of horn of winter, take it. It is vulnerable to getting stuck in your hand, so use whatever opportunity you have to play it (unless you're playing a slow deck, in which case it may be smart to save it for a burst turn with astalor, manipulator, or school teacher)
- Marrow Manipulator prefers to hit face over minions, especially against a slow deck. If you have the opportunity to pyroblast the enemy face on turn 6, take it. Don't make a worse play because you want to wait until you have brann. This is a tempo deck and you usually lethal with minions, the burst is more for closing the gap than anything else.
- Lady Deathwhisper is usually not the best play on turn 4, even if you have spells in hand. It's always preferable to play a stronger 4 drop over deathwhisper. Many games won't need deathwhisper at all, so don't overvalue it. It's purpose is to give you additional fuel and reach against other midrange or slow decks. Similarly, don't be afraid to play your only fury on 7 if you have deathwhisper in hand. Play for tempo.
- You should usually be hitting face with frostwyrm's fury, but this will depend heavily on what the opponent has on board and what their life total is relative to yours.
- If you're unsure whether you should trade or hit face, hit face. This is an aggressive deck, you want to pressure the opponent's life total. The only matchups you should be regularly trading with is aggro druid and paladin.
Conclusion
This feels like it should be a very strong deck to climb to legend with, although I am unsure of how well it will succeed in legend, particularly against DH. I faced very little DH in my climb, probably because they're all in legend. If you're not facing much DH, the deck should do well, otherwise you might encounter trouble.
This kind of deck should also only get stronger as new cards are printed for DK. Stuff like body bagger should get replaced as better cards are printed. It's also possible that someone can refine this list with cards currently available. If anybody does this, and is successful, please share!
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- 1 year ago
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