Table of Contents
Drawn and Quartered
Hearthstone mini-sets are often the best of times and the worst of times. The meta gets an infusion of 38 new cards, and a lot of them tend to be more exciting in theory than in practice, but usually there are a couple of cards that turn the meta on its head. With Return to Naxxramus, one of those cards is Construct Quarter, the new location for Death Knight, which destroys a friendly minion and summons a 4/5 with rush in its place. This has been a shot in the arm for all three Death Knight archetypes, but none more so than Frost, which has shifted its focus from amassing spell damage from hand to a board based approach which uses minion damage to pave the way for a Frostwyrm’s Fury finisher. Frost Death Knight has rocketed to the top of the meta tier list, and it’s likely to be nerfed heavily in an upcoming balance patch, so the time is now to abuse this deck before it’s brought back down to Earth.
(Note: I wanted to get this guide out quickly prior to an expected balance patch, so some sections, particularly matchups, may be a bit sparse in favor of getting this guide available as soon as possible. I may update this throughout the week, as well as after the deck inevitably gets nerfed.)
General Gameplay
This new version of the deck plays like a hybrid of the pre-mini-set versions of Frost and Unholy Death Knight. In general, this deck behaves as an old school minion/burn deck; you begin by grabbing initiative and holding on to it as long as you can, maximizing chip damage in from the minions until your board gets cleared or blocked by a taunt. At that point, you use your direct damage (Frostwyrm’s Fury, Marrow Manipulator, weapon attacks, and any additional burn you’ve picked up along the way) to close the game out, ideally by turn 8 or 9. Because the minion damage is so effective, it makes sense to cut a lot of the direct damage spells like Glacial Advance and Icy Touch, which ensures that the draws from Harbinger of Winter and Overseer Frigidara are much more consistent. In other words, you should almost always have at least one Frostwyrm’s Fury in hand by turn 7, if not both, which allows you to build your game plan around playing that card on curve.
You want to play this as an aggressive deck, but keep in mind that you do have reach in the late game. What that means is that you’re going to be playing for board in the early game, and you want to send any available damage to your opponent’s face. Your early turns should generally revolve around playing minions that either draw you more cards (Harbinger of Winter, Chillfallen Baron) or enable your Construct Quarter.
Against other aggressive decks, it’s important to get board and keep it. Small trades early can help you out in this regard, because once you start snowballing, it’s very hard for another board-based deck to catch up. If you can get a life total lead, start counting backward from your Frostwyrm’s Fury turns; most of the aggressive decks in this meta don’t heal beyond the occasional five armor from Astalor, so you should be able to find a line that starts with chip damage and ends with freezing the opponent’s board repeatedly. Once you reach the midgame, if you have the opponent close to but not within burn range, don’t be afraid to use your life total as a resource to push the last few points of chip damage rather than trying to keep board heading into turn 7 (when you’re just going to freeze everything anyway).
Against control decks, you should go face at every opportunity unless you have an extremely good reason to trade. Since there aren’t too many minions worth protecting in this deck, the main reasons you’d trade against control are because A) you’re going to die otherwise, B) a taunt is in the way, or C) you need minions to die to hit a corpse threshold or to turn on an effect like Nerubian Vizier. The more time you give the control player, the more likely it is they can heal or armor out of reach while removing your board. As always, play around their clears as much as you can, but you should still be making boards and forcing them to answer. Even the 40 card control decks don’t have infinite removal, and sometimes the removal they do have isn’t adequate for the boards you present.
Deck Code
AAECAfHhBASY1ASpgAXLpQXMpQUNlrcE9eMEguQEk+QEh/YEtvcEtIAFk4EFkpMFoJkFopkFrqEFnqoFAA==
(List by Reqvam)
Card Inclusions
Even though you’re not squeezing a ton of burn spells into one turn for lethal, you can utilize Horn of Winter for generating additional tempo throughout the game. Just keep in mind that it’s a refresh as opposed to generating temporary mana crystals, so this won’t let you cheat out your expensive cards earlier (but they will let you do things like fit in a Brann on the same turn, for instance).
Arms Dealer is good for allowing Foul Egg to attack, as well as for generating additional damage potential as you build your early boards. If you don’t have a Foul Egg to play, it can be correct to tempo the Arms Dealer, as it will often draw early removal from the opponent.
Clearing minions in the early game without sacrificing face damage is what this deck wants to do.
Foul Egg got significantly better when Construct Quarter was printed; playing Foul Egg on turn 1 into coin and Construct Quarter on turn 2 (to create a 3/3 and a 4/5) can be a tempo start that’s extremely hard for an opponent to catch up from.
Another Foul Egg activator, plus it can provide some sneaky burst damage when combined with Brann and your hero power.
Removal plus value generation is good.
As stated previously, cutting many of the spells in this deck makes the draw from Harbinger of Winter significantly more consistent. You should be looking to get this on board as soon as you can to help draw toward both copies of Frostwyrm’s Fury for the late game.
School Teacher is the obvious card to pair with Brann, but don’t miss some less common interactions with cards like Skeletal Sidekick or Thessarian for burst, Chillfallen Baron for draw, Nerubian Vizier for value generation, or Marrow Manipulator for a ton of damage if you have enough corpses. One thing to watch out for is playing Brann with Overseer Frigidara: If you don’t have four spells left in your deck, it won’t do the 2 damage AoE twice, so do check that before relying on that damage.
Card draw is good.
Until this card gets nerfed, abuse it as much as possible. Getting three rushing 4/5s while also triggering deathrattles and gaining corpses is the reason that this deck is so good.
Given how many undead we run, Nerubian Vizier is a no-brainer inclusion, especially since it gives you access to more copies of spells you run in your deck, as well as cards from other runes that are normally off limits during deck building. The discount is a bonus worth pursuing, but if this is your only three mana play, it’s fine to play this even if it’s not glowing yellow. (One specific word of caution: Plagued Grain will occasionally seem tempting, but don’t take it unless absolutely necessary, as it will make your Overseer Frigidara significantly worse later on.)
This is a less common inclusion, but in my playtesting, it’s extremely good as a one-of, to the point where I consider it core to the deck. You generally can spare three corpses for an extra board freeze, and the four attack on the weapon is significant; there’s not a lot of taunt in the current meta, so being able to push eight additional face damage can be the difference between winning and losing.
School Teacher is both value for the midgame and a convenient 1/1 that you can turn into a 4/5 with Construct Quarter.
Thassarian is six damage in one card (eight with Brann), and a convenient target for the second or third activation of Construct Quarter.
This is one of your closers; you ideally want to land it on an empty board, and when you do so, it should get the opponent’s life total low enough that Frostwyrm’s Fury will close things out. Keep an eye on your corpse count, especially when pairing with Brann; some generated cards like Defrost will consume your corpses, and you want to make sure you know how much damage you expect to do.
Though we run fewer spells, we really want to draw the spells we do run, along with the extra two damage to face and the board for a small clear, or the extra chip damage to add up to 30.
The main reason we’re running triple frost, chaining several of these together in the late game is one of our primary win conditions.
Notable Exclusions / Tech Choices
Playing Astalor presupposes games are going to go to turn 10 regularly. They won’t.
Acolyte makes sense, in theory, because you have lots of minions who are going to die. In practice, you tend to need too much mana to set it up, and you have plenty of card draw in the deck even without needing the Acolyte value.
This was in the early builds of the deck, because it took the minion package from Unholy Death Knight. Body Bagger is much worse in this deck because we don't use the early corpses for Battlefield Necromancer. In other words, we can do better than a 1 mana 1/3.
Mulligans
Always keep:
Construct Quarter and Foul Egg. Construct Quarter in particular is worth hard mulliganing for; as of this writing, it represents a 10% increase in win rate if you start the game with it in hand. If you have Foul Egg, you can keep activators like Arms Dealer or Skeletal Sidekick to allow it to attack so it can be traded off. Harbinger of Winter is also reasonable if you already have Construct Quarter in hand.
Against aggro:
Frost Strike can help you stay even in the early game, but again, don't keep it if you don't already have Construct Quarter.
Against slower decks:
Thassarian is fine to keep against control if your hand is otherwise good.
Popular Matchups
Archetype names link to highlights of games against that deck from my stream.
Death Knight
Frost DK- Even
You’re fighting for board until you can start going face. It’s generally correct to value trade your opponent’s minions in the early game to prevent them from getting value from their Construct Quarter. Once you get to the late game, start counting backwards from the Frostwyrm’s Fury turns; this deck has no taunts and no healing outside of generated cards (and sometimes Astalor), so you can often math out when you should start ignoring their minions and sending everything to the face.
Unholy DK- Favored
This matchup is similar to the mirror, with two notable exceptions. One is that Unholy can generate taunts, which can cut down on your damage output. The other is that you have Frostwyrm’s Fury and they don’t, which makes it much more difficult for them to end the game, since they need a board that can attack with Grave Strength. Get in chip damage when you can while keeping board control, and prioritize burn from Nerubian Vizier and Frost Strike to go over the taunts leading up to the Fury turns.
Blood DK- Slightly Unfavored
Once you know it’s Blood, you need to turn on the gas. The longer the game goes, the more likely they are to find things like Gnome Munchers and Vampiric Blood. Brann into Marrow Manipulator will usually provide an opportunity to chunk down their life total, since they don’t tend to go wide on board. Keep an eye out for removal spells to get through the Gnome Munchers without having to trade through them. Brann into School Teacher can also provide some burst in the late game to get over the line.
Rogue
Miracle Rogue- Favored
As long as the rogue doesn’t get the absolute nuts, you should be able to stall long enough to whittle them down and freeze their giant minions with Frostwyrm’s Fury. Make sure to go wide as often as you can, since Rogue doesn’t deal with wide boards efficiently, which can force them to waste resources that they need to go off to maximize value from Sinstone Graveyard and Draka.
Shaman
Evolve Shaman- Favored
Your primary concern against Evolve Shaman is surviving the early turns, especially if they get an early Goldshire Gnoll evolve. Look for single target removal like Obliterate and Asphyxiate from Nerubian Vizier and School teacher to deal with evolved Gnolls in the mid-game. Once the Shaman reaches five mana, make sure to factor in Bloodlust in determining how much of their board you need to trade off to stave off lethal damage. If you can survive to play Frostwyrm’s Fury, you should have several turns where you can do more or less whatever you want, which should allow you to ultimately close out the game.
Conclusion
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