Igne, the Iron Hymn -- Death Knight (Hearthstone)

This post is part a series wherein I've been designing Hero cards for Battlegrounds heroes who lack direct representation in Hearthstone proper -- or did at the time of publishing.

The Finished Product

The Process

Conceptually, this was the easiest of these designs to nail down, by far. It was clear that Igne was going the be the Death Knight in this cycle, and her Battlegrounds identity already lent itself to an identity I wanted to explore -- hand buff Death Knight. Furthermore, I decided almost immediately that I wanted her to echo release Cariel, Lightforged and Rokara, the Valorous by being a 7-drop with a weapon-equipping battlecry.

The weapon in question, while not quite as flavorful as Cariel and Rokara's -- I invented this one out of whole cloth, to my knowledge -- still helps demonstrate how I imagine hand buff DK working -- their buffs are stolen strength from minions on the field. That also helped crystalize the run choices for this package, as stealing vitality easily lends itself to at least a single Unholy and Blood pip. The fact this would make the deck incompatible with the soon-to-release plague package was a coincidental upside.

I played it very safe with the Hero Power, and made it more or less just a buff to the base one, with a thematic update. While it's still quite powerful, I would have liked to completely transform it into something that doesn't impact the board (or just give the token Rush!) , but Death Knight is a class which is very attached to it's HP. It needs it in order to provide consistent corpses, and didn't think this was the appropriate design to test how it would perform if given a thematically different HP. It also wasn't necessary, since summoning proto-drakes was completely in flavor for a Vyrkyr like Igne.

It's quite possible a 2/2 with charge and upside is too powerful on the face of it, and would be ok with scaling it back down to a 1/1 if development demonstrated that was necessary. I just wanted to aim high for what would be the first DK hero card. I also think that Blood DKs could really use another form of lethality, but that's another question altogether.

No third rune because I wanted to leave it playable in Rainbow DK. If there were to be one, it would probably by BBU, but wouldn't mind BUU. Also depends on how Igne ends up being characterized, assuming she ends up further explored as a character.

My Rating

7/10

A fun, powerful design that I consider appealing, and which has basically no ability to crack the game open. The "wow" factor and the brewing potential are a bit low, though, so falls short of full marks.

(Yes I would have said anytihng to put another 7 on this card.)