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Archbishop Benedictus and Sunborne Val'kyr Reveal: Knights of the Frozen Throne

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Archbishop Benedictus and Sunborne Val'kyr were just revealed by IGN and Hearth Gamers

If you've missed any of the previously revealed cards, feel free to check them out on our Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion hub.

Archbishop Benedictus
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Image courtesy of IGN

That's a nice deck you've got there. I think I'll take it. This card certainly is interesting, and double-edged. Against control decks, it'll let you pretty much win any game that goes late, bar perhaps Jade druid (though you could steal them and build your own, err, Jade priest?); against aggro decks, which rarely run things capable of responding to other aggressive decks, it'll be a dead draw that comes a few turns too late anyway. If the meta slows down, this will see play.

Sunborne Val'kyr
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Dull and balanced, this is a solid arena pick if you manage to get the double trigger off, especially on these turns where Flamestrike and Primordial Drake type cards are inbound. Otherwise, I see little reason to run this in constructed over something like Defender of Argus, which gives you reach, more protection through Taunt, and costs 1 less. Sunborne Val'kyr also has that awkward 5/4 stat spread which makes it not so resilient at all for the cost.

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Benedictus the supreme Archbishop!

With the new cards coming to arena, it's like every minion has a soft taunt. These new cards punish aggressive draft- and playstyle, which I am not sure is good.

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15 minutes ago, positiv2 said:

Benedictus the supreme Archbishop!

With the new cards coming to arena, it's like every minion has a soft taunt. These new cards punish aggressive draft- and playstyle, which I am not sure is good.

I see so many WTF moments in the future with that card

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31 minutes ago, Oxygen said:

If the meta slows down, this will see play.

With everything they are doing to push Control back to the fore (and with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, I might add), the meta will slow down.

Enjoy your hour-long "think-'til-rope-deep-fatigue" mirror matches. I know I won't.

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1 hour ago, Keizoku said:

With everything they are doing to push Control back to the fore (and with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, I might add), the meta will slow down.

Enjoy your hour-long "think-'til-rope-deep-fatigue" mirror matches. I know I won't.

Don't worry, as long as they don't do something with jade druid, meta will never be control decks.

It's the main problem with this expansion. They try to make big and flashy control cards that possibly make a long ass fatigue game... but the eternal champion of that game is a druid that exploits a poorly thought mechanic from last year and will easily need zero cards from this set (maybe 1 copy of Spreading Plague or something).

So, as far as it goes, jade druid unchecked will be the new Karazhan shaman, forcing everything to be made for having a not-abysmal winrate against it in order to achieve at least tier2. And keeping 99% of playable KotFT cards away from real gameplay.

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2 hours ago, MvonTzeskagrad said:

Don't worry, as long as they don't do something with jade druid, meta will never be control decks.

It's the main problem with this expansion. They try to make big and flashy control cards that possibly make a long ass fatigue game... but the eternal champion of that game is a druid that exploits a poorly thought mechanic from last year and will easily need zero cards from this set (maybe 1 copy of Spreading Plague or something).

So, as far as it goes, jade druid unchecked will be the new Karazhan shaman, forcing everything to be made for having a not-abysmal winrate against it in order to achieve at least tier2. And keeping 99% of playable KotFT cards away from real gameplay.

Spreading plague is nice, but when I think about Jade druid, the behemoths, the primordial drakes, and other assorted taunts they play, I'm thinking it is more likely they'll pick up that new legendary. Nothing like dropping a wall of taunts on turn 9 to protect you while you pull your Auctioneer into Wild Growth into card draw machine on turn 10.

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8 hours ago, Keizoku said:

With everything they are doing to push Control back to the fore (and with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, I might add), the meta will slow down.

Enjoy your hour-long "think-'til-rope-deep-fatigue" mirror matches. I know I won't.

I guess I'm alone with my excitement. 

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1 hour ago, KingMe said:

I guess I'm alone with my excitement. 

Yes, you are. The majority of HS players are F2P casual players that can spend 1-2 hours per day on it (if that), and they need less hour-long lasting games to finish their daily quest and grab a pack every other day; not more. Especially now that the amount of legendaries par expansion practically doubled.

When the message from the developers becomes a thinly-veiled "Gimme money or f**k off!", don't be surprised when people actually do f**k off!

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I don't think the Meta will slow down to the point that every game will be an hour long. Aggro will always have a place but now it won't be the only thing that wins. Un'goro was pretty much an F you to control players so I'm glad that we get more things with this set. I'm pretty sure the 3rd set this year will be more aggressive. 

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8 hours ago, KingMe said:

I guess I'm alone with my excitement. 

It's an interesting card, but also a bit polarizing. In some matchups, the battlecry is pretty much 'win the game'. Single cards shouldn't be able to do that. Playing a game, especially a long one, where you're hugely unfavoured isn't fun. The fewer matchups like that there are, the better imo.

There'll always be some around, like the old freeze mage v control warrior despair. But that just arises from the nature of the archetypes rather than any one card. Stuff like Caverns Below and Jade Idol are single cards that if viable effectively kill off certain archetypes near completely, and shouldn't be printed imo. Not sure this card will quite make it into that category but it isn't far off it.

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On 7/31/2017 at 8:05 AM, SithLordOfSnark said:

The Bishop looks like it could get out of control and quick. The stat line isn't something to scoff at either.

Meh.  He won't be competitively viable.  Priest, especially, is a class that is very reliant on card interaction and diluting your deck will hurt.  A lot.  Like he is super cool, fun and interesting and I absolutely adore him, he simply just isn't good.  Stats are poor for the cost, does nothing the turn he enters play, which is bad for a 7 drop, and really only helps in matches that will go to fatigue.  Even then, it might be hard to get that far if you are drawing a bunch of cards that just don't work well with your deck.  Priest also lacks reliable card draw making this doubly bad.  The matches that will generally go to fatigue will be control warrior, control paladin and mage, the latter of which you can out heal and generally win, the former will give you a bunch of stuff like execute and shield slam that you will have trouble reliably activating. It could be okay vs control paladin, but that really isn't a common match and mind control is a much stronger tech choice at that point.

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On 31/07/2017 at 2:16 AM, Dejo93 said:

I see so many WTF moments in the future with that card

Thoughtsteal into a return card from Rogue, double Benedictus - the ultimate counter to Mill Rogue is here.

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