hearthstone Roll the Bones Reveal: Knights of the Frozen Throne

[Zadina 923]

A rare Rogue spell, called Roll the Bones, has been revealed by PcGamer.

This is definitely an interesting and ambitious card, that has the potential to promote new types of Rogue decks. It also follows the 'Repeat' theme that cards like Defile and Spreading Plague will introduce in Knights of the Frozen Throne.

(Image: PcGamer)

Rogue isn't a class that lacks draw, thanks to cards like Sprint (which isn't really used anymore) and Mimic Pod, while it always worked well with Gadgetzan Auctioneer. A first question that arises is if Roll the Bones is enough to dethrone Auctioneer in the decks that will include it.

Deathrattle Rogue kinda died when Unearthed Raptor was rotated out of Standard. However, Roll the Bones has the potential to bring this deck back. Rogue already has some decent class cards with the Deathrattle mechanic like Journey Below, Undercity Huckster and Southsea Squidface. Put N'Zoth, the Corruptor into the mix and we might have Deathrattle Rogue 2.0.

Roll the Bones could also find its place in Miracle Rogue, along with cards like Xaril, Poisoned Mind, Sherazin, Corpse Flower and Bloodmage Thalnos. It is unsure, though, how it will work with Auctioneer if a Deathrattle card is drawn and the spell is recast: will Auctioneer trigger again or not?

Lastly, this new spell can promote a Jade Deathrattle Rogue deck with the help of Jade Swarmer and Aya Blackpaw. As always with most revealed cards, we will have to wait until it is actually played to evaluate properly this card's potential.

For a full list of previously revealed cards, as well as all of the information about the new expansion, check out our Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion hub.

[KingMe 289]

N'Zoth Rouge was one of my favorite decks during TOG. Maybe KFT can revive that old flame, who knows, but this card is definitely a good start. 

[Allegro 40]

Why are we here? Because we're here....

 

This plus Gadgetzan Auctioneer could be killer

Edited August 3, 2017 by Allegro

[Taan 46]

All "repeat"-cards seemed very powerful so far...but this one...I don't know...

I played a lot of Jade-Rouge recently (including N'Zoth, the Corruptor). This deck includes 7 Deathrattle-Minions (which is a bit more then the usual Jade-Rogue)...this is not even a 30% chance of triggering Roll the Bones.

The question is, how many deathrattles you have to include in a deck to make this work...half of it? This seems pretty forced, since Backstab, Eviscerate, Vilespine Slayer or SI:7 Agent are often auto-includes.

In the best case you draw two cards for 2 mana and in the (more likely) worst case you draw one card for two mana by spending one card (which is pretty bad).

 

43 minutes ago, Allegro said:

This plus Gadgetzan Auctioneer could be killer

And this will not work so well, I think. Gadgetzan Auctioneer needs a lot of cheap spells, while Roll the Bones needs a LOT of deathrattle-minions.

Edited August 3, 2017 by Taan

[Allegro 40]

its the "cast this again" that makes me think it would work well with the Auctioneer. That "cast again" would activate his ability again, so for every deathrattle minion you draw, you get two more draws.  You wouldnt necessarily need a deck full of deathrattles to get good value from that.  Although, would the minion drawn from his ability count for re-activating the spell?

 

I'm going to crunch some numbers on that to see what the possible outcomes would be. 

[Migol 433]

Honestly I'm going to call red herring here.   Even in a dedicated deathrattle deck you have only so many cards with the mechanic often, this is going to frequently be a dud.    

[Taan 46]

8 minutes ago, Allegro said:

its the "cast this again" that makes me think it would work well with the Auctioneer. That "cast again" would activate his ability again, so for every deathrattle minion you draw, you get two more draws.  You wouldnt necessarily need a deck full of deathrattles to get good value from that.  Although, would the minion drawn from his ability count for re-activating the spell?

Okay, I actually didn't thought about that. But for the re-activating only the cards should count, that you actually draw from "Read Roll the Bones".

[Valks 2,375]

3 hours ago, KingMe said:

N'Zoth Rouge was one of my favorite decks during TOG. Maybe KFT can revive that old flame, who knows, but this card is definitely a good start. 

Deathrattle Dragon Rogue is coming back!

[VaraTreledees 138]

Hmm.  I feel that in jade rogue, mimic pod is just better, sure you only "draw" one card, but it will probably be far more impactful to get another jade off of the mimic if you hit one of your death rattles as opposed to just drawing a second card.  While this card is quite neat, it just seems that mimic pod will pretty much always be better (especially because a lot of the death rattles rogues like to use are things like huckster and loothoarder that also generate extra cards so getting a second one of them off the pod is almost as good if not better then just drawing an additional card).  In fact, it isn't even clear is it would ever be better to draw a second card as opposed to the extra value you get from having an additional copy of your death rattle minion, and that tends to be the "best" case scenerio, I know you can really high roll roll the bones and get more then 2 draws, but really the chances of that actually happening are pretty low.  Mimic pod just seems better in almost every situation.  The only possible way this card could be better is just the chance for the extreme high roll in miracle rogue + it is easier to cycle with auctioneer (that is assuming it triggers auctioneer twice but getting 4 draws off of 2 mana is nuts).

Edited August 3, 2017 by VaraTreledees

[Bozonik 94]

6 hours ago, Allegro said:

its the "cast this again" that makes me think it would work well with the Auctioneer. That "cast again" would activate his ability again, so for every deathrattle minion you draw, you get two more draws.

It's unclear whether this would happen.

The For argument goes: there's difference between casting a spell and playing a spell card (as with the difference between playing a minion and summoning a minion). Since the text reads 'cast' not 'play' the second cast would in theory trigger Auctioneer (which says cast) but not Questing Adventurer (which says play a card).

The Against argument goes: Yes, but Yogg Saron also casts lots of spells and they don't trigger Auctioneer. Auctioneer specifies 'whenever YOU cast a spell'. With Yogg, you play a minion and then minion casts lots of spells. With Roll The Bones you cast a spell (which triggers Auctioneer) and then potentially the spell casts itself again (which doesn't trigger Auctioneer).

My guess is the latter.

[Keizoku 185]

11 hours ago, Migol said:

Honestly I'm going to call red herring here.  Even in a dedicated deathrattle deck you have only so many cards with the mechanic often, this is going to frequently be a dud.    

Wrathion says hello and heartily agrees with you. Now, the situation isn't entirely the same here, but as far as Dragon decks are concerned he is way too hit-and-miss to use. 

[Valks 2,375]

On 8/4/2017 at 7:08 AM, Keizoku said:

Wrathion says hello and heartily agrees with you. Now, the situation isn't entirely the same here, but as far as Dragon decks are concerned he is way too hit-and-miss to use. 

Different situation somewhat, but definitely a similar outcome. Good comparison, tbh.