Blizzard's Original Ideas for Hearthstone's Death Knights with Mike Donais & Dean Ayala
IGN's Cam Shea had a chance to talk with Mike Donais and Dean Ayala about Hearthstone's Death Knights. They brought along several early concepts of what Death Knight cards could have been and some in-dev artwork. See our recap of the interview below, along with plenty of awesome concepts.
The only Death Knight info in the following section is information not present on the cards towards the end of this post.
- Lord Jaraxxus is one of their favourite cards. For a long time they wanted to make more cards like him.
- They didn't like the weird interactions with Lord Jaraxxus, so they needed to design a new card type to keep it a clean experience.
- Early on they decided to not change your health total and to give you armor to help make them more playable.
- Sometimes cards don't change much from their early design other than numbers. This was not the case with Death Knights - they all changed.
- An early Valeera the Hollow hero power "Discovered a secret from any class".
- An early Deathstalker Rexxar hero power was "Deal 2 damage to all enemies".
- Zombeasts originally were able to get minions from any class. "Getting some of the warrior taunts was just a bit too weird".
- Deathstalker Rexxar had a Battlecry that was to craft and summon a Zombeast.
- They like how Bloodreaver Gul'dan will grow in strength over time as more Demons are added to the game.
- An early hero power from Shadowreaper Anduin saw him resurrect a random friendly minion that died during the game.
- Shadowform working with Shadowreaper Anduin was a consideration.
- Originally, Frost Lich Jaina gave your Elementals in-deck, on the field, and in your hand +2/+2.
- "It was a bit weird, because sometimes you would summon elementals later and they wouldn't get the +2/+2"
- Another version of Frost Lich Jaina saw her summoning 2 Water Elemental.
- An early hero power from Frost Lich Jaina saw scaling based on killing minions. Each time it killed a minion, it would gain an extra damage. It did not summon the Water Elemental.
Hero Concept Artwork
A few pieces of concept artwork were provided for Death Knights.
Death Knight Card Design Concepts
Sixteen early concepts of Hearthstone's Death Knights can be found below. This was before they had their special hero card backgrounds.
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Posted Sep 17, 2017 (Frozen Throne)I like how most community created cards are better than those early design concepts. Like what were they thinking with some of those haha
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Posted Sep 17, 2017 (Frozen Throne)"Weaponguy"
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Posted Sep 17, 2017 (Frozen Throne)And I am sitting here, dreaming about a 10th Death Knight for a new class...^^
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Posted Sep 17, 2017 (Frozen Throne)Damn the priest players are defensive aren't they. I absolutely loved priest and mainly shadow priest, I have like 1000+ priest wins from pre ungoro when priest was never above tier 3, but razakus priest just takes a dump on the other control decks and is completely binary to play against. People aren't wrong in saying it is far from a skill intensive deck, it's an rng shit show that relies 100% on drawing your deck in the right order and just arbitrarily beating any deck slower then pirate warrior and less insane then jade Druid. In theory following the shadowform archetype and giving shadowpriest an actual synergistic card was great, in practice deck refining has reduced it to being just another overtuned control and midrange killer, something this game doesn't need any more of.
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Posted Sep 16, 2017 (Frozen Throne)Everyone's commenting on all the various early and experimental stages of the DK cards (which I mean, are still super interesting don't get me wrong) while I'm just sitting here loving the concept art and seeing how their visual ideas evolved into what we have now.
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Posted Sep 16, 2017 (Frozen Throne)I really like the twins. Kinda „Two parts spell“... :not_bad:
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)Deathknight cards are awesome. I can't play the game right now because of jades crushing any creative deck but I will return to it in December when proper nerfs will arrive. /s
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)The nerfs on the 18th will be more effective than you think.
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)rexxar summoning a zombeast as a battlecry would be much better than dealing 2 damage to the enemy minions. By turn 6, unless you're playing against heavy aggro, or you meticulously influenced the board so that the enemies have 2 health left, the battlecry is useless. At least you would have the fun of RNG and actually turning the tide of a game, giving your opponent something to react to. 6 mana craft a zombeast is a little op, but what would be more balanced (and more in the flavor of team 5) would be summon a random zombeast, so you really have no idea what you're gonna get and then you work it to your advantage
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)It is a CONCEPT!
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)I love seeing some of the design process. Seeing the experiments in mechanics gives us a view into how cards come to be. It seems like they consider even the most ridiculous ideas because they could end up being good in the end! Or terrible. Like giving Druid Ultimate Infestation and Spreading Plague alongside the only death knight hero card that doesn't sacrifice anything for power, Malfurion the Pestilent.
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)-
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)-
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)I'd rather take Grave Vengeance over Frostmourne anyday due to the insane sustain.
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)-
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)All DKs should have had this additional ability:
"Deal 5 damage to your opponent for each Jade Idol they have summoned this game."
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)It's unfortunate that Jade Idols are drawn and not summoned then. Feelsbadman.
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)-
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)So shadowreaper anduin wasnt complete aids at some point?
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Posted Sep 15, 2017 (Frozen Throne)All those Priest players hating. Jesus I mean I've played a lot of Priest in the past and Shadowreaper Anduin is by far the least skill intensive deck I've played from the bunch. Maukiepaukie back at it again with some truth saying. Jades deserved a nerf indeed, but damn these Priests to the seven hells.