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Knights of the Frozen Throne Power Rankings (Standard)

by - 7 years ago

This is the fifth installement of the Power Rankings after MSoGONiK, WotOG, and UnGoro. I will continue this tradition by evaluating the cards of the newest expansion as well. Just like last time, Nicholas “hsdecktech” will be joining me again on this journey. Once more, there will be a “Controversities” Chapter below the rankings outlining major disagreement in evaluation between Nicholas and me.

To see a full list with all tokens and stuff, please head to @Eldorian‘s Knights of the Frozen Throne Spoiler  List. If you are looking for some tips on card analysis, we invite you to check out Card Reviews – What I Learned from Card Reviews – What I Learned from WotOG and ONiK. If you want to share this one, the short link is bit.ly/FrozenThronePR.

A detailed explanation of how the ranks are defined is presented at the end of this post. Here are the rules in short:

  1. I will update this post after every subsequent release.
  2. The rank of each card can change in this process.
  3. Ranking is for Standard play mode and competitive play only. 

Edit: It is a couple days into release and, though it is still very early, we have started to see the metagame shape up a bit. Accordingly, we have adjusted our power rankings a bit. We try to be cautious when assessing early metagames, as things tend to shift rapidly in the early days as players explore what the set has to offer. Still, we feel comfortable with the changes we have made. Check back often because we will continue to update the rankings as the meta continues to flesh itself out.

Knights of the Frozen Throne Power Rankings

(Last update: August 19th, 2017 – early release)

☆☆☆☆☆: EXCELLENT / STAPLE

☆☆☆☆:  GOOD / COMPETITIVELY VIABLE

☆☆☆: DECENT / NICHE PICK

☆☆: POOR / TOO SITUATIONAL

☆: UNPLAYABLE


A/B: ARCHETYPE DEFINING / BUILD-AROUND

C/T: COUNTER / TECH  CHOICE


Annex I: About Power Rankings: My Take on Card Reviews Explained

I might evaluate cards differently to what you think because the evaluations reflect my personal opinions based on my knowledge of the game. If you disagree I am happy to hear your point in the comments below or @OtakuMZ1978. I will try to respond to all inquiries and take into consideration to change my rank of the card in question.

All evaluations will be made with Standard play mode and competitive play in mind. This is no ranking for neither Arena nor Wild, please remember this when reading. I will sort cards categories (see at bottom of the article). They will be sorted by mana cost from low to high. There is a changelog directly below the actual ranking above the category explanations at the bottom of this page.

Annex II: Ranking Categories

☆☆☆☆☆ (5 stars) Excellent: Cards that are top-notch or potentially overpowered. Most decks would like to run them, e.g. Dr. Boom.

☆☆☆☆ (4 stars) Good: Superior cards that will very likely be seen play frequently, e.g. Annoy-o-Tron, Harvest Golem.

☆☆☆ (3 stars) Decent: Cards that normally do not make the cut for competitive play but are overall well-designed and might fit into specific decks. These cards can be powerful in Arena though or really viable for newer players but you would not likely see them in tournaments.  Also, vanilla cards such as Chillwind Yeti fall into this category.

☆☆ (2 stars) Poor: Underwhelming and/or over-costed cards. These cards have inferior stats and/or underwhelming effects and will not see competitive play, e.g. Voodoo Doctor. Also grouped in this category are cards, that seem to be good at first glance. Yet, their effects are too situational so that most of the time, you will not be able to pull them off (e.g. Ghaz’rilla). The latter can arguably be fun and even powerful IF their effects go off. In any case, these cards I like to call “what-if cards” are so unreliable that they render themselves unusable in competitive play. Feel free to raise these cards to a “build-around” card or just have fun with!

(1 star) Unplayable: Straight out bad stats, poor card design or simply useless cards that are even too bad for casual play? Do you have them in your deck? Delete Hearthstone! 😉 These cards you would not and should never put in your deck unless for fun or I missed something and the cards are sorted wrong, e.g. Magma Rager. If so, please leave me a comment! Okay, one exception here: you want to troll your opponent so that he thinks you are the worst Hearthstone player alive! 😆

A/B: Archetype Defining / Build-Around*: Cards that are only viable if you build your deck around them, e.g. Grim Patron.

C/T: Counter / Tech Choice*: Cards that mostly have underwhelming stats but are highly useful to counter specific Cards or to Play against a very uniform meta, e.g. Eater of Secrets

* The cards that appear under A/B and C/T will also be represented under 5* to 1* ratings according to their suspected power level when included or played in the right deck.

 

 


Martin "OtakuMZ" Z.

Real life physician and afterhour card battler. Martin "OtakuMZ" contributes to the Hearthstone team of BlizzPro since late 2015. Additionally, he contributes analytic articles for Hearthstone and Gwent as a member of Fade2Karma and in his collumn on the Gwentlemen site. He is best known for his infographics which can be accessed at a glance at https://www.facebook.com/hsinfographics and https://www.facebook.com/gwentinfographics


0 responses to “Knights of the Frozen Throne Power Rankings (Standard)”

  1. Andrew Owen says:

    You refer to “Animated Berserker” as “Animated Armor” in the controversies section.