Hearthstone’s Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion card reveal season is underway! We can expect to see multiple cards revealed on daily basis leading up to the expansion itself.

In this post, I take an in-depth look at Corpsetaker.

Corpsetaker

Corpsetaker is an Epic Neutral card from Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion. It is a four-mana 3/3 minion with a Battlecry to gain Taunt, Divine Shield, Lifesteal, and Windfury, if you have any minions with those keywords in your deck.

Well, that can certainly become one impressive minion!

What does it need to be good, though? A 3/3 Taunt for four mana is not impressive at all. Ironfur Grizzly costs only three mana, and it comes with a Beast tag to boot. It also sees no play whatsoever. Same story with the four-mana 3/3 Divine Shield minion Silvermoon Guardian. None of the keywords alone make Corpsetaker worth playing, it is only through a combination of them that it can be good.

Compared to Wickerflame Burnbristle, Corpsetaker costs one more mana for +1/+1 stats. Wickerflame has Taunt, Divine Shield, and Lifesteal – three of the four keywords available to Corpsetaker, and Wickerflame is not a card that is used in all decks, although it does see regular play.

A combination of two keywords is decent, but it is with three keywords that Corpsetaker starts to shine. That should be the target to get the most out of it.

It’s important to note that if you happen to draw all of the other cards with a specific keyword before playing Corpsetaker, that keyword is no longer available to it. The value of Corpsetaker therefore goes down as you draw more cards from your deck. It is a midgame card.

How easy is it to activate the various keywords on Corpsetaker?

Taunt is a no-brainer for all classes. There are plenty of options, and you can always find a Taunt minion or two to run in a deck – even if it is Dread Corsair in a Pirate deck.

Divine Shield gets trickier. Paladin has a ton of minions available to get that one, such as Wickerflame Burnbristle and Tirion Fordring, and Shaman has Al’Akir the Windlord. The most commonly-used neutral option is Argent Squire, followed by Psych-o-Tron, Sunwalker, and Argent Commander, none of which really see play except for very occasional use. I could imagine some of them seeing play together with Corpsetaker, if better options are not released.

As for Lifesteal, we just don’t know much yet. Paladin has Wickerflame Burnbristle and Chillblade Champion and Warlock has Blood-Queen Lana’thel. That’s it for now.

Windfury is hard to find in playable minions. Al’Akir is the only one that sees play, and for good reason.

Wickerflame Burnbristle and Al’Akir the Windlord are key cards to enabling Corpsetaker: both include three of the four keywords. Alas, if you happen to draw them before your Corpsetaker, you’re out of luck.

It is surprisingly difficult to activate the keywords on Corpsetaker. For most classes, activating many of the keywords involves running cards that would otherwise have no place in the deck, and Corpsetaker is probably not worth it, as its value decreases in the late game when the activators have been drawn from the deck.

The two classes that Corpsetaker fits best with the current card pool are Paladin and Shaman. With Divine Shield being pushed as a central mechanic for Paladin, Corpsetaker looks quite powerful in decks that make extensive use of the mechanic.

Many Control decks would be interested in a four-mana 3/3 Wickerflame Burnbristle to help defend against aggro, but getting Divine Shield and Lifesteal does not look like an easy task for most classes.

Overall, Corpsetaker has the potential to be a really strong minion. Right now, viable activators to support it are mostly not available. Unless a number of cards with relevant keywords are included in the set, Corpsetaker will mostly see play in Paladin, with some potential in Shaman. However, it is a card that needs to be re-evaluated with each expansion, as sufficient proliferation of the relevant keywords can rapidly bring it to the forefront.