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 Light’s Sorrow.
Light’s Sorrow
Light’s Sorrow is an epic Paladin class card from Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion. It is a four-mana 1/4 weapon that gains +1 Attack after a friendly minion loses Divine Shield.
A 1/4 weapon is obviously bad. Light’s Justice bad. Not worth one mana bad.
Losing one Divine Shield does not make it a lot better. 2/4 is still worthless. Lose two Divine Shields, and we can start talking. 3/4 is pretty good. 4/4 or beyond – that’s spectacular!
OK, how can you start popping those Divine Shields, then?
Paladin has access to a number of minions with Divine Shield:
- Tirion Fordring
- Bolvar, Fireblood
- Argent Commander
- Sunwalker
- Psych-o-Tron
- C’Thun’s Chosen
- Corpsetaker (conditional)
- Silvermoon Guardian
- Tol’Vir Stoneshaper (conditional in Elemental decks)
- Scarlet Crusader
- Wickerflame Burnbristle
- Argent Squire
Paladin can also give Divine Shield to minions in multiple ways:
- Grimestreet Protector
- Steward of Darkshire
- Argent Protector
- Selfless Hero
- Hand of Protection
Many of these cards will obviously not see play, but there have been various Aggro Paladin builds that have focused on Divine Shields, especially giving them to minions with Steward of Darkshire. If you really want to take them all away, there’s always Blood Knight to do that.
While it is possible to take those Divine Shields away, do you really want to? Minions with Divine Shield are resistant to area-of-effect damage and can take valuable trades.
Sure, you can let the game progress as it will and hold Light’s Sorrow equipped waiting to be buffed, but that would be a terrible waste of tempo: you’re spending four mana to get that weapon equipped, you want it to get to work to protect your minions.
Furthermore, Light’s Sorrow has some fierce competition: Rallying Blade. If you want to get value from Light’s Sorrow on the turn you play it, you need to have some Divine Shields that you are ready to pop. Well, if you have those, why not play Rallying Blade instead and buff all those minions instead of improving your weapon a little? If you’re in no hurry to gain value from Light’s Sorrow, why are you playing it?
Even if we turn this around and want to use the weapon to hit face and not care about the minions, say we’re being a really aggressive face deck, buffing the minions with Rallying Blade still looks better.
Rallying Blade is a Battlecry though, and Light’s Sorrow has a continuous effect. You can keep playing more Divine Shield minions every turn and increase the strength of the weapon little by little. I don’t think this will make the card strong enough to see play.
A fast deck does not want to slowly buff up Light’s Sorrow. A slow deck does not have the numbers to really buff it up. I find it difficult to find a good place for it, especially when cards such as Rallying Blade (great Divine Shield synergy), Truesilver Champion (kills minions on curve), and Vinecleaver (great Steward of Darkshire synergy) exist.