Knights of the Frozen Throne card review: Prince Taldaram

Hearthstone’s Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion card reveal season has started! We can expect to see multiple cards revealed on daily basis for the next couple of weeks leading up to the expansion itself.

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

Prince Taldaram

Prince Taldaram is a legendary neutral card from Knights of the Frozen Throne expansion. It is a three-mana 3/3 minion with a Battlecry to transform into a 3/3 copy of a minion if your deck has no three-cost cards in it.

The wording of this card is unique and different from the wording of Faceless Manipulator, for example. However, Hearthstone is notorious for its inconsistent card texts, so it is uncertain whether there is any real difference.

I assume that you need to choose a minion that is currently on the board as the target of the transformation effect. If it works in some other way, the evaluation can be different.

Prince Taldaram is clearly a combo card first and foremost. It could serve as a copy of a powerful effect, such as Tirion or Cairne, but the cost of not running any three-cost cards is a hefty price to pay for a mid-game threat.

A combo deck can potentially ignore the downside of Prince Taldaram: if you draw your entire deck anyway, you will also draw any three-cost cards from it, and therefore Prince Taldaram’s effect will be active when needed. This is good, as the list at the end of this review shows that there are lots of good three-cost cards in the game, and building a deck without any of them would be problematic.

Combo decks can also be interrupted, especially by Dirty Rat. Should Prince Taldaram be pulled from hand prematurely, the combo is rendered unusable. Alas, Dirty Rat is not that common right now, but its popularity depends on the overall meta, so we will see.

However, what kind of combo deck would want Prince Taldaram? As the statline is always 3/3, the combo deck has to rely on the card’s effect instead of its statline. Right now it is hard to find a combo where Prince Taldaram would play a role, but such combos may emerge.

Looking for a combo deck

One potential candidate is Exodia Mage. Prince Taldaram can give the Mage an additional Sorcerer’s Apprentice for the infinite Fireball combo: it can fill in for a Sorcerer’s Apprentice that was pulled from hand by Dirty Rat, or it can be used instead of a Sorcerer’s Apprentice or a Molten Reflection that is still in the deck – as long as there are no three-mana cards left in the deck.

Another potential candidate is Priest. Spell combos based on Prophet Velen are always an option, and creating another copy of Velen can be devastating. Currently this needs some setup that is very prone to interrupts, as Velen and Taldaram cost a total of 10 mana, so Mind Blast would have to cost nothing. A couple of Radiant Elementals could achieve that, but they would need to survive a turn for the combo to come available. There needs to be something more for a combo Priest to become a thing.

Rogue is another potential combo deck: it just has not had the cards to pull off a good combo as of late. Without discounts on minions, Rogue has a hard time pulling off good Malygos combos with Malygos alone, much less with another three-cost minion as part of the package. Rogue can discount spells, but getting the minions down is difficult. Malygos + two coins + Taldaram + Preps + some damage spells? At least two coins would be needed for the combo, so it does not look like a good candidate simply based on the huge number of cards needed, almost a full hand just for the combo.

Therefore, with the current card pool the best role for Prince Taldaram is a stand-in Sorcerer’s Apprentice? We’ll have to wait and see, because these combo-enabling cards can always become relevant as the card pool changes. Taldaram looks interesting especially for Mage, Priest, Rogue, and Warlock, as they have traditionally been able to come up with spell-based combos.

Edit: An interaction I originally missed: Blood of the Ancient one, Innervate, and Taldaram can result in a 30/30 Ancient One for 12 mana.

Appendix: Some key three-mana cards

Druid:

  • Feral Rage
  • Jade Blossom
  • Savage Roar

Hunter:

  • Eaglehorn Bow
  • Animal Companion
  • Deadly Shot
  • Kill Command
  • Unleash the Hounds
  • Cloaked Huntress
  • Rat Pack

Mage:

  • Arcane Intellect
  • Frost Nova
  • All Mage Secrets!
  • Volcanic Potion
  • Kabal Courier
  • Kirin Tor Mage
  • Manic Soulcaster

Paladin:

  • Rallying Blade
  • Divine Favor
  • Aldor Peacekeeper
  • Steward of Darkshire
  • Wickerflame Burnbristle

Priest:

  • Shadow Word: Death
  • Curious Glimmerroot
  • Thoughtsteal
  • Kabal Talonpriest

Rogue:

  • Fan of Knives
  • Mimic Pod
  • Edwin VanCleef
  • Shaku, the Collector
  • SI:7 Agent
  • Plague Scientist

Shaman:

  • Feral Spirit
  • Hex
  • Lava Burst
  • Lightning Storm
  • Spirit Echo
  • Hot Spring Guardian
  • Mana Tide Totem

Warlock:

  • Shadow Bolt
  • Darkshire Councilman

Warrior:

  • Shield Block
  • Frothing Berserker
  • Ravaging Ghoul

Neutral:

  • Acolyte of Pain
  • Coldlight Oracle
  • Gluttonous Ooze
  • Questing Adventurer
  • Stonehill Defender
  • Tar Creeper
  • Vicious Fledgling
  • Some key Pirates and Murlocs