This is gonna be a long one, so bear with me.
I think we can all agree that this expansion has been a mixed bag, at best. Perusing by this forum, we can find a lot of people complaining about several things, as usual – and I know I have my share of complaints as well (too combo-centric meta, Mage skeleton is bonkers, locations are overpowered and nigh-uncounterable). This is a very complain-y forum, so this happens most expansions, and thus it’s nothing out of the ordinary: last expansion, we were all whining about the endless Mech deluge from Mage and Paladin, and then it was all the 40-card decks turning matches into veritable marathons.
Unlike most other expansions, though, I think the main thread here, going through all complaints, is a single card. The one and only, the extremely overpowered Sire Denathrius.
Now, I will give kudos to Blizzard for making it available for everybody, so it feels a little less unfair to lose to this card EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I guess I could run it too, and turn all matches into a race to see who gets Denathrius out first! But let’s see why it’s so overpowered.
At 10 mana, it’s an expensive card that pretty much ends your turn unless you’re Druid or you’re running some weird shenanigans with Rogue. 10 mana should give you something that can turn the match around, and a 10/10 beatstick with Lifesteal is a decent bargain for a neutral, 10-mana card. Compare it with Deathwing (12/12 and the strongest beatstick out there, but with a potentially crippling drawback), Lokholar (8/8, rush and windfury) or Raid Boss Onyxia (8/8, Rush and Immune for a while). Of course, nobody runs Denathrius for its stats, impressive as they are.
Denathrius also has one of the most bonkers, exploitable, OP Battlecries ever. It can be endlessly infused to deal ever-increasing amounts of damage all over the board, including to the enemy player. And the devs went all out in making sure that most classes had tons and tons of disposable critters this expansion, so Denathrius can get really big and fat before dropping and OTKing you, or at the very least, turning around a match –remember, the little bugger has Lifesteal, so all that massive damage also heals its owner.
And so, here’s a quick list of how some classes are abusing this specific card:
- Like I said, Mage Skeleton is bonkers. The most common variant has three cards that deal massive damage from hand (Mordresh and Kel’Thuzad as well), which is really a problem for reasons I’ll get to later on, yet somehow Denathrius is the most OP out of all three (I personally despise Mordresh, but that’s something for another time).
- Druid is well-known for their ability to summon lots of smaller minions. In addition, they have Capture Coldtooth Mine which flat out lets them draw Sire Denathrius, no if or buts. There’s also potential for Brann/Denathrius, since they can go up to 20 mana.
- Warlock can also summon a good amount of imps and they have plenty of cards that get stronger the more minions they have, so you fall into a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t scenario with them: either kill the imps and infuse Denathrius (and Rafaam!), or let them live and get a 10/10 on the board by turn 3/4.
- Shaman doesn’t actually benefit all that much from Denathrius. However, it is one of a handful of 10-cost cards and Shaman does benefit from transforming their minions into more costly ones. The endgame for that is, you guessed it, Denathrius (the second strongest minion in Standard as of right now).
- Demon Hunter is probably the class least likely to use Denathrius, but they still can summon tons of small critters with the likes of Wings of Hate, Coordinated Strike, Battleword Vanguard and others, plus several other cards that predate Infuse and benefit from dying minions. Denathrius here works as a coup de grace or as a way to recover if you’ve somehow managed to last until turn 10 and they’re running low on health.
- Paladin? Also lots of small creatures. They can also buff their creatures in hand, which is great if you have a large 10-mana card that likes hanging out there.
So anyway, what’s the solution? One thing would be to counter these hand cards. Unfortunately, unless you’re Rogue, Warlock (god bless Immolate) or a very specific type of Priest, you get just three cards –three LEGENDARY cards, at that– that can mess with your opponent’s hand, none of which are specific enough.
- Theotar, the Mad Duke is a 4-cost, 3/5 minion that lets you swap cards with your opponent, which is pretty cool. You also get a choice (out of three, but I’ll take it) as to which card to grab. It’s also the cheapest of the three and probably has the least amount of drawback (in that you can actually give a dud to your opponent and get Sire Denathrius or some other OP card in return).
Unfortunately, Theotar is also the newest Legendary in this list, so lots of people don’t have it yet. - Shadow Hunter Vol’Jin is a 5-cost, 3/6 minion that allows you to swap a minion with something in its owner’s hand, potentially bypassing Battlecry effects. It can seriously disrupt combo decks, but it has two big drawbacks: for starters, your opponent has to have a minion (duh), but also, you’re potentially allowing them to drop a minion larger than you can handle, like, say, a 10/10 Legendary with Lifesteal. You also can’t choose which minion to trade in your opponent’s hand, so there’s a good chance you’ll actually make them drop something else instead of Denathrius.
On the flip side, this is an uncraftable card that everybody gets. So there’s that. - Finally, there’s Mutanus. 7-cost, 4/4, and this bad boy straight eats up one of the cards in your opponent’s hand. The benefit is that you don’t need to deal with anything else, and your opponent now has a 14/14 minion (if you got lucky) to handle. The drawback is that it costs 7 mana and if you’re running behind in the game, you may simply be unable to drop a minion that lacks Rush, Taunt or anything that can protect you.
Mutanus is NOT an uncraftable card, but it’s been around for a while so it’s a lot more common to see.
So that’s all you get to disrupt your opponent’s combos. Three lousy, expensive, Legendary cards. This would be bad enough in any other meta, but in this particular one, where everybody is running so many Infuse cards, nagas and other things that benefit from hanging around your hand, it’s flat out not enough. Remember Mage? They have three big minions that deal lots of damage to your face, and you have three counters to that. One unlucky shot and you’re doomed. And like I said, it’s not just Mage – nearly every class has some way to make a combo work, and there’s just two or three classes that can disrupt them (and not even consistently).
The devs have, of course, chosen to have this expansion play out this way. And that’s ok, I guess, even if it feels a bit boring at times. But you know what would be really nice? If we didn’t all have to run Sire Denathrius (or steal it from your opponent’s hand somehow) because it’s the one card that goes with everything, benefits from all decks, and is OP. We already have Prince Renathal occupying the “everybody has this bloody card in their deck” slot.