One of Hearthstone’s expansions was March of the Lich King. If you are familiar with World of Warcraft (or if you know what a lich is) you would expect the expansion to be chock-full of Deathrattle minions. And you’d be right. A number of extremely powerful new cards with that ability were introduced.
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However, the new Lich King class doesn’t actually have the most powerful Deathrattle minions, or at least not enough of them to make the class competitively viable. Still, the influx of Deathrattle minions with this expansion makes this an excellent time to see who the is the true king of the Deathrattles in Hearthstone.
10 Mailbox Dancer
By all rights, Mailbox Dancer should be a meme card. It has silly art and an effect that is nearly symmetrical. However, it turns out that Rogue makes better use of Coins than any other class, and one deck in particular can turn Mailbox Dancer into one of the game’s most dangerous cards: Miracle Rogue.
The coins Mailbox Dancer generates can be used in consort with other low-cost cards to create massive minions with the Sinstone Graveyard location and a weapon with 20 or more attack with Necrolord Draka. Miracle Rogue was hit with heavy nerfs, but Mailbox Dancer should still be a key contributor if the deck survives.
9 Infectious Ghoul
One of the biggest advantages of Deathrattle minions is that they leave something behind if your opponent tries to clear your board. Infectious Ghoul takes that to a whole new level. If you can get several of them in play at the same time, it can quickly become impossible for your opponent to get rid of them.
And with a 5/4 statline, Infectious Ghoul is large enough to threaten lethal quickly. Its biggest advantage is that it is extremely annoying, and sometimes that’s the best thing a card can be.
8 Taelan Fordring
Cards that allow you to search your deck for something specific — often called “tutors” — always have the potential to be powerful, and Taelan Fordring is no exception. It turns out that the most expensive minion in your deck will often be a card you want to have in your hand.
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Additionally, having Divine Shield and Taunt makes Taelen a surprisingly good defensive option, meaning you aren’t open for a counterattack while searching for your win condition. Since his playability relies on other cards being strong, Taelan Fordring won’t always have a place in the meta. But his unique Deathrattle means he always has the potential to see play.
7 Burning Blade Acolyte
Burning Blade Acolyte is too slow to see play normally. Five mana for 1/1 in stats is obviously a horrible deal, even if you get a 5/8 with Taunt after a delay. But if you have a way to cheat out Deathrattle minions, or to trigger their effects immediately, the Acolyte becomes a premium card.
That’s why it sees play in Deathrattle Rogue, which can do both of those things with extreme consistency. The deck can also double the effects of its Deathrattes with Snowfall Graveyard, and doing so with the Acolyte will create a wall of Taunts.
6 Mountain Bear
Beast Hunter runs quite a few Deathrattle minions that could have made this list, but Mountain Bear is a true powerhouse. Even when played for its full mana cost, the sheer amount of Taunted stats it creates will often cause opposing aggro decks to concede on the spot.
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And when combined with all of the ways Hunter has to cheat out the Mountain Bear early, the card almost always reads “win the game” against aggressive strategies. Plus, it is tricky to deal with for control decks as well.
5 Chillfallen Baron
Chillfallen Baron is a card that sees play in basically every Death Knight deck, and it’s not hard to understand why. Simply put, it’s one of the strongest draw cards Hearthstone has ever seen. Since the game’s launch, Arcane Intellect — a spell that draws two cards for three mana — has been the baseline for a good draw card.
The Baron also draws you two cards, and it comes with a 2/2 body. The only downside is that the second card is delayed, a tradeoff you’ll be willing to make most of the time. Oh, and Chillfallen Baron is also an Undead, giving it extra synergy with a number of other Death Knight cards. It may not dominate the meta, but perhaps the buffs to the class will push the Baron into prominence.
4 Underking
Underking is a powerful card on its own. It will have an immediate impact on the game when played, giving you armor and killing an enemy minion. But its real power comes from its synergy with Anub’Rekhan, a Legendary that gains you eight armor and makes your next three minions cost armor instead of mana.
This combination of abilities effectively turns the Underking into a one-mana 6/6 with Rush that will give you even more “mana” if it dies. There are few decks that can compete with a board swing that dramatic.
3 Lingering Zombie
Arriving in the March of the Lich King expansion, Lingering Zombie is the sort of card that will be overlooked by inexperienced players. It won’t deal as much damage in a single attack as one drops with more aggressive stats, but its unmatched staying power means it will get far more attacks in on average.
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Additionally, it virtually guarantees that you will have a body on board, which ensures you have a target for your buffs to hit. It is a perfect card for aggressive token decks, slotting easily into the Aggro Druid lists that existed before the expansion.
2 Invincible
Do you remember Bonemare? The undead horse that gave a minion 4/4 in stats and Taunt? Well, Invincible is a Bonemare on steroids. It’s Battlecry and Deathrattle both give a random friendly Undead 5/5 in stats and Taunt. And since it has Reborn, Invincible will trigger its effect three times if you have an Undead alive for it to land on.
The Undead restriction and controlled randomness of Invincible’s effect makes it less versitile than Bonemare, but the raw volume of stats Invincible provides can’t be matched. Besides, if you are running Invincible, you should have built your deck in a way to make the card’s effect consistent.
1 Scourge Illusionist
The Scourge Illusionist is the main reason why Deathrattle Rogue has become a powerful force in the Standard meta. Its ability serves to make all of your other Deathrattle cards better. Hearthstone’s Deathrattle minions often feel over-costed, but a four-mana discount on any card will make it substantially more powerful.
And any card that was reasonably costed before will now be played for far cheaper than it should be. It helps that the Illusionist is itself a Deathrattle, which means all your other Deathrattle synergy cards will also affect the Illusionist itself. It's basically the perfect card for a Deathrattle deck.
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