Hearthstone: Lady Deathwhisper Death Knight Frost Deck Guide

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

With the recent addition of the Death Knight as the eleventh class of Hearthstone, Blizzard has also added a lot of fun new cards, mechanics, and reasons for the player base to complain (just like when they added Demon Hunter). One of the cool new cards added to Hearthstone alongside the Death Knight is the legendary minion Lady Deathwhisper, and today we’ll be going over how to build a Death Knight frost deck centered around her!

In this guide I will go over the card, its synergies as well as my personal standard Lady Deathwhisper deck. This Death Knight deck can be quite strong, and in my opinion, quite fun if you like a slow grind like I do.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

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Lady Deathwhisper

First, let’s go over the card of the hour, Lady Deathwhisper herself. She is a four-mana legendary creature with three frost runes, four attack, and three health. She has the deathrattle ability to copy all the frost spells in your hand.

In Hearthstone, generating value is one of the strongest things any deck can do. In physical card games, the sole means of generating value is typically just drawing cards. While Hearthstone also makes use of drawing cards to great effect (my Lady Deathwhisper deck is no exception), it has another avenue of generating value exclusive to digital card games – creating brand new cards in your hand!

This can be of even greater value than simply drawing cards, and it is what makes Lady Deathwhisper such a potentially strong card. At the absolute worst, you get a 4/3 minion for four mana, which is alright but not great. But usually, you are getting one to three cards, which is solid value. In the best-case scenario, she can give you five additional cards for four mana!

Death Knight Runes Mechanic

You may have noticed in the above section that I said Lady Deathwhisper has three frost runes. The Death Knight rune mechanic is something I need to highlight here, as it is central to deck building.

Death Knights have three types of runes: blood (red), frost (blue), and unholy (green). Each Death Knight deck can have a maximum of three runes equipped in any combination of blood, frost, or unholy (three blood, two frost and one unholy, etc.).

Certain Death Knight cards will have a number of runes underneath their mana cost. This determines the minimum number of runes of that type you need to run the card in your deck. Since Lady Deathwhisper requires three frost runes equipped to run her in a deck, that means you cannot run any cards that require blood or unholy runes.

Unsurprisingly, we want to run almost exclusively frost cards anyway given her ability, but it is still worth bringing up. After all, it would be a shame if you crafted another legendary minion for your deck, only to find out it requires three blood runes, rendering it unplayable.

The Lady Deathwhisper Deck (Control Variant)

There are two primary options for building a Lady Deathwhisper frost deck: a control deck or an aggro deck.

Personally speaking, I think the aggro variant is weaker, and the deck I am going to go over in detail is the control variant. While you can build a Lady Deathwhisper aggro deck, the Death Knight has better aggro options, as do most of the other classes. Hence, I think it’s the weaker of the two options.

For my control build, I am going to go over the basic strategies/philosophies behind the deck. Then I am going to give a complete list of my build and go over which cards in the build I personally think are must-includes, as well as which ones are optional. I will break this down by card rarity.

Deck Strategy & Card List

Remember at the start of this guide when I mentioned a slow grind? Well, that is what we (and our opponents) are in for with this deck. The goal behind this deck is to outvalue/outlast our opponents, grinding away at their cards and health.

It’s a classic control deck that relies on making sure you always have access to more cards than your opponent so you can answer any threats you need to while consistently whittling down their health until we win. And this deck is quite good at achieving that objective.

Here is the list of cards that will make it happen (plus a link to the official deck builder if you want to go get a copy of deck’s code to import it directly into Hearthstone):

• Horn of Winter x2
• Icy Touch x2
• Bloodmage Thalnos x1
• Coroner x2
• Deathchiller x2
• Defrost x2
• Frost Strike x2
• Harbinger of Winter x2
• Brann Bronzebeard x1
• Chillfallen Baron x2
• Glacial Advance x2
• Howling Blast x2
• Prince Renathal x1
• Rimefang Sword x2
• Rimescale Siren x1
• Zola the Gorgon x1
• Lady Deathwhisper x1
• Remorseless Winter x2
• Repulsive Gargantuan x2
• Thassarian x1
• Taelan Fordring x1
• Marrow Manipulator x2
• Overseer Frigidara x1
• Frostwyrm’s Fury x2
• Sire Denathrius x1

The Sire Denathrius Combo

First off, I want to address a specific four-card combo I added to the deck that I believe is well worth including but wouldn’t consider a must-include. The combo is centered around Sire Denathrius as both a win con of sorts as well as our only means of healing (which can be clutch in certain games).

Sire Denathrius costs ten mana, has lifesteal, and a battlecry that deals five damage randomly split between enemies (thus gaining us five health via the lifesteal). For every two friendly minions that die while Sire Denathrius is in our hand, the damage of his battlecry goes up by one. This is nice but could be a lot stronger. Hence the combo.

It’s simple, really. Starting turn ten or later, you play Brann Bronzebeard from hand, then play two copies of Horn of Winter (each refunds you two mana crystals), so you are back to ten mana. This lets you play Sire Denathrius the same turn you play Brann Bronzebeard. This means the battlecry is doubled, and suddenly you are going from good damage to massive damage.

This can be a solid finisher in the deck, and the combo can be enabled with either your two original copies of Horn of Winter or by using Lady Deathwhisper and Frost Strike to get more. But as I said, this combo is an optional inclusion, so decide for yourself. That being said, each individual piece is strong on its own.

Cards in the Lady Deathwhisper Deck

Now, let’s take a closer look at each card, sorted by rarity. We’ll go over what value they bring to the deck and whether or not you can replace it with something else if you decide to change up the deck.

Legendary Cards

Prince Renathal (Essential)

My decklist contains 40 cards, which is more than the usual 30 cards for a deck. So it is no surprise that after Lady Deathwhisper, the second auto-include legendary minion in the deck is Prince Renathal.

Yes, Prince Renathal has been nerfed and now only provides +5 health at the start of the game. Nevertheless, +5 health is still a strong bonus, and the main value of including him in the deck is the ability to add ten additional cards.

With so many cards to choose from, having more cards than our opponents is advantageous, especially since this deck is centered around drawing a lot of cards and playing a slow, methodical game. As a result, even with our card draw, we are likely to be ahead or at least relatively even on fatigue if the game reaches that point.

Overseer Frigidara (Essential)

Overseer Frigidara is the third essential legendary for this deck, as she provides incredible value. When we play her, she draws us two spells. If Brann Bronzebeard is on the field, we get four spells! Furthermore, because our deck comprises solely frost spells, she will always activate her second ability, dealing two damage to all enemies (four with Brann).

Given that this deck is all about value and control, the ability to draw two cards and deal damage to all enemies with a single card is simply too good to overlook.

Taelan Fordring

Next up is Taelan Fordring. When Taelan Fordring dies, he draws our highest costing minion, making him a must-have card for the deck, but only if we run the Sire Denathrius combo mentioned above. He is fine on his own, but I run him specifically to help get Sire Denathrius into our hand as early as possible, allowing us to start racking up infuse triggers for his battlecry.

Zola the Gorgon

Zola the Gorgon is a strong card in our deck, but I wouldn’t consider it a must-run. We have many good minions with battlecry or deathrattle that would benefit from an extra copy, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference. Additionally, since Zola is a legendary card, it can be expensive to craft, so weigh the cost against its potential value in the deck.

Brann Bronzebeard

If you choose not to include the Sire Denathrius combo in your deck, then Brann Bronzebeard holds a similar status to Zola – he is very strong, but not a must-include card.

Thassarian

Thassarian is good in our deck, but it is not mandatory to include him. However, given that you get him for free with the prologue, there is no reason not to run him unless you have a card that you would like to include more.

Bloodmage Thalnos

Bloodmage Thalnos is never an auto-include in any deck but is good in almost every deck thanks to his spell damage and card draw. If you already have him, slot him right in. If you don’t, decide for yourself if he’s worth crafting for 1600 dust.

Epic Cards

Frostwyrm’s Fury (Essential)

Frostwyrm’s Fury is our first epic and a definite auto-include. It does cost seven mana, but freezes our opponent’s entire board and has the flexibility to either deal five damage to their face or deal with an annoying minion. This is a great card and a perfect target for our Lady Deathwhisper.

Repulsive Gargantuan

The only other epic in the deck is Repulsive Gargantuan, and its inclusion is debatable. Initially, I didn’t include it, but after facing Druids, Priests, and blood rune Death Knights, I found it be necessary tech against those classes. However, you might have other cards that you would rather run in its place.

Rare Cards

Defrost (Essential)

Defrost is an essential card for this deck. While drawing one card for two mana is decent, we typically have corpses on the board to spend, allowing us to draw two cards for two mana (fantastic value). This card significantly contributes to our strategy of maintaining card advantage and controlling the board, making it a must-have inclusion in our deck.

Deathchiller (Essential)

Deathchiller is our second must-have rare. For two mana, you get a 2/3 body which is a bit hard to remove in the early game, so you can often play it on turn two without much risk of it dying.

Alternatively, you can play it right before a big spell play because it only costs two mana. It’s flexible, and the damage it does is not to be underestimated.

Marrow Manipulator (Essential)

Marrow Manipulator is another rare that I consider a must-have. It provides a solid source of control and damage to the opponent’s face. Moreover, apart from Defrost, it is the only card that requires corpses, so we can usually get the five needed to maximize its battlecry with ease.

Rimefang Sword

Rimefang Sword can provide useful control in the early game, or a bit of damage to the opponent’s face if necessary, but its main purpose in the deck is to reduce the cost of our frost spells. However, while it is a solid card, I would not consider it an auto-include.

Coroner

Coroner can be a really useful piece of control. I would highly recommend it in the deck, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say you must run it.

Common Cards

Every Death Knight frost spell is an auto-include in this deck for me. They all provide good value and control, and since we run enough frost spell synergy cards, you should be running all of them.

Harbinger of Winter & Chillfallen Baron (Essential)

Harbinger of Winter and Chillfallen Baron are both immediate inclusions in the deck. Harbinger draws us a frost spell, and we always want those in our hand. While Chillfallen doesn’t guarantee spells, it draws us two cards instead of one, making both equally valuable.

Rimescale Siren

I included a copy of Rimescale Siren because I had a free slot. The extra freeze is nice, but since we already have enough freeze effects, I don’t think she is absolutely necessary.

Join the High Ground!

And that’s all you need to put together a Lady Deathwhisper deck in Hearthstone! I think she’s a fun card to play around, and frost Death Knight is a fun deck archetype.

Let us know in the comments how this deck works out for you, whether or not you swapped out any cards, and if there’s any other specific deck you want to see us cover in the future! And make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more gaming content!

Enjoy always having a full hand of cards (I know I do)!