This is the Submission Topic. Submissions will open until Thursday, January 26th, at 20:00 UTC. The Discussion Topic is here.
Greetings! As Phase I had 92 valid entries, and as we want to keep about the same proportion of entries moving on from each Phase to the next, that proportion comes out to ~53.414%. Therefore, rounding up, 50 entries will go to Phase II, 27 entries will go to Phase III, 15 entries will go to Phase IV, 8 entries will go to Phase V, and 4 entries will go to Phase VI. These numbers do not include Wild Cards.
The following users' entries have advanced to Phase II of the competition. You are not allowed to post in this topic unless you are one of the users listed below. However, you are still perfectly allowed to participate in the discussion topic. =)
Wild Cards: Dracossack, waterwaIker
PHASE II: The Basics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Basic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase II Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
Note that it is okay if you've decided to make some minor alteration to your Hero Power since Phase I, but it does of course still need to meet the Phase I hero power challenge.
EXAMPLE BASIC CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire Basic Set out in the open.
You are allowed up to three (3) example Basic cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
As these are Basic cards, they should have no expansion watermark and no rarity gem.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
There are many keywords that do not appear on any existing Basic Card, and they may not appear on any of your Basic Cards either: Counter, Deathrattle, Discover, Enrage, Immune, Inspire, Secret, Silence, Spare Parts, and Stealth. In addition, there are many general mechanics that did not appear either, so you must avoid expansion-specific mechanics like Joust and C'Thun synergy, and so on. Other such mechanics like Mech and Dragon synergy aren't disallowed per se shouldn't be used unless your class is specifically themed around Mechs or Dragons.
Just as Choose One, Combo, and Overload do not appear on any Basic cards, neither may any of your class's unique keywords appear on any of its Basic cards.
REMAINING BASIC SET The remaining seven (7) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
CHALLENGES!
This is exactly as straightforward as it sounds. One big mistake that I think people make with their class Basic sets is too many Minions. For newer players just starting out, they have plenty of Neutral Minions to pick from, and what they need from their class is Spells and Weapons. I'm turning this into an outright challenge, and so no more than 3 of the cards from your Basic Set may be minions, and no more than 1 of your Basic example cards may be a minion.
For reference, only one existing class breaks this rule, and that's the Hunter. Even the Warlock, whose whole shtick is very Demon-heavy, manages just fine with only three Basic Demons. You may be wondering "What are you going to do about cards like Animal Companion or Mirror Image?" If a card's only (or even clearly primary) function is to summon a minion, it will be counted against your minion limit, so don't try to get cute. Speaking of cute...
I love Pokemon. Don't know if you noticed, but I am an Ampharos. For this challenge, one of your cards from a future Phase of this competition will be a Pokemon. That means it must be part of your future Classic, BRM, TGT, LoE, WotOG, ONiK, or MSoG set. As such, it must include the appropriate expansion watermark, a rarity gem, and obey all general rules of that expansion (like you can't have a TGT card with Discover, because Discover didn't exist yet in TGT). Clarification: Yes, it must be a minion.
Now, don't panic. This does not need to be anti-thematic, and it frankly shouldn't need to be. First of all, your card does not actually need to be named after the Pokemon; for example, if I made Ampharos as a Paladin card, I might call it something like "Luminous Shepherd", or if I made Xatu as a Shaman card, I might call it something like "Thunderbird Totem". Second, there's tons of good Pokemon fan-art out there that doesn't look cartoony and that will fit right in with your class's and Hearthstone's general fantasy aesthetic; here's an example resource that pulls from DeviantArt, but I'm more than happy to help you find more if you're having trouble. Third, if you're not very familiar with Pokemon, I am again more than happy to help you find something that fits; just ask in the Discussion Topic or even PM me. Here are some examples:
For this challenge, you must show us another one of your cards from a future Phase of this competition. That means it must be part of your future Classic, TGT, WotOG, or MSoG set. As such, it must include the appropriate expansion watermark, a rarity gem, and obey all general rules of that expansion (like you can't have a TGT card with Discover, because Discover didn't exist yet in TGT). This one must be a Legendary Minion, and it must cost (3) or less. Existing example of lower-cost class Legendary Minions include Edwin VanCleef, Dreadscale, Hobart Grapplehammer, Shaku, the Collector, and Wickerflame Burnbristle.
I'm glad you asked, Shadows! See, for both of our previous Class Creation Competitions, competitors pretty much hated Phase II. Basic cards were seen as difficult to make both catchy and realistic, and people also hated a ton of the keyword limitations, especially not being able to play with their own new keywords. Therefore, what I thought could be neat would be to have competitors, in addition to their basic cards, shows us a couple of cards from future competition phases. That way, they wouldn't be so restricted and could still show off more advanced mechanics and not worry so much about needing to make their Basic cards crazy and flashy when they're supposed to be simple and straightforward.
NOTE: Because Phase II now demands 12 cards instead of 10, I've extended the original Submission window by a day to give you more time. You can see the amended schedule below.
OTHER STUFF
These are just the General Rules, Competition Schedule and Process, Rewards, and Archives. You probably already went through them during Phase I. I still want to include them here, but I'm just going to put them all behind one big spoiler. Any change to them since Phase I has been noted above.
GENERAL RULES
Even if you're already a veteran of our competitions here on the Fan Creation Forum, you should read the general rules before you get started. This competition does introduce new rules, like image limitations and formatting requirements.
* The Submission Topic is for submissions only. If you want to discuss your entry, another entry, ask questions about the competition rules or process, or anything else, you can find a link to the Discussion Topic at the top of this thread. Plenty of folks there will be happy to help you out. * You are allowed only one submission, consisting of the materials specified by each competition phase. These materials must, of course, be of your own creation. If you'd like, you may collaborate with another user on a single submission, but this must be specified during Phase I. * You may make only minor edits to your entry once you have submitted it. Minor changes are things like correcting typos or making balance changes that do not alter the spirit of your entry as determined by we the moderators. If you want to make any changes and have any doubts as to their legality, ask us first. * You may not delete any posts you make in this topic. No, not even if you post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something. Deleted posts screw with the system we use to help us calculate up-vote scores, so don't do that. If you to post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something, simply edit your post to just say "REMOVED" and leave it at that. * You may not create your own topics on this forum for competition-related material. If everybody goes off and creates their own topics for specific discussion of their entries, this board will be flooded with nothing but, and so competition material must remain restricted to official competition topics. If you want to enter the competition with a class that you already have a topic about on this forum, then your topic will be locked in the interest of fairness to the other competitors. Not deleted, just locked, and it can be unlocked after your entry gets knocked out of the competition. You also may not reference or link to your topic in official competition topics.
* You must host your card somewhere other than Hearthcards. We encourage you to create your entry material using Hearthcards.net, but please remember that, although HearthCards is awesome, it has a limited server space and will purge cards after a few days, and nobody wants your cards disappearing part-way through the competition. After you create it, save and upload it to Imgur, Photobucket, or some other similar site. We understand that there are some Hearthcards memberships that will allow you to save your card there for longer (and you should totally get one of those just for general fan creation purposes, by the way), but we don't know who has those memberships and we can't tell from the URLs. * You may not submit any Gold cards or animated cards, nor may you include any images in your post other than the requested submission materials, like banners or borders. We get it, everybody wants their entry to stand out, but our pages are going to be heavy enough as it is without everybody heading their submissions with animated banners. * You must insert your images into your post using this icon on the bar above the post text editor: . Just click that button and put in the URL of your image. We realize that it's also possible to upload and attach images to your post. Don't do that, though. We know from experience that, because those images are much smaller and require more work to view, entries that enter their images that way just don't do as well, so this is for your own good. * Format your entry concisely by sizing your cards appropriately and placing them beside one another rather than in a column or completely separate. The first example below is acceptable while the second is not. Entries that unnecessarily inflate the size of the submission topic and make it more difficult to get through will be disqualified. Adjust cards to a width of 250, and you should be able to get three in a row.
Hey, look! Some cards!
Soul of the Forest: Look at how nice this is. Hammer of Twilight: All neat, organized, and concise. Twilight Summoner: What a great post.
Wait, what are you doing?
Seriously, please don't.
This is painful. Why are you doing this?
You are a monster.
* "Troll" entries will be disqualified. Fun and even humorous entries are perfectly allowed (this is Hearthstone after all), but if you're worried that your entry may be misinterpreted as a troll entry, contact a moderator before you submit.
Finally, know that manipulating votes in any way is strictly forbidden. Any violators will receive an official warning, and will be banned from this and all future HearthPwn Card Design Competitions.
COMPETITION SCHEDULE AND PROCESS
How long do you have to work on your submission? How will advancement to Phase II of the competition be determined? The answers to these questions and more can be found below...
PHASE V: League of Explorers + Whispers of the Old Gods Preview: 22/February - 23/February Submission: 23/February - 2/March Poll: 2/March - 3/March
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan + Mean Streets of Gadgetzan Submission: 3/March - 14/March Poll: 14/March - 17/March
NOTE: All stages of the competition begin and end at 20:00 UTC. ALSO NOTE: I know that a couple of these submissions windows might see tight, especially because the secret challenges make it difficult to plan ahead. That being the case, this timetable is subject to change at my discretion, even after the competition begins, if it seems like too many folks are struggling.
* During Preview stages, both a Submission Topic and a Discussion Topic will go up, but the Submission Topic will be locked until the end of the Preview stage. The Submission Topic will reveal the Phase's unique challenges, so take this time to discuss them, ask for clarifications, and so on. * During Submission stages, Submission Topics will be unlocked and (remaining) participants may submit their entries. During Phases I-II, you may also use this time to go ahead and up-vote submissions that you like. * During Up-Voting stages for Phases I-II, Submission Topics will be locked. Use this time to up-vote submissions that you like. Note that advancement during these Phases depends entirely on up-votes. * During Polling stages for Phases III-VI, Submission Topics will be locked, and all eligible remaining participants will have their submission material included in a separate Poll Topic to determine advancement. Phases III-IV include two Poll Topics because I anticipate we will have enough participants remaining that we will not be able to fit everybody in one Poll Topic. Note that up-votes in the Submission Topics are irrelevant to advancement during these Phases.
How will eliminations be done, and how many competitors will advance from each phase to the next?
I'm glad you asked! We will be taking a equal proportion of competitors from each Phase of the competition to the next, and we will be ending with exactly four finalists. That being the case and their being five total eliminations before the final round, that proportion can be found by solving for x: [# of valid Phase I entries] * x^5 = 4 The higher the number of valid Phase I entries, the lower that proportion becomes. Just so you have an idea, the proportion hits 50% when we hit 128 entries, which is likely, but it only hits 33.3% when we hit 972 entries, which is less likely.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases II and III will be determined by up-votes only. However, these up-votes are weighted using a formula identical to the process used by our Weekly Card Design Competitions: (ab) / (c) = x (Where a is the total number of up-votes that your submission received, b is the total number of valid submissions on the same page as your submission, c is the total number of up-votes on valid submissions on the same page as your submission, and x is your submission's final weighted up-vote score.) Why bother with this formula rather than just taking each submissions up-votes directly? Because earlier pages simply get a lot more views that later pages do, and we do not want rushed, early submissions to have an advantage over later submissions that took more time to get their entries just right. The formula basically measures which submissions stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality. The bottom line is that, although entries on the earlier pages of the Submission Topic are much more visible and thus receive many more up-votes than entries on later pages, you don't actually have to rush to get your entry in as soon as possible, because the up-votes end up being weighted by what page your entry ends up on in order to determine its final score.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases IV, V, and VI will be determined by polls. These polls will be multi-choice, meaning that voters can vote for every entry that they like. Whenever we have to split a Phase's poll into two to make it more manageable for voters, advancement will be determined by looking at each class's final percentage scores, not by looking at the direct number of votes they received, since we can't guarantee that the same number of voters will vote each day. Poll results will always be hidden until the poll has concluded, and for polls split in two, this does also mean that the results of the first poll will not be revealed until the second poll has concluded as well.
The winner of Phase VI, and thus the entire competition, will be determined by a poll much like the ones before, except that it will be single-choice, requiring voters to pick their single favorite class, and will have a much longer polling phase than usual to give us plenty of opportunity for promotion and such.
In the event of a tie during Phases I-IV for the last possible advancing position, all entries involved in the tie will be allowed to advance; the more the merrier, I say. We will absolutely not have more than four finalists, however, and so in the event of a tie during Phase V, the three Fan Creation Forum moderators (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will vote to break the tie. In the event of a tie during Phase VI to determine the competition's winner, the title will simply be shared unless both finalists request and agree to a tie-breaking round.
But wait, there's more! During Phases I-IV of the Competition, each Fan Creation Forum moderator (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will have a Wild Card, which we may (though are not required to) use to advance to the next Phase any one entry that we feel was initially overlooked or under-appreciated, regardless of its performance with voters. No entry may be awarded a Wild Card more than once, and it should also go without saying that, while some moderators are allowed to participate in the competitions, they are never allowed to benefit from Wild Cards. Wild Cards are our way of spicing things up a bit, but please don't ask to be given one or be upset if you aren't given one. These are just supposed to be fun.
Are you curious what will be required for future phases of the competition? The three challenges will remain a secret, but I'm happy to tell you the general submission requirements.
PHASE III: The Classics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Classic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase III Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE CLASSIC CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire Classic Set out in the open.
You are allowed up to four (4) example Classic cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
As these are Classic cards, they should have the Classic watermark, and you should include 6 Common cards, 5 Rare cards, 3 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
There are many keywords that do not appear on any existing Classic Card, and they may not appear on any of your Basic Cards either: Discover, Inspire, and Spare Parts. In addition, there are many general mechanics that did not appear either, so you must avoid expansion-specific mechanics like Joust and C'Thun synergy, and so on. Other such mechanics like Mech and Dragon synergy aren't disallowed per se shouldn't be used unless your class is specifically themed around Mechs or Dragons.
REMAINING CLASSIC SET The remaining eleven (11) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC SET You should include your completed Basic Set from Phase II behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Classic Set material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification since the end of Phase II, but thy must still adhere to all of Phase II's requirements.
PHASE IV: Blackrock Mountain and The Grant Tournament
By having your class's Classic Set approved of, you've shown that you can make a completely functional class. But functional isn't good enough. Your class must also have room to grow beyond that. For this phase, you'll be proving that it can by giving your class Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase IV Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE BRM & TGT CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire BRM and TGT Sets out in the open.
You are allowed up to four (4) example cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
For this phase, you should have 1 Common card and 1 Rare card with the Blackrock Mountain watermark. These may not have Inspire, Joust, Discover, C'Thun synergy, etc., as those mechanics did not exist until later expansions.
You should also have 3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, and 2 Epic cards with the Grand Tournament watermark. These may not have Discover, C'Thun synergy, etc., as those mechanics did not exist until later expansions.
You must also have 1 upgraded Justicar Trueheart version of your Hero Power. If you wish, you may substitute your upgraded Hero Power for one of your example cards this phase.
"No Grand Tournament Legendary minion?" you may be wondering? Actually, because Hunters broke the mold by having two TGT Legendary minions, we're going to let you break the mold too. If you wish, instead of 1 standard Legendary minion, you can have a pair of Legendaries, a Legendary Spell or Weapon, or even no Legendary card at all, with maybe an extra card of another rarity in its stead. Don't go crazy and have like a dozen Legendary cards, but feel free to try something new and different, and we'll do our best to discuss and accommodate it fairly.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
REMAINING BRM & TGT CARDS The remaining cards of your class's BRM and TGT Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC AND CLASSIC SETS You should include your completed Basic and Classic Sets from Phases II and III behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase IV material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE V: League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods
Congratulations on being a semi-finalist! With positively received Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament sets, you've proven that your class's concept and mechanics have room for expansion. Now, there's only one last thing to do: narrow down the best of the best. For this phase, you'll be giving your class League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase V Entry:
CLASS, HERO, AND HERO POWER There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
EXAMPLE LOE & WOTOG CARDS We do not want to see your Class's entire LoE and WotOG Sets out in the open.
You are allowed up to four (4) example cards out in the open. You may, below these cards, give brief explanations of them, why you decided to showcase them, how they exemplify what makes your class unique, and so on.
For this phase, you should have 2 Common cards and 1 Rare card with the League of Explorers watermark. These may not have C'Thun synergy, tri-class cards, or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
You should also have 3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, 2 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion with the Whispers of the Old Gods watermark. These may not have tri-class cards or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
If your example cards produce any unique token cards, those must be put behind a spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.).
REMAINING LOE & WOTOG CARDS The remaining eight (8) cards of your class's LoE and WotOG Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
BASIC, CLASSIC, BRM, and TGT SETS You should include your completed Basic, Classic, BRM, and TGT Sets from Phases II-IV behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase V material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Here we are, finalists! In the last phase of our competition, you'll be giving us your class's One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan sets, as well as constructing your own custom Finale Topics:
FINALE TOPIC There will be no Submission Topic for the competition Finale. Instead, you will create your own Finalist Topics. All that you have to do is create a normal topic here on the Fan Creation Forum and title it as such: [Class Competition Finalist] TURTLE (Replace TURTLE with your own class's name, of course.) Then, bring it to our attention, and we'll link to it from this topic. That's it. How you format and present your final product is entirely up to you. You've put in a lot of work to come this far, so you've earned the right to show us your completed original Class however you think is best.
ONIK & MSOG CARDS In addition to including the required material from all previous phases, you must add the following:
2 Common cards and 1 Rare card with the One Night in Karazhan watermark. These may not have tri-class cards, or other mechanics that did not exist until later expansions.
3 Common cards, 3 Rare cards, 2 Epic cards, and 1 Legendary minion with the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan watermark.
Your class must belong to a crime family, but it is up to you to determine how you want to go about that. You may have it join one of the existing crime families (Grimy Goons, Kabal, or Jade Lotus), or you may invent an entirely new crime family, with its own unique mechanical gimmick(s) and comprised of your class and two other classes from any of our current or previous Class Creation Competition finalists (so, in addition to your three fellow finalists, that includes previous winners the Bard, Merchant, and Twilight's Hammer, as well as previous finalists the Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer, Demon Hunter, and Lich); you would then need to create 3 tri-class cards for this new crime family (1 Common minion, 1 Rare minion, and 1 Legendary minion) , and like the existing crime families, your family's Rare minion should just have the card text "Battlecry: Discover a ______, ______, or ______ card.". To be clear, you would not need to make any class-specific cards for the other two classes you select to be in your class's crime family if you choose to go that route.
EXAMPLE CARDS These don't need to be part of your Finale Topic, but by the end of the Submission Phase, you should send me 8 example cards from your completed collection, preferably via PM, to be included in the Final Poll Topic. The Final Poll topic will look very similar to this one from our first CCC, except that no token cards will be included.
REWARDS
In addition to truly epic bragging rights, ALL finalists will receive a special Forum Title and Avatar Border, similar to those given to winners of our forum's Weekly Card Design Competitions, as shown below:
Furthermore, the winning contestant will have a Season 5 competition themed around their winning class!
ARCHIVES
Want to see how things went during our first two Class Creation Competitions? Want to see what the winners and other finalists did during each phase? Then check out the links below!
Note, that some competition rules, especially formatting rules, may have been different for past competition.
Lets go Hearthpwn! Thanks for the love in the first Round! Here's my Basic set for the Seer class.
There have been a number of changes that my class has gone through, but if you stay with me you'll see that the class is keeping the themes I revealed before, as well as expanding into multiple play styles and archetypes, as other classes do. First, my Hero power has changed.
It's a bit unorthodox to do this, but I really wanted the bedrock of this class to be consistent. The hero power I showed in Phase I will appear again later, I promise, but the first Hero power was too specific and clunky in testing. This new hero power is not as constricting to the class, and acts as card draw AND extra health, depending how much your opponent cares about you drawing a card.
Old Hero Power:
As a quick refresh, Transport is a mechanic that sets a card's location with either a green or purple glow around its borders. A card's location has no effect on how it acts, but many Seer class cards interact specially with other Transported cards, or when they're transported. Transport and transport support will not show up in the basic set because of basic card restrictions.
One of the Seer's Main mechanics is revealing cards. Knowing cards in you opponents hand is supper Insightful, and Dream is one great use of Revealing cards, as semi removal. Card draw and mutual benefits such as Mind Meld is also central, and as you read more, you'll see Seer has a good base of damage. (Note: Mind Meld Reveals these cards for both player's permanently)
I know I didn't have to make both cards Pokémon, But I couldn't resist after being given creative direction. Xatu gazes into the past future with its left and right eye, while Absol is continuing to warn you of impending doom. Nice!
Remaining cards:(Plz lik, I only Tri best)
Ovewhelm is a POWERfull, yet situational card. You need to set it up correctly. But boy does it hit hard. Fate refraction is an amazing use of the Reveal archetype, also adding to the mill theme that's building here. Go steal some legendaries! Children of the Moon is this class's strong stabilization minion that many of the control classes have. It deters your opponent from attacking AND reveals cards all at once!
Ysera's Chosen is ok anti agro for one turn, but Very strong if the chosen minion survives for more than one turn. It also happens to protect the Chosen minion. Third eye is the heavy niche utility card of the class, creating interesting decisions and wacky mill strats that some of us love.
Return to the Possible is strong Almost removal. Almost. But it is cheap, And can even target your own minions for some interesting combos. Apocalypse Prophesy is Flame Strike that has a hard time getting out of bed, but it's cheaper than its older sister.
So that's the Class. So far. The Seer class is shaping up with some interesting combos, many direction to build it, and strong removal "Viva la Control Deck revolucion" The Classic set is gonna explode with how much Movin and Grovin were gonna do Transporting all over the place. But with some more consistency. Hope you enjoyed a new mechanic and the new impromptu hero power. See you soon, ya Nerds.
P.S. Please someone stop me from making another Pokémon class, Asylum_Rhapsody what have you done to me.
HI! I'm Jesse, or Pumawesome (you can find me on any game I play as Pumawesome or Pumawsome). I'm a tabletop Game designer and all around game enthusiast, and I aim to create engaging game theory content.
If you wish to contact me, message me, and I am willing to give my Curse or Discord!
“If things went exactly according to plan, then ya gotta dream bigger.” – Kandy Turnwrench
Class Synopsis and Lore:
Kandy Turnwrench is the Name…
[Lore] So, who exactly is Kandy Turnwrench? Back in the day, this gnome worked in Gnomeregan as a novice engineer for Mekgineer Thermaplugg, but turned on him when she overheard of his plans to manipulate High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque into releasing a radiation bomb. However, Thermaplugg found out about her attempts to warn Mekkatorque, and forced her to flee Gnomeregan. After the irradiation of Gnomeregan, Kandy would soon meet Mekkatorque again, rekindling their childhood friendship and working with him on building new machines for the Alliance. It is still unknown whether Kandy or Gelbin is the “crazy” one in their engineering pair. (That’s our little secret, hehe.)
Tinkering is My Game…
[Class Synopsis] The Tinker knows more than anybody that to make it in this world, you’ll need some ingenuity, and to know how to roll with whatever kinks there are in your stuff. This class very much enjoys getting value, something which it accomplishes through its Hero Power and cards which package effects together. Much of this value is achieved through the class’s token synergy, through which the value of future cards can be increased. The class’s spells mostly interact with friendly minions (the class will only have a few direct damage spells, and indirect/conditional removal), applying effects to them which may not trigger immediately, or have some strings attached. The ride to victory might be bumpy, but that’s exactly what Kandy is counting on. (Yahoo!)
Mechanics: The next minion/spell you play also does X; Has X on your turn [the “Faulty” minions]; Conditional buffs, removal, and AoE
Expect the unexpected, and roll with it!
Hero Power and Class Keyword and Mechanic Explained:
Hero Power: The Tinker’s Hero Power is quite interesting in that the token it summons has the “On your turn” mechanic, as that mechanic will be recurrent in this class (though the example cards shown in this phase won’t have it). The Faulty Mech’s effect highly encourages your opponent to remove it on their turn in the early game, lest you get to kill their 3/2 without spending a card; so in a way, even when the minion has no Attack on your opponent’s turn, it can have a sort of pseudo-taunt.
Class Keyword: Deconstruct is similar to Battlecry (although in some cards it may be able to trigger more repetitively), except you have to have a one-drop on the board to trigger it. Of course, the keyword has very good synergy with your Hero Power, and can be utilized to trade a token to get more mileage out of your cards (similar to how Combo uses a card to get the effect).
How the "Next spell/minion you play also does X" Mechanic could work In-game:
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(Excuse the lackluster editing)
In this example, let's say you played the "A Quick Tune-Up" spell. After you play it, all of the minions in your hand would have a "sparks flying" type animation to signify that all cards of that type (either minion or spell) will have the effect described in the spell (or minion Battlecry) in addition to the card's normal text (the additional effect itself is shown in the tooltip shown above when you mouse over the card). Once the card is played and the additional effect is used, the animation disappears on the other cards.
Behold, My Mighty Inventions!
Basic Set Example Cards:
Challenge Cards:
Note:"Tinkering with Portals" does require you to have a friendly minion on the board in order to cast it.
Tokens:
Explanations:
Basic Set Example Cards
Supercharged Battery: It’s a slightly cheaper version of Blessing of Kings, but in exchange you’ll only get in two attacks with the buffed minion before not only the buff is removed, but the minion gets -1/-1 below its original stats. Quite strong for tempo, allowing you to curve out from a 2-drop. For control decks, you can extract two good trades with this buff, while for more aggressive decks it potentially lets you get in 10+ damage to the face within two turns. Flavorwise, this card exemplifies the Tinker theme of volatility.
To the Workshop!: A fairly simple card, but it’s important in showing the Tinker’s recurring idea of packaging (It’s called constructing, thank you very much!) minor effects onto cards. In this case, you’re equipping a 2/2 weapon and summoning a Faulty Mech as a side effect; this both sets you up with a weapon and a potential Deconstruct target.
Tinkering with Portals: A cheaper Recycleeffect, but it requires you to have a friendly minion out. Of course, this could be quite powerful because of the Tinker’s Hero Power, allowing you not only to remove a threat but to shuffle a 1-drop into your opponent’s deck.
Challenge Cards
Menagerie Zap-o-tron: Since the Tinker will have a fair number of cards that generates weapons as tokens, cards such as this which synergize with said weapons could be quite good in a Tinker deck. In this case, the Zap-o-tron gives the class a bit of removal/burst. Flavorwise, the idea is that the Menagerie Zap-o-tron confiscates weapons ("Dangerous devices are not allowed in the Menagerie.")
Dennis the Unhinged: Another card that could be good in both aggro and control alike (aggro for the potential infinite face damage, control for the potential infinite removal), the weapon Dennis grants you is valuable to have in the course of the game; barring the use of 1-drops you play, the weapon essentially makes your Hero Power “Equip a 3/1 Weapon”. On top of that, you also get a 2/2 when playing this, since his effect damages him as well. Unlike the other cards shown so far, this Deconstruct effect is repeatable, making it comparable to Inspire in this case.
The rest of the Basic Set with Explanations:
Aged Inventor: Another nice card to give you a Deconstruct target, but the card also is interesting in its stat distribution: in some cases, your opponent could kill both the 3/1 and 2/2 with a ping and a trade from a 2/3; in other cases, you could get a 2-for-1 trade by trading up with the 3/1 and trading into a two-drop with the 2/2.
A Quick Tune-Up: A bit of healing for the Tinker, as well as setting up a potentially powerful defensive minion depending on when this is played. Once again, cards such as this exemplify the Tinker’s love for packaging effects together. In this case, both effects make this card a good tool for control (Ya gotta diversify sometimes, ya know?).
Faulty Turtle Turret: The “Faulty” minions will indeed be a recurring motif in this class, all having a condition that is active on your turn. The “Faulty Turtle Turret” is another good defensive card, and makes it quite unfavorable for your opponent to trade because of its heightened attack when it’s not your turn.
First Test Run: Giving the Tinker a bit of card draw, this card shows once more both packaging effects with cards and the “Faulty” minions. The Faulty Beetle-Bot token you get from the card allows you to trade with up to two smaller minions on your turn while also being less favorable to trade into on your opponent’s turn.
Jury-Rigged Ride: This is somewhat of a niche card: its purpose is not entirely well-defined but it can be used for a number of things, fitting the Tinker theme of experimentation. For instance, if you need just a bit more damage for lethal, it can act as a more expensive Windfury. Also, it could be used to effectively heal a minion. Lastly, you could use it to reuse a Battlecry (and so could stack “The next spell/minion you play does X” effects), similar to how Shadowstepmay be used. Can other classes do these three things better? Yes. But, the Tinker can choose to do any of these three things with this one card.
Shrink Ray: An okay weapon that also acts as pseudo-healing, and it also slightly improves trades on your turn.
Silver Retriever: Packaging effects, yay! Anyway, this minion has pseudo-card draw, giving you some face damage/board control tools for later.
Flavor Text (Eh, needs more salt.)
Supercharged Battery: He didn’t actually supercharge a battery, he just poured some glow-in-the-dark food coloring into a tube.
To the Workshop: Combos well with “To the Pork shop!” afterward.
Tinkering with Portals: He thought it’d be a piece of cake. It was a lie.
Menagerie Zap-o-tron: He dreams of one day vanquishing his lifelong nemesis: Harrison Jones.
Dennis the Unhinged: He simply wanted to tighten a hinge, but he found so much more. Coming this holiday…How the Gnome Stole Winterveil With A Powered Wrench: The Movie.
Aged Inventor: Back in his day, Clockwork Gnome dropped two Spare Parts!
A Quick Tune-Up: Just stuff an Annoy-o-Tron into the Mech’s chassis, and it’s good as new!
Faulty Turtle Turret: It’s actually a tortoise cannon, but that name took up too much space in the schematic.
First Test Run: Your first test run and your first crush have two things in common: it will end horribly, and you will be sad.
Jury-Rigged Ride: Riding a hoverboard while carrying a chicken? Now this is heavy.
Shrink Ray: Warning: Side effects of shrinking include squeaky voice and existential crisis.
Silver Retriever: Teaching a robo-dog new tricks, one greasy toolbox at a time.
The idea behind the hero power is that at the cost of the versatility you have to pay an extra mana. On the plus side you can stack the cards in your hand, they benefit from spell damage, and you get access to the Concoct class specific keyword!
This essentially allows you to empower your cards by investing in them on prior turns with your hero power. This leads to many swings within the game as you fall behind while stocking up on potions only to use them all at once to reclaim the bored with unfathomable power! You never know how games will turn out when an alchemist is involved. Concoct will always trigger if possible so a good alchemist will plan out their potions to get the results they want.
Class themes and play style:
As this particular alchemist is linked to the scourge, you will find manly plagues, diseases, and unnatural experiments taking place within the class. Animal testing is a particularly strong theme and mutated beasts alchemist will be a possible archetype. Spell damage is also particularly good in this class given the hero power.
The concoct keyword and using it well is key for both playing as and against the alchemist. Many of the alchemists concoct effects can be activated by your opponent like Toxic Muk. This is important as although the alchemist has some solid removal cards, almost all of their high impact removal requires some degree of concoct meaning that once they're out of versatile potions, you can make some very strong plays as it'll take them a few turns to re-enable their most powerful cards. Deciding when to save and when to spend your potions is what separates the good from the great, plus accounting for hand space.
Example cards:
Example cards explanations:
Note when I talk about potions I mean versatile potions as no other alchemist cards have the potion word.
Test Subject: An all round good card that will fit many decks. Allows you to cast your potions for free and opens up some cool combos. Balanced with Cloaked Huntress and Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Elixir of Magic: The alchemists Power Word: Shield. Makes your potions stronger for offense and since it's one mana it combos great with Test Subject! Costs 1 less than Bloodmage Thalnos but you lose the body and need a minion already on bored.
Bubonic Plague: Cheaper than Consecration but doesn't damage your opponent and requires a weaker minion to start the outbreak! Your opponent can play around this by avoiding playing 1 health minions or doing weird trades to keep minions from getting low. Of course you can use your potions to hurt minions before using it or just kill your own minion!
Challenge cards:
Challenge cards explanations:
Toxic Muk: Every time he uses his pseudo death touch you have to give up a potion as the effect doesn't trigger if you're out! This is risky as your opponent could use this to get rid of more potions than you intended but a 2/7 taunt with death touch is worth the gamble! Balanced with Alley Armorsmith.
Leon, Master Mutator: Playing him is a pretty big tempo loss as he will shuffle a minion from the field into your deck. Bigger minions will cost you more tempo but the payoff will be so much bigger. An untargetable 17/17 deathwing is absolutely terrifying! Balanced with Don Han'Cho (more delayed effect for less immediate state loss, losing the minion you shuffle gives the elusive) and Manic Soulcaster.
Remaining basic cards:
Remaining cards explanations:
Alchemists Assistant: Good for trading with small minions like Patches the Pirate and helps you get potions without losing as much tempo. Balanced to all the 1 mana 1/3s like Northshire Cleric.
Twisted Ram: Very similar to Azure Drake states are more defensive and you get a potion instead of a card. The potion is worth less than a draw but you get given it by a minion with spell damage, and that gives some versatility.
Advanced Study: This would give Bloodmage Thalnos +1/+2, Malygos +5/+10, and Ysera +0/+0. Balanced to Mark of the Lotus. Gives an extra stat but is WAY more specific. Works great with Elixir of Magic. As for it being too good with maly, I'd argue maly Conceal is stronger for the spell damage and an old god like Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is better for the stats and doesn't need 2 cards.
Boiling Cauldron: Your main source of potions aside from your hero power. It also acts as a way to hold potions that wont automatically be used by your concoct effects. Each potion is worth just under 2 mana when it comes to Concoct so I balanced it to Preparation since they both give you an extra 3 mana with a condition. It's also 1 mana! Picture an aggressive spell damage deck using Test Subject with this, Elixir of Magic and Advanced Study! If you had another spell damage minion you'd be in business. Would be a fun and unique take on aggro!
You may feel this is a problem with Gadgetzan Auctioneer especially considering Test Subject (who is inferior to Sorcerer's Apprentice might I add) and the other low cost spells, however this is not the case. Auctioneer tends to be mainly used decks with two traits. The first is temporary mana gain spells like Preparation, Counterfeit Coin or Innervate. This class has none. The next is it needs a game wining combo to make use of all the draws. This class will have next to no spells that can damage your opponent so if you used your potions to draw then you can't use them with Malygos. That same problem also applies to this classes other game wining combos as they will need concoct. Thus this card fails on both tests. Plus in the late game your concoct spells are your only high impact removal cards so if you use potions to draw, you make yourself extremely vulnerable. It's just not worth it, there are better draw options.
Living Ingredients: Pretty much an up scaled Mortal Coil. Also balanced with Quick Shot.
Decay: Kinda like Corruption but on the turn they can use the minion it has 3 less attack. Once it gets back to their next turn it will have -9/-9 so it's probably dead. It can also be used to kill something with 3 or less health at the end of your turn, weaker than say Frostbolt in that regard but more versatile.
Elixir of Life: Balanced with Greater Healing Potion. Weaker at healing your hero but better at healing your minions, something that isn't too common with big heals. Maybe this will change that!
You have no idea how many times she's accidentally flipped her name backwards.
Hero Explanation and Lore:
The Alchemist class will be a relatively combo-oriented class, using the potions from the Hero Power to effectively combo with attack- or health-heavy minions, temporary and aura buffs, as well as hand size and spell synergies.
Crazed Alchemist, although it's a bad card, has a really good effect. Reversing Switch, having the same effect, was one of the better Spare Parts you could get back in GvG. I always thought the flip effect was really cool, so I decided to make my class around it.
Malrokorlam is a random palindrome name I made up, and it explains why she's relatively unaffected by her flipping potions. The lore to Malrokorlam is as follows; it may not be that believable since I never played WoW, but it's something, right?
Malrokorlam was a young Cleric during the time of an ancient war. During that time, field medics were in high demand, but fieldwork was extremely dangerous. Malrokorlam found a solution: she infused water with power from the Holy Light to create healing potions that could be taken to battle in glass vials. However, the demand for healing potions became too great, and she needed a faster way to brew potions. Yogg-Saron whispered to her stressed mind, and convinced her to use his magic to create healing potions. The resulting potions healed as they were supposed to, but a "minor" side effect was the growing of extra limbs, tentacles, etc.
Horrified by these new potions, her townspeople exiled her, and soon, all the races on Azeroth shunned her. With nowhere to go, she hid in a cave somewhere and honed her skills in brewing. Legend says she still hides in her unnamed cave. Her potions made her essentially immortal, and she still waits for the day when she can return to the daylight, and give the world a taste of her "New Recipe".
Hero Power Explanation:
Obviously, the Hero Power has to be the flip effect; it wouldn't be the Alchemist without it. It will have synergy with aura buffs (which will be in relative abundance in the Alchemist class), it will have hand size synergy, and it will have spell synergy. The synergies available will justify the relatively weak Hero Power - 3 mana for a flip effect: there will be strong synergies such as the Brew Addict below, as well as more efficient ways to obtain flip effects.
The Hero Power also does not always cost 3 mana. If used when you would otherwise float mana, you basically pull a phantom Innervate: the 2 mana that was used would not have otherwise been used. The problem of a Hero Power doing nothing, on turn 2 especially, has been common before Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was introduced. The ability to store the Hero Power is very important for the Alchemist, since if the Hero Power was simply "Flip a minion", it would be completely dead on a turn with no minions on the board.
Example Basic Cards:
Example Cards Explanations:
Brew Addict: You may remember this guy from my Phase I submission. In any case, I'll repeat the explanation for those of you who haven't. At first glance, this looks like a vanilla 2/3, but if you give it a potion, it will keep the +2/+2 buff from its aura and gain +2/+2 from its aura buff again. Flip it a few times, and you've got a big powerhouse. This is balanced on the fact that you're paying 3 mana per +2/+2 (more than Mana Geode) and your opponent can remove it.
Earthroot Potion: Balanced against Mark of the Wild, this is actually more versatile in my Alchemist Class, due to the ability to flip a minion at will. This could make something like Stormwind Knight a lot more threatening, but it can also help to stop early rush decks.
Death's Vial: Looking at Consecration and Flamestrike, I decided that 3 damage to all was worth 5.5 mana. Given that there are no decimals in Hearthstone, the best way to go about it is 5 mana with a minor drawback, or 6 mana with a minor benefit. Since Basic cards normally don't have much in the way of drawbacks, I decided to deal 3 unhealable damage to all enemy minions. Also has flavor with Death's Flask, the other AoE card in my basic set.
The Challenge Cards:
Challenge Cards Explanations:
Spitfire Kraken: Is a Red Gyarados if you couldn't tell. TGT is set in Northrend (I think), so here's a Kraken. The stats and effect are balanced around Blackwing Corruptor, but damage is instead done to Attack (which was health 0_o). This can reduce a minion with 3 or less Health to 0 attack, but since the effect is randomly targeted, the resulting minion will likely die.
Siggy the Songslinger: This is meant to showcase that if the Gadgetzan gangs had more than three classes each, the Alchemist would totally be a Kabal. This also showcases something I plan to explore with my class: swapping things that haven't yet been swapped before.
Now I'll show them... I'll show them all! (The rest):
The Rest of the Explanations (if you enjoy reading):
Max Potion: I just really liked the art. Balanced against Ancestral Healing. Like Basic cards should be, this is simple.
Sungrass Potion: Two Flash Heals in one card, but you can't target one of them. Also pretty simple.
Alchemist's Apprentice: More efficient way to get your hands on a flip, as promised.
Firebloom Potion: Obligatory damage card. Balanced against Shadow Bolt.
Death's Flask: A flipped (hehe) Consecration. This is meant to signify that the line between Health and Attack is much more blurred in this class than any other. Also, has the relationship with the example Death's Vial.
Starflower Brew: This is meant to amplify any buffs that the Alchemist can get their hands on. This is basically Al'Akir the Windlord without a body. The cost is high to prevent unfair interactions with charge minions.
Toxic Bottle of Ooze: Obligatory hard removal card. Has flavor as an Acidic Swamp Ooze in a bottle which also destroys your opponent's weapon when played. Balanced based on the high cost for either effect. A good comparison is Deadly Shot < Assassinate while Sabotage < this card.
Flavor Texts (try the text, not the potions):
In order from top to bottom, left to right
Brew Addict: Just one, he said. It'll be fun, he said. Earthroot Potion: Earthroots grow under rooted Ancients of War. No wonder they don't like to uproot. Death's Vial: How do you put Death in a Vial anyway? Spitfire Kraken: Still not a Dragon. Siggy the Songslinger: You should see his Deathwing impression. Max Potion: Why does the Max Potion cost the least mana? Sungrass Potion: Sungrass heals you if you stand on it. Just try not to crush it-- Alchemist's Apprentice: You've shown them both, so they can show them all. Firebloom Potion: Named after the plant. Also named after what happens when you throw it. Death's Flask: How do you put Death in a Flask anyway? Starflower Brew: Starflowers are extremely rare and beautiful pl-- HEY what are you doing??? Toxic Bottle of Ooze: You made me catch it in a bottle just so you could throw it again?
Long ago King Nafaron and his followers were banished to the Firelands. In the Firelands King Nafaron swore allegiance to Ragnaros. In return the Firelord gave them the power to Wield the Flame. But such power does not come without a price. In the depths of the Firelands they deformed and one by one they became monsters and beasts.
Example Cards:
Challenge Cards:
Other Cards:
Some Combos: Firemorph Rager + Charmander Firemorph Rager + Flaming Soul Firelands Reaper + Lady of the flame
Extra Info:
With basic cards I really wanted to push the Magma Rager archetype of the class. With the current Basic Cards you can get up to 6 extra Magma Ragers to combo with Firelands Reaper and Fire Warrior (Example Card in Phase I). There will be more Magma Rager synergies in future phases, but I wanted to keep it simple for Basic cards.
I also decided to add "At the end of this turn" Mechanic to the class because the lore and theme of the class is connected to Ragnaros. I wanted to use Rags mechanic on certain spells. Ofc that mechanic can be little bit more complicated so I decided not to make too many of those cards for the basic set.
Many minions and spells promote not only your own good positioning, but also punish your opponent's bad ones. You can choose a Zoo approach of flooding the board, or the Handlock approach of hoarding cards, plopping down giants and controlling the battlefield from afar.
Card Spotlight
"Justice rains from above!"
If you hear the shot, you live. That also means I'm fired.
Snipers on the hill? Arrows on the face.
ADJACENCY BONUS // ZOO Deceptively simple, but powerful in the right hands. Buffing minions with Defender of Argus on the far left? A Kitesail Raider on the far right will get the buff too.
POSITIONING IS KEY A smaller Kill Command that when played right, will hit that sweet spot 4 damage to kill Azure Drakes, Gadgetzan Auctioneers, etc. It also works against your opponent's face, like how White Pawn hits face if it doesn't have any minions in front of it.
CARD HOLDING // HANDLOCK A burn spell that rewards the Handlock playstyle. Sure, to get on the level of Fireball you'll need 6 cards in hand which is a feat it intself, but consider that potential 9 damage for 4-mana!
Pokemon + Cheap Legendary Challenge (NOTE: New keyword)
"Magnezo– I mean uhh, Drone Drone, Forge Drone."
"Gob Squad, move out!"
FLEXIBILITY With the effect, Drone Forge can essentially be:
5/5 Vanilla 4/5 Deathrattle: one 1/1 3/5 Deathrattle: two 1/1s (5-mana equivalent of Infested Wolf) 2/5 Deathrattle: three 1/1s 1/5 Deathrattle: four 1/1s (A 3/7 with Hobgoblin) 0/5 Deathrattle: five 1/1s (Stand Against Darkness behind a Deathrattle)
It also has a little bonus of returning to a 5/5 when Silenced. They're also all Mechs.
THE GOB SQUAD, 5-IN-1 TECH CARD
You're only seeing Patch, the leader of the Gob Squad. While in hand, however, it cycles into the different members of Gob Squad, and each serves a specific purpose.
Patch, Team Leader: +3 Attack to friendly minion Ticker, Demolition Man: Destroy random Taunt minion Volt, Trap Specialist:
Take control of a random enemy Secret Newt, Getaway Driver:
Return a friendly minion to your hand and gain Charge. Grit, Nutrition Supplier:
Restore 6 Health.
Please look at the full art on the tokens in the Spoilers below.
A NEW KEYWORD I hope this isn't an issue, but I came up with my class keyword late. However, it does follow the rules from Phase I, so I don't think it's a huge issue.
It should be clearly explained above, but as an example: If you have a minion with Set-Up (4), you need to play 4 cards while its in hand to get the effect.
The Remaining Members of Gob Squad
“Let’s blow this thing!"
" I think the explosions gave us away.”
“You got it, boss!”
“Anyone up for barbecue?”
The remaining Basic Set
Covering Fire: Your basic 2-mana 1 damage AoE with a slight upside. This can be beneficial for both Zoo and Handlock styles, as it's a card that both helps solidify board control, but also benefits from having multiple minions summoned in a single turn.
High-Profile Target: Basic hard removal in the form of a more expensive Assassinate that refunds you two mana in the form of Coins if you proc the effect, Coins that add to your handsize to aid Handlock-style, or Coins that allow you to quickly retake the board by summoning more minions in a turn to aid Zoo-style.
Reckless Conscription: Basic draw, a cheaper Arcane Intellect with a downside, becoming more of a hand refilling tool than a dig-for-answers tool. Still, that 2 mana cost increase might not matter when you're in the late game.
Command: Backup!: Two Vanilla 2/2s for 3-mana, granted that you have a minion ready. Instantly proc adjacency effects in Zoo-style, retaking the board in one fell swoop.
Command: Call it in!: You saw this in Phase I. Your basic midgame AoE in the form of a cheaper, non-face hitting Consecration that requires a minion on the board. Easy with your hero power.
Forward Scout: You saw this in Phase I. A simple, basic class 1-drop that can reach 3/2 under normal circumstances (more with Kitesail Raider). However, removing that buff is simply a matter of removing adjacent minions, so it's an okay power-level card.
Piloted Ogre: It benefits from having lots of minions in Zoo-style, from the various Taunt effects in Handlock-style, or perhaps even a potential Silence-style. Simple as all basic minions should be, but different.
The Dancer class specialties are minion buffs, minion swarm, and Shifting; The classes unique keyword. I've changed the hero power slightly to allow for more utility. Instead of moving all the way to the left side of the board, it now swaps two minions positions. This can be very useful with adjacency buffs.
Basic set showcase:
The Basic set emphasizes the classes strong buffs and its ability to manipulate the board. The Treant Sisters double any buffs applied to them, be it an aura buff or a permanent buff. However, it also doubles debuffs like Pint-Size Potion.
Hypnotize was a hard card to judge balance wise. I decided on 5 mana because it wasn't a permanent removal, but did allow you to attack with it once.
Devilsaur Leggings is one of my favorite buffs of this class. It is a 4 mana buff that can provide +5/+5 worth of stats. However, you need at least 3 minions to get the full benefit.
Fire Twirler token:
The Fire Twirler is a very sticky minion. It will continue to resurrect until your opponent can destroy the Skull token. I wanted a minion for this class that can survive on the board long enough to cast a buff on it.
Tyrande Whisperwind has a pretty powerful effect. I originally wanted to use it on a spell, but I felt it would be more balanced on a minion. When you summon Tyrande you and your opponent swap a minion at random. It is useful for trying to steal a big minion while giving them a small minion like Tyrande.
The rest of the Basic Set:
Call For Backup token:
Quality Fleece is basically a stat redistribution of Power Word: Shield. The class focuses mainly on even stat buffs instead of just attack or health buffs.
Restoration is a simple healing card that improves with the more minions you have on the board. It starts out as a 1-mana heal for 2 but could become a 1-mana heal for 16.
Tavern Musician is basically a Flametongue Totem with redistributed stats and stat buffs to stay consistent with the classes even stat buffs.
Towering Garments gives a minion an active buff that changes depending on how many minions you control. The minion given the buff will have its stats fluctuate as the number of friendly minions increase and decrease.
Amplification is a single target removal spell that gets stronger as the number of friendly minions increase. It can range from 1 to 8 damage.
Call for Backup summons three 1/2 minions to allow an opportunity to cast a buff on them as well as boost Amplification and Restoration.
Lightshow is a board clear that gains strength the more enemy minions are on the board. It can range from 1 to 7 damage.
With the Classic set coming up, I will be able to fully use the Shift Keyword for its main purpose. To utilize it to gain buffs, adjacency bonuses, and disrupting the opponent's play with Shifting Secrets.
The Necromancer is a class all about minion death, and bringing them back from the dead. The Tombstones are useless on their own, but have specific and non-specific synergies with Necromancer and neutral cards alike.
Bone Amalgamation: A simple minion that gains above-average stats if a minion has died before it. Very similar to Blackwing Technician.
Graverob: Mind Vision, but only for dead minions. Not usable on Turn 1, but with a bit more control of what can come out of it.
Zombify: Like Mind Control, but the triggering of Deathrattles and removal of buffs drop it down to 9 Mana. Since the minion dies, you can try to Reawaken it later.
Gripper Ghost: Dusknoir is said to bring people into the spirit world. In this case, the spirit world is your hand.
The Skeleton King: Powerful 3-Mana minion that continuously fills your deck with himself, but be careful with your positioning. The Skeleton King has a bit of a problem with traitors.
Quick way to get some tokens to kill on the next turn. The 2 Health allows at least some of the tokens to survive some aoe removal like Arcane Explosion and Unleash the Hounds, which allows you to kill them when it fits you, like in the same turn you play
This is a good use for the Raise Dead tokens, restoring a total of 9 Health plus 3 for any enemy minions they kill.
Very powerful for its cost, but pretty much the ONLY aoe removal the Necromancer will have.
In addition to summoning the tokens, the Tombstones die just like any other minion, so you get all the synergies from that.
Ok, the name might be changed to make it less similar to From The Grave. Gains good value with just one Tombstone, and allows you to cycle in case you get it as another class.
The closest thing to early removal the Necromancer has outside of trading.
Welcome back to Mirage Raceway, and boy do we have a treat for you. Today you'll have a chance to explore our track, meet our racers and learn what it takes to make it as a real competitor. Our latest winner is here to be your guide.
The Racer
As I talked about last time, my focus for this competition is to try to examine Tempo. This is the hardest to do in the basic set, where things have to remain fairly simple and we have to avoid our keyword, as well as others. I do think its probably slightly problematic that my keyword actually appears on my hero power token, but its such a vital part of the classes identity and a much cleaner way to represent the effect without tons of text.
Luckily there are some great things I can focus on, and hopefully you can see some of the potential a class with this sort of "dangerous" hero power can do when balanced and properly.
The Basics of Racing (Examples and explanation)
Last Ditch Effort - Ok, let's start spicy. Its true, Deadly Shot is a common, however I felt like this was almost more like Soulfire. It gives you a bit tempo play, but it costs you something. In this case a bit of health, or maybe a lot of health. Now, its true that one of our other themes is being behind on life, and this helps trigger that even against non-aggressive opponents, but it is also a potentially huge liability against aggro. I think this was one of the first cards I came up with, because it really had the full flavor I wanted. It plays into Racing, and competition in general. It plays into the recklessness or self sacrificing theme it takes to make it to the top.
Caution - I chose this as my second showcase card because wide buffs are a major idea I came up with. Since I can't put too much focus on damaging spells without watering down my class or making it too busted. Caution shows a side to design we haven't seen much in HS, which is not only large controlled affects but also symmetric buffs. We've seen a lot of AoE damage, but not a lot of AoE buffing. Now, obviously I don't plan to go too ham on the symmetric buff, but its a cool design space, and of course buffing your side of the board will be somewhat common. Now, this also brings up something else. Many classes have some sort of theme, Paladins and Divine Shield, Shaman and Windfury, Warriors and Engrage, Rogues and Stealth. I choose again to go very wide on these basic ideas, because I think it also fits well with the idea of Power-ups without using pure stat buffs which can also be dangerous with cost reduction.
Speed Freak - I chose to highlight this card for a few reasons. One of which is that it isn't a great card. It doesn't appear like the sort of card most people look for, but it does something very important. It sets a precedent for out class. One of the other features I want to focus on is high value minions. This has an above average stat allocation but no ability because we have many cards that provide buffs. If we slam a bunch of text on everything and make a bunch of non-stat related buffs we're going to over saturate our complexity, that allows us to use vanilla (text free minions) with flavor. I also want to point out how much better this card would have been at launch as a basic compared to how we perceive many cards now.
Beyond Basics (Challenge met!)
Masterful Engineer - Deoxys (Speed form), was my initial choice just because it was the Fastest potential Pokemon, but when I also found this insane fan art I was sold. This guy fits right in. Drafting, will be something that shows up, but it won't be slammed onto a bunch of cheap minions or spells. That said, this card, which comes in from League of Explorers is trying to reinforce some things from TGT, while being spicy as hell. So, this comes in and activates our hero power. This is important because of Inspire interactions. It also sets us up for 2 Drafts, without forcing anything on us. If we play this on curve it can still help us set up for next turn while developing something. Of all the cards I've made so far this one is probably the highest raw power level, just because of what it enables. I want people to understand these sorts of things are few and far between, but as we know, LOE was a time of big changes and I think this opens that up.
Norman Gobsborn - On the other hand, I went and had a bit of fun with my bonus legendary. Cheap legendaries can be very difficult to design and even harder to keep in check. I feel The Green Goblin here does that well. I went with Old Gods to help enhance this nutjobs flavor. Now, his bonus abilities do combo. Playing him for 0 mana typically results in an 8/5, pretty impressive, but it means while he cost 2 mana he may not be his best on turn 2. There is another bonus though. Drafting only reduced the cost temporarily, so you can Draft his cost down to 1 or even 0 a few times before deciding to pull the trigger and make him a real monster. Its all about how it fits your gameplan. I want to note that its impossible to get this guy into play as an 8/5 on turn 2 under any normal circumstances. There will be no 1 or 2 cost cards ever that provide Draft.
Everything you need to win a race! (Basics and explanation)
Fall Back - One of our other wide buffs. This felt kind of medium. Its great at making a bunch of walls, but less good at protecting specific minions. The concept is obviously letting yourself get behind in the race so others are targeting you.
Clumsy Mechanic - The Mechanic is a decent body with a medium downside that could turn into an upside. I chose to let this be random and hit face because I thought that had a bit more HS feel. Normally I'm not a huge Random guy, but I also realise that's a huge part of this game, and not solely as a negative. Mechanics as well as Racers make up the majority of our minions, and I almost thought about giving them a Race or Subtype, but I decided that names and art would give enough there without making things messy.
Start Your Engines - Our last wide buff is the most interesting. Charge is a card that has changed a lot over time, and its funny that it ended up where it did, because I've had an idea for a card like this before Blizzard came out with an official wording. I think Charge is great when its restricted to minion combat, and I like the idea of being able to set up a turn where you get to make a bunch of good trades. There is also a bit of learning to do about the functionality of this card, since it will help teach attack sequencing, since this looks out all face attacking after its played you have to make sure you go face with the minions you want to before trading.
Tactical Maneuver - I've gotten a lot of flack over this card during development. Without the trigger, its a worse Flame Lance, a card people only sometimes play in Reno decks, with the trigger its kind of a better Starfire, but its notable that it can't go face. This can't finish the game off, which is a big deal IMO. Also, its 7 damage notably kills almost every basic minion, but doesn't kill many popular large minions from Classic and beyond.
Crowd's Favor - This was my final buff, and the first stat buff we've seen. I went with a slightly lower efficiency and increased cost to help prevent easy exploitation. Also, because our class with have some nice high stat minions naturally I think the restore effect might actually be good enough.
Eliminate the Competition - This was one of my previews from the first round. Our basic AoE. Simple design, simple flavor.
Fan Favorite - Lastly we have another key minion. I think any major "tempo" class needs a good taunt. Here, we hit a flavor point in making it the coolest, most popular guy on the track, our Fonzie inpsired, Fan Favorite. He's got a big statline because he's a great competitor. He's a grizzled vet of the Raceway, but he's got a target on his back (Taunt), after winning so many times. He helps build both a great minion base and a lot of flavor.
What the future holds!
I hope you've enjoyed checking out the Basics of the Racer, and I hope you're interested in Classic Cars, Raceway Racial Warfare, Motorised Jousting, Racing's Seedy Underbelly, and all the other places and things to explore. I've got a lot more ideas, and I hope you're interested in seeing more.
Gi'llax the Lifestealer is a ghoul that was made by one of the Kel'Thuzad's acolyte to serve the Lich King but has gone rogue because it was too overwhelming to control. This monstrosity has devasted some of the higher rankings and has dominated the food chain, it has even seek its creator and devour him whole. Gi'lax has mutated again and again and now leads his own pack into the fray to slaughter anyone in his path. He has slaughtered some of his own kin (the acolyte, his creator), the innocent and has split the blood of his many enemies.
Keyword
My Three Cards
Explanation for the three cards above:
Feral Impulse is a 3-mana spell card that seem weaker than Heroic Strike having the Cursed Blade draw back on it but in truth, this card can be potentially powerful especially using it with your Hero Power which does provided healing for damage. For example, having our hero power equipped and using this card while attack a minion that has 4 attack points (you will be taking 8 damage instead with the spell effect) and deal 6 damage. The aftermath would lead you to most likely killing the minion and reducing the damage to 2 instead of 4. There are cards that combo well with this like Armoured Ghoul, which will be talked more below. another advantage is that it acts like a cheaper version of Pyroblast for 6-mana but cannot pass through Taunt and has to discard two cards instead of one.
Spine Spike is a 3-mana weapon that when equipped or replaces a weapon you have already equipped (i.e. most likely to be your hero power) that gives quiet an advantage. On turn 2, you could use your hero power and on turn 3, equip this weapon and BAM you have a 4/3 weapon that heals you for 4 health. There will be future cards to support this or this card will be nerfed later on.
Armoured Ghoul is a 6-cost minion but with an interesting effect, it's stat mirrors Spectral Knight but instead this can survive a bit longer, provided that your opponent doesn't have 6 damage in his hand or board. Attacking with this minion and leaving it with low health allows combos with Feral Impulse. This most likely instantly refills the minion's health to full and keeps it healthy for more efficient trades, even if it means just taking little damage.
Rest of the Basic set with Explanations.
The Recruits!
Heroic Skeleton is the 1-cost minion in this basic set which can very well deal with aggro but will be easily dealt with weapons like Fiery War Axe. If you weren't against aggro, this card can still be viable to be a hard hitter, using your hero power, it allows your to either lower your health and keep you alive to use this card.
Blooth Bath Necromancer is a 3-cost minion that loses it's +1/+1 stat line to gain more value in the long run. It being a 3 health minion keeps it alive to most smaller minions that have 2 points of attack. If this minion does live long enough, you can very well flood the board with Super! Spooky! Skeletons! but they only have a 1/1 stat line. There will be cards in the future to buff your board so this card can become viable.
Show them your fury!
Blinding Rage is a 2-mana spell version of Void Crusher but this card can be used any time even if you don't have a minion. Even though this card is bad while you have a board filled with large minions, this card pulls out thanks to the minions showcased earlier. Blood Bath Necromancer can summon 1/1 Skeletons that can used as the sacrificed for Blinding Rage and can generate back your board later on.
Eyes of Insanity, a 3-mana spell that is a miniature version of Lightbomb but does not effect your minions plus can deal with big minions with large attack value. Honestly, it is a much better card to kill off minions but to deal with cards like Ysera, it is left out and not able to help like Blinding Rage.
Chain Strike is a 3-mana spell like the hunter card Powershot, it has not much creative thought placed into it but the animation would be sick to watch as a chain swings in from the left and strikes minions to the right.
Your pack is ready to hunt!
Scavenger's Party is a 4-mana spell that is comparably worst than Arcane Intellect being one cost more but if your hero was able to attack the turn your would play this. This card can come in very valuable saving up to 2-mana to play something else either from your hand or the card you drew from it.
Ghoul March, is a 5-mana spell that summons ... HEY! Flesheating Ghouls! Not much value but a solid 2/3 minion can sometimes help dealing with the board, especially when you combo this with Blood Bath Necromancer's Skeletons, making it bigger and bigger!
The Pokemon and Legendary Challenge with Explanations
Cursed Reaper, or the Haunter you may call it, is a 5-cost minion with a 3/3 stat line but with an interesting effect. Cursed Reaper has effects from both Equality and Aldor Peacekeeper making a large minion become a mini monster.
K'rew Blood Claw, an acolyte that serves Gi'llax and was one of underlings of Gi'llax's creator. He leads the Blood Claw Cult which worships one weaker, yet unknown, Old God. Him being a 3-cost minion with a 1/1 stat line plus with an addition to summon a 4/4 Blood Shade comparable to Twilight Summoner. Cost comparison is that it is one cost less and summons a weaker version of Faceless Destroyer but with Feast. And hey! N'Zoth, the Corruptor can also used to re-summon him which makes him more valuable later on.
Thematically, the class plays around with mana. Reduces cost, swaps cost, summons minions for free, all that stuff. Since everything costs less, you might end up running out of cards quickly so there's some emphasis on card draw and deck refill.
Card rationale:
Spectral Offensive: Costly yet efficient card draw that refills your deck.
Pillar of Evil: Enhances your reduction effects, and is big enough to scare your opponent away from attacking it.
Expiatory Shackles: Removal with a bonus surprise.
Galvanize: If you have any cards with increased costs, this can synergize.
Dark Occultist: CURVE BOYS
Rain of Fire: Whirlwind reprint for hero power synergy.
Chaos Bell: Similar to Bloodlust for some hero power synergy, but also draws.
Night Spectre: Very powerful battlecry, but you can only use it if you didn't draw the card at the start of your turn.
Corporal Spawn: The opponent can tell when this is in your hand, so they can pull it out by ending their turn with 2 mana unspent. But even then, they've just ended their turn and guaranteed you a free 2/1 on board.
If you like my class, like this post so that I can continue to the next phase of the competition
“Spiritcookies for Everyone!!!!!!" – Phoenixfeather (me!)
Story/Lore:
Clare Dawnlight is the hero for the Spritcaller class. Once a prisoner captured by the Tauran during a failed alliance raid, Clare escaped by stealing concepts from their shamanic arts and infusing it with her own ideas. She has learned to harness spiritual energies by weaving mana without the use of totems, instead preferring staffs, average sticks, or even fingers if necessary. Through extensive practice, Clare Dawnlight has earned the help of many intangible spirits, mainly Moonglow Moths, who will willingly come to her aid. Instead of returning to the army once again as a battlemage, she now wanders Azeroth as a lone spiritcaller, seeking others who are willing to learn her arts.
What is a Spiritcaller?
Spiritcallers are those who guide spiritual energy through the use of mana. The Spirit Realm is an alternate universe made entirely spiritual energy. It overlaps most of reality, although it is invisible to most. Wild spiritual energies gather together within all living things. The stronger the power of a person, the greater the spiritual energy. Sometimes, spiritual energies gather together and awaken (often due to a powerful event). Other times, spiritcallers use mana to gather spiritual energies together to synthetically create spirits. The most powerful spirits are able to appearing by its own will into the mortal realm as shades, ghosts, or geists. There are a variety of different ways Spiritcallers can battle. Since every living thing is surrounded by spiritual energy, powerful spiritcallers are able to manipulate that energy to bolster or harm them. There are also able to transfer, strengthen, or combine a living thing’s spiritual energy to greatly strengthen them. (Or better yet, turn them completely into spirit energy and consume them!!!) Another way spiritcallers fight is with the solidification of spiritual energy. They can weave spiritual blades to arm themselves or others. Or, they have the ability to sharpen an existing weapon with spiritual energy.
Hero Power
The Spiritcaller's hero power is EXTREMELLY important. Although alone, a pesky Moonglow Moth doesn't do much, but five of them, and pretty much every enemy minion will be looking at one another saying "How the Dawnlight are we supposed to attack now?". These come slowely, and it's often a good idea to build these up in your hand. They usually require your opponent to quickly remove them. (Getting rid of a 0/2 isn't too hard) Sure, these guys are pretty weak to a good Holy Nova, and don't exactly have the ability to do a lot of damage, but couple in a few buffs, and you make quite an army. Of moths. fudgin' moths. (I almost feel bad about it).
Note that the current set is quite lacking in Moonglow Moth buffing. This is because we are still in the basic class, and aren't allowed to use any keywords other than battlecry for more complex ideas. The best is yet to come.
Possible Play Styles
Control
The idea is to use bindings, such as Moonglow Moth, Spiritform: Grind, and Flesh to Light to wreck your opponent’s tempo, and render many of your opponent’s cards useless. Many examples of existing anti-tempo cards include Lotheb, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Mana Wraith. Also, cards like Duskflame will cause your opponent to discard cards to annoy the daylights out of the discarded Reno Jackson or Ragnaros the Firelord. I've noticed that a lot of card will have the ability to discard from your opponent's hand, much more than intended. I guess I'll just make it a theme with this class.
Combo-Aggro
There is also the possibility to play a Zoo style, using cards like Spiritform: Weave and Spiritual Visions to help play more cards. Also, one can use All for One and One for All, assisted by the great number of Moonglow Moths to gain some serious OTK strength and momentum.
Reoccuring Themes:Opponent’ discarding, AoE debuffs, AoE buffs, Hand cost reduction, Hand cost increase.
Keyword: Glow
This class has the specific keyword glow. It's pretty simple and really isn't too hard to see ingame. It's very very annoying. Very annoying.
Somewhat similarly to Jade Golem keyword, the word Glow summons a 0/2 Moonglow Moth. Clare Dawnlight is always happy to buff these fun moths, who are perfect for destroying the offensive ability of your opponents. Is that a Stonetusk Boar I see? Hmm... Lets turn it into a tauntless Frog. It’s heavily anti-aggro, can when buffed, be abused, so it forces your opponent to remove it quickly.
Moonglow Moths can be summoned from spells, minions, and even weapons, depending on the way they are used. Have fun and enjoy!
Note: This keyword is a verb, similar to Silence or Freeze, although it doesn't apply it's affect onto a minion, but rather summons one.
Note: Dismal Duskflame's word "Current" refers to the player's turn. (The term comes from the Gift Exchange Brawl's Loot Crates during the Winter of 2015) So, if it dies during your turn, you discard 2 cards, and if during your opponent's turn, they will discard 2 cards.
Example Card + Challenge Card Explanations:
Unbound Spirit: Spiritcaller’s Mana Wyrm or Tunnel Trogg. It gives a small bonus for every Moonglow Moth that enter play. It is very slightly weaker than the rest of them though, unless you withhold a few Moonglow Moths in your hand.
Spiritform: Grind: This card is the counterpart of Spiritform: Weave. It can lock out certain cards from ever being played, such as Deathwing, or turn that annoying Leeroy Jenkins Combo into unplayables. As mentioned in the previous gauntlet, Spiritforms are a spell, similar to that of a Priest’s Powerwords. A spiritcaller literally grinds away the existence of the enemy. This can devestate combo or reno decks. Well kids. [Insert-profanity-here] it.
Flesh to Light: This is the Spiritcaller’s removal card. At the cost of 6, you can Glow, kill a creature without activating it’s deathrattle, and spam the “Well Played” emote. Ehh.. same thing. *tears from remembering the “sorry emote*. Anyway, this will feal a lot like Entomb, but you get a 0/2 Moonglow Moth instead of the card.
Dismal Duskflame: Another discard from your opponent’s hand card. It’s pretty fun to discard a crucial card as stated above sooo many times. It is the “corrupted” version of Duskflame. As the pokemon challenge card, it represents Chandelure (Like the original Duskflame). Dismal Duskflame's word "Current" refers to the player's turn. (The term comes from the Gift Exchange Brawl's Loot Crates during the Winter of 2015) So, if it dies during your turn, you discard 2 cards, and if during your opponent's turn, they will discard 2 cards.
Brightcaller Aurune: This is the 3 cost or less legendary card. Like Toshley, it will Glow (Summon a 0/2 Moonglow Moth) when it is played or dies. In addition, whenever you activate your hero power, you Glow once again!!! It’s a double-moonglow for the price of 1 (supplement of 3 mana)!!! And yes. It will do absolute miracles against that Pirate Warrior deck.
All of the Basic Set with Explanations:
Clarify: Weaker than Innervate, but stronger than Counterfeit Coin. It provides some amount of cost reduction at the cost of a card.
Ghostblade: Basically the backward version of Divine Strength. Simple and effective, making Moonglow Moths 3/2. This +2/+1 will also be there on many other cards.
"All for One, One for All. United we stand, Divided we Fall" (-Three Musketeers)
All for One: Supports the Spiritcaller Zoo archetype. This can give a single minion a great amount of attack, supporting a possible OTK combo. Can be very powerful when used properly.
One for All: Just like All for One (I just love the phrase), this card also helps with OTK. At the cost of a minion, you can cast Ghostblade on each minion you have. It works like a stronger version of Savage Roar with a sacrifice.
Spiritform: Weave: This card just works like a single charge of Emperor Thaurissan. Works best if you have 4+ cards in hand. It’s pretty self explanatory. This is the opposite of Spiritform: Grind.
Spiritform: Grind (This is one of the example cards, But I'm putting it here for reference): This card is the counterpart of Spiritform: Weave. It can lock out certain cards from ever being played, such as Deathwing, or turn that annoying Leeroy Jenkins Combo into unplayables. As mentioned in the previous gauntlet, Spiritforms are a spell, similar to that of a Priest’s Powerwords. A spiritcaller literally grinds away the existence of the enemy. This can devestate combo or reno decks. Well kids. [Insert-profanity-here] it.
Duskflame: Ooooo antoher Chandelure! Yes, it’s a pokemon. Discarding a card seems to feel like drawing 1.5 cards. It can get rid of something useless, like Triskaidekaphobia (My 5.03 Card Competition entry) or Angry Chicken. This will obviously be much stronger against combo decks or early-game aggro decks, greatly lowering their offensive ability.
Spiritual Visions: This is similar to Rogue’s Sprint, but instead discards a card from your opponent. Drawing 3 and you opponent discarding 1 may be a little on the weak side, since drawing 3 cards feels like 5 mana, while discarding feels like 1.5. The idea is for a spiritcaller to use spiritual energy to predict future possibilities in order to gain spell ideas, and deter your opponent. It just works (hopefully). Deal with the discarded Reno Jackson.
Thanks for reading! I have some great plans already set for the next few sets!!! If you have any Questions, Criticism, Complaints, Insults or Toxicity (Sult), PM me. I'll try to respond with kindness.
If you enjoyed, leave a like, and I'll send you a Spiritcookie*.
Allergy Warning - Contains: Wheat, Milk, Eggs, Pikachus, Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!, Salt, Pepper, Unicorns, and "Feel any better yet?".
Spiritcookie Recievers So Far...* (They all got lost on the way. Sorry)
1. Phoenixfeather (Me)
2. Asylum_Rhapsody (So I don't get kicked out of this comp)
3. Nurgling13 (For teaching me how to put a spoiler in a spoiler)
4. Fluxflashor (For explain to me how to write a post. Look. I'm new to all this)
5. FrostyFeetEU (For a name change. Thank C'Thun I didn't have to have numbers in my name)
*We are not responsible for any lost spiritcookies due to wandering Moonglow Moths. fudgin' moths
Spark McClank was one of Gazlowe's more promising apprentices for not blowing himself up. A recommendation gave him an engineering position at Venture Co. Although he almost got fired for "damaging company property", some string-pulling helped him keep his job. For now. In a world filed with big monsters and mysterious magic, Spark does well using technology and would do even better if his inventions were reliable. "It's a work in progress..." he would defend himself before adding: "... And it wouldn't be unfinished if the deadline was more generous." Same story every time, but its hard to find a good tinker ever since the last one experienced a work accident.
The Tinker's hero power makes him search for the right tool in his bag. He uses the Tool to make quick on-field fixes and enhancements. Adding the buff to your hand instead of buffing the minion directly makes the hero power almost always usable, even if there are no minions on the battlefield.
The play style is a mixture of paladin's minion enhancing while equipping them with new inventions and warlock's minion sacrificing when some of those inventions don't work as the minions would wish. Either way, the focus is on using spells on minions, spare parts for example. Will it be powerful spells on big minions for control decks or cheap spells on small minions for aggro decks is up to the deck builder.
Some of the inventions in the Tinker arsenal work better than others. And some just blow up.
Example cards:
Rocketeer - simple 2-drop that tends to fly back to your hand from danger when he gets the chance. Could be seen as a 3/1 that draws a card when the effect triggers.
Dynamite Fist - every punch leaves behind a small explosion. Note that targeted minions take 1 damage twice.
Detonate - explosions, more explosions.
Pokemon and non-basic legendary:
Charged Sphere - a pokemon with well known self destructive tendencies. If he is damaged at the end of your turn, he blows up so keep him healed and happy if you are not ready for it. I gave him the mech tag because Electrode has a metallic voice.
Martha Peppers - her spicy hot pepper cloud will make enemy minions temporary very vulnerable and every wound will hurt twice as much.
Rest of the basic set:
Missile Ride - Choose one of your minions and send him on the ride of his life. He then takes down an enemy minion.
Broken Battlebot - doesn't work right away but some fixing will patch it up. It's a work in progress. It also often breaks down after a fight. This is an example of synergy with the Tinker hero power.
Experiment - Come up with something new. Spells will fire up immediately so it could be very mana efficient or the experiment could go horribly wrong.
Prosthetics - patch up injured minions with mechanical body parts and make them even deadlier on the field. Could be seen as a bigger Ancestral Healing.
Dynamite Stick - the basic 2-mana-3-damage spell for tinkers. Slightly stronger when things become personal between the heroes.
Examination - helps the tinker learn new things, but the subject might not feel the same afterward. Spell damage makes it more thorough.
Arm Extensions - Slightly weak for a 5-mana weapon but you have the choice to invest another 2 mana with your hero power to give it extra stats.
As shown in the previous phase, the King is a class that focuses on manipulating and utilising rarity as a kind of tribe like murlocs or pirates, using synergies to win. Basic playstyles include Common Control, Epic Midrange, 30 Legendary decks, and then all the regular archetypes like control, midrange and aggro.
Of course, in the basic set itself, it's a bad idea to try and interact with rarity itself. Newer players with no cards won't be able to even make a common deck, and the basic set should ideally act as the core building blocks of the class. Even if the classes core is to interact with rarity, basic spells that don't interact with them and focus on the other elements of the King are necessary.
Example Cards
Explanations
Display of Strength - This is some cost efficient hard removal that reflects one of the basic ideas of the King; The King's primary method of taking out big guys will be using even bigger guys to do it for him. He's a King after all, not a fighter. This card will allow huge minons to see some immediate value, and the reduction in cost in comparison to something like Assassinate allows him to swing the tempo in his favor. However, requiring big minions, or at least, minions bigger than theirs, might be a bit tricky... Unless you use something like the next card beforehand.
Public Execution - The King can have anyone he wants killed off, he's the ruler of his own country after all. And should he want to, he can also demoralise and nullify enemies, reducing their will to fight, and allowing his minions to get an advantage, whether that be in a Display of Strength or some regular combat, so your Faerie Dragon can kill off Ysera. Attack manipulation, quite clearly, is also a big part of the King.
Flamecore Guardsman - Taunting is a very big part of the King. This card sacrifices a little bit of your board or health in exchange for more early game control, which, especially in common King decks, is important. It has enough health to avoid being pinged and can kill off little 1 attack minions, all the while it has enough damage to kill off 2 drops or the 1 drops seen in modern day Hearthstone.
Regal Nymph - Look around in your collection and see how epic cards are almost always pure gimmick cards. Epic king, an archetype that Regal Nymph is a big part of, embodies this. Regal Nymph utilises the very high value, albeit very situational nature of these cards in a special way with the Discover mechanic, which is built to be a mechanic that allows players to choose the best card for their current situation. So, when you're against an Anfin Pally, take a Hungry Crab, when you happen to have your Bloodmage Thalnos in hand, take a Master of Ceremonies and when your opponent is running a N'zoth deck, pick up a Defias Cleaner. Despite this nice little ability though, she has 4/6 stats for 5 mana. She's only a little bit understatted, which is due to the fact that her ability only works if you control an epic.
Briona, Court Jester - Briona is a card that doesn't fit too much into the basic theme of The King, but she is essentially the figurehead of the Gadgetzan Faction of the King. This is a little sneak peek into that faction. Can you guess what the factions theme might be? Sneak peek aside, the card itself is pretty mediocre. Paying 3 mana for a 2/3 is terrible, however you can get multiple if you pull off an attack. When you buff the card with some spells though, she starts to get a little crazy, increasing both her stats and the stats of her duplicants. Keep in mind however, that all damage dealt to Briona will also be a hit to any future duplicants.
The rest of the basics and explanations
Guard Duty - Gives a minion a Taunt as well as a +1/+1 buff for 2 mana whilst cycling. This allows you to generate value whilst protecting yourself.
Piercing Throw - The idea behind this card is that you throw your spear at an enemy and if it's enough to kill it it will pierce through it and hit something else. Think of it as a cleave, but you can target one hit in order for the second hit to come out.
Chilly Peace Pike - During times of strife and conflict, this weapon was called by its more popular name, Fiery War Pike. The King is a weapon class, and he primarily uses spears. This spear in particular starts off as a really powerful weapon for 3 mana, but the turn after it cools down and turns into a 3/2 weapon, which is bad for 3. This forces you to to use the weapon reactively instead of proactively, playing the weapon when you need it rather than when you have the mana.
City Protector - A simple 3 mana minion that allows you to heavily reduce a minions attack so that friendly minions can lose less health while trading into it in addition to setting up minions to have Display of Strength casted on them.
Royal Feast - A healing card that heals for a LOT but won't work until the turn after you play it. This means the card will rarely work while behind, you can't simply tank the enemies attacks, you have to use it to stabilise to stop yourself from being killed by charge minions, spells and hero powers over time.
Valiant Slash - A single target damage card that will kill the majority of minions, in addition to being usable on face, for a little bit of burst.
Hail of Arrows - A couple of archers come into the field and unleash hell on the enemy forces, sticking behind after their onslaught to help deal with the opponents response, in an attempt to swing the game back in your favour. Token generation is also a small part of the King.
The Token
I hope you'll give my class a chance, I personally have a lot of ideas for it and I think that the many themes that could be explored in future expansions can be combined with the rarity mechanics to create some interesting cards not seen in Hearthstone before!
Spell Breakers are masters of magical manipulation and negation. They are the bane of casters like mages, priests, and warlocks everywhere. They use their powerful runes and weapon know-how to outwit, outlast, and outplay their opponent by using a variety of tools at their disposal. They have a lot of defensive spells and control tools. This is going to be a more control oriented class but may evolve into something that can also be played mid-range fairly decently as well. Sindraevia once served under Kael'thas rule himself though now she serves no one. She set off into the world to carve her own path and with your guiding hands she will succeed.
Example Cards:
Explanations:
Innate Sense: Shows off the manipulation aspect very well. A powerful tool for acquiring knowledge of your opponent's hand. What more a better way to best your opponent than by knowing the tricks they may have up their sleeve?
Shielding Rune; A buff that will surely help out, especially with the more weaker minions the Spellbreaker employs.
Grizzled Veteran: Shows of the negation aspect very well by avoiding spells and hero powers.
Ancient Guardian: A great target for Shielding Rune. It would make it an ideal target for exhausting one of your opponent's hard removal spells.
Pouncey Sylderoy: It gives you a turn to better prepare yourself when played.I deally a good early game tool against aggro classes.
Rest of Basic Set and their Explanations:
Defensive Rune: Ideally solid defensive spell. Also, as an AOE, it does bypass your own minions that can't be targeted.
Icebound Rune: A solid tool for perhaps dealing with a few number of minions.
Blazing Rune: Another AOE This time one that damages your minions as well as the opponents.
Eager Recruit: Card draw really, a bit better than Novice Engineer.
Healing Rune: A solid heal for the class, good considering you'll want to be using your hero power to potentially attack some quite big minions.
Bloodwarder Shield: A bit weak weapon, but still one worthwhile to be including in my basic set. It's a good alternative to the hero power when you just want to clear some larger mid-game minions.
Spellbreaker Guardian: Ideally a taunt to protect your minions.
Class Mechanic: Anticipate: If this is the first card you've drawn this turn, do something.
Indie Jackson is the younger and waaaaay more sensible sister of the infamous capitalist Reno. Her tendency for planning things down to a T and her aptitude for problem solving and strategy has attracted the attention of the League of Explorers, who sends her all across Azeroth to further the knowledge of the League.
She uses the SpyGlass to spot answers and on curve plays as well as using their potential to set up huge combos. The playstyle is usually quite reactive as you search for responses, but once your opponent has an off turn you can begin to gain the initative and snowball by using your hero power to further your advantage by looking for even more dangerous threats. Of course, there is always the combo potential with her hero power. The class identity is based around drawing cards and shuffling other cards into the deck to be discovered, but just general explorer flavored themes!
Showcased Cards
Explanations for these guys:
Reckless Mountaineer: A perfect example of the class. Weak body, but prepares for a big advantage next turn.
Consult the Map: Card draw, which synergises with the SpyGlasses.
Ancient Torch: For picking off midgame minions with pretty basic battlecry. Pretty standard weapon.
Gem Hoarder: Sableye is a Pokemon that robs its fallen enemies and I thought it'd be cool to employ a Cutpurse style mechanic into this card as in something that hoards treasures.
Sylvanas Ranger General: Redeemed Sylv to curb early game aggro and to maintain board control. This kills most 1-2 drops so you can repair an early game tempo disaster or maintain that beautifully curved out board.
The Less Fortunate Cards
Jungle Retreat: Healing to consolidate early game board but can also be very useful in the late game to punish opponents for letting some large threats live.
Exhaustion: An almost removal. I feel destroying a minion is not very flavourful so I decided to lock it down this way instead. The minion is just too damn tired!!
Explorer's Whip: To curb early game aggression, but can also be used aggressively for 5 damage burst.
Rune Tap: Late Game card to find tools to win the value game.
Wandering Satyr: Succubus like effect to reduce your card advantage but instead provides a big body.
Experienced Guide: Your late game Thaurissan equivalent to give you more value by making removals and win cons more accessible.
Falling Rocks: Just pretty general AoE that is also reminiscent of the collapsing temple scenes in Indiana Jones movies XD.
The Starcaller is a class based on the knowledge of the cosmos and the stars, of the order established by the Titans at the beginning of time and the chaos caused by the void. Manipulating the raw arcane energies of the universe, the starcaller blasts its foes with power and grants its allies boons with the essence of greater beings. They can also call on cosmic entities, animate golems using ancient Titan magic, and, in a fashion similar to priests, dance on the edge between order and chaos.
The Basics
Latent Power: this card represents the way in which Starcallers can use ancient magic to empower their minions. Its more aggressive decks will be based on having a lot of board presence using several small minions, and spells like this one increase their ability to make favorable trades and go for lethal. However, it will be one of the only ones to boost Attack more than Health.
Supernova: the board clear of choice for more controlling Starcallers, this card shows the powerful and uncontrollable nature of the forces they use. A very strong clear that comes a turn earlier than Flamestrike, but with the downside of hitting your own minions for some damage.
Twisting Guardian: presenting an example of simple synergies with the hero power, this card would be a very common minion if not for having one of the characteristic Starcaller effects: shuffling cards back into your deck in exchange of an effect. In this case, it is very difficult to activate on curve, but its flexibility when drawn late makes it worth of considering for a deck spot.
Other basic cards
In general, there are three themes present in the basic card set. Minion buffing, Spell synergy and Token generation. In future sets, these archetypes will be expanded and more will be included. Shieldweaver is a very characteristic card because it shows the duality of the class, divided between being a mage using archaic powers (Spell Damage) and using the words of greater beings as a paladin would (Divine Shield).
The Challenges
Spellbound Golem: this card is very particular because it makes you not want to spend the resources your hero power gives you in exchange of being a very powerful minion for its cost if the conditions are met. Golurk is the Pokémon used for this challenge. As the Pokédex reads, he was built by a people a lot of time ago to protect something, and it is fueled by a strange energy. In this case, the ones who built this golem may be the Titans or their earliest creations, and you fuel it with your Sparks.
Bazvar the Earthshaper: the toughest challenge yet made us create a Legendary card from a future set that cost (3) or less mana. In this case, this card focuses on the shuffling effects available in the Starcaller card, similar to how Princess Huhuran or Fandral Staghelm focus on their classes' main themes. It can be used along other cards, like Twisting Guardian or the future Recall to rapidly generate a board. However, it is very fragile, so you should get a lot of value out of it the turn you play it.
Bazvar's tokens:
Hope you like it, and if you want to hear more from the Starcaller, vote!
The Faerie Dragon, Alysia. Her name means "captivating power" and she is from deep within Ashenvale. She was Brightwing's best friend in childhood but they grew distant when Brightwing left to fight in the Nexus while Alysia stayed in Ashenvale to protect the Emerald Dream. Unlike most Faerie Dragons, Alysia has an uncanny bond with other Dragons and acts as an emissary for Ysera when necessary.
The class focuses on controlling both sides of the board, including summoning weak minions to the opponent's side as a drawback but also using them to your advantage. The hero power has obvious synergy with Dragon support, providing you with a means to always have a Dragon in hand guaranteeing value from those cards.
Basic Set with explanations
Lost Whelp - An easy way to summon a Whelp for your opponent without losing card advantage. Costs 1 less than Arcane Intellect because you need a minion to kill the Whelp and also waste that minion's attack for the turn (and 1 health).
Forest Guardian - A simple boss/win condition for the basic set along the same vein as Guardian of Kings and Dread Infernal. While it's out, the drawbacks of your Whelp summoning effects are removed but it's also just a cute effect that hasn't really been seen in Hearthstone yet.
Phase Shift - What would a Faerie Dragon be without it's signature ability? Has many uses, can obviously be used as a pseudo-conceal to "protect" one of your minions or to remove a Taunt from the opponent's field for the turn. Also lets you lower your minion count without actually removing one of your minions for effects like Overpower (see rest of basic set).
Rest of basic set:
Lonely Whelp - Very straightforward. Above average stats at the cost of summoning a Whelp for your opponent.
Ranger - A realistic basic card which combines two basic effects nicely. Simple and versatile.
Dragon Rage - A thematic basic damaging spell which fits the Dragon theme perfectly while adding value to the Hatch hero power.
Ascend - Similar to Mark of Yshaarj but with an effect we haven't seen yet in Hearthstone; adding a minion type tag. Will be something interesting to play around with.
Whelp Laid - The signature removal spell shown off in Phase I. Hard removal with a hefty drawback that fits this class perfectly. Also how could I call this a Hearthstone set if there wasn't a pun somewhere?
Overpower - "AoE" buff spell so you can turn those Faerie Whelps into an actual threat. Used to cost 2 but people expressed concern that it was too easy to manipulate board numbers in this class and just OTK someone so I upped it to 3 which should be fair.
Intimidate - A simple spell similar to Equality but 1 extra cost. In my opinion this effect is more powerful than Equality because Equality won't help unless you also have a way to remove the minions whereas this can essentially remove threats in a vacuum.
Challenge cards with explanations
Brightwing - Of course this had to be the first Faerie Dragon Legendary ^_^ It really ramps up the Faerie Dragon protection effect and also provides something Hearthstone hasn't explored much yet; protecting your hero from targeting effects.
Moonlight Sentinel - I had to use this pretty picture of Dragonair. It makes up for its subpar stats with a cute auto-summon from hand effect which I think fits the Dragon theme nicely. Those Whelps you summon make easy prey to trigger this beauty.
The Battlemage is a fierce combatant who uses devastating spells and enchanted artifacts to defend herself, all the while unleashing a flurry of enchanted weapon strikes against her opponent. In terms of gameplay, this means that the Battlemage is a midrange weapon class; she generates value at the cost of tempo by casting permanent weapon buffs, while using many powerful spells to try to control the board. She will have strong synergies with Spell Damage, not only to boost damage, but also to enhance her other spells and minions.
Because practically all her AOEs are symmetric, it is hard for her to rely on her minions for face damage, and as a result she must use her weapons to deal kill her opponent; if she ends up having to use her weapon charges to trade, then she's on her way to a loss. Battlemage decks will be weapon and AOE heavy, with a strong focus on draw to get your answers and value cards out consistently. No fatigue win condition here!
Azarel has training in safely supercharging her artifacts and incantations; as a result, she can gain additional effects to ordinary spells by paying more mana. This is the unique class keyword, Empower.
The Basic Set
The fundamental weapon buff, providing consistent value by adding raw damage to your weapons without any gimmicks. This card is a must for the basic set: it enables designing future sets without constantly having to print a weapon damage buff.
This card is in the basic set so that it can always act as the primary draw engine for the Battlemage. Paying 2 to draw a card is very bad, but this can scale quite nicely with enough Spell Damage, often being able to draw you 3 or 4 cards later in the game (while being 1 or 2 early on).
The class is a weapon based class, and so you should get to see a weapon as an example card. A simple concept, the Battlemage benefits from high durability weapons, to get more value out of the weapon buffs she's already cast this game.
The full set!
Longsword: A weapon focused class, I wanted to provide access to a cheap weapon. This is the Rogue hero power in card form: other hero powers cost (0), and so I made this weapon cost (0) as well.
Animated Wand: A minion that shows two aspects of the class: using enchanted artifacts as minions, while also having easy access to Spell Damage to promote synergy with all the spells that are present.
Burning Hands: A cheap single target removal spell that shows a fundamental design decision for the class: no spells that can target face. Not allowing spells to hit face allows for more liberal amounts of Spell Damage without worrying about it becoming abused for OTKs.
Enchant: Conduit: Another spell that pushes the weapon buff mechanic, again with a very simple implementation. By providing both this and Fiery Weapon in the basic set as building blocks for fundamental class mechanics, it frees up design space in the other sets to be more complex and niche, without constantly having to make sure there's a method for the class to increase the damage of their weapons.
Disintegrate: The strongest single target removal for the class. Better than Polymorph, as a 0/1 token is hard to be made useful for the opponent. Generates the token card Pile of Ash shown in the reveal.
Meteor Storm: The flashy 10 mana spell that any good spell based class should have. Playing up the synergy with Spell Damage to the extreme (this + Malygos would deal 60 damage to the enemy board), Meteor Storm is essentially a more interesting way to destroy all enemy minions; which I think is fine for 10 mana, as you can't develop anything else the turn you play it. This spell can't hit face, or it would be way too strong.
The Challenge Cards
From the treasure rooms of Blackrock Spire comes the Mithril Dragon Figurine. While appearing as a simple toy, this is a figurine of incredible power to those who have an affinity for magical artifacts. By imbuing the figurine with additional magic and uttering the correct incantation, you can bring it to life to fight for you! Be careful though, for if the figurine is destroyed, it will unleash all of its stored magic in an explosive blast!
When searching through an ancient temple that opened when the Old Gods surfaced, Azarel stumbled upon the Tome of Ancient Teachings, written in a time when magical arts were more refined. The tome allows her to read long-lost incantations to gather ambient magical energy and transfer it into her own spells, eliminating the need for her to provide additional magic to Empower her abilities.
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This is the Submission Topic. Submissions will open until Thursday,
January 26th, at 20:00 UTC. The Discussion Topic is here.
Greetings! As Phase I had 92 valid entries, and as we want to keep about the same proportion of entries moving on from each Phase to the next, that proportion comes out to ~53.414%. Therefore, rounding up, 50 entries will go to Phase II, 27 entries will go to Phase III, 15 entries will go to Phase IV, 8 entries will go to Phase V, and 4 entries will go to Phase VI. These numbers do not include Wild Cards.
The following users' entries have advanced to Phase II of the competition. You are not allowed to post in this topic unless you are one of the users listed below. However, you are still perfectly allowed to participate in the discussion topic. =)
Wild Cards: Dracossack, waterwaIker
PHASE II: The Basics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Basic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase II Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire Basic Set out in the open.
The remaining seven (7) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
CHALLENGES!
OTHER STUFF
These are just the General Rules, Competition Schedule and Process, Rewards, and Archives. You probably already went through them during Phase I. I still want to include them here, but I'm just going to put them all behind one big spoiler. Any change to them since Phase I has been noted above.
GENERAL RULES
Even if you're already a veteran of our competitions here on the Fan Creation Forum, you should read the general rules before you get started. This competition does introduce new rules, like image limitations and formatting requirements.
* The Submission Topic is for submissions only. If you want to discuss your entry, another entry, ask questions about the competition rules or process, or anything else, you can find a link to the Discussion Topic at the top of this thread. Plenty of folks there will be happy to help you out.
* You are allowed only one submission, consisting of the materials specified by each competition phase. These materials must, of course, be of your own creation. If you'd like, you may collaborate with another user on a single submission, but this must be specified during Phase I.
* You may make only minor edits to your entry once you have submitted it. Minor changes are things like correcting typos or making balance changes that do not alter the spirit of your entry as determined by we the moderators. If you want to make any changes and have any doubts as to their legality, ask us first.
* You may not delete any posts you make in this topic. No, not even if you post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something. Deleted posts screw with the system we use to help us calculate up-vote scores, so don't do that. If you to post here by mistake or accidentally double-post or something, simply edit your post to just say "REMOVED" and leave it at that.
* You may not create your own topics on this forum for competition-related material. If everybody goes off and creates their own topics for specific discussion of their entries, this board will be flooded with nothing but, and so competition material must remain restricted to official competition topics. If you want to enter the competition with a class that you already have a topic about on this forum, then your topic will be locked in the interest of fairness to the other competitors. Not deleted, just locked, and it can be unlocked after your entry gets knocked out of the competition. You also may not reference or link to your topic in official competition topics.
* You must host your card somewhere other than Hearthcards. We encourage you to create your entry material using Hearthcards.net, but please remember that, although HearthCards is awesome, it has a limited server space and will purge cards after a few days, and nobody wants your cards disappearing part-way through the competition. After you create it, save and upload it to Imgur, Photobucket, or some other similar site. We understand that there are some Hearthcards memberships that will allow you to save your card there for longer (and you should totally get one of those just for general fan creation purposes, by the way), but we don't know who has those memberships and we can't tell from the URLs.
* You may not submit any Gold cards or animated cards, nor may you include any images in your post other than the requested submission materials, like banners or borders. We get it, everybody wants their entry to stand out, but our pages are going to be heavy enough as it is without everybody heading their submissions with animated banners.
* You must insert your images into your post using this icon on the bar above the post text editor: . Just click that button and put in the URL of your image. We realize that it's also possible to upload and attach images to your post. Don't do that, though. We know from experience that, because those images are much smaller and require more work to view, entries that enter their images that way just don't do as well, so this is for your own good.
* Format your entry concisely by sizing your cards appropriately and placing them beside one another rather than in a column or completely separate. The first example below is acceptable while the second is not. Entries that unnecessarily inflate the size of the submission topic and make it more difficult to get through will be disqualified. Adjust cards to a width of 250, and you should be able to get three in a row.
Hey, look! Some cards!
Soul of the Forest: Look at how nice this is.
Hammer of Twilight: All neat, organized, and concise.
Twilight Summoner: What a great post.
Wait, what are you doing?
Seriously, please don't.
This is painful. Why are you doing this?
You are a monster.
* "Troll" entries will be disqualified. Fun and even humorous entries are perfectly allowed (this is Hearthstone after all), but if you're worried that your entry may be misinterpreted as a troll entry, contact a moderator before you submit.
Finally, know that manipulating votes in any way is strictly forbidden. Any violators will receive an official warning, and will be banned from this and all future HearthPwn Card Design Competitions.
COMPETITION SCHEDULE AND PROCESS
How long do you have to work on your submission? How will advancement to Phase II of the competition be determined? The answers to these questions and more can be found below...
PHASE I: CONCEPT
Preview: 2/January - 3/January
Submission: 3/January - 16/January
Up-Voting: 16/January - 17/January
PHASE II: BASIC SET
Preview: 17/January - 18/January
Submission: 18/January - 26/January
Up-Voting: 26/January - 27/January
PHASE III: CLASSIC SET
Preview: 27/January - 28/January
Submission: 28/January - 7/February
Poll #1: 7/February - 8/February
Poll #2: 8/February - 9/February
PHASE IV: Blackrock Mountain + The Grand Tournament
Preview: 9/February - 10/February
Submission: 10/February - 20/February
Poll #1: 20/February - 21/February
Poll #2: 21/February - 22/February
PHASE V: League of Explorers + Whispers of the Old Gods
Preview: 22/February - 23/February
Submission: 23/February - 2/March
Poll: 2/March - 3/March
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan + Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Submission: 3/March - 14/March
Poll: 14/March - 17/March
NOTE: All stages of the competition begin and end at 20:00 UTC.
ALSO NOTE: I know that a couple of these submissions windows might see tight, especially because the secret challenges make it difficult to plan ahead. That being the case, this timetable is subject to change at my discretion, even after the competition begins, if it seems like too many folks are struggling.
* During Preview stages, both a Submission Topic and a Discussion Topic will go up, but the Submission Topic will be locked until the end of the Preview stage. The Submission Topic will reveal the Phase's unique challenges, so take this time to discuss them, ask for clarifications, and so on.
* During Submission stages, Submission Topics will be unlocked and (remaining) participants may submit their entries. During Phases I-II, you may also use this time to go ahead and up-vote submissions that you like.
* During Up-Voting stages for Phases I-II, Submission Topics will be locked. Use this time to up-vote submissions that you like. Note that advancement during these Phases depends entirely on up-votes.
* During Polling stages for Phases III-VI, Submission Topics will be locked, and all eligible remaining participants will have their submission material included in a separate Poll Topic to determine advancement. Phases III-IV include two Poll Topics because I anticipate we will have enough participants remaining that we will not be able to fit everybody in one Poll Topic. Note that up-votes in the Submission Topics are irrelevant to advancement during these Phases.
How will eliminations be done, and how many competitors will advance from each phase to the next?
I'm glad you asked! We will be taking a equal proportion of competitors from each Phase of the competition to the next, and we will be ending with exactly four finalists. That being the case and their being five total eliminations before the final round, that proportion can be found by solving for x:
[# of valid Phase I entries] * x^5 = 4
The higher the number of valid Phase I entries, the lower that proportion becomes. Just so you have an idea, the proportion hits 50% when we hit 128 entries, which is likely, but it only hits 33.3% when we hit 972 entries, which is less likely.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases II and III will be determined by up-votes only. However, these up-votes are weighted using a formula identical to the process used by our Weekly Card Design Competitions:
(ab) / (c) = x
(Where a is the total number of up-votes that your submission received, b is the total number of valid submissions on the same page as your submission, c is the total number of up-votes on valid submissions on the same page as your submission, and x is your submission's final weighted up-vote score.)
Why bother with this formula rather than just taking each submissions up-votes directly? Because earlier pages simply get a lot more views that later pages do, and we do not want rushed, early submissions to have an advantage over later submissions that took more time to get their entries just right. The formula basically measures which submissions stood out the most, with the necessary assumption that each page is about equal in overall submission quality.
The bottom line is that, although entries on the earlier pages of the Submission Topic are much more visible and thus receive many more up-votes than entries on later pages, you don't actually have to rush to get your entry in as soon as possible, because the up-votes end up being weighted by what page your entry ends up on in order to determine its final score.
As mentioned above, advancement to Phases IV, V, and VI will be determined by polls. These polls will be multi-choice, meaning that voters can vote for every entry that they like. Whenever we have to split a Phase's poll into two to make it more manageable for voters, advancement will be determined by looking at each class's final percentage scores, not by looking at the direct number of votes they received, since we can't guarantee that the same number of voters will vote each day. Poll results will always be hidden until the poll has concluded, and for polls split in two, this does also mean that the results of the first poll will not be revealed until the second poll has concluded as well.
The winner of Phase VI, and thus the entire competition, will be determined by a poll much like the ones before, except that it will be single-choice, requiring voters to pick their single favorite class, and will have a much longer polling phase than usual to give us plenty of opportunity for promotion and such.
In the event of a tie during Phases I-IV for the last possible advancing position, all entries involved in the tie will be allowed to advance; the more the merrier, I say. We will absolutely not have more than four finalists, however, and so in the event of a tie during Phase V, the three Fan Creation Forum moderators (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will vote to break the tie. In the event of a tie during Phase VI to determine the competition's winner, the title will simply be shared unless both finalists request and agree to a tie-breaking round.
But wait, there's more! During Phases I-IV of the Competition, each Fan Creation Forum moderator (that is, myself, ShadowsOfSense, and PupleMD) will have a Wild Card, which we may (though are not required to) use to advance to the next Phase any one entry that we feel was initially overlooked or under-appreciated, regardless of its performance with voters. No entry may be awarded a Wild Card more than once, and it should also go without saying that, while some moderators are allowed to participate in the competitions, they are never allowed to benefit from Wild Cards. Wild Cards are our way of spicing things up a bit, but please don't ask to be given one or be upset if you aren't given one. These are just supposed to be fun.
Are you curious what will be required for future phases of the competition? The three challenges will remain a secret, but I'm happy to tell you the general submission requirements.
PHASE III: The Classics
In this Phase, you will each construct your class's Classic Set. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase III Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire Classic Set out in the open.
The remaining eleven (11) cards of your class's Basic Set must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
You should include your completed Basic Set from Phase II behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Classic Set material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification since the end of Phase II, but thy must still adhere to all of Phase II's requirements.
PHASE IV: Blackrock Mountain and The Grant Tournament
By having your class's Classic Set approved of, you've shown that you can make a completely functional class. But functional isn't good enough. Your class must also have room to grow beyond that. For this phase, you'll be proving that it can by giving your class Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase IV Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire BRM and TGT Sets out in the open.
The remaining cards of your class's BRM and TGT Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
You should include your completed Basic and Classic Sets from Phases II and III behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase IV material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE V: League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods
Congratulations on being a semi-finalist! With positively received Blackrock Mountain and Grand Tournament sets, you've proven that your class's concept and mechanics have room for expansion. Now, there's only one last thing to do: narrow down the best of the best. For this phase, you'll be giving your class League of Explorers and Whispers of the Old Gods cards. Here are the requirements for your Class Creation Competition Phase V Entry:
There are just a few elements of your class that you will repeat from your Phase I entry, to remind us who and what we're dealing with. If you'd like to repeat anything from your class's introductory explanation, including its flavor or whatever you believe makes it interesting or unique mechanically, that's fine, but try to keep it brief.
We do not want to see your Class's entire LoE and WotOG Sets out in the open.
The remaining eight (8) cards of your class's LoE and WotOG Sets must be presented behind a Spoiler Block (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.). These cards must obey the same rules are your examples cards with regards to expansion watermarks, rarity gems, and what keywords you may not use.
You should include your completed Basic, Classic, BRM, and TGT Sets from Phases II-IV behind a Spoiler (Inserting a Spoiler can be done by clicking the ! symbol on the top bar of the text editor.) either before or after your Phase V material. It is fine if these cards have undergone some minor modification, but they must still adhere to all of their original Phase requirements.
PHASE VI: One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
Here we are, finalists! In the last phase of our competition, you'll be giving us your class's One Night in Karazhan and Mean Streets of Gadgetzan sets, as well as constructing your own custom Finale Topics:
There will be no Submission Topic for the competition Finale. Instead, you will create your own Finalist Topics. All that you have to do is create a normal topic here on the Fan Creation Forum and title it as such:
[Class Competition Finalist] TURTLE
(Replace TURTLE with your own class's name, of course.)
Then, bring it to our attention, and we'll link to it from this topic. That's it. How you format and present your final product is entirely up to you. You've put in a lot of work to come this far, so you've earned the right to show us your completed original Class however you think is best.
In addition to including the required material from all previous phases, you must add the following:
These don't need to be part of your Finale Topic, but by the end of the Submission Phase, you should send me 8 example cards from your completed collection, preferably via PM, to be included in the Final Poll Topic. The Final Poll topic will look very similar to this one from our first CCC, except that no token cards will be included.
REWARDS
In addition to truly epic bragging rights, ALL finalists will receive a special Forum Title and Avatar Border, similar to those given to winners of our forum's Weekly Card Design Competitions, as shown below:
Furthermore, the winning contestant will have a Season 5 competition themed around their winning class!
ARCHIVES
Want to see how things went during our first two Class Creation Competitions? Want to see what the winners and other finalists did during each phase? Then check out the links below!
Note, that some competition rules, especially formatting rules, may have been different for past competition.
Class Creation Competition #1
Phase I Submission (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase I Discussion
Phase II Submission (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase II Discussion, Phase II Poll
Phase III Submission (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase III Discussion, Phase III Poll
Phase IV Discussion (Merchant, Twilight's Hammer, Demon Hunter, Lich), Phase IV Poll
Class Creation Competition #2 - Worlds Beyond Warcraft
Phase I Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase I Discussion
Phase II Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase II Discussion
Phase III Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase III Discussion, Phase III Polls (1 & 2)
Phase IV Submission (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase IV Discussion, Phase IV Poll
Phase V Discussion (Bard, Agent, Nightmare, Pokemon Trainer), Phase V Poll
Lets go Hearthpwn! Thanks for the love in the first Round! Here's my Basic set for the Seer class.
There have been a number of changes that my class has gone through, but if you stay with me you'll see that the class is keeping the themes I revealed before, as well as expanding into multiple play styles and archetypes, as other classes do. First, my Hero power has changed.
It's a bit unorthodox to do this, but I really wanted the bedrock of this class to be consistent. The hero power I showed in Phase I will appear again later, I promise, but the first Hero power was too specific and clunky in testing. This new hero power is not as constricting to the class, and acts as card draw AND extra health, depending how much your opponent cares about you drawing a card.
Old Hero Power:
As a quick refresh, Transport is a mechanic that sets a card's location with either a green or purple glow around its borders. A card's location has no effect on how it acts, but many Seer class cards interact specially with other Transported cards, or when they're transported. Transport and transport support will not show up in the basic set because of basic card restrictions.
One of the Seer's Main mechanics is revealing cards. Knowing cards in you opponents hand is supper Insightful, and Dream is one great use of Revealing cards, as semi removal. Card draw and mutual benefits such as Mind Meld is also central, and as you read more, you'll see Seer has a good base of damage. (Note: Mind Meld Reveals these cards for both player's permanently)
I know I didn't have to make both cards Pokémon, But I couldn't resist after being given creative direction. Xatu gazes into the past future with its left and right eye, while Absol is continuing to warn you of impending doom. Nice!
Remaining cards:(Plz lik, I only Tri best)
Ovewhelm is a POWERfull, yet situational card. You need to set it up correctly. But boy does it hit hard. Fate refraction is an amazing use of the Reveal archetype, also adding to the mill theme that's building here. Go steal some legendaries! Children of the Moon is this class's strong stabilization minion that many of the control classes have. It deters your opponent from attacking AND reveals cards all at once!
Ysera's Chosen is ok anti agro for one turn, but Very strong if the chosen minion survives for more than one turn. It also happens to protect the Chosen minion. Third eye is the heavy niche utility card of the class, creating interesting decisions and wacky mill strats that some of us love.
Return to the Possible is strong Almost removal. Almost. But it is cheap, And can even target your own minions for some interesting combos. Apocalypse Prophesy is Flame Strike that has a hard time getting out of bed, but it's cheaper than its older sister.
So that's the Class. So far. The Seer class is shaping up with some interesting combos, many direction to build it, and strong removal "Viva la Control Deck revolucion" The Classic set is gonna explode with how much Movin and Grovin were gonna do Transporting all over the place. But with some more consistency. Hope you enjoyed a new mechanic and the new impromptu hero power. See you soon, ya Nerds.
P.S. Please someone stop me from making another Pokémon class, Asylum_Rhapsody what have you done to me.
HI! I'm Jesse, or Pumawesome (you can find me on any game I play as Pumawesome or Pumawsome). I'm a tabletop Game designer and all around game enthusiast, and I aim to create engaging game theory content.
If you wish to contact me, message me, and I am willing to give my Curse or Discord!
Introducing the Tinker!
“If things went exactly according to plan, then ya gotta dream bigger.” – Kandy Turnwrench
Class Synopsis and Lore:
Kandy Turnwrench is the Name…
[Lore] So, who exactly is Kandy Turnwrench? Back in the day, this gnome worked in Gnomeregan as a novice engineer for Mekgineer Thermaplugg, but turned on him when she overheard of his plans to manipulate High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque into releasing a radiation bomb. However, Thermaplugg found out about her attempts to warn Mekkatorque, and forced her to flee Gnomeregan. After the irradiation of Gnomeregan, Kandy would soon meet Mekkatorque again, rekindling their childhood friendship and working with him on building new machines for the Alliance. It is still unknown whether Kandy or Gelbin is the “crazy” one in their engineering pair. (That’s our little secret, hehe.)
Tinkering is My Game…
[Class Synopsis] The Tinker knows more than anybody that to make it in this world, you’ll need some ingenuity, and to know how to roll with whatever kinks there are in your stuff. This class very much enjoys getting value, something which it accomplishes through its Hero Power and cards which package effects together. Much of this value is achieved through the class’s token synergy, through which the value of future cards can be increased. The class’s spells mostly interact with friendly minions (the class will only have a few direct damage spells, and indirect/conditional removal), applying effects to them which may not trigger immediately, or have some strings attached. The ride to victory might be bumpy, but that’s exactly what Kandy is counting on. (Yahoo!)
Class Themes and Mechanics:
Themes: Gnomes, Mechs, Mechanical Tools, Malfunctioning equipment/constructs, Experimentation
Mechanics: The next minion/spell you play also does X; Has X on your turn [the “Faulty” minions]; Conditional buffs, removal, and AoE
Expect the unexpected, and roll with it!
Hero Power and Class Keyword and Mechanic Explained:
Hero Power: The Tinker’s Hero Power is quite interesting in that the token it summons has the “On your turn” mechanic, as that mechanic will be recurrent in this class (though the example cards shown in this phase won’t have it). The Faulty Mech’s effect highly encourages your opponent to remove it on their turn in the early game, lest you get to kill their 3/2 without spending a card; so in a way, even when the minion has no Attack on your opponent’s turn, it can have a sort of pseudo-taunt.
Class Keyword: Deconstruct is similar to Battlecry (although in some cards it may be able to trigger more repetitively), except you have to have a one-drop on the board to trigger it. Of course, the keyword has very good synergy with your Hero Power, and can be utilized to trade a token to get more mileage out of your cards (similar to how Combo uses a card to get the effect).
How the "Next spell/minion you play also does X" Mechanic could work In-game:
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(Excuse the lackluster editing)
In this example, let's say you played the "A Quick Tune-Up" spell. After you play it, all of the minions in your hand would have a "sparks flying" type animation to signify that all cards of that type (either minion or spell) will have the effect described in the spell (or minion Battlecry) in addition to the card's normal text (the additional effect itself is shown in the tooltip shown above when you mouse over the card). Once the card is played and the additional effect is used, the animation disappears on the other cards.
Behold, My Mighty Inventions!
Basic Set Example Cards:
Challenge Cards:
Note: "Tinkering with Portals" does require you to have a friendly minion on the board in order to cast it.
Tokens:
Explanations:
Basic Set Example Cards
Supercharged Battery: It’s a slightly cheaper version of Blessing of Kings, but in exchange you’ll only get in two attacks with the buffed minion before not only the buff is removed, but the minion gets -1/-1 below its original stats. Quite strong for tempo, allowing you to curve out from a 2-drop. For control decks, you can extract two good trades with this buff, while for more aggressive decks it potentially lets you get in 10+ damage to the face within two turns. Flavorwise, this card exemplifies the Tinker theme of volatility.
To the Workshop!: A fairly simple card, but it’s important in showing the Tinker’s recurring idea of packaging (It’s called constructing, thank you very much!) minor effects onto cards. In this case, you’re equipping a 2/2 weapon and summoning a Faulty Mech as a side effect; this both sets you up with a weapon and a potential Deconstruct target.
Tinkering with Portals: A cheaper Recycle effect, but it requires you to have a friendly minion out. Of course, this could be quite powerful because of the Tinker’s Hero Power, allowing you not only to remove a threat but to shuffle a 1-drop into your opponent’s deck.
Challenge Cards
Menagerie Zap-o-tron: Since the Tinker will have a fair number of cards that generates weapons as tokens, cards such as this which synergize with said weapons could be quite good in a Tinker deck. In this case, the Zap-o-tron gives the class a bit of removal/burst. Flavorwise, the idea is that the Menagerie Zap-o-tron confiscates weapons ("Dangerous devices are not allowed in the Menagerie.")
Dennis the Unhinged: Another card that could be good in both aggro and control alike (aggro for the potential infinite face damage, control for the potential infinite removal), the weapon Dennis grants you is valuable to have in the course of the game; barring the use of 1-drops you play, the weapon essentially makes your Hero Power “Equip a 3/1 Weapon”. On top of that, you also get a 2/2 when playing this, since his effect damages him as well. Unlike the other cards shown so far, this Deconstruct effect is repeatable, making it comparable to Inspire in this case.
The rest of the Basic Set with Explanations:
Aged Inventor: Another nice card to give you a Deconstruct target, but the card also is interesting in its stat distribution: in some cases, your opponent could kill both the 3/1 and 2/2 with a ping and a trade from a 2/3; in other cases, you could get a 2-for-1 trade by trading up with the 3/1 and trading into a two-drop with the 2/2.
A Quick Tune-Up: A bit of healing for the Tinker, as well as setting up a potentially powerful defensive minion depending on when this is played. Once again, cards such as this exemplify the Tinker’s love for packaging effects together. In this case, both effects make this card a good tool for control (Ya gotta diversify sometimes, ya know?).
Faulty Turtle Turret: The “Faulty” minions will indeed be a recurring motif in this class, all having a condition that is active on your turn. The “Faulty Turtle Turret” is another good defensive card, and makes it quite unfavorable for your opponent to trade because of its heightened attack when it’s not your turn.
First Test Run: Giving the Tinker a bit of card draw, this card shows once more both packaging effects with cards and the “Faulty” minions. The Faulty Beetle-Bot token you get from the card allows you to trade with up to two smaller minions on your turn while also being less favorable to trade into on your opponent’s turn.
Jury-Rigged Ride: This is somewhat of a niche card: its purpose is not entirely well-defined but it can be used for a number of things, fitting the Tinker theme of experimentation. For instance, if you need just a bit more damage for lethal, it can act as a more expensive Windfury. Also, it could be used to effectively heal a minion. Lastly, you could use it to reuse a Battlecry (and so could stack “The next spell/minion you play does X” effects), similar to how Shadowstep may be used. Can other classes do these three things better? Yes. But, the Tinker can choose to do any of these three things with this one card.
Shrink Ray: An okay weapon that also acts as pseudo-healing, and it also slightly improves trades on your turn.
Silver Retriever: Packaging effects, yay! Anyway, this minion has pseudo-card draw, giving you some face damage/board control tools for later.
Flavor Text (Eh, needs more salt.)
Supercharged Battery: He didn’t actually supercharge a battery, he just poured some glow-in-the-dark food coloring into a tube.
To the Workshop: Combos well with “To the Pork shop!” afterward.
Tinkering with Portals: He thought it’d be a piece of cake. It was a lie.
Menagerie Zap-o-tron: He dreams of one day vanquishing his lifelong nemesis: Harrison Jones.
Dennis the Unhinged: He simply wanted to tighten a hinge, but he found so much more. Coming this holiday…How the Gnome Stole Winterveil With A Powered Wrench: The Movie.
Aged Inventor: Back in his day, Clockwork Gnome dropped two Spare Parts!
A Quick Tune-Up: Just stuff an Annoy-o-Tron into the Mech’s chassis, and it’s good as new!
Faulty Turtle Turret: It’s actually a tortoise cannon, but that name took up too much space in the schematic.
First Test Run: Your first test run and your first crush have two things in common: it will end horribly, and you will be sad.
Jury-Rigged Ride: Riding a hoverboard while carrying a chicken? Now this is heavy.
Shrink Ray: Warning: Side effects of shrinking include squeaky voice and existential crisis.
Silver Retriever: Teaching a robo-dog new tricks, one greasy toolbox at a time.
Thanks for reading! (Happy Tinkering!)
The Alchemist
Hero power and class keyword:
The idea behind the hero power is that at the cost of the versatility you have to pay an extra mana. On the plus side you can stack the cards in your hand, they benefit from spell damage, and you get access to the Concoct class specific keyword!
This essentially allows you to empower your cards by investing in them on prior turns with your hero power. This leads to many swings within the game as you fall behind while stocking up on potions only to use them all at once to reclaim the bored with unfathomable power! You never know how games will turn out when an alchemist is involved. Concoct will always trigger if possible so a good alchemist will plan out their potions to get the results they want.
Class themes and play style:
As this particular alchemist is linked to the scourge, you will find manly plagues, diseases, and unnatural experiments taking place within the class. Animal testing is a particularly strong theme and mutated beasts alchemist will be a possible archetype. Spell damage is also particularly good in this class given the hero power.
The concoct keyword and using it well is key for both playing as and against the alchemist. Many of the alchemists concoct effects can be activated by your opponent like Toxic Muk. This is important as although the alchemist has some solid removal cards, almost all of their high impact removal requires some degree of concoct meaning that once they're out of versatile potions, you can make some very strong plays as it'll take them a few turns to re-enable their most powerful cards. Deciding when to save and when to spend your potions is what separates the good from the great, plus accounting for hand space.
Example cards:
Example cards explanations:
Note when I talk about potions I mean versatile potions as no other alchemist cards have the potion word.
Test Subject: An all round good card that will fit many decks. Allows you to cast your potions for free and opens up some cool combos. Balanced with Cloaked Huntress and Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Elixir of Magic: The alchemists Power Word: Shield. Makes your potions stronger for offense and since it's one mana it combos great with Test Subject! Costs 1 less than Bloodmage Thalnos but you lose the body and need a minion already on bored.
Bubonic Plague: Cheaper than Consecration but doesn't damage your opponent and requires a weaker minion to start the outbreak! Your opponent can play around this by avoiding playing 1 health minions or doing weird trades to keep minions from getting low. Of course you can use your potions to hurt minions before using it or just kill your own minion!
Challenge cards:
Challenge cards explanations:
Toxic Muk: Every time he uses his pseudo death touch you have to give up a potion as the effect doesn't trigger if you're out! This is risky as your opponent could use this to get rid of more potions than you intended but a 2/7 taunt with death touch is worth the gamble! Balanced with Alley Armorsmith.
Leon, Master Mutator: Playing him is a pretty big tempo loss as he will shuffle a minion from the field into your deck. Bigger minions will cost you more tempo but the payoff will be so much bigger. An untargetable 17/17 deathwing is absolutely terrifying! Balanced with Don Han'Cho (more delayed effect for less immediate state loss, losing the minion you shuffle gives the elusive) and Manic Soulcaster.
Remaining basic cards:
Remaining cards explanations:
Alchemists Assistant: Good for trading with small minions like Patches the Pirate and helps you get potions without losing as much tempo. Balanced to all the 1 mana 1/3s like Northshire Cleric.
Twisted Ram: Very similar to Azure Drake states are more defensive and you get a potion instead of a card. The potion is worth less than a draw but you get given it by a minion with spell damage, and that gives some versatility.
Advanced Study: This would give Bloodmage Thalnos +1/+2, Malygos +5/+10, and Ysera +0/+0. Balanced to Mark of the Lotus. Gives an extra stat but is WAY more specific. Works great with Elixir of Magic. As for it being too good with maly, I'd argue maly Conceal is stronger for the spell damage and an old god like Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound is better for the stats and doesn't need 2 cards.
Boiling Cauldron: Your main source of potions aside from your hero power. It also acts as a way to hold potions that wont automatically be used by your concoct effects. Each potion is worth just under 2 mana when it comes to Concoct so I balanced it to Preparation since they both give you an extra 3 mana with a condition. It's also 1 mana! Picture an aggressive spell damage deck using Test Subject with this, Elixir of Magic and Advanced Study! If you had another spell damage minion you'd be in business. Would be a fun and unique take on aggro!
Extra bit about balance with Gadgetzan Auctioneer:
You may feel this is a problem with Gadgetzan Auctioneer especially considering Test Subject (who is inferior to Sorcerer's Apprentice might I add) and the other low cost spells, however this is not the case. Auctioneer tends to be mainly used decks with two traits. The first is temporary mana gain spells like Preparation, Counterfeit Coin or Innervate. This class has none. The next is it needs a game wining combo to make use of all the draws. This class will have next to no spells that can damage your opponent so if you used your potions to draw then you can't use them with Malygos. That same problem also applies to this classes other game wining combos as they will need concoct. Thus this card fails on both tests. Plus in the late game your concoct spells are your only high impact removal cards so if you use potions to draw, you make yourself extremely vulnerable. It's just not worth it, there are better draw options.
Living Ingredients: Pretty much an up scaled Mortal Coil. Also balanced with Quick Shot.
Decay: Kinda like Corruption but on the turn they can use the minion it has 3 less attack. Once it gets back to their next turn it will have -9/-9 so it's probably dead. It can also be used to kill something with 3 or less health at the end of your turn, weaker than say Frostbolt in that regard but more versatile.
Elixir of Life: Balanced with Greater Healing Potion. Weaker at healing your hero but better at healing your minions, something that isn't too common with big heals. Maybe this will change that!
Check out my Custom Classes (Scribe, Alchemist, and Battlemage)!
The Alchemist Class
You have no idea how many times she's accidentally flipped her name backwards.
Hero Explanation and Lore:
The Alchemist class will be a relatively combo-oriented class, using the potions from the Hero Power to effectively combo with attack- or health-heavy minions, temporary and aura buffs, as well as hand size and spell synergies.
Crazed Alchemist, although it's a bad card, has a really good effect. Reversing Switch, having the same effect, was one of the better Spare Parts you could get back in GvG. I always thought the flip effect was really cool, so I decided to make my class around it.
Malrokorlam is a random palindrome name I made up, and it explains why she's relatively unaffected by her flipping potions. The lore to Malrokorlam is as follows; it may not be that believable since I never played WoW, but it's something, right?
Malrokorlam was a young Cleric during the time of an ancient war. During that time, field medics were in high demand, but fieldwork was extremely dangerous. Malrokorlam found a solution: she infused water with power from the Holy Light to create healing potions that could be taken to battle in glass vials. However, the demand for healing potions became too great, and she needed a faster way to brew potions. Yogg-Saron whispered to her stressed mind, and convinced her to use his magic to create healing potions. The resulting potions healed as they were supposed to, but a "minor" side effect was the growing of extra limbs, tentacles, etc.
Horrified by these new potions, her townspeople exiled her, and soon, all the races on Azeroth shunned her. With nowhere to go, she hid in a cave somewhere and honed her skills in brewing. Legend says she still hides in her unnamed cave. Her potions made her essentially immortal, and she still waits for the day when she can return to the daylight, and give the world a taste of her "New Recipe".
Hero Power Explanation:
Obviously, the Hero Power has to be the flip effect; it wouldn't be the Alchemist without it. It will have synergy with aura buffs (which will be in relative abundance in the Alchemist class), it will have hand size synergy, and it will have spell synergy. The synergies available will justify the relatively weak Hero Power - 3 mana for a flip effect: there will be strong synergies such as the Brew Addict below, as well as more efficient ways to obtain flip effects.
The Hero Power also does not always cost 3 mana. If used when you would otherwise float mana, you basically pull a phantom Innervate: the 2 mana that was used would not have otherwise been used. The problem of a Hero Power doing nothing, on turn 2 especially, has been common before Mean Streets of Gadgetzan was introduced. The ability to store the Hero Power is very important for the Alchemist, since if the Hero Power was simply "Flip a minion", it would be completely dead on a turn with no minions on the board.
Example Basic Cards:
Example Cards Explanations:
Brew Addict: You may remember this guy from my Phase I submission. In any case, I'll repeat the explanation for those of you who haven't. At first glance, this looks like a vanilla 2/3, but if you give it a potion, it will keep the +2/+2 buff from its aura and gain +2/+2 from its aura buff again. Flip it a few times, and you've got a big powerhouse. This is balanced on the fact that you're paying 3 mana per +2/+2 (more than Mana Geode) and your opponent can remove it.
Earthroot Potion: Balanced against Mark of the Wild, this is actually more versatile in my Alchemist Class, due to the ability to flip a minion at will. This could make something like Stormwind Knight a lot more threatening, but it can also help to stop early rush decks.
Death's Vial: Looking at Consecration and Flamestrike, I decided that 3 damage to all was worth 5.5 mana. Given that there are no decimals in Hearthstone, the best way to go about it is 5 mana with a minor drawback, or 6 mana with a minor benefit. Since Basic cards normally don't have much in the way of drawbacks, I decided to deal 3 unhealable damage to all enemy minions. Also has flavor with Death's Flask, the other AoE card in my basic set.
The Challenge Cards:
Challenge Cards Explanations:
Spitfire Kraken: Is a Red Gyarados if you couldn't tell. TGT is set in Northrend (I think), so here's a Kraken. The stats and effect are balanced around Blackwing Corruptor, but damage is instead done to Attack (which was health 0_o). This can reduce a minion with 3 or less Health to 0 attack, but since the effect is randomly targeted, the resulting minion will likely die.
Siggy the Songslinger: This is meant to showcase that if the Gadgetzan gangs had more than three classes each, the Alchemist would totally be a Kabal. This also showcases something I plan to explore with my class: swapping things that haven't yet been swapped before.
Now I'll show them... I'll show them all! (The rest):
The Rest of the Explanations (if you enjoy reading):
Max Potion: I just really liked the art. Balanced against Ancestral Healing. Like Basic cards should be, this is simple.
Sungrass Potion: Two Flash Heals in one card, but you can't target one of them. Also pretty simple.
Alchemist's Apprentice: More efficient way to get your hands on a flip, as promised.
Firebloom Potion: Obligatory damage card. Balanced against Shadow Bolt.
Death's Flask: A flipped (hehe) Consecration. This is meant to signify that the line between Health and Attack is much more blurred in this class than any other. Also, has the relationship with the example Death's Vial.
Starflower Brew: This is meant to amplify any buffs that the Alchemist can get their hands on. This is basically Al'Akir the Windlord without a body. The cost is high to prevent unfair interactions with charge minions.
Toxic Bottle of Ooze: Obligatory hard removal card. Has flavor as an Acidic Swamp Ooze in a bottle which also destroys your opponent's weapon when played. Balanced based on the high cost for either effect. A good comparison is Deadly Shot < Assassinate while Sabotage < this card.
Flavor Texts (try the text, not the potions):
In order from top to bottom, left to right
Brew Addict: Just one, he said. It'll be fun, he said.
Earthroot Potion: Earthroots grow under rooted Ancients of War. No wonder they don't like to uproot.
Death's Vial: How do you put Death in a Vial anyway?
Spitfire Kraken: Still not a Dragon.
Siggy the Songslinger: You should see his Deathwing impression.
Max Potion: Why does the Max Potion cost the least mana?
Sungrass Potion: Sungrass heals you if you stand on it. Just try not to crush it--
Alchemist's Apprentice: You've shown them both, so they can show them all.
Firebloom Potion: Named after the plant. Also named after what happens when you throw it.
Death's Flask: How do you put Death in a Flask anyway?
Starflower Brew: Starflowers are extremely rare and beautiful pl-- HEY what are you doing???
Toxic Bottle of Ooze: You made me catch it in a bottle just so you could throw it again?
Explosive Shot => Meteor
Power Word: Tentacles => Spikeridged Steed
Class: Flame Wielder
Long ago King Nafaron and his followers were banished to the Firelands.
In the Firelands King Nafaron swore allegiance to Ragnaros.
In return the Firelord gave them the power to Wield the Flame.
But such power does not come without a price.
In the depths of the Firelands they deformed
and one by one they became monsters and beasts.
Example Cards:
Challenge Cards:
Other Cards:
Some Combos:
Firemorph Rager + Charmander
Firemorph Rager + Flaming Soul
Firelands Reaper + Lady of the flame
Extra Info:
With basic cards I really wanted to push the Magma Rager archetype of the class. With the current Basic Cards you can get up to 6 extra Magma Ragers to combo with Firelands Reaper and Fire Warrior (Example Card in Phase I). There will be more Magma Rager synergies in future phases, but I wanted to keep it simple for Basic cards.
I also decided to add "At the end of this turn" Mechanic to the class because the lore and theme of the class is connected to Ragnaros. I wanted to use Rags mechanic on certain spells. Ofc that mechanic can be little bit more complicated so I decided not to make too many of those cards for the basic set.
I didn't have a signature so Flux added one for me.
Hero Overview: Mercenary
Many minions and spells promote not only your own good positioning, but also punish your opponent's bad ones. You can choose a Zoo approach of flooding the board, or the Handlock approach of hoarding cards, plopping down giants and controlling the battlefield from afar.
Card Spotlight
That also means I'm fired.
Arrows on the face.
ADJACENCY BONUS // ZOO
Deceptively simple, but powerful in the right hands. Buffing minions with Defender of Argus on the far left? A Kitesail Raider on the far right will get the buff too.
POSITIONING IS KEY
A smaller Kill Command that when played right, will hit that sweet spot 4 damage to kill Azure Drakes, Gadgetzan Auctioneers, etc. It also works against your opponent's face, like how White Pawn hits face if it doesn't have any minions in front of it.
CARD HOLDING // HANDLOCK
A burn spell that rewards the Handlock playstyle. Sure, to get on the level of Fireball you'll need 6 cards in hand which is a feat it intself, but consider that potential 9 damage for 4-mana!
Pokemon + Cheap Legendary Challenge (NOTE: New keyword)
Drone Drone, Forge Drone."
FLEXIBILITY
With the effect, Drone Forge can essentially be:
5/5 Vanilla
4/5 Deathrattle: one 1/1
3/5 Deathrattle: two 1/1s (5-mana equivalent of Infested Wolf)
2/5 Deathrattle: three 1/1s
1/5 Deathrattle: four 1/1s (A 3/7 with Hobgoblin)
0/5 Deathrattle: five 1/1s (Stand Against Darkness behind a Deathrattle)
It also has a little bonus of returning to a 5/5 when Silenced. They're also all Mechs.
+3 Attack to friendly minion
Ticker, Demolition Man:
Destroy random Taunt minion
Volt, Trap Specialist:
Newt, Getaway Driver:
Grit, Nutrition Supplier:
Please look at the full art on the tokens in the Spoilers below.
A NEW KEYWORD
I hope this isn't an issue, but I came up with my class keyword late. However, it does follow the rules from Phase I, so I don't think it's a huge issue.
It should be clearly explained above, but as an example: If you have a minion with Set-Up (4), you need to play 4 cards while its in hand to get the effect.
The Remaining Members of Gob Squad
“Let’s blow this thing!"
" I think the explosions
gave us away.”
“You got it, boss!”
“Anyone up for barbecue?”
The remaining Basic Set
Covering Fire: Your basic 2-mana 1 damage AoE with a slight upside. This can be beneficial for both Zoo and Handlock styles, as it's a card that both helps solidify board control, but also benefits from having multiple minions summoned in a single turn.
High-Profile Target: Basic hard removal in the form of a more expensive Assassinate that refunds you two mana in the form of Coins if you proc the effect, Coins that add to your handsize to aid Handlock-style, or Coins that allow you to quickly retake the board by summoning more minions in a turn to aid Zoo-style.
Reckless Conscription: Basic draw, a cheaper Arcane Intellect with a downside, becoming more of a hand refilling tool than a dig-for-answers tool. Still, that 2 mana cost increase might not matter when you're in the late game.
Command: Backup!: Two Vanilla 2/2s for 3-mana, granted that you have a minion ready. Instantly proc adjacency effects in Zoo-style, retaking the board in one fell swoop.
Command: Call it in!: You saw this in Phase I. Your basic midgame AoE in the form of a cheaper, non-face hitting Consecration that requires a minion on the board. Easy with your hero power.
Forward Scout: You saw this in Phase I. A simple, basic class 1-drop that can reach 3/2 under normal circumstances (more with Kitesail Raider). However, removing that buff is simply a matter of removing adjacent minions, so it's an okay power-level card.
Piloted Ogre: It benefits from having lots of minions in Zoo-style, from the various Taunt effects in Handlock-style, or perhaps even a potential Silence-style. Simple as all basic minions should be, but different.
If you got the coin, the Mercenaries get going. Vote for The Mercenary for CCC #3.
Class: Dancer
The Dancer class specialties are minion buffs, minion swarm, and Shifting; The classes unique keyword. I've changed the hero power slightly to allow for more utility. Instead of moving all the way to the left side of the board, it now swaps two minions positions. This can be very useful with adjacency buffs.
Basic set showcase:
The Basic set emphasizes the classes strong buffs and its ability to manipulate the board. The Treant Sisters double any buffs applied to them, be it an aura buff or a permanent buff. However, it also doubles debuffs like Pint-Size Potion.
Hypnotize was a hard card to judge balance wise. I decided on 5 mana because it wasn't a permanent removal, but did allow you to attack with it once.
Devilsaur Leggings is one of my favorite buffs of this class. It is a 4 mana buff that can provide +5/+5 worth of stats. However, you need at least 3 minions to get the full benefit.
Fire Twirler token:
The Fire Twirler is a very sticky minion. It will continue to resurrect until your opponent can destroy the Skull token. I wanted a minion for this class that can survive on the board long enough to cast a buff on it.
Tyrande Whisperwind has a pretty powerful effect. I originally wanted to use it on a spell, but I felt it would be more balanced on a minion. When you summon Tyrande you and your opponent swap a minion at random. It is useful for trying to steal a big minion while giving them a small minion like Tyrande.
The rest of the Basic Set:
Call For Backup token:
Quality Fleece is basically a stat redistribution of Power Word: Shield. The class focuses mainly on even stat buffs instead of just attack or health buffs.
Restoration is a simple healing card that improves with the more minions you have on the board. It starts out as a 1-mana heal for 2 but could become a 1-mana heal for 16.
Tavern Musician is basically a Flametongue Totem with redistributed stats and stat buffs to stay consistent with the classes even stat buffs.
Towering Garments gives a minion an active buff that changes depending on how many minions you control. The minion given the buff will have its stats fluctuate as the number of friendly minions increase and decrease.
Amplification is a single target removal spell that gets stronger as the number of friendly minions increase. It can range from 1 to 8 damage.
Call for Backup summons three 1/2 minions to allow an opportunity to cast a buff on them as well as boost Amplification and Restoration.
Lightshow is a board clear that gains strength the more enemy minions are on the board. It can range from 1 to 7 damage.
With the Classic set coming up, I will be able to fully use the Shift Keyword for its main purpose. To utilize it to gain buffs, adjacency bonuses, and disrupting the opponent's play with Shifting Secrets.
THE NECROMANCER
The Necromancer is a class all about minion death, and bringing them back from the dead. The Tombstones are useless on their own, but have specific and non-specific synergies with Necromancer and neutral cards alike.
Bone Amalgamation: A simple minion that gains above-average stats if a minion has died before it. Very similar to Blackwing Technician.
Graverob: Mind Vision, but only for dead minions. Not usable on Turn 1, but with a bit more control of what can come out of it.
Zombify: Like Mind Control, but the triggering of Deathrattles and removal of buffs drop it down to 9 Mana. Since the minion dies, you can try to Reawaken it later.
Gripper Ghost: Dusknoir is said to bring people into the spirit world. In this case, the spirit world is your hand.
The Skeleton King: Powerful 3-Mana minion that continuously fills your deck with himself, but be careful with your positioning. The Skeleton King has a bit of a problem with traitors.
Quick way to get some tokens to kill on the next turn. The 2 Health allows at least some of the tokens to survive some aoe removal like Arcane Explosion and Unleash the Hounds, which allows you to kill them when it fits you, like in the same turn you play
This is a good use for the Raise Dead tokens, restoring a total of 9 Health plus 3 for any enemy minions they kill.
Loatheb-like disruption.
Very powerful for its cost, but pretty much the ONLY aoe removal the Necromancer will have.
In addition to summoning the tokens, the Tombstones die just like any other minion, so you get all the synergies from that.
Ok, the name might be changed to make it less similar to From The Grave. Gains good value with just one Tombstone, and allows you to cycle in case you get it as another class.
The closest thing to early removal the Necromancer has outside of trading.
Welcome back to Mirage Raceway, and boy do we have a treat for you. Today you'll have a chance to explore our track, meet our racers and learn what it takes to make it as a real competitor. Our latest winner is here to be your guide.
The Racer
As I talked about last time, my focus for this competition is to try to examine Tempo. This is the hardest to do in the basic set, where things have to remain fairly simple and we have to avoid our keyword, as well as others. I do think its probably slightly problematic that my keyword actually appears on my hero power token, but its such a vital part of the classes identity and a much cleaner way to represent the effect without tons of text.
Luckily there are some great things I can focus on, and hopefully you can see some of the potential a class with this sort of "dangerous" hero power can do when balanced and properly.
The Basics of Racing
(Examples and explanation)
Last Ditch Effort - Ok, let's start spicy. Its true, Deadly Shot is a common, however I felt like this was almost more like Soulfire. It gives you a bit tempo play, but it costs you something. In this case a bit of health, or maybe a lot of health. Now, its true that one of our other themes is being behind on life, and this helps trigger that even against non-aggressive opponents, but it is also a potentially huge liability against aggro. I think this was one of the first cards I came up with, because it really had the full flavor I wanted. It plays into Racing, and competition in general. It plays into the recklessness or self sacrificing theme it takes to make it to the top.
Caution - I chose this as my second showcase card because wide buffs are a major idea I came up with. Since I can't put too much focus on damaging spells without watering down my class or making it too busted. Caution shows a side to design we haven't seen much in HS, which is not only large controlled affects but also symmetric buffs. We've seen a lot of AoE damage, but not a lot of AoE buffing. Now, obviously I don't plan to go too ham on the symmetric buff, but its a cool design space, and of course buffing your side of the board will be somewhat common. Now, this also brings up something else. Many classes have some sort of theme, Paladins and Divine Shield, Shaman and Windfury, Warriors and Engrage, Rogues and Stealth. I choose again to go very wide on these basic ideas, because I think it also fits well with the idea of Power-ups without using pure stat buffs which can also be dangerous with cost reduction.
Speed Freak - I chose to highlight this card for a few reasons. One of which is that it isn't a great card. It doesn't appear like the sort of card most people look for, but it does something very important. It sets a precedent for out class. One of the other features I want to focus on is high value minions. This has an above average stat allocation but no ability because we have many cards that provide buffs. If we slam a bunch of text on everything and make a bunch of non-stat related buffs we're going to over saturate our complexity, that allows us to use vanilla (text free minions) with flavor. I also want to point out how much better this card would have been at launch as a basic compared to how we perceive many cards now.
Beyond Basics
(Challenge met!)
Masterful Engineer - Deoxys (Speed form), was my initial choice just because it was the Fastest potential Pokemon, but when I also found this insane fan art I was sold. This guy fits right in. Drafting, will be something that shows up, but it won't be slammed onto a bunch of cheap minions or spells. That said, this card, which comes in from League of Explorers is trying to reinforce some things from TGT, while being spicy as hell. So, this comes in and activates our hero power. This is important because of Inspire interactions. It also sets us up for 2 Drafts, without forcing anything on us. If we play this on curve it can still help us set up for next turn while developing something. Of all the cards I've made so far this one is probably the highest raw power level, just because of what it enables. I want people to understand these sorts of things are few and far between, but as we know, LOE was a time of big changes and I think this opens that up.
Norman Gobsborn - On the other hand, I went and had a bit of fun with my bonus legendary. Cheap legendaries can be very difficult to design and even harder to keep in check. I feel The Green Goblin here does that well. I went with Old Gods to help enhance this nutjobs flavor. Now, his bonus abilities do combo. Playing him for 0 mana typically results in an 8/5, pretty impressive, but it means while he cost 2 mana he may not be his best on turn 2. There is another bonus though. Drafting only reduced the cost temporarily, so you can Draft his cost down to 1 or even 0 a few times before deciding to pull the trigger and make him a real monster. Its all about how it fits your gameplan. I want to note that its impossible to get this guy into play as an 8/5 on turn 2 under any normal circumstances. There will be no 1 or 2 cost cards ever that provide Draft.
Everything you need to win a race!
(Basics and explanation)
Fall Back - One of our other wide buffs. This felt kind of medium. Its great at making a bunch of walls, but less good at protecting specific minions. The concept is obviously letting yourself get behind in the race so others are targeting you.
Clumsy Mechanic - The Mechanic is a decent body with a medium downside that could turn into an upside. I chose to let this be random and hit face because I thought that had a bit more HS feel. Normally I'm not a huge Random guy, but I also realise that's a huge part of this game, and not solely as a negative. Mechanics as well as Racers make up the majority of our minions, and I almost thought about giving them a Race or Subtype, but I decided that names and art would give enough there without making things messy.
Start Your Engines - Our last wide buff is the most interesting. Charge is a card that has changed a lot over time, and its funny that it ended up where it did, because I've had an idea for a card like this before Blizzard came out with an official wording. I think Charge is great when its restricted to minion combat, and I like the idea of being able to set up a turn where you get to make a bunch of good trades. There is also a bit of learning to do about the functionality of this card, since it will help teach attack sequencing, since this looks out all face attacking after its played you have to make sure you go face with the minions you want to before trading.
Tactical Maneuver - I've gotten a lot of flack over this card during development. Without the trigger, its a worse Flame Lance, a card people only sometimes play in Reno decks, with the trigger its kind of a better Starfire, but its notable that it can't go face. This can't finish the game off, which is a big deal IMO. Also, its 7 damage notably kills almost every basic minion, but doesn't kill many popular large minions from Classic and beyond.
Crowd's Favor - This was my final buff, and the first stat buff we've seen. I went with a slightly lower efficiency and increased cost to help prevent easy exploitation. Also, because our class with have some nice high stat minions naturally I think the restore effect might actually be good enough.
Eliminate the Competition - This was one of my previews from the first round. Our basic AoE. Simple design, simple flavor.
Fan Favorite - Lastly we have another key minion. I think any major "tempo" class needs a good taunt. Here, we hit a flavor point in making it the coolest, most popular guy on the track, our Fonzie inpsired, Fan Favorite. He's got a big statline because he's a great competitor. He's a grizzled vet of the Raceway, but he's got a target on his back (Taunt), after winning so many times. He helps build both a great minion base and a lot of flavor.
What the future holds!
I hope you've enjoyed checking out the Basics of the Racer, and I hope you're interested in Classic Cars, Raceway Racial Warfare, Motorised Jousting, Racing's Seedy Underbelly, and all the other places and things to explore. I've got a lot more ideas, and I hope you're interested in seeing more.
To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of the women.
Gi'lax, the Lifestealer Enters the Fray
Lore
Gi'llax the Lifestealer is a ghoul that was made by one of the Kel'Thuzad's acolyte to serve the Lich King but has gone rogue because it was too overwhelming to control. This monstrosity has devasted some of the higher rankings and has dominated the food chain, it has even seek its creator and devour him whole. Gi'lax has mutated again and again and now leads his own pack into the fray to slaughter anyone in his path. He has slaughtered some of his own kin (the acolyte, his creator), the innocent and has split the blood of his many enemies.
Keyword
My Three Cards
Explanation for the three cards above:
Feral Impulse is a 3-mana spell card that seem weaker than Heroic Strike having the Cursed Blade draw back on it but in truth, this card can be potentially powerful especially using it with your Hero Power which does provided healing for damage. For example, having our hero power equipped and using this card while attack a minion that has 4 attack points (you will be taking 8 damage instead with the spell effect) and deal 6 damage. The aftermath would lead you to most likely killing the minion and reducing the damage to 2 instead of 4. There are cards that combo well with this like Armoured Ghoul, which will be talked more below. another advantage is that it acts like a cheaper version of Pyroblast for 6-mana but cannot pass through Taunt and has to discard two cards instead of one.
Spine Spike is a 3-mana weapon that when equipped or replaces a weapon you have already equipped (i.e. most likely to be your hero power) that gives quiet an advantage. On turn 2, you could use your hero power and on turn 3, equip this weapon and BAM you have a 4/3 weapon that heals you for 4 health. There will be future cards to support this or this card will be nerfed later on.
Armoured Ghoul is a 6-cost minion but with an interesting effect, it's stat mirrors Spectral Knight but instead this can survive a bit longer, provided that your opponent doesn't have 6 damage in his hand or board. Attacking with this minion and leaving it with low health allows combos with Feral Impulse. This most likely instantly refills the minion's health to full and keeps it healthy for more efficient trades, even if it means just taking little damage.
Rest of the Basic set with Explanations.
The Recruits!
Heroic Skeleton is the 1-cost minion in this basic set which can very well deal with aggro but will be easily dealt with weapons like Fiery War Axe. If you weren't against aggro, this card can still be viable to be a hard hitter, using your hero power, it allows your to either lower your health and keep you alive to use this card.
Blooth Bath Necromancer is a 3-cost minion that loses it's +1/+1 stat line to gain more value in the long run. It being a 3 health minion keeps it alive to most smaller minions that have 2 points of attack. If this minion does live long enough, you can very well flood the board with Super! Spooky! Skeletons! but they only have a 1/1 stat line. There will be cards in the future to buff your board so this card can become viable.
Show them your fury!
Blinding Rage is a 2-mana spell version of Void Crusher but this card can be used any time even if you don't have a minion. Even though this card is bad while you have a board filled with large minions, this card pulls out thanks to the minions showcased earlier. Blood Bath Necromancer can summon 1/1 Skeletons that can used as the sacrificed for Blinding Rage and can generate back your board later on.
Eyes of Insanity, a 3-mana spell that is a miniature version of Lightbomb but does not effect your minions plus can deal with big minions with large attack value. Honestly, it is a much better card to kill off minions but to deal with cards like Ysera, it is left out and not able to help like Blinding Rage.
Chain Strike is a 3-mana spell like the hunter card Powershot, it has not much creative thought placed into it but the animation would be sick to watch as a chain swings in from the left and strikes minions to the right.
Your pack is ready to hunt!
Scavenger's Party is a 4-mana spell that is comparably worst than Arcane Intellect being one cost more but if your hero was able to attack the turn your would play this. This card can come in very valuable saving up to 2-mana to play something else either from your hand or the card you drew from it.
Ghoul March, is a 5-mana spell that summons ... HEY! Flesheating Ghouls! Not much value but a solid 2/3 minion can sometimes help dealing with the board, especially when you combo this with Blood Bath Necromancer's Skeletons, making it bigger and bigger!
The Pokemon and Legendary Challenge with Explanations
Cursed Reaper, or the Haunter you may call it, is a 5-cost minion with a 3/3 stat line but with an interesting effect. Cursed Reaper has effects from both Equality and Aldor Peacekeeper making a large minion become a mini monster.
K'rew Blood Claw, an acolyte that serves Gi'llax and was one of underlings of Gi'llax's creator. He leads the Blood Claw Cult which worships one weaker, yet unknown, Old God. Him being a 3-cost minion with a 1/1 stat line plus with an addition to summon a 4/4 Blood Shade comparable to Twilight Summoner. Cost comparison is that it is one cost less and summons a weaker version of Faceless Destroyer but with Feast. And hey! N'Zoth, the Corruptor can also used to re-summon him which makes him more valuable later on.
Asylum's Gauntlet Competition!
GO CHECK OUT MY HERO -->GI'LLAX THE LIFESTEALER
UNHOLY REBELLION
CHECK OUT THESE SICK ASS DEMONS
Thematically, the class plays around with mana. Reduces cost, swaps cost, summons minions for free, all that stuff. Since everything costs less, you might end up running out of cards quickly so there's some emphasis on card draw and deck refill.
Card rationale:
Spectral Offensive: Costly yet efficient card draw that refills your deck.
Pillar of Evil: Enhances your reduction effects, and is big enough to scare your opponent away from attacking it.
Adjudication: SWAP BOYS
Demogorgon: BIG BOYS
Necromance: Deck refill similar to Gang Up.
Expiatory Shackles: Removal with a bonus surprise.
Galvanize: If you have any cards with increased costs, this can synergize.
Dark Occultist: CURVE BOYS
Rain of Fire: Whirlwind reprint for hero power synergy.
Chaos Bell: Similar to Bloodlust for some hero power synergy, but also draws.
Night Spectre: Very powerful battlecry, but you can only use it if you didn't draw the card at the start of your turn.
Corporal Spawn: The opponent can tell when this is in your hand, so they can pull it out by ending their turn with 2 mana unspent. But even then, they've just ended their turn and guaranteed you a free 2/1 on board.
If you like my class, like this post so that I can continue to the next phase of the competition
Check here for my new cards!Pokemon HS class!All the Pokemon as HS cards!
Introducing the Spiritcaller!
“Spiritcookies for Everyone!!!!!!" – Phoenixfeather (me!)
Story/Lore:
Clare Dawnlight is the hero for the Spritcaller class. Once a prisoner captured by the Tauran during a failed alliance raid, Clare escaped by stealing concepts from their shamanic arts and infusing it with her own ideas. She has learned to harness spiritual energies by weaving mana without the use of totems, instead preferring staffs, average sticks, or even fingers if necessary. Through extensive practice, Clare Dawnlight has earned the help of many intangible spirits, mainly Moonglow Moths, who will willingly come to her aid. Instead of returning to the army once again as a battlemage, she now wanders Azeroth as a lone spiritcaller, seeking others who are willing to learn her arts.
What is a Spiritcaller?
Spiritcallers are those who guide spiritual energy through the use of mana. The Spirit Realm is an alternate universe made entirely spiritual energy. It overlaps most of reality, although it is invisible to most. Wild spiritual energies gather together within all living things. The stronger the power of a person, the greater the spiritual energy. Sometimes, spiritual energies gather together and awaken (often due to a powerful event). Other times, spiritcallers use mana to gather spiritual energies together to synthetically create spirits. The most powerful spirits are able to appearing by its own will into the mortal realm as shades, ghosts, or geists. There are a variety of different ways Spiritcallers can battle. Since every living thing is surrounded by spiritual energy, powerful spiritcallers are able to manipulate that energy to bolster or harm them. There are also able to transfer, strengthen, or combine a living thing’s spiritual energy to greatly strengthen them. (Or better yet, turn them completely into spirit energy and consume them!!!) Another way spiritcallers fight is with the solidification of spiritual energy. They can weave spiritual blades to arm themselves or others. Or, they have the ability to sharpen an existing weapon with spiritual energy.
Hero Power
The Spiritcaller's hero power is EXTREMELLY important. Although alone, a pesky Moonglow Moth doesn't do much, but five of them, and pretty much every enemy minion will be looking at one another saying "How the Dawnlight are we supposed to attack now?". These come slowely, and it's often a good idea to build these up in your hand. They usually require your opponent to quickly remove them. (Getting rid of a 0/2 isn't too hard) Sure, these guys are pretty weak to a good Holy Nova, and don't exactly have the ability to do a lot of damage, but couple in a few buffs, and you make quite an army. Of moths. fudgin' moths. (I almost feel bad about it).
Note that the current set is quite lacking in Moonglow Moth buffing. This is because we are still in the basic class, and aren't allowed to use any keywords other than battlecry for more complex ideas. The best is yet to come.
Possible Play Styles
Control
The idea is to use bindings, such as Moonglow Moth, Spiritform: Grind, and Flesh to Light to wreck your opponent’s tempo, and render many of your opponent’s cards useless. Many examples of existing anti-tempo cards include Lotheb, Sylvanas Windrunner, and Mana Wraith. Also, cards like Duskflame will cause your opponent to discard cards to annoy the daylights out of the discarded Reno Jackson or Ragnaros the Firelord. I've noticed that a lot of card will have the ability to discard from your opponent's hand, much more than intended. I guess I'll just make it a theme with this class.
Combo-Aggro
There is also the possibility to play a Zoo style, using cards like Spiritform: Weave and Spiritual Visions to help play more cards. Also, one can use All for One and One for All, assisted by the great number of Moonglow Moths to gain some serious OTK strength and momentum.
Reoccuring Themes: Opponent’ discarding, AoE debuffs, AoE buffs, Hand cost reduction, Hand cost increase.
Keyword: Glow
This class has the specific keyword glow. It's pretty simple and really isn't too hard to see ingame. It's very very annoying. Very annoying.
Somewhat similarly to Jade Golem keyword, the word Glow summons a 0/2 Moonglow Moth. Clare Dawnlight is always happy to buff these fun moths, who are perfect for destroying the offensive ability of your opponents. Is that a Stonetusk Boar I see? Hmm... Lets turn it into a tauntless Frog. It’s heavily anti-aggro, can when buffed, be abused, so it forces your opponent to remove it quickly.
Moonglow Moths can be summoned from spells, minions, and even weapons, depending on the way they are used. Have fun and enjoy!
Note: This keyword is a verb, similar to Silence or Freeze, although it doesn't apply it's affect onto a minion, but rather summons one.
Spiritcaller's Basic Set Example Cards
Spiricaller's Asylum_Rhapsody Gauntlet Challenge Cards
Note: Dismal Duskflame's word "Current" refers to the player's turn. (The term comes from the Gift Exchange Brawl's Loot Crates during the Winter of 2015) So, if it dies during your turn, you discard 2 cards, and if during your opponent's turn, they will discard 2 cards.
Example Card + Challenge Card Explanations:
Unbound Spirit: Spiritcaller’s Mana Wyrm or Tunnel Trogg. It gives a small bonus for every Moonglow Moth that enter play. It is very slightly weaker than the rest of them though, unless you withhold a few Moonglow Moths in your hand.
Spiritform: Grind: This card is the counterpart of Spiritform: Weave. It can lock out certain cards from ever being played, such as Deathwing, or turn that annoying Leeroy Jenkins Combo into unplayables. As mentioned in the previous gauntlet, Spiritforms are a spell, similar to that of a Priest’s Powerwords. A spiritcaller literally grinds away the existence of the enemy. This can devestate combo or reno decks. Well kids. [Insert-profanity-here] it.
Flesh to Light: This is the Spiritcaller’s removal card. At the cost of 6, you can Glow, kill a creature without activating it’s deathrattle, and spam the “Well Played” emote. Ehh.. same thing. *tears from remembering the “sorry emote*. Anyway, this will feal a lot like Entomb, but you get a 0/2 Moonglow Moth instead of the card.
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Dismal Duskflame: Another discard from your opponent’s hand card. It’s pretty fun to discard a crucial card as stated above sooo many times. It is the “corrupted” version of Duskflame. As the pokemon challenge card, it represents Chandelure (Like the original Duskflame). Dismal Duskflame's word "Current" refers to the player's turn. (The term comes from the Gift Exchange Brawl's Loot Crates during the Winter of 2015) So, if it dies during your turn, you discard 2 cards, and if during your opponent's turn, they will discard 2 cards.
Brightcaller Aurune: This is the 3 cost or less legendary card. Like Toshley, it will Glow (Summon a 0/2 Moonglow Moth) when it is played or dies. In addition, whenever you activate your hero power, you Glow once again!!! It’s a double-moonglow for the price of 1 (supplement of 3 mana)!!! And yes. It will do absolute miracles against that Pirate Warrior deck.
All of the Basic Set with Explanations:
Clarify: Weaker than Innervate, but stronger than Counterfeit Coin. It provides some amount of cost reduction at the cost of a card.
Ghostblade: Basically the backward version of Divine Strength. Simple and effective, making Moonglow Moths 3/2. This +2/+1 will also be there on many other cards.
"All for One, One for All. United we stand, Divided we Fall" (-Three Musketeers)
All for One: Supports the Spiritcaller Zoo archetype. This can give a single minion a great amount of attack, supporting a possible OTK combo. Can be very powerful when used properly.
One for All: Just like All for One (I just love the phrase), this card also helps with OTK. At the cost of a minion, you can cast Ghostblade on each minion you have. It works like a stronger version of Savage Roar with a sacrifice.
Spiritform: Weave: This card just works like a single charge of Emperor Thaurissan. Works best if you have 4+ cards in hand. It’s pretty self explanatory. This is the opposite of Spiritform: Grind.
Spiritform: Grind (This is one of the example cards, But I'm putting it here for reference): This card is the counterpart of Spiritform: Weave. It can lock out certain cards from ever being played, such as Deathwing, or turn that annoying Leeroy Jenkins Combo into unplayables. As mentioned in the previous gauntlet, Spiritforms are a spell, similar to that of a Priest’s Powerwords. A spiritcaller literally grinds away the existence of the enemy. This can devestate combo or reno decks. Well kids. [Insert-profanity-here] it.
Duskflame: Ooooo antoher Chandelure! Yes, it’s a pokemon. Discarding a card seems to feel like drawing 1.5 cards. It can get rid of something useless, like Triskaidekaphobia (My 5.03 Card Competition entry) or Angry Chicken. This will obviously be much stronger against combo decks or early-game aggro decks, greatly lowering their offensive ability.
Spiritual Visions: This is similar to Rogue’s Sprint, but instead discards a card from your opponent. Drawing 3 and you opponent discarding 1 may be a little on the weak side, since drawing 3 cards feels like 5 mana, while discarding feels like 1.5. The idea is for a spiritcaller to use spiritual energy to predict future possibilities in order to gain spell ideas, and deter your opponent. It just works (hopefully). Deal with the discarded Reno Jackson.
Thanks for reading! I have some great plans already set for the next few sets!!! If you have any Questions, Criticism, Complaints, Insults or Toxicity (Sult), PM me. I'll try to respond with kindness.
If you enjoyed, leave a like, and I'll send you a Spiritcookie*.
Allergy Warning - Contains: Wheat, Milk, Eggs, Pikachus, Ryū ga waga teki wo kurau!, Salt, Pepper, Unicorns, and "Feel any better yet?".
Spiritcookie Recievers So Far...* (They all got lost on the way. Sorry)
1. Phoenixfeather (Me)
2. Asylum_Rhapsody (So I don't get kicked out of this comp)
3. Nurgling13 (For teaching me how to put a spoiler in a spoiler)
4. Fluxflashor (For explain to me how to write a post. Look. I'm new to all this)
5. FrostyFeetEU (For a name change. Thank C'Thun I didn't have to have numbers in my name)
*We are not responsible for any lost spiritcookies due to wandering Moonglow Moths. fudgin' moths
Wished to be pink.
Then did.
Then fired myself.
Then did again.
Tinker
About:
Spark McClank was one of Gazlowe's more promising apprentices for not blowing himself up. A recommendation gave him an engineering position at Venture Co. Although he almost got fired for "damaging company property", some string-pulling helped him keep his job. For now. In a world filed with big monsters and mysterious magic, Spark does well using technology and would do even better if his inventions were reliable. "It's a work in progress..." he would defend himself before adding: "... And it wouldn't be unfinished if the deadline was more generous." Same story every time, but its hard to find a good tinker ever since the last one experienced a work accident.
The Tinker's hero power makes him search for the right tool in his bag. He uses the Tool to make quick on-field fixes and enhancements. Adding the buff to your hand instead of buffing the minion directly makes the hero power almost always usable, even if there are no minions on the battlefield.
The play style is a mixture of paladin's minion enhancing while equipping them with new inventions and warlock's minion sacrificing when some of those inventions don't work as the minions would wish. Either way, the focus is on using spells on minions, spare parts for example. Will it be powerful spells on big minions for control decks or cheap spells on small minions for aggro decks is up to the deck builder.
Some of the inventions in the Tinker arsenal work better than others. And some just blow up.
Example cards:
Rocketeer - simple 2-drop that tends to fly back to your hand from danger when he gets the chance. Could be seen as a 3/1 that draws a card when the effect triggers.
Dynamite Fist - every punch leaves behind a small explosion. Note that targeted minions take 1 damage twice.
Detonate - explosions, more explosions.
Pokemon and non-basic legendary:
Charged Sphere - a pokemon with well known self destructive tendencies. If he is damaged at the end of your turn, he blows up so keep him healed and happy if you are not ready for it. I gave him the mech tag because Electrode has a metallic voice.
Martha Peppers - her spicy hot pepper cloud will make enemy minions temporary very vulnerable and every wound will hurt twice as much.
Rest of the basic set:
Missile Ride - Choose one of your minions and send him on the ride of his life. He then takes down an enemy minion.
Broken Battlebot - doesn't work right away but some fixing will patch it up. It's a work in progress. It also often breaks down after a fight. This is an example of synergy with the Tinker hero power.
Experiment - Come up with something new. Spells will fire up immediately so it could be very mana efficient or the experiment could go horribly wrong.
Prosthetics - patch up injured minions with mechanical body parts and make them even deadlier on the field. Could be seen as a bigger Ancestral Healing.
Dynamite Stick - the basic 2-mana-3-damage spell for tinkers. Slightly stronger when things become personal between the heroes.
Examination - helps the tinker learn new things, but the subject might not feel the same afterward. Spell damage makes it more thorough.
Arm Extensions - Slightly weak for a 5-mana weapon but you have the choice to invest another 2 mana with your hero power to give it extra stats.
Hope you all like it. :)
Bow down to...
The King!
As shown in the previous phase, the King is a class that focuses on manipulating and utilising rarity as a kind of tribe like murlocs or pirates, using synergies to win. Basic playstyles include Common Control, Epic Midrange, 30 Legendary decks, and then all the regular archetypes like control, midrange and aggro.
Of course, in the basic set itself, it's a bad idea to try and interact with rarity itself. Newer players with no cards won't be able to even make a common deck, and the basic set should ideally act as the core building blocks of the class. Even if the classes core is to interact with rarity, basic spells that don't interact with them and focus on the other elements of the King are necessary.
Example Cards
Explanations
Display of Strength - This is some cost efficient hard removal that reflects one of the basic ideas of the King; The King's primary method of taking out big guys will be using even bigger guys to do it for him. He's a King after all, not a fighter. This card will allow huge minons to see some immediate value, and the reduction in cost in comparison to something like Assassinate allows him to swing the tempo in his favor. However, requiring big minions, or at least, minions bigger than theirs, might be a bit tricky... Unless you use something like the next card beforehand.
Public Execution - The King can have anyone he wants killed off, he's the ruler of his own country after all. And should he want to, he can also demoralise and nullify enemies, reducing their will to fight, and allowing his minions to get an advantage, whether that be in a Display of Strength or some regular combat, so your Faerie Dragon can kill off Ysera. Attack manipulation, quite clearly, is also a big part of the King.
Flamecore Guardsman - Taunting is a very big part of the King. This card sacrifices a little bit of your board or health in exchange for more early game control, which, especially in common King decks, is important. It has enough health to avoid being pinged and can kill off little 1 attack minions, all the while it has enough damage to kill off 2 drops or the 1 drops seen in modern day Hearthstone.
Regal Nymph - Look around in your collection and see how epic cards are almost always pure gimmick cards. Epic king, an archetype that Regal Nymph is a big part of, embodies this. Regal Nymph utilises the very high value, albeit very situational nature of these cards in a special way with the Discover mechanic, which is built to be a mechanic that allows players to choose the best card for their current situation. So, when you're against an Anfin Pally, take a Hungry Crab, when you happen to have your Bloodmage Thalnos in hand, take a Master of Ceremonies and when your opponent is running a N'zoth deck, pick up a Defias Cleaner. Despite this nice little ability though, she has 4/6 stats for 5 mana. She's only a little bit understatted, which is due to the fact that her ability only works if you control an epic.
Briona, Court Jester - Briona is a card that doesn't fit too much into the basic theme of The King, but she is essentially the figurehead of the Gadgetzan Faction of the King. This is a little sneak peek into that faction. Can you guess what the factions theme might be? Sneak peek aside, the card itself is pretty mediocre. Paying 3 mana for a 2/3 is terrible, however you can get multiple if you pull off an attack. When you buff the card with some spells though, she starts to get a little crazy, increasing both her stats and the stats of her duplicants. Keep in mind however, that all damage dealt to Briona will also be a hit to any future duplicants.
The rest of the basics and explanations
Guard Duty - Gives a minion a Taunt as well as a +1/+1 buff for 2 mana whilst cycling. This allows you to generate value whilst protecting yourself.
Piercing Throw - The idea behind this card is that you throw your spear at an enemy and if it's enough to kill it it will pierce through it and hit something else. Think of it as a cleave, but you can target one hit in order for the second hit to come out.
Chilly Peace Pike - During times of strife and conflict, this weapon was called by its more popular name, Fiery War Pike. The King is a weapon class, and he primarily uses spears. This spear in particular starts off as a really powerful weapon for 3 mana, but the turn after it cools down and turns into a 3/2 weapon, which is bad for 3. This forces you to to use the weapon reactively instead of proactively, playing the weapon when you need it rather than when you have the mana.
City Protector - A simple 3 mana minion that allows you to heavily reduce a minions attack so that friendly minions can lose less health while trading into it in addition to setting up minions to have Display of Strength casted on them.
Royal Feast - A healing card that heals for a LOT but won't work until the turn after you play it. This means the card will rarely work while behind, you can't simply tank the enemies attacks, you have to use it to stabilise to stop yourself from being killed by charge minions, spells and hero powers over time.
Valiant Slash - A single target damage card that will kill the majority of minions, in addition to being usable on face, for a little bit of burst.
Hail of Arrows - A couple of archers come into the field and unleash hell on the enemy forces, sticking behind after their onslaught to help deal with the opponents response, in an attempt to swing the game back in your favour. Token generation is also a small part of the King.
The Token
I hope you'll give my class a chance, I personally have a lot of ideas for it and I think that the many themes that could be explored in future expansions can be combined with the rarity mechanics to create some interesting cards not seen in Hearthstone before!
The Spellbreaker!
Lore And Play-styles:
Spell Breakers are masters of magical manipulation and negation. They are the bane of casters like mages, priests, and warlocks everywhere. They use their powerful runes and weapon know-how to outwit, outlast, and outplay their opponent by using a variety of tools at their disposal. They have a lot of defensive spells and control tools. This is going to be a more control oriented class but may evolve into something that can also be played mid-range fairly decently as well. Sindraevia once served under Kael'thas rule himself though now she serves no one. She set off into the world to carve her own path and with your guiding hands she will succeed.
Example Cards:
Explanations:
Innate Sense: Shows off the manipulation aspect very well. A powerful tool for acquiring knowledge of your opponent's hand. What more a better way to best your opponent than by knowing the tricks they may have up their sleeve?
Shielding Rune; A buff that will surely help out, especially with the more weaker minions the Spellbreaker employs.
Grizzled Veteran: Shows of the negation aspect very well by avoiding spells and hero powers.
Ancient Guardian: A great target for Shielding Rune. It would make it an ideal target for exhausting one of your opponent's hard removal spells.
Pouncey Sylderoy: It gives you a turn to better prepare yourself when played.I deally a good early game tool against aggro classes.
Rest of Basic Set and their Explanations:
Defensive Rune: Ideally solid defensive spell. Also, as an AOE, it does bypass your own minions that can't be targeted.
Icebound Rune: A solid tool for perhaps dealing with a few number of minions.
Blazing Rune: Another AOE This time one that damages your minions as well as the opponents.
Eager Recruit: Card draw really, a bit better than Novice Engineer.
Healing Rune: A solid heal for the class, good considering you'll want to be using your hero power to potentially attack some quite big minions.
Bloodwarder Shield: A bit weak weapon, but still one worthwhile to be including in my basic set. It's a good alternative to the hero power when you just want to clear some larger mid-game minions.
Spellbreaker Guardian: Ideally a taunt to protect your minions.
THE EXPLORER
Hero Basics
Class Mechanic: Anticipate: If this is the first card you've drawn this turn, do something.
Indie Jackson is the younger and waaaaay more sensible sister of the infamous capitalist Reno. Her tendency for planning things down to a T and her aptitude for problem solving and strategy has attracted the attention of the League of Explorers, who sends her all across Azeroth to further the knowledge of the League.
She uses the SpyGlass to spot answers and on curve plays as well as using their potential to set up huge combos. The playstyle is usually quite reactive as you search for responses, but once your opponent has an off turn you can begin to gain the initative and snowball by using your hero power to further your advantage by looking for even more dangerous threats. Of course, there is always the combo potential with her hero power. The class identity is based around drawing cards and shuffling other cards into the deck to be discovered, but just general explorer flavored themes!
Showcased Cards
Explanations for these guys:
Reckless Mountaineer: A perfect example of the class. Weak body, but prepares for a big advantage next turn.
Consult the Map: Card draw, which synergises with the SpyGlasses.
Ancient Torch: For picking off midgame minions with pretty basic battlecry. Pretty standard weapon.
Gem Hoarder: Sableye is a Pokemon that robs its fallen enemies and I thought it'd be cool to employ a Cutpurse style mechanic into this card as in something that hoards treasures.
Sylvanas Ranger General: Redeemed Sylv to curb early game aggro and to maintain board control. This kills most 1-2 drops so you can repair an early game tempo disaster or maintain that beautifully curved out board.
The Less Fortunate Cards
Jungle Retreat: Healing to consolidate early game board but can also be very useful in the late game to punish opponents for letting some large threats live.
Exhaustion: An almost removal. I feel destroying a minion is not very flavourful so I decided to lock it down this way instead. The minion is just too damn tired!!
Explorer's Whip: To curb early game aggression, but can also be used aggressively for 5 damage burst.
Rune Tap: Late Game card to find tools to win the value game.
Wandering Satyr: Succubus like effect to reduce your card advantage but instead provides a big body.
Experienced Guide: Your late game Thaurissan equivalent to give you more value by making removals and win cons more accessible.
Falling Rocks: Just pretty general AoE that is also reminiscent of the collapsing temple scenes in Indiana Jones movies XD.
I'm Playing:
Evenlock and Mill Rogue in Wild HS,
Azami Control in EDH
Current Warframe Main: Mesa Prime
The Starcaller
The Starcaller is a class based on the knowledge of the cosmos and the stars, of the order established by the Titans at the beginning of time and the chaos caused by the void. Manipulating the raw arcane energies of the universe, the starcaller blasts its foes with power and grants its allies boons with the essence of greater beings. They can also call on cosmic entities, animate golems using ancient Titan magic, and, in a fashion similar to priests, dance on the edge between order and chaos.
The Basics
Other basic cards
In general, there are three themes present in the basic card set. Minion buffing, Spell synergy and Token generation. In future sets, these archetypes will be expanded and more will be included. Shieldweaver is a very characteristic card because it shows the duality of the class, divided between being a mage using archaic powers (Spell Damage) and using the words of greater beings as a paladin would (Divine Shield).
The Challenges
Bazvar's tokens:
Hope you like it, and if you want to hear more from the Starcaller, vote!
The Faerie Dragon, Alysia. Her name means "captivating power" and she is from deep within Ashenvale. She was Brightwing's best friend in childhood but they grew distant when Brightwing left to fight in the Nexus while Alysia stayed in Ashenvale to protect the Emerald Dream. Unlike most Faerie Dragons, Alysia has an uncanny bond with other Dragons and acts as an emissary for Ysera when necessary.
The class focuses on controlling both sides of the board, including summoning weak minions to the opponent's side as a drawback but also using them to your advantage. The hero power has obvious synergy with Dragon support, providing you with a means to always have a Dragon in hand guaranteeing value from those cards.
Basic Set with explanations
Lost Whelp - An easy way to summon a Whelp for your opponent without losing card advantage. Costs 1 less than Arcane Intellect because you need a minion to kill the Whelp and also waste that minion's attack for the turn (and 1 health).
Forest Guardian - A simple boss/win condition for the basic set along the same vein as Guardian of Kings and Dread Infernal. While it's out, the drawbacks of your Whelp summoning effects are removed but it's also just a cute effect that hasn't really been seen in Hearthstone yet.
Phase Shift - What would a Faerie Dragon be without it's signature ability? Has many uses, can obviously be used as a pseudo-conceal to "protect" one of your minions or to remove a Taunt from the opponent's field for the turn. Also lets you lower your minion count without actually removing one of your minions for effects like Overpower (see rest of basic set).
Rest of basic set:
Lonely Whelp - Very straightforward. Above average stats at the cost of summoning a Whelp for your opponent.
Ranger - A realistic basic card which combines two basic effects nicely. Simple and versatile.
Dragon Rage - A thematic basic damaging spell which fits the Dragon theme perfectly while adding value to the Hatch hero power.
Ascend - Similar to Mark of Yshaarj but with an effect we haven't seen yet in Hearthstone; adding a minion type tag. Will be something interesting to play around with.
Whelp Laid - The signature removal spell shown off in Phase I. Hard removal with a hefty drawback that fits this class perfectly. Also how could I call this a Hearthstone set if there wasn't a pun somewhere?
Overpower - "AoE" buff spell so you can turn those Faerie Whelps into an actual threat. Used to cost 2 but people expressed concern that it was too easy to manipulate board numbers in this class and just OTK someone so I upped it to 3 which should be fair.
Intimidate - A simple spell similar to Equality but 1 extra cost. In my opinion this effect is more powerful than Equality because Equality won't help unless you also have a way to remove the minions whereas this can essentially remove threats in a vacuum.
Challenge cards with explanations
Brightwing - Of course this had to be the first Faerie Dragon Legendary ^_^ It really ramps up the Faerie Dragon protection effect and also provides something Hearthstone hasn't explored much yet; protecting your hero from targeting effects.
Moonlight Sentinel - I had to use this pretty picture of Dragonair. It makes up for its subpar stats with a cute auto-summon from hand effect which I think fits the Dragon theme nicely. Those Whelps you summon make easy prey to trigger this beauty.
The Battlemage
The Battlemage is a fierce combatant who uses devastating spells and enchanted artifacts to defend herself, all the while unleashing a flurry of enchanted weapon strikes against her opponent. In terms of gameplay, this means that the Battlemage is a midrange weapon class; she generates value at the cost of tempo by casting permanent weapon buffs, while using many powerful spells to try to control the board. She will have strong synergies with Spell Damage, not only to boost damage, but also to enhance her other spells and minions.
Because practically all her AOEs are symmetric, it is hard for her to rely on her minions for face damage, and as a result she must use her weapons to deal kill her opponent; if she ends up having to use her weapon charges to trade, then she's on her way to a loss. Battlemage decks will be weapon and AOE heavy, with a strong focus on draw to get your answers and value cards out consistently. No fatigue win condition here!
Azarel has training in safely supercharging her artifacts and incantations; as a result, she can gain additional effects to ordinary spells by paying more mana. This is the unique class keyword, Empower.
The Basic Set
The fundamental weapon buff, providing consistent value by adding raw damage to your weapons without any gimmicks. This card is a must for the basic set: it enables designing future sets without constantly having to print a weapon damage buff.
This card is in the basic set so that it can always act as the primary draw engine for the Battlemage. Paying 2 to draw a card is very bad, but this can scale quite nicely with enough Spell Damage, often being able to draw you 3 or 4 cards later in the game (while being 1 or 2 early on).
The class is a weapon based class, and so you should get to see a weapon as an example card. A simple concept, the Battlemage benefits from high durability weapons, to get more value out of the weapon buffs she's already cast this game.
The full set!
Longsword: A weapon focused class, I wanted to provide access to a cheap weapon. This is the Rogue hero power in card form: other hero powers cost (0), and so I made this weapon cost (0) as well.
Animated Wand: A minion that shows two aspects of the class: using enchanted artifacts as minions, while also having easy access to Spell Damage to promote synergy with all the spells that are present.
Burning Hands: A cheap single target removal spell that shows a fundamental design decision for the class: no spells that can target face. Not allowing spells to hit face allows for more liberal amounts of Spell Damage without worrying about it becoming abused for OTKs.
Enchant: Conduit: Another spell that pushes the weapon buff mechanic, again with a very simple implementation. By providing both this and Fiery Weapon in the basic set as building blocks for fundamental class mechanics, it frees up design space in the other sets to be more complex and niche, without constantly having to make sure there's a method for the class to increase the damage of their weapons.
Volcanic Storm: Whirlwind + Draw, similar to Fan of Knives vs Arcane Explosion
Disintegrate: The strongest single target removal for the class. Better than Polymorph, as a 0/1 token is hard to be made useful for the opponent. Generates the token card Pile of Ash shown in the reveal.
Meteor Storm: The flashy 10 mana spell that any good spell based class should have. Playing up the synergy with Spell Damage to the extreme (this + Malygos would deal 60 damage to the enemy board), Meteor Storm is essentially a more interesting way to destroy all enemy minions; which I think is fine for 10 mana, as you can't develop anything else the turn you play it. This spell can't hit face, or it would be way too strong.
The Challenge Cards
From the treasure rooms of Blackrock Spire comes the Mithril Dragon Figurine. While appearing as a simple toy, this is a figurine of incredible power to those who have an affinity for magical artifacts. By imbuing the figurine with additional magic and uttering the correct incantation, you can bring it to life to fight for you! Be careful though, for if the figurine is destroyed, it will unleash all of its stored magic in an explosive blast!
When searching through an ancient temple that opened when the Old Gods surfaced, Azarel stumbled upon the Tome of Ancient Teachings, written in a time when magical arts were more refined. The tome allows her to read long-lost incantations to gather ambient magical energy and transfer it into her own spells, eliminating the need for her to provide additional magic to Empower her abilities.