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General presentation of my class

Basic set

Classic Set

Old Gods + Karazhan

Gadgetzan + Un'Goro

KFT + K&C

Rise of Shadows

Saviors of Uldum

Unused cards

He makes your games spicy, your victories sweet and your opponents salty, he is...

THE CHEF

PRESENTATION

Deathwing needs a Friendwing. He also needs dinner, and there's nobody more qualified to cook for the Black Aspect than Gorde, Head Warchef (no typo) of the Dragonmaw clan and Deathwing's personal slave chef. He cooks meals for Deathwing to not become one.

The Chef class is based around deck thinning/manipulation and keeping board control at all times. The Chef uses the Roast mechanic as a resource or as a way to curve out (see details on Roast below). In short, the Chef combines elements of Warlock, Warrior, Mage and to a lesser extent Rogue, while retaining its unique playstyle. The Chef's motto could be "If your opponent has useful minions on the board, you're doing it wrong".

Main characteristics

"Roast" & Deck manipulation, in particular effects that remove, add cards into your deck, or depends on deck size;

Scattered damage, in particular good AOEs for the early and late game. The Hero Power also follows this logic;

Double-edged buffs and removals that can be useful on either your minions or enemy ones depending on the circumstances;

Big Heals and synergies with them.

Keyword

The Roast keyword is identical to the unofficially used "Burn" keyword. When an effect says "Roast a card" without precisions, it is assumed to be the top card of your deck. Cards you burn through overdraw will also count as "Roasted" for the synergies my class features. The Roast keyword will be used to:

Make you curve better by increasing your draw consistency (e.g. roasting low-cost minions);

Allow interactions with your deck's content (with effects depending on what cards was roasted);

Compensate for a theoretically above curve card (like Overload and discard). Mostly used in aggro/midrange decks. This last effect will be used with parsimony.

As a rule of thumb, I consider that 3 Roasted cards = 1 Mana discount.

Existing cards that say "destroy" rather than "remove" - Hemet, Jungle Hunter, Skulking Geist and Azari, the Devourer - would NOT count as Roast. As a rule of thumb, burn animation for the card = Roast.

Strengths

Good board control through disruption of the opponent's board (rather than reinforcement of yours);

Lots of Tempo options through "soft removals", good early-game minions and the Hero Power;

High survivability and, counterintuitively, resistance to fatigue because they will have a lot of cards that shuffle stuff into your deck to compensate for the Roast mechanic.

Weaknesses

Lack of unconditionaly good midrange minions, or minions that can only be used either for defense or offense, but not both;

No combos. The Roast mechanic obviously doesn't fit very well with a combo playstyle that relies on specific cards...

More infos on the class

Secrets: No

Weapons: Yes

Playstyles

Aggro : ★★☆

Midrange : ★★☆

Control : ★★★

Tempo : ★★★

Combo : ★☆☆

Specific abilities

Big minions : ★★★

Board control/AOEs : ★★★

Board swarming : ★☆☆

Buffs : ★★☆

Card draw : ★★★

Direct damage : ★★☆

Hard removal : ★☆☆

Survivability (Heal, Armor, ...) : ★★★</

Value generation : ★★★

EXAMPLE CARDS

Here are some cards which exemplifies the class' core mechanics and strategies

Storwind Chef (Roast as a resource) - A compensation for above-curve cards, similar to Overload and discard.

Cannibal Cake (Roast as a curve helper) - Helps your curve by Roasting early-game cards.

Food Critic (Roast as deck interaction) - Effects that depends on which cards were Roasted.

Limb Tentacle (Roast synergy) - Card that tend to nullify Roast's intrinsic drawback.

Supply Caravan (Shuffle into deck) - The counterpart of the Roast mechanic.

Deviate Delight (Double-edged removal) - Can be used on your minions on enemy ones depending on circumstances.

Fried Bacon (Cost-effective AOEs) - Board control is a strength of the Chef class (Shooting Star wasn't a card when I made this class).

Fogburner (Random damage) - Chef has lots of random damage, in line with its HP.

THE CARDS

CORE SETS

BASIC SET

"Base" Basic cards

These are the cards that are immediately available to new players once they unlocked the class.

Unlockable Basic cards

These are the cards new players unlock throughout leveling with the class.

TOKENS

Design notes

Skilled Cook : Early board control. Temporarily turns your Hero Power into "Deal 2 damage" like Fallen Hero, Auchenai Soulpriest or Steamwheedle Sniper before her. Balanced around Disciple of C'Thun.

Fried Bacon was made before Shooting Star was released.

Roasting Drake : Indirect synergy with my Roast keyword. Assuming you didn't use any draw, roast or shuffle effect, Roasting Drake's effect would be usable starting from turn 12 (11 if you went second). However, if you used those effects, you can have the effect much earlier and perhaps even on curve.

CLASSIC

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARY

TOKENS

Design notes

Roast the card bears the same name as the keyword it uses similarily to how Charge and Windfury the cards do so as well.

Lava Soup is a Mana Cheater like Ancestor's Call. Don't fear a Malygos "fun and interactive" because the aforementioned Ancestor's Call failed to make Malygos Shaman a thing (despite Shaman having a megashitton of direct damage). This suggests that Malygos Chef would be just a fun deck as well. The art has Molten Giant which means it synergizes very well with it!

Party Night is significantly better than Sprint because in 99% of cases, you WILL burn (=Roast!) some cards.

Baul Pocuse : Roast cards might hurt your ability to play the long game. The Rock is here to mitigate this effect. It can be played in a control deck and a midrange deck, since it puts cards in your hand immediately.

YEAR OF THE KRAKEN (2016)

WHISPERS OF THE OLD GODS

WOTOG was the first expansion to introduce true buildaround cards in the form of Old Gods. The main theme of my set is cards that make you curve into your Old Gods. Obviously, you will avoid playing too much indiscriminate Roast cards in a deck containing an Old God, that's why there's few indiscriminate Roast in this set. Another subtheme is Egg synergy.

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARY

Design notes

Julienne Cut : Double-edged removal. "To replace it" means the tokens are summoned for the owner of the destroyed minion! You can use it on big enemy minions or on your own minions to trigger deathrattles and/or create copies of minions with a high-value effect. Awesome synergy with the above Corrupted Egg! In other words, it's very similar to Conjurer's Calling (which was released after I made this card!)

Omelette Chef : You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs! Omelette Chef is both an egg synergy card and an anti-egg tech. On top of eggs, he also knows how to cook Totems and eschatological blood elves.

Kosumoth the Hungering is hungry. VERY HUNGRY. The card to curve quasi-certainly into your 10-Cost win condition i.e. an Old God or any version of Deathwing.

Limb Tentacle : Another Roast mitigator comparable to Silverware Golem, but less powerful since you don't need to have it in your hand. Based on the Madness of Deathwing fight in WoW.

ONE NIGHT IN KARAZHAN

Nothing special going on here. I'm just disappointed there are only 3 cards in this set because it has intrinsic Chef flavor.

TOKENS

MEAN STREETS OF GADGETZAN

Chef's gang - Guerrilla Gorilla Monkey Business®

The Steamwheedle cartel sold the monkeys around Azeroth from their headquarters in Booty Bay but a small batch freed themselves in Gadgetzan and formed the Guerrilla Gorilla Monkey Business® (GGMB). Harambo, the leader of GGMB, made a fortune out of Bananas trafficking and is now trying to take the city over from the Cartel and other gangs.

GGMB already acquired lots of businesses, one of them being the Roast Palace. They hired one of the most renowned chef in Azeroth: Ragnaros the Firelord, who since renamed himself the Kitchenlord after he decided to become a full-time Chef because he doesn't want his ass to be kicked by adventurers again. Unfortunately, Ragnaros is not as good as he says because he burns things a lot, but Harambo is too afraid of firing him. You can't fire the Firelord.

🍌 Gang cards! 🍌

The Guerrilla Gorilla Monkey Business® (GGMB) includes the Chef, Scribbler, and Berserker classes. Its theme is (obviously) Bananas and cards that synergizes with Bananas.

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARY

TOKENS

This is what Bananas look like when affected by Banananmancer.

Design notes

Banana Juice Bottle : Bananas synergy weapon. Just to be sure, the "played" on the text is past pense, meaning you should play the card before playing this.

Ragnaros, Kitchenlord : HELLO INSECTS. I AM BACK TO BURN THINGS AND PLEASE YOUR PALATE AND I HOPE YOU LIKE YOUR MEAT WELL COOKED. ALL THE MEALS IN MY RESTAURANT ARE DONE METICULOUSLY WITH TONS OF FIRE BY A VERY COOPERATIVE STAFF. FOR IF THEY KNOW THEY FAIL A MEAL THEY IMMEDIATELY GET FIRED. LITERALY. The idea is that, if you have less than 8 cards in hand. Rag will try to draw a card but has 50% chance to roast it (he's not a kitchenlord contrary to what he believes...), the 50% draw/50% roast will stop once the 8 card condition is met. Like Jeeves, it won't OTK you if your deck is empty.

YEAR OF THE MAMMOTH (2017)

JOURNEY TO UN'GORO

Un'Goro is home to a lot of beautiful, exotic and rare creatures... that would all look very nice on a plate. This lost jungle is the occasion for the Chef to try new recipes, and try he will. The Chef's Un'goro set is all based around cards that add/shuffle cards into your deck a.k.a. the other side of the Roast coin. There were already a couple of such cards in previous sets, it is now time to fully explore this aspect of the class.

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARIES

TOKENS

Design notes

The Ultimate Recipe :

The idea is that you can control which spells will be cast through the cards you chose to put into your deck and of course, your base decklist.

The Quest text says "add" rather than "shuffle" to take into account cards that put other cards on top of your deck (since those aren't "shuffled").

If you somehow have another copy of Titan Feast in your deck when casting the first one, they won't stack. The second Feast will be ignored.

Good synergy with Bananas as well!

Galakrond : In Wow, Galakrond was a Dragon who ate everything he could find. The artwork on the card is supposed to represent an early version of him when he was not as big as it was when he died.

Expedition Cook : How does this work? The effect of the shuffled Meal will depend of the tribe of the Roasted minion. She helps complete the Quest and synergize with the reward (which casts spells in the deck). The Meals cost (5) and are listed below.

Supply Caravan is a collectible from the Classic set.

KNIGHTS OF THE FROZEN THRONE

Knights of the Frozen Throne expands on the deck manipulations mechanic featured in Un'Goro. In particular, Rotbutcher Gordo introduces a brand new Chef playstyle which can potentially compensate for one of Chef's weakness: comboing cards together. Indeed it provides you with complete mastery of the card you draw provided you manage to get the hand you need! It also introduces a new Chef archetype: Empty deck Chef. (I made this set BEFORE Chef Nomi was a thing!)

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARIES

TOKENS

Design notes

Rotbutcher Gordo will draw cards until your deck is full and then Roast what remains of it through overdraw. "Each Roasted card" here means "each overdrawn card" (remember, overdraw counts as Roast!).

Butcher : Many people told me it was OP because the token does nothing. But does it? Token Druid and Shaman, Inner Fire Priest, Aggro Paladin and to a lesser extent Zoolock and Aggro Hunter can all find a use - and a good one - for a 0/5 token. And let's not forget our good neutral friends Cobalt Scalebane and Bonemare! Of course there will be decks and classes (like Mage) against which this is a 4 mana Assassinate, but no card has ever been equally effective against all classes!

💀 Lich King Challenge card 💀

"Normally dessert is taken at the end of a meal. How about making an exception this time?"

KOBOLDS & CATACOMBS

Themes: Untargeted damage, Spells, Dragons.

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARIES

TOKENS

Design notes

Fu Zan, the Wanderer's Companion is the artifact weapon for Brewmaster Monks in Wow, and is the closest thing to a Chef legendary weapon. It is a slow but infinite value generator.

Unidentified Mushroom : The last Mushroom adds itself or one of the 3 other mushrooms to your hand. The Mushrooms are stackable and their effects don't vanish at the end of the turn.

YEAR OF THE RAVEN (2018)

SKIPPED! Yes, I skipped a whole year for my class because I'm lazy. What you gonna do about it?

YEAR OF THE DRAGON (2019)

Chef is aligned with the "good" classes alongside Druid, Hunter, Mage, and Paladin.

Rise of Shadows

Dalaran is being attacked by the League of EVIL! The entire city is forming a united front against them. Mages from the Kirin Tor, passing adventurer, and...chefs. What does a Chef do in this situation? Well, the same thing as usual: cooking healthy and nourishing meals for people doing the actual fighting. Unless it's Nomi. Nomi burns both its food and its enemies.

Themes & Mechanics : Healing, Empty deck ("Nomi").

The cards

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARIES

Design notes

Bartendotron says "For the rest of the game" which means the HP keeps Lifesteal even if it changes (like Raza the Chained). Obviously it would have been very good if Baku the Mooneater was still around.

PvE content

Saviors of Uldum

"What's happening here? I don't care if the league of EVIL wants to destroy the world or whatever! I just want to get my caravan through Uldum so I can go back home!" - Franklin Saltyshell

Themes & Mechanics : Healing, Spell Damage, Caravans (you'll see).

COMMONS

RARES

EPICS

LEGENDARIES

TOKENS

Design notes

Unlike Shaman basic Totems, Franklin can summon any of the 4 Caravans even if it's already on the board.

For synergy purposes, Supply Caravan (from the Classic set) also counts as a Caravan.

OTHER STUFF

DECK RECIPES

What's a Chef without his recipes?

Here are a selection of deck recipes for the class. These deck recipes would be the official ones if they existed. They emphasize the theme for the class for each expansion. Each class has one Basic deck recipe, one Classic deck recipe, and 2 deck recipes per expansion after that.

Basic & Classic recipes

Year of the Mammoth recipes

UNUSED CARDS

These are the cards I made which I find cool and tried to fit in my sets but couldn't. It would be a shame to abandon them so I'm showing them anyway.

CREDITS

HUGE THANKS TO

Schlauchneid for the custom minion border for my class and provided me with tons of useful art and feedback;

The Illuminati Hearthpwn Gucci Gang AKA Broeck1, McFartson(lol), Zanywoop, and Mewdrops;

Toxovent for letting me make a gang with them;

Everyone who commented on my cards in the discussion thread and on Discord;

RenoLord for doing some deck recipes for my class;

Demonxz95 for the flavor texts.

I guess now is as good a time as any to say farewell to the community, not the Hearthpwn community but specifically this community - the one that kept the great designs flowing up to the end of Season 9. Surely the card design competitions here will continue, but the contributors will not be the same, as people will be migrating towards other sites.

Truth be told, these competitions have been welcome breaks in what would have otherwise been pretty droll and monotonous work weeks. In hindsight, I wish I could have participated more in the Discussion threads, but work has largely kept me from doing so. I hope I did not come off as a snob.

That said, thank you to everyone for your amazing entries, and the laughs (because almost always, there's always a Rager or a Pepe waiting to be submitted for each theme). LOL. GLHF everyone. My gratitude for the memories.

(ALSO: Fell short in the season finale AGAIN! I recall it was by one vote last season, and now it's by five votes. CG to our design overlord, CheeseETC!)