Hearthpwn

Flavour Text: Even the faceless know that the face is the place.

Zon'ozz is only slightly above curve since, while his battlecry is potentially an incredible draw back (especially for any 'fair' deck), it can also be a massive boon for getting around roadblocks.

Basic Set

Commentary

Commentary

Commentary

Commentary

Classic (Under Construction)

So, a little less than a year ago, during the final update for WotOG for my Tactician class, I teased my next class; The Ronin.

My initial intention was to hold the idea until the Class Creation Contest swung back around. The initial problem was that I underestimated how long there would be before it started. Then, once it did, the bulk of the initial phase happened while I was overseas. I then more or less fell out of Hearthstone entirely.

Now, however, I have returned.

The Ronin

Overview

In its traditional usage, a 'Ronin' is a masterless Samurai. I'm sure I don't need to explain what a Samurai is (nor even what a Ronin is, really, but anyway). Though they obviously don't fit into the current Warcraft landscape, I think there's the potential for something akin to Mists of Panderia to happen (or maybe something like Death Knight/Demon Hunter to happen), to introduce a class like this.

Anyway.

The Ronin is based mainly around the mid-range, control and combo archetypes. As you'd expect, they're a weapon class, right down to the hero power. Between their weapon and their suite of spells, the Ronin is well-equipped to deal with the board, though perhaps not quite as effortlessly as the Warrior. The Ronin's unique mechanic is Bushido; a trigger effect that activates when you control no minions.

Why is Mr Worgen!Samurai named something obviously alliance-y? Because something something Last Samurai-esque thing.

Thematics

Solitary
Without a liege, the Ronin wanders adrift, without allies. The Ronin benefits when fighting alone, most explicitly through its unique class mechanic, but also through other less direct effects (such as hero protection that doesn't extend to minions, and spells with potential friendly fire).

Ronin's class mechanic, Bushido, is an explicit extension of this theme.

Patient
Without the support of allied troops or superior equipment, rushing in is often futile. Though deadly once engaged, the Ronin doesn't go looking for a fight, and thus many of the Ronin's cards require patience in some regard, whether that be holding onto them until a condition is fulfilled, or simply waiting for an end/start of turn effect to resolve.

The Power of the Sword
The Ronin is even more reliant on their weapon than other martial classes like Warrior or Rogue. Weapon buffs/synergy will be abundant and are likely to be more interesting in their implementation than some of the ones that already exist (though, since it's the basic set, we start with some boring ones).

Kensei V Vagabond V Scoundrel
The three "specialisations" of the Ronin are immediately at odds with each other in presentation, but all three use the Ronin's core themes in different ways.

Kensei
Part of the Ronin class is the anime-esque 'completely implausible' swordsmanship. This is exemplified with the Kensei specialisation. With peerless skill and weaboo fightan magic, the Kensei is death on legs. The Kensei specialisation delves into the board clears, the finicky removal, the weapon/attack buffs and some of the more blunt uses of the Bushido keyword (e.g. 'Bushido: +1/+1).

The only card representing the 'Kensei' specialisation in the Basic set is Bladestorm.

Errant
Part of the Ronin is a sort of peaceful survivalism and wanderlust; an honourable soul, suddenly unshackled from duty. Focusing on this aspect is part of the Errant specialisation. The Ronin Errant observes and reflects, ever moving forward, ever unyielding. Errant abilities usually involve the either the preservation or furthering of the Ronin himself, through card draw, healing, protection, etc. Though good at saving the hero, Errant cards are rarely useful for saving your minions; healing and damage reduction is strictly personal.

The cards that represent the 'Errant' specialisation are Wander, Respite and Withstand.

Scoundrel
Part of the Ronin is the desire to leave one's personal ethics behind, along with one's fallen master. Embracing this is part of the Scoundrel specialisation. The Scoundrel strikes without abandon, cutting down friend and foe alike and willing to embrace all manner of dishonourable tactics. Scoundrel abilities will often bear similarities to Warlock cards; sacrificing one's own health or minions for personal gain, but usually with a more 'reckless' or 'uncaring' vibe, than strictly malevolent (AKA nothin' personnel kid).

The cards that represent the Scoundrel as part of the basic set are Reckless Blade and Slaughter.

I'll be releasing new cards for the class over time. Check the post below for the master list.

Changelog

4/4/17 - First post!
5/4/17 - Increased Faithful Retainer's stats to 2/4 from 1/4. New cards: Reprisal, Venerable Master.

Quote from LarryMoments >>

I like how the class is beign developed! Its pretty cool! It seems pretty interesting, however, some balance/changes I would make.

Faithful Retainer: I think this could be perfectly a 2/4 or 3/4, its effect is not very fearful, as remember Savage Combatant exists, so beign a constant threath and easy to kill is a bad combination... a bit of a stat raise could be good...

Bushido Keyword: Change it to: "Do something while you control no other minions" This means a card like Fellow Wanderer wouldn´t trigger cause there is a minion in board at the time, beign the minion itself, but I understand your idea, so this new wording could be more understandable.

Keep going! You are doing a good work!

Flavour Text: In Un'Goro, party finds you!

 The player’s goal in this stage of the battle is to stabilise and deal with The Ringmaster only once the board is secure. It may initially seem tempting to try and aggro him down with his fairly low starting health, but anyone who manages to kill him will find that he was but a puppet for a far more threatening foe.

Second Stage

Once the Ringmaster is killed, he is replaced by the Circus Du Soul itself; an encounter similar to the Minecart or Escape sequences from League of Explorers. Unlike those, which had hard turn limits, this encounter is won by exhausting the Circus’s deck. Each turn, the Circus will draw and play five cards. This may seem insurmountable, but without a mind to direct it, the Circus will play without any regard for strategy; attacks and spell targets are chosen completely at random, and cards are always played if able, even if they do more harm than good. Once out of cards and bereft of a conductor, the show is finally over.

Thaurissen tick on everything
Totemic Wrath -> Malygos -> Lightning Bolt -> Lightning Bolt for 32 Damage.

Flavour Text: With how most Warlocks treat their souls, this is a pretty bad deal.

On the location of the cards for the Ronin
Actually, I'll be making a new thread for it. That was just a teaser for what's to come :P.

On the mechanics of Bushido
Activation on cast, like combo or choose one. As a result, the first Wanderer in that scenario would retain the +1/+1 and taunt. IMO, since the nature of the Ronin, plus Bushido's restriction, results in the class having trouble pushing advantages, I say it's fine if even the common cards are little more powerful than usual :P.

On more praise
Why thank you :P

On the appropriateness of the Namless General as a character in Hearthstone
Thank you, hqql, for vocalising those points.

To add to that, I'm not exactly a WoW player and I've never been particularly invested in Blizzard's franchises. Despite this, I recognise a higher percentage of warcraft heroes in HotS than I do the Hearthstone characters; Murky's the only one I had no clue about in HotS, while I had to wiki who Khadgar, Liadrin and Alleria were. So yeah.

On the design space of the samurai Ronin
No Shuriken for the Ronin (likely the actual name of the class);those are a Ninja thing. Katana are also very much long swords over the rogue's short swords/daggers. The Ronin will be sharing certain things with the Rogue (a weapon based hero power and weapon buffs mainly), but plays very differently. The Ronin is directly inspired by the Blacksmith from Runescape Chronicles (though with less insta-kill burst). It's a slow, control-y class that eventually wins by hitting the enemy with a giant weapon (the honourable way of winning, as opposed to the control Warrior that wins with giant minions); the class mechanic is thus

Bushido: If you control no minions, this effect becomes active.

Bushido is checked before the card is played, thus allowing minions to have Bushido without immediately invalidating themselves. Here's some tentative examples

On the completion of the Tactician
WotOG is done. When another HS setcomes out, I'll probably do up some Tactician cards for it as well, but as it is said...

That's all there is. There isn't any more.

I'm loving the idea of this, so here's my submission:

Fabric of Time

You are guided through the Caverns of Time by Nozdormu himself, in order to prevent a plan by his future self to unravel the fabric of time, and cause the whole universe to cease to exist. You will experience major events from the history of Azeroth, and must resolve to ensure they happen as history dictates, whatever action you must take to ensure this. Once this is complete, and the timeline is restored, you must travel to the Heart of Time itself, to trap Murozond until it is his time to meet his demise.

The Final Boss(es)

Within the Heart of Time, you must face not only Murozond, but Nozdormu himself, as the two have become intertwined and now fight for control. You must be sure of your target, as if Nozdormu falls, Murozond will be unleashed, with nought to stand in his way. 

(Note: the two dragons count as individual heroes, and as such, have separate life totals. Your aim is to ensure Nozdormu survives, while taking down Murozond.)

Nozdormu: 

Murozond:

Three Card examples

A new mechanic to be used for this example is Reverse. Self explanatory, a minion with this key word will reverse the effects of certain spells and effects. For example, if the first card (Defender of Quel'Thalas, was targeted by Abusive Sergeant , it would get -2 attack until the end of the turn.)

EDIT: Reduced the size of the cards to stop taking up so much page.

Great against aggro

This time, for sure!

Just a small side note, when a minion with Taunt becomes immune, your opponent can attack through it. So playing Bushwhack practically just makes a minion immune.