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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 Classics
One of the cornerstones of the class is the interaction with the Sparks generated by your hero power and other cards. This minion is a reliable way of acquiring them along with fighting for the board, as its large Health pool allows it to trade very well against smaller minions. Even though it might be a bit slow for the normal Starcaller decks, combo decks that focus on hoarding Sparks for a big turn will like her ability to do this while developing the board, in a way reminiscent of what Tomb Pillager does for Miracle Rogue.
Showing the most characteristic mechanic of the Starcaller, this card shuffles spells into your decks to search for valuable minions. It synergizes with the Hero Power and cheap spells, allowing you to change early game answers for minions more suited for the current game state. The fact that it makes you lose a spell forces a more careful approach when combining it with Gadgetzan Auctioneer. If you don't have a spell in your hand, this spell will fizzle and do nothing.
This card is intended to be a staple on Zoo/Token Starcaller decks. Fueled by the Hero Power and other cheap spells, it can produce very strong buffs if left unattended. It represents the style of these decks, using spells and buffs to make your minions grow and overrun the oposition, more similar to Token Druid than Zoolock. It may also find a place on more midrangey decks, but it is very focused on having board presence.
The main and at the time only direct removal of the Starcaller, Singularity is a card based around the concept of dissappearing into a black hole. As such, the minion leaves nothing behind, justifying the silence aspect. Comparing it to Assassinate it is clearly a better card, but the increase in rarity and the different properties of each class, along with the fact that the Starcaller won't have a lot of single target removal balance it out.
Other classic cards
The rest of the cards build up on the same concepts that the basics started. Spell heavy decks, that either try to generate a large and difficult to remove board or control the state of the game to reach the late game. Recall is a card heavily focused on combos and highlander decks, maybe even important battlecries. The first good combo with this card involves using it along with Voices from the Void, evading the drawback. Using this combination with Leeroy Jenkins could be a great winning condition! Voices from the Void can also be used in a similar way to Mind Control, exchanging the reduced cost for having to kill the minion in the first place. Sigil of Norgannon is the second in the Sigil series, of which I plan to create one for each Titan. Omen, Acolyte of the Sun and Algalon the Observer were cards shown in the other two phases that I wanted to keep.
The Basics
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).
Hope you like it!
THE VARANGIAN
His story starts back at the time when the Lich King's forces were still ravaging the lands of Azeroth. Inside the walls of Jotunheim, vrykul warriors were fighting for the privilege of serving in Arthas' dark army in the afterlife, almost like a perversion of their ancestrals' faith and wish to join Odyn in the Halls of Valor. The winners are turned into Ymirjar by the Val'kyr and join the ranks of the undead legion, while the losers become Vargul and are forced into manual labor. Meet Floki: he's one of the latter.
(Be sure to check the rest of Floki's backstory inside the spoiler below.)
Fast forward to when the threat of the Lich King has been finally neutralized. Floki is among what's left of the Scourge. He has the choice to join the Forsaken and serve their master, Sylvannas Windrunner. He refuses.
Seeking to reconnect with his kin (or what's left of it) and make use of his new masonry skills, he willingly joins the Kvaldir society. He feels he is closer to them, former vrykul like him, than to the skeletons and ghouls he's been forced to work with for the past years. He pledges allegiance to Helya, but with her he strikes no pact, for now he serves none but himself.
With the Kvaldir, he goes into raids to hone his combat techniques (which were, by the way, never his forte) and learns how to build and repair longships. Time passes and his companions, having realized how good he was at making boats, start calling him "the Boatbuilder".
One day, he goes missing. While looking for him, his companions realize a small boat and also some of the loot they had in stash, gathered over the course of countless raids he took part in, are also gone.
Some months later, an enormous longship, manned by vrykul, vargul and forsaken alike begins terrorizing the seas of northern Azeroth.
OVERVIEW
THE VARANGIAN was inspired by the historical vikings and their WoW counterparts, the vrykul, kvaldir, val'kyr and other similar races. The class is centered around buffs of all kinds: single-target, random, AoE, permanent, temporary; for your minions and also for your hero. Its greatest strength is the versatility its cards can provide, even before you get to play with them: some of them have effects that can alter the way you build your deck (allowing you to run more than just two copies of a card in the same deck, or even playing with less than 30 cards total), which open up lots of different possibilities and encourage creative deckbuilding instead of simply netdecking. The secondary theme of the class, one that branches into minor ones, is the use of unconventional mechanics, some of which were never seen before in Hearthstone.
THE SHOWCASE
(Flavor text and commentary are inside the spoiler below.)
WARMAIDEN "Trust me, you don't want to go sparring with her when it's that time of the month." For the first challenge of this phase, I decided to go with a big Taunt, like many other competitors. Some of them, like mine, also make use of Enrage, which is a very cool, under-explored mechanic. The key difference between them and Warmaiden is the first-strike-like effect that defines the card and compensates for her under-statted body. It's interesting to note she also deals damage first when attacking heroes; let's say you have a 3/2 Warmaiden on board and go face against a Hunter that has Explosive Trap up: your attack gets through first, dealing 3, and only them the Secret triggers causing her to die. The only thing I don't like about her is I couldn't name her "Shieldmaiden".
HOT N COLD "'Cus you're a Magma Rager, then you're an Ice Rager, you're yes, then you're no..." No need to say this one's for the second challenge, right? At first, you might look at this card and think it's severely underpowered, like a lot of Epics in Hearthstone. Hot n Cold is a card comparable to Cold Blood (or P.O. in Warlock combo decks) in Rogue, since the Varangian also has a lot of burst available to it (mostly in the form of Attack buffs to your hero): it opens the possibility for you to run a combo finisher in your tempo deck or to go full combo, if you choose to run a third copy of it (you'll see how that's possible). The interesting thing about this card is how it doubles as stall if you find yourself really desperate to survive: you just cast it on an enemy minion like an Ice Lance.
SEA DRAGON "With a name like this, I'm pretty sure this should've been a Pokémon." Oh well, it's a pity I went with Lapras instead of Gyarados for the challenge of the previous phase. I'd say Sea Dragon is a card comparable to Flametongue Totem: it benefits a lot from already established board presence, but in this case, trades all that trade potential (damn, what an ugly sentence) for burst and synergy with cards played after itself, which also reminds me of Darkshire Councilman. How many men can you fit inside it?
FLEET VESSEL "5-mana 7/7!? How is that balanced?" An example of how the class' cards encourage you to build your deck differently so as to benefit from their effects or maybe even from additional redundancy. Like when fighting in the shieldwall, strength comes in numbers.
THE CLASSIC SET
(Flavor text and commentary are inside the spoiler below.)
BROTHER IN ARMS "Mom would never lift me up like that." A small body that, at first, may look like just a worse Elven Archer, but synergyzes a lot with the mechanics and all the buffs in this class. Who said a 1-drop needs 3 Health to be dangerous?
SHIELDBROTHERS "When they were kids, they would fight for the shield every single day. At least they never got hurt." Some might say this is just a worse Hand of Protection, but I made it like that for a reason: to use it with Wild Pyromancer and give slower decks a better way to remove big boards (since the Varangian, much like Hunter, has no board clears), just like old Worgen Warrior, which is a deck I miss a lot. And yeah, I'll admit, all I could think of while writing these flavor texts was my own childhood.
THROWING AXE "Try throwing one of these. They bounce. A LOT." Another simple card you can run as a 3-of in your deck, and probably a good reason to limit the direct damage available to the class in the future. I mean, Malygos will always be there, right?
DARK IRON SMITH "Is he a Dark Iron Smith? Or is he a Dark Iron Smith?" Just a simple 2-drop, very similar to Abusive Sergeant and Dark Iron Dwarf; just a bit better as it's a class card, and not even close to as problematic as Rockbiter Weapon used to be, as the Varangian doesn't have access to Windfury.
FREEZING TOUCH "It's like sticking your finger in ice cream. Kinda." No, not really.
CRUMBLING RUINS "*CRACK*" An interesting, different tool for stalling, aimed at slower decks. I think it's on par with Frost Nova.
LACERATE "Now tell me: how's an axe supposed to trample on someone?" The joke in the flavor text tells you what was the inspiration for this card: the Trample mechanic from MtG. It gives a lot more depth to an otherwise simple card, both mechanic- and flavor-wise.
LIGHTNING STRIKES THRICE "Actually, sometimes it strikes just once (but NEVER twice)." Similar to Hunter's Multi-Shot and Powershot, but better-fitting for the Varangian. Not weak, but not that powerful either. Special thanks go for @The_Odinson for finding such an amazing artwork for this spell.
RIVER OF BLOOD "Is it OK if I make another Warmaiden joke? Oh, it's not? Alright, sorry about that." Some healing for slower decks that synergyzes with removal like Shield and Sword (from the Basic Set) and Lacerate.
ELDERLY WISDOM "When I was a kid, my grandma made me draw an entire deck for her to play bridge." I didn't want to give this class a bland 5-mana draw 3 spell, so I went with a twist on the design, and there we are now. It synergyzes with cards like Throwing Axe, Fleet Vessel and of course, the Legendary:
YMIRON THE FALLEN KING "He just can't get up." On his own, the king doesn't do too much, but if you choose the right card, you can create a nice combo or improve the consistency of your deck by a lot, at the price of being forced to run a vanilla body which, to be honest, isn't all that bad, given the lack of good 5-drops in Standard.
THE BASIC SET (for reference)
Class: Blood Mage
What are Blood Mages and who is Ral'thon Morningstar?
CLASS: The Blood Mage
When the Sunwell of Daralan was destroyed by the Scourge, the elven magi of the Kirin Tor were forced to look elsewhere to sate their addiction to arcane energy. While many believe Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider to be the first blood mage, the art of siphoning arcane energy from living beings was first perfected by the Burning Legion. Little did the demons know that by teaching this art to the Blood Elves, it would be turned against the Legion. Today, it is not just the Blood Elves who practice blood magic, many Naga, Fel Orcs and Satyr's have also turned to this technique to free themselves from the Burning Legion. While many traditional mages consider blood magic to be no different than the infernal shadow magics of warlocks, the blood mage knows better: a demon is much more useful dead than alive.
NEW HERO: Ral'thon Morningstar
Ral'thon was a disciple of Prince Kael'thas and followed him into Outland where he learned the art of blood magic and how to harness the arcane energy within demons and other creatures. When he learned his prince had betrayed the blood elves and was conspiring with the Burning Legion, Ral'thon was among the heroes who assaulted Tempest Keep to slay the treacherous prince. Ral'thon now wanders Azeroth, seeking to unite his fractured people and rebuild the broken alliance with the Naga.
Example Cards:
How does the Spell Flood Hero Power work? How does the Siphon Keyword work?
HERO POWER: Spell Flood/Mana Leak
Mana Leak helps slow down your opponent's tempo by unexpectedly increasing their card cost. While this power starts off weak, with each additional use and each passing turn, your opponent becomes more likely to draw into a Mana Leak. Just like Ambush! or Burrowing Mine, when Mana Leak is drawn, it is revealed and effects immediately take place. Just like those previously mentioned cards, if it is drawn when you have 10 cards in hand, it is discarded and has no effect. Multiple Mana Leaks do not stack.
NEW KEYWORD: Siphon
Siphon works similarly to Overload. You spend mana crystals you do not have, but in this case you spend the mana left over from your opponent's turn. If a card has Siphon (2), you may discount that card by 2 if your opponent has 2 unused crystals, or by just 1 if they have only one unused crystal. These discounts would appear in the usual fashion, as a green number in card's mana crystal in the upper left corner. Once you play a siphon card, you expend the appropriate amount of your opponent's crystals. You can always play Siphon cards at their full cost, if your foe has no unspent mana.
Full Classic Set:
Tokens
Basic Set and Phase 2 Challenge Cards:
Challenge Cards from Phase 2 (WotG Legendary, BRM Rare)
Challenge Info
Challenge 1 "A Common Goal": Met by Mana Crusher.
Challenge 2 "Classical Music": Met by Every New Beginning...; lyrics from the Semisonic song Closing Time, which are followed by "... comes from some other beginning's end."