Hey! Filipuntik/Flippz/spin#8192 here with the final competition entry. After many years, I've finally been able to catch the custom class competition around these places, and could put my ideas for a custom class to use. In a bit of backstory, I've had the concept of a "Gunner" class bouncing around on paper at least since 2018, with most of the themes that are present in this finalist entry already down. In this post where I present what the class would look like after the release of Forged in the Barrens, with the Basic and "Initiate" set filtered into a Core set for the class as well as said expansion's cards. I'd also like finally like to go more into detail regarding my design intentions with some of these cards and themes, as opposed to the flavorful descriptions I've been writing in the previous rounds of this competition.
If you'd like to see how the class has been evolving over the summer, check out the following forum posts or imgur albums:
Apologies for the Boomsday Project post looking so drab, but my full write-up got flagged as spam, and I had to squeeze out a barebones version to qualify. Anyway, without much further ado, let's dive right in!
Bomber, relentless, inventive and reckless. They dive into the fight head-first and quickly move onto unloading all of their firepower as quickly as possible. However, they can also perform as decent tacticians, using their firepower to take control over the battlefield in their own manner. They're rarely in for the long haul, though, and pack reactive action in favor of longevity. Such is the deadly mix of a class that features plenty of damage to itself, but, at this moment, absolutely no healing.
Core Set
Design Notes
It is probably worth mentioning that the origin of this class comes from a top-down design. Originally, the class was supposed to revolve around a League of Legends character, no less, but I was mildly aware of having to scrap that for the actual competition. It changes nothing about the class's identity as a fast and reckless class.
What helps sell that is the Hero Power. It has gone through many iterations over those three years, only arriving at its current form now, partially thanks to Demon Hunter introducing a 1-Cost Hero Power. At first, the Hero Power interacted with a keyword I'd refer to as Reload, which effectively just refreshed the Hero Power, which dealt damage. From this stemmed the idea of having a Hero Power that would deal considerable damage but only every other cast, or a Hero Power that would store 2-damage charges, and could be charged by itself or via certain class cards. This idea generally came to a halt when it came to considering under what circumstances Hero Powers refresh themselves, though. An alternative path for this Hero Power began with "Deal 1 damage to a target and both heroes", so effectively Mage's Hero Power with extra burn. This is the one that eventually led to Bombs Away! as it is today.
Originally, there was a keyword in development, called Fuse (X). A card's Fuse would count down every turn, and if it reaches zero, the card explodes in your hand and, in its most basic form, you draw a new one. The biggest trouble with this keyword was that there was a very narrow space between numbers low enough that players would only run those cards and hold onto them for the free cycle, and numbers too high to evoke the sense of urgency that the Bomber exudes with its burn through deck and hero Health. Spare a moment of Silence for the two cards in the original Initiate/Boot Camp set which featured this keyword spelled out. Thus, the class itself features no keywords, but it sports a pair of mechanics (well, one is only a token) mostly unique to itself, as far as Core sets are concerned.
Rockets
Rockets are the very simple token that Bombers utilize throughout combat. Weak on their own, they mostly work add extra damage to other, bigger sources. They can also be combined with Spell Damage to provide strong bursts of damage to whittle down your opponent. Originally, the Initiate/Boot Camp set featured various ways to power up Rockets beyond that, but I believe that with the necessity to keep the Core set rather simple, empowering Rockets should be the job of various expansions.
The wording of cards that generate Rockets has been changed. So far, it was the norm for them to spell out that Rockets deal 1 damage. With Core, however, the text changes to parentheses for Core cards: (that deal 1 damage), meaning that expansion cards can do away without this explanation.
Temporary Armor
Easily the biggest head-tilter from the whole class. Gameplay-wise, of course, the numbers are bloated, but Armor in Bomber serves double duty as a defense against your opponent's damage, but your own, too -- and if you choose to break your own Armor with self-damage effects, at least you know it's not going to waste! Of course, the real issue that may come to mind is floatiness and interaction with regular Armor. It's a valid question, but often I feel like people approach it with the worst possible execution in mind.
For starters, every instance of Temporary Armor says "for 1 turn". This wording is deliberate not because the number can be treated as a tweakable variable, but instead to mimic the wording of Rastakhan Rumble's Spirit minions' "Stealth for 1 turn". With this precedent, this Armor then breaks at the start of your turn. Then, due to the lack of regular Armor in Bomber, in 99 % of cases, if enemy Bomber has Armor up, it'll go away at the start of their next turn.
In the odd case of a stack of regular and temporary Armor, temporary Armor would break first before the regular one, similarly to how regular Armor covers Health. It's up to debate whether these niche cases would require visual indication. Something as minor as recoloring the digits of the indicator would probably do the job.
Enough of that. Time to get back to the Core set.
New Cards
These are the three brand new cards introduced into the Core set. Fully Loaded is a general purpose card meant to support various Bomber decks by providing extra cards from relevant categories or doubling as a Rocket generator. Foundry Giant is an Armor-related Epic mech that replaces Gigantabot, which required too much Armor gain cards to function. Its synergy wasn't very welcome in a Core set. Similarly, Shanna Sparkfizz replaces Siegecrafter Blackfuse, whose presence warranted too much of a Rocket generation. Somewhat fitting for his assistant to replace him (actual boss encounter nonwithstanding), and she instead provides a real handful of Rockets on demand, instead of relying on several cards over the course of the game.
Redone Card
Reload is the one card undergoing a major change, similar to Hunter's Tracking. The incentive behind this change is to put the spell down to 1 Mana as oppoosed to the original price tag of (2). However, to theoretically maintain the amount of Mana saved by fulfilling the condition, the reduction has moved onto the drawn spell. This spell is included to fuel general spell and Fire spell decks. In the Bomber class, Fire synergy is boosted by the Rocket tokens.
Touched-up Cards
Powder Monkey now follows other (1) 3/1 minions in the game with its +1 Attack buff, adding some damage to aggressive decks that wish to utilize Rockets as a source of face damage. Handheld Zapper's Armor gain has been bumped up from 3 to 5 to better reflect the game's new power levels and find its place in weapon decks as more than just a weapon to trigger synergies. It goes similarly for Hand Cannon, but its +1 Attack buff also increases the class's mid- to late-game threat, packing a higher potential damage output than a Doomhammer.
Both Iron Star and Special Delivery have had their Costs cut down by (1) to ensure they can come out earlier in more aggressive metas, following the buffs done to cards such as Flamestirke and Assassinate.
Unchanged Cards
To support Bomber's fast-paced gameplay, Burning Up is printed, virtually without a downside if you're willing to take that damage, or block it with your Armor. Speaking of which, Evasive Maneuvers fulfills a similar niche if you find yourself in a pinch for Armor. Finally, Zapcrafter is brought back. Originally, this minion was considered for a small buff, perhaps an extra point of Spell Damage. However, she is kept as she was to support the countless Rockets and other damaging spells.
As an all-around card, Goblin Shredder comes in to support Mechs, self-damage and aggresive archetypes at once. Control decks get, in turn, Landmine, unchanged, now comparing a little closer to Assassinate, but still cheaper at dealing with a majority of targets.
Finally, a pair of cards to help out weapon-centric decks, both hailing from The Boomsday Poject set. Recuperator fulfills a role similar to Reload! pictured above, offering cycling useful for such decks. Then, Ion Ray, a solid midrange weapon with effectively Armor on demand.
With Core having laid down most of the building blocks for archetypes, it was time to flesh out two of those in this expansion: Fire spells and Mechs. As far as Fire spells are concerned, it's something I've been looking forward to for a while (having even accidentally posted a Fire synergy card in a pre-spell school set). Of course, not only do Bombers boast an exciting array of collectable Fire spells, but their Rocket tokens also bear the Fire school, meaning that those can enable further synergies. It's almost a shame there's not more school synergy card in the set just yet, perhaps Stormwind could fix that, which would also break in that hero attack synergy. Mechs serve double duty in the Barrens, as they come cheap (including the Neutral Core mechs), but many of them also provide means of defense. The Mech synergy part of this set focuses on Ratchet, a small goblin colony set up by Gazlowe and actively trading with various goblin-run cities and settlements across from the Barrens.
Forged in the Barrens Set
Design Notes
Fire spells
The Ranked spell for Bomber is Firecraft (Rank 1), a cheap Fire spell that may or may not have powerful applications come turn 10. Unfortunately, while I've managed to scrounge up three somewhat related pictures, I could not make it about the Mercenary (shown below). Still works, though.
Two more useful Fire spells in Bomber's roster: Collateral Damage to keep aggressive boards at bay, and Suppressive Fire as a catch-up tool in case there's a board to deal with but you're willing to soak some extra damage. Then, one of the two cards synergizing with Fire spells, Bacon Burner, best served with rations of Fire spells for a particularly crispy damage output.
While Gavis Turboflame, Bomber's Mercenary, may not bring about the same long-term spell school investment payoff as Stormwind's Jace Darkweaver, a good application can generate quite some value for you -- after all, aren't so many Fire spells simple area of effect cards? And if you're feeling extra creative, there may be a Rocket combo hiding at the tail end of a Gavis coupled with Spell Damage.
Mechs
Two Common Mechs make up for the base of a Mech Bomber: Ratchet Sentry, doubling as a control play similar to an Annoy-O-Tron, helping the hero pull through any aggression following the protection in the form of Taunt getitng destroyed. Then, there is the Coal Roller, Bomber's only Frenzy card, taking that one extra Rocket you're holding onto and turning it into a random nuke into your opponent's lines. Or you could always Hero Power. Your call. There's an extra use to Barrens Bombardier, which generates said Fire spells while still being a solid Mech to put down.
Helping out a Mech deck, there is Scrap Heap. Originally, it was supposed to summon the Mech with an imposed Attack reduction, but the design ended up being scary in any implementation. Good finds include the aforementioned Barrens Bombardier. And, finally, any cheap Taunt and Rush Mech is worth bringing back with the one and only Founder Gazlowe (not a Mech, notably, just like his GvG counterpart), who's ready to defend his Ratchet colony with a veritable army of Mechs.
Looking back...
...I'm glad I have been able to participate in this competition. It's been fun watching all the other classes grow and evolve as well, and being able to finally jot down the old Gunner idea and flesh it out. This is the first time I've ever created a class, and I do hope it's not the last as well. Chances are I'll be back in a year. Now, one last thing remains to be done with the Bomber: the borders. If you use the {{CCLASS=gunner6201}} tag on HearthCards, you can use the existing border, custom-made for this class. However, if you wish to make a hero card, you'll find a WIP border instead. I've never got around to finishing that one, and might at the tail end of updating the colors and contrast of the existing border. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that hero cards usually feature permanent Armor, and this class deals in temporary ones. Additionally, I'd like to add different color versions of the target reticle decals for general purpose. But barring that, I suppose it is until next year from now onwards-
Hey! Filipuntik/Flippz/spin#8192 here with the final competition entry. After many years, I've finally been able to catch the custom class competition around these places, and could put my ideas for a custom class to use. In a bit of backstory, I've had the concept of a "Gunner" class bouncing around on paper at least since 2018, with most of the themes that are present in this finalist entry already down. In this post where I present what the class would look like after the release of Forged in the Barrens, with the Basic and "Initiate" set filtered into a Core set for the class as well as said expansion's cards. I'd also like finally like to go more into detail regarding my design intentions with some of these cards and themes, as opposed to the flavorful descriptions I've been writing in the previous rounds of this competition.
If you'd like to see how the class has been evolving over the summer, check out the following forum posts or imgur albums:
Basic (imgur) | | Initiate, pt. 1 | | Initiate, pt. 2 (imgur) | | The Boomsday Project (imgur)
Apologies for the Boomsday Project post looking so drab, but my full write-up got flagged as spam, and I had to squeeze out a barebones version to qualify. Anyway, without much further ado, let's dive right in!
Bomber, relentless, inventive and reckless. They dive into the fight head-first and quickly move onto unloading all of their firepower as quickly as possible. However, they can also perform as decent tacticians, using their firepower to take control over the battlefield in their own manner. They're rarely in for the long haul, though, and pack reactive action in favor of longevity. Such is the deadly mix of a class that features plenty of damage to itself, but, at this moment, absolutely no healing.
Core Set
Design Notes
It is probably worth mentioning that the origin of this class comes from a top-down design. Originally, the class was supposed to revolve around a League of Legends character, no less, but I was mildly aware of having to scrap that for the actual competition. It changes nothing about the class's identity as a fast and reckless class.
What helps sell that is the Hero Power. It has gone through many iterations over those three years, only arriving at its current form now, partially thanks to Demon Hunter introducing a 1-Cost Hero Power. At first, the Hero Power interacted with a keyword I'd refer to as Reload, which effectively just refreshed the Hero Power, which dealt damage. From this stemmed the idea of having a Hero Power that would deal considerable damage but only every other cast, or a Hero Power that would store 2-damage charges, and could be charged by itself or via certain class cards. This idea generally came to a halt when it came to considering under what circumstances Hero Powers refresh themselves, though. An alternative path for this Hero Power began with "Deal 1 damage to a target and both heroes", so effectively Mage's Hero Power with extra burn. This is the one that eventually led to Bombs Away! as it is today.
Originally, there was a keyword in development, called Fuse (X). A card's Fuse would count down every turn, and if it reaches zero, the card explodes in your hand and, in its most basic form, you draw a new one. The biggest trouble with this keyword was that there was a very narrow space between numbers low enough that players would only run those cards and hold onto them for the free cycle, and numbers too high to evoke the sense of urgency that the Bomber exudes with its burn through deck and hero Health. Spare a moment of Silence for the two cards in the original Initiate/Boot Camp set which featured this keyword spelled out. Thus, the class itself features no keywords, but it sports a pair of mechanics (well, one is only a token) mostly unique to itself, as far as Core sets are concerned.
Rockets
Rockets are the very simple token that Bombers utilize throughout combat. Weak on their own, they mostly work add extra damage to other, bigger sources. They can also be combined with Spell Damage to provide strong bursts of damage to whittle down your opponent. Originally, the Initiate/Boot Camp set featured various ways to power up Rockets beyond that, but I believe that with the necessity to keep the Core set rather simple, empowering Rockets should be the job of various expansions.
The wording of cards that generate Rockets has been changed. So far, it was the norm for them to spell out that Rockets deal 1 damage. With Core, however, the text changes to parentheses for Core cards: (that deal 1 damage), meaning that expansion cards can do away without this explanation.
Temporary Armor
Easily the biggest head-tilter from the whole class. Gameplay-wise, of course, the numbers are bloated, but Armor in Bomber serves double duty as a defense against your opponent's damage, but your own, too -- and if you choose to break your own Armor with self-damage effects, at least you know it's not going to waste! Of course, the real issue that may come to mind is floatiness and interaction with regular Armor. It's a valid question, but often I feel like people approach it with the worst possible execution in mind.
For starters, every instance of Temporary Armor says "for 1 turn". This wording is deliberate not because the number can be treated as a tweakable variable, but instead to mimic the wording of Rastakhan Rumble's Spirit minions' "Stealth for 1 turn". With this precedent, this Armor then breaks at the start of your turn. Then, due to the lack of regular Armor in Bomber, in 99 % of cases, if enemy Bomber has Armor up, it'll go away at the start of their next turn.
In the odd case of a stack of regular and temporary Armor, temporary Armor would break first before the regular one, similarly to how regular Armor covers Health. It's up to debate whether these niche cases would require visual indication. Something as minor as recoloring the digits of the indicator would probably do the job.
Enough of that. Time to get back to the Core set.
New Cards
These are the three brand new cards introduced into the Core set. Fully Loaded is a general purpose card meant to support various Bomber decks by providing extra cards from relevant categories or doubling as a Rocket generator. Foundry Giant is an Armor-related Epic mech that replaces Gigantabot, which required too much Armor gain cards to function. Its synergy wasn't very welcome in a Core set. Similarly, Shanna Sparkfizz replaces Siegecrafter Blackfuse, whose presence warranted too much of a Rocket generation. Somewhat fitting for his assistant to replace him (actual boss encounter nonwithstanding), and she instead provides a real handful of Rockets on demand, instead of relying on several cards over the course of the game.
Redone Card
Reload is the one card undergoing a major change, similar to Hunter's Tracking. The incentive behind this change is to put the spell down to 1 Mana as oppoosed to the original price tag of (2). However, to theoretically maintain the amount of Mana saved by fulfilling the condition, the reduction has moved onto the drawn spell. This spell is included to fuel general spell and Fire spell decks. In the Bomber class, Fire synergy is boosted by the Rocket tokens.
Touched-up Cards
Powder Monkey now follows other (1) 3/1 minions in the game with its +1 Attack buff, adding some damage to aggressive decks that wish to utilize Rockets as a source of face damage. Handheld Zapper's Armor gain has been bumped up from 3 to 5 to better reflect the game's new power levels and find its place in weapon decks as more than just a weapon to trigger synergies. It goes similarly for Hand Cannon, but its +1 Attack buff also increases the class's mid- to late-game threat, packing a higher potential damage output than a Doomhammer.
Both Iron Star and Special Delivery have had their Costs cut down by (1) to ensure they can come out earlier in more aggressive metas, following the buffs done to cards such as Flamestirke and Assassinate.
Unchanged Cards
To support Bomber's fast-paced gameplay, Burning Up is printed, virtually without a downside if you're willing to take that damage, or block it with your Armor. Speaking of which, Evasive Maneuvers fulfills a similar niche if you find yourself in a pinch for Armor. Finally, Zapcrafter is brought back. Originally, this minion was considered for a small buff, perhaps an extra point of Spell Damage. However, she is kept as she was to support the countless Rockets and other damaging spells.
As an all-around card, Goblin Shredder comes in to support Mechs, self-damage and aggresive archetypes at once. Control decks get, in turn, Landmine, unchanged, now comparing a little closer to Assassinate, but still cheaper at dealing with a majority of targets.
Finally, a pair of cards to help out weapon-centric decks, both hailing from The Boomsday Poject set. Recuperator fulfills a role similar to Reload! pictured above, offering cycling useful for such decks. Then, Ion Ray, a solid midrange weapon with effectively Armor on demand.
With Core having laid down most of the building blocks for archetypes, it was time to flesh out two of those in this expansion: Fire spells and Mechs. As far as Fire spells are concerned, it's something I've been looking forward to for a while (having even accidentally posted a Fire synergy card in a pre-spell school set). Of course, not only do Bombers boast an exciting array of collectable Fire spells, but their Rocket tokens also bear the Fire school, meaning that those can enable further synergies. It's almost a shame there's not more school synergy card in the set just yet, perhaps Stormwind could fix that, which would also break in that hero attack synergy. Mechs serve double duty in the Barrens, as they come cheap (including the Neutral Core mechs), but many of them also provide means of defense. The Mech synergy part of this set focuses on Ratchet, a small goblin colony set up by Gazlowe and actively trading with various goblin-run cities and settlements across from the Barrens.
Forged in the Barrens Set
Design Notes
Fire spells
Mechs
Looking back...
...I'm glad I have been able to participate in this competition. It's been fun watching all the other classes grow and evolve as well, and being able to finally jot down the old Gunner idea and flesh it out. This is the first time I've ever created a class, and I do hope it's not the last as well. Chances are I'll be back in a year. Now, one last thing remains to be done with the Bomber: the borders. If you use the {{CCLASS=gunner6201}} tag on HearthCards, you can use the existing border, custom-made for this class. However, if you wish to make a hero card, you'll find a WIP border instead. I've never got around to finishing that one, and might at the tail end of updating the colors and contrast of the existing border. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that hero cards usually feature permanent Armor, and this class deals in temporary ones. Additionally, I'd like to add different color versions of the target reticle decals for general purpose. But barring that, I suppose it is until next year from now onwards-
Check out my submission for the custom class competition here.