Hearthpwn

Next: A Paladin card that changes your Hero Power into the Hero Power of another class.

Next: An existing subpar neutral minion turned into a legendary class minion that would likely see play.

Next: 1-mana board clear with an appropriate drawback.

Next: Any existing Priest spell, turned into a Shaman Battlecry minions.

Oh, I received feedback! Thanks, guys! 

Quote from Velerios >>

Impending Doom: mechanically hard to impossible to realize: Hearthstone does not allow actions on your opponents turn. And what happen when you get it off Mad Scientist?

 

 It doesn't require actions on your opponent's turn. You chose the minion as you play the card.

As for the Mad Scientist interactions, it doesn't do anything, much like Carnivorous Cube or Voodoo Doll don't do anything with their Deathrattles if they aren't played from hand.

The demonic race of Eredar, Draenai's edgy twisting nether cousins, are a bunch of well-known colluders and conspirators. In fact, they are so known for their tendency to plot and scheme that their granddaddy, Kil'Jaeden, earned himself the moniker "The Deceiver".

It only made sense for Warlocks to receive some Secrets love to reflect the nature of one of the most iconic demonic races under their control that actually kinda control them. However, Eredar don't trouble themselves with pitiful minor conspiracies, so the secrets had to reflect that as well. At 4 mana they are expensive enough to allow for a higher power level, but cheap enough so that you don't spend your turn doing nothing.

Thank you all for the feedback, guys! I've updated the card list with Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes cards!

That looks much, much better.

Honestly, those are some pretty bad color combinations. They look way too much like Shaman, but oversaturated; the blue and the purple are conflicting with each other, and the decorative element on the minion border is kinda bland.

Not that I don't enjoy new custom borders, but I doubt I'll ever use those.

You certainly seem to have a thing for that spell, don't you?

Next: Blink

Next: Gloomblade

That being a Monk card made thing significantly harder. I decided to go with Priest.

Next: Steel Trap

Thank you so much! The list of lore-relevant classes for custom card makers is so small, and Spiritwalker seemed to be the least favorite one. I'll definitely check the Spiritwalker entry in the Lore Corner once it comes out! It is one of the classes with the most potential in lore!

Thank you all for your feedback! I hope the read was easy to understand?

Spiritwalker

The Spiritwalker lives only partially in the mortal world. Their mind roams freely, and countless personalities enter their memories and their thoughts. When speaking to a spiritwalker one can never be entirely certain that only the spiritwalker responds, for they speak with the voices of the ancient ancestors...

Introduction (no cards in the Introduction!)

Now, before I go any further, you can check all the Spiritwalker cards on Hearthcards right away (just click the link). If all you want to see are some cool cards, and you don't care about how I came up with them, the class flavor, fantasy, balance, design insights, etc., you don't need to read any further.

As cool as most custom classes on this site are, I can't help but think they are too complicated, too niche, too un-Hearthstone-y to ever be part of the game. One of my main pet peeves are custom keywords and Hero Powers that are overly complicated. You got your Coils, Mediates, Submerges, Reservoirs, Invocations, etc., etc.—of course some of them were great, but then some of them were not, just a few of them were simple enough, and none of them were self-descriptive in any way. I hope no one takes offense if they recognize their own custom keyword among those I've listed.

So I set out to create a custom class using the most boring, predictable, self-descriptive custom keyword I can come up with. But more on that later.

I also wanted my class to be realistic as possible, and to look as if it can be implemented in the game starting next expansion, with only the Basic, Classic, and possibly New Expansion cards (hence no cards for the currently existing expansion sets—Naxxramas to Kobolds).

Now, a new class at all, no matter how far in the future, is highly unlikely (Blizzard has said they have a hard time balancing the existing 9 ones), but if it were to be introduced, design-wise I don't see it being any different than the current 9 ones. It has to be lore-friendly, it has to stand out, but not be too different; has to have its own unique identity, mechanics, flavor and fantasy. And they have to explore themes previously unexplored in game.

There are not a lot of candidates in lore that fulfill all those requirements—probably only Monk fulfills them all, but I wanted to pick a challenge, so I didn't go with Monk. I went with...

Spiritwalker—Lore, Class Fantasy & Hero Power

The Spiritwalker has been a constant presence in Warcraft lore since Reign of Chaos, but they have never been explored further than "Shamans, but communicate with spirits instead of Elementals". Much like their whole fantasy, their lore is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. They are the tribal elders that always keep one of their eyes shut for the mortal world, and opened for the Shadowlands. They make the will of the tribal ancestors known and make sure to preserve their wisdom and knowledge.

The Spiritwalker's fate is a vocation of knowledge, of care, of guidance, and of willingness to fight. That's reflected in their Hero Power: Transcend.

It restores 1 Health to a character and gives them +1 Attack for that turn only, allowing for versatile healing and trading. Design-wise it is situated between Priest's Lesser Heal and Druid's Shapeshift. While restoring 1 Health is significantly worse than restoring 2, the targetable +1 Attack is much more versatile than Druid's Hero Power that can give only the hero +1 Attack.

The hero that represents the Spiritwalker is Roanauk Icemist, leader of the Taunka tribes in Northrend, Chieftain, Spiritualist and Mystic. His experience with mortality, death and spiritualism is much deeper than that of any other named spiritwalker, for he was a captive of the Scourge during Arthas' reign over the Icy continent.

The Spiritwalkers Annual Convention has the tendency to be something of a beef sausage fest, so I've decided to diversify the mostly Tauren-dominated class. Other races that I used to represent the Spiritwalkers are Furbolgs for minions; Trolls and Orcs for spells, and Night Elf for the Hero Power.

Basic Card List

 The main aspects of the class fantasy, reflected in all Basic cards are:

• Mass Healing, for Spiritwalker's role as tribal mentors and medics.
• Spell Draw, for Spiritwalker's knowledge, mysticism, and role as clairvoyants.
• Weapons and Hero Attack buffs, for their willingness to fight.
• Resurrecting the Dead, for their role as spiritualists.

Below are the 3 class-defining Basic Cards of the Spiritwalker class.

• Spirit Link is probably Spiritwalker's best-known ability. In Warcraft 3 it redistributed the damage dealt to your minions equally among them. I've represented this by making probably the most powerful healing spell in-game, one that restores 6 Health to all characters—including heroes—for only 2 mana.
• Mysticism is as basic spell draw can get. Life Arcane Intellect it draws 2 cards, but those are limited to Spells. One thing I should note is that Spiritwalker lacks good minion drawing tools because, much like Hunter and Warlock, the class is potentially quite good at Zoo due to its versatile Hero Power.
• Runic Halber is Spiritwalker's only Basic weapon. Although the Spiritwalkers have never shied from a fight, they are definitely not outstanding warriors by any means, which is reflected in the weapon's weak statlines. Here we have another of the class fantasy aspects, Mass Healing, which makes the weapon good only if your attack kills the minion (this is further explored in another one of Spiritwalker's weapons).

The rest of the Basic Cards for Spiritwalker are below:

Classic Set—Custom Keyword, Win Conditions, and more!

As I mentioned far above, I set out to create the custom class with the most boring, bland, predictable and self-descriptive keyword imaginable. I present you...

How does it work? Exactly the same way as Spell Damage, only that this increases the Health restored by Minions, Weapons, Hero Powers and any other type of card as well. Spiritwalkers have 4 cards in the Classic Set with Healing Power on them, so let's take a look at the most basic one, Grizzlepaw Primalist.

As you can see, Grizzlepaw Primalist reads "Healing Power +1", and below is a nice explanation of what Healing Power does. Even though the keyword is as basic as you can get in Hearthstone, I still found it important to have a simple card that briefly explains the effect without having to look at tooltips, Hearthstone Wiki entries, or Ben Brode design insights. The other three Healing Power cards for Spiritwalker are two minions and a weapon—Hakkari Soulblade—which also has the subtheme of having to attack and kill minions with it. It is also probably one of the strongest cards in the class.

Silence

As Mystics and Spiritualists, Spiritwalkers have an additional subtheme of Silence cards running in their Classic set. Since they lack strong single target removal or proper AoE spells, those are the best tools the class has in that aspect.

• Purge Evil is a worse Silence or Earth Shock, but it can be used quite well in decks similar to Silence Priest.
• Spiritual Shock is a the best spell out of the three. While it doesn't deal with an onslaught of minions, and doesn't work with Spell Damage at all (it silences all minions before dealing the damage), it does shut down Tribal Synergy strategies (such as Murlocs or Pirates) and sticky minions (Divine Shield and Deathrattle), and works well in decks similar to Silence Priest.
  
• Obliterate is an expensive Assassinate, which is already too expensive by itself, but since the class lacks good single target removals, it seemed only fair to include a bad card that might still be run for lack of better options.

Win Conditions

Every class must have some cards in their Basic and Classic Set that are obvious win conditions even for new players. Priest has Prophet Velen and Mind Blast; Shaman has Al'Akir and Bloodlust; Mage has Sorcerer's Apprentice and Archmage Antonidas. That is not to say those are the only win conditions those classes have, or even that they are the best or most viable ones; it's just that they are obvious, powerful tools that can be understood by any player.

The win obvious Win Conditions for Spiritwalker are an Epic and a Legendary card:

• Shadowlands Rift is an insane direct damage card that is overcosted for the damage it deals, but comes with the benefit of value. Each time you play this card, it gets shuffled back in your deck, which puts your opponent on the clock. It also prevents Fatigue Damage, and is good for dealing with midrange minions with 5 Health. Flavor-wise it is the only Shadow-related card in the Spiritwalker's arsenal, but it is a fitting one, since the Shadowlands are the realm of the deceased and of the ancestral spirits.
  
• Filgud Joyhoof is Spiritwalker's legendary minion. Much like Al'Akir, it has Charge and Windfury, and great stats that only get better for each character you heal. It synergizes well with Spiritwalker's Basic Weapon, Runic Halberd, to the point where I had to change it from (6) 1/4 "Gain +2/+2", to its current form. It punished your opponent for leaving a board of damaged minions, much like Shaman punished you for not dealing with their tokens.

The Full Classic Set

Common Cards

Rare Cards

Epic Cards

Legendary Cards

Expansions

After much consideration I decided to create cards for the numerous expansions Hearthstone has had, mainly because I had so much fun creating the Basic and Classic sets. So far I've completed Curse of Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes.

Curse of Naxxramas

Common Cards

Goblins vs Gnomes

Common Cards

Rare Cards

Epic Cards

Legendary Cards

Scrapped Ideas

Every time you set out to create a new set of cards or a new class, you come up with ideas that ultimately do not make the final cut. In the spoilers below are some of the scrapped cards and concepts for Spiritwalker:

Acknowledgements

This class wouldn't have been possible without Nikko's excellent work on the Hearthcards website, including the new Custom Class interface—you can see the Spiritwalker class in its full glory by clicking here.

It also wouldn't have been possible without the feedback I received on the /r/customhearthstone Discord server; namely feedback from Princess Phyley, Pixel, f0x, Muhframos, maysick, The Flawless Walrus, and all the other folks who shared their opinion every time I proudly announced the set was complete, just to go back and completely rework a card 5 minutes later! I'm sorry if I didn't mention you, folks, it is only because I'm a forgetful buffoon!

!!!YOUR CARDS HERE!!!

Now, this isn't a design competition, but I will be mighty happy to see how you folks would continue my idea further. Feel free to post your own cards for the Spiritwalker class, in addition to any feedback, criticism or opinion you are willing to share. I will include the ones I like best below, with credits and all!