"Azeroth under threat? And you come begging to us in Draenor?"
Berserker
Why the berserker?
Yes, we do already have a warrior class, but I think often it misses a facet of what could have made it great. There were cards that made it seem like perhaps it would have a n aspect of the warlock; The tradeoff of health to activate stronger cards; think Mortal Strike . Instead, with warrior nowadays you either have a heavy armor build or you just nuke with pirates, depending on the year. It doesn't feel much the class fantasy of one man against the world. And thus, a heavily Orc-inspired warrior influenced class.
What is the berserker about?
A strategic, defensive class, designed to hide behind temporary barricades and lash out with massive AoE's when cornered. Seeing as this is in effect a 'heroic' class, in that it's dropped post many expansions, each expansion will focus on different survival tools and win conditions built into legendaries. The keyword, Surrounded , emphasizes a reactionary playstyle; When Murlocs, demons or pirates choke the board you get a (Generally) defensive bonus. Meanwhile, you stack shields when you expect to be damaged while you find your win conditions or massive minions. You need to play smarter and not harder, you've got finite amounts of armor, and no armor lasts more than one turn in this class. There's not much healing; if you want to soak damage you have to out-think your opponent.
Essentially, in conclusion, there will be one overarching defensive archetype bolstered by several different win-conditions, will require strong deckbuilding.
Card Preview
Lead by Example - Essentially this is meant to threaten your opponent; Can they afford to keep a single minion on your board to shut down your Surrounded minions, if you can remove it with your face? Also, this is meant as a soft destroy; kind of like Meteor, the actual damage doesn't really matter.
Draenic Magmaheart - This seems like a strong minion in any instance, but it can be up in the air. The opponent only has on minion on the baord, and this won't trigger; you just get a 2/3. Decent body, but you might need the boardclear later.
Mountain Mallet - A fairly simple armor based weapon; You need to decide if you can tank a few more hits from an enemy minion, because killing off a minion means you waste the armor if the board is empty. This is a good indicator of how this class plays around with the concept of non-permanent armor, and how it affects your gameplay.
Mak'gora - Much like other strong control classes, berserker has access to cheaper destroy effects. However, much like Shadow Words or Executes the opponent has a strong control over when and how you have access to destroy effects. Essentially you have a stronger ability to destroy and boardclear when you only have your hero available; If you've got equal or more minions that your opponent, you may just gain no advantages. Thus, you have to think before just causally dropping extra minions.
Broxigar the Red - Broxigar is, I will admit, not entirely the legendary I wanted to show off. A lot of the legendaries in this class do not work how he does; Most work unconditional to the number of enemy minions and create token spells and weapons to help you win. Now, Broxigar instead does nothing but crush enemy boards. If you have no board turn 8, generally you're dead. You've got nothing to show for it and none of your lategame minions can save you, but that's where Broxigar comes in. Stall the enemy from killing you till turn 8 and drop a 6/14, clear most high health aggro minions and develop an impenetrable wall. That's why I used the only basic slot to showcase Brox; He most encapsulates what berserker does best; Stalls why losing health and board presence, only to drop massive minions and run the opponent out of minions (Note: No, there will be no handbuff in this class. I'm assuming we'll be making custom tri-class families for Gadgetzan. The "Double" is just for easier reading and feels better to play. You can theoretically get value from Prince Keleseth, but I'm not sure that'd really work in a deck.)
Edit: I missed the rule that all cards had to be standard, so I changed some cardart but kept the general designs unchanged. Shoutout to Wrought for warning me!
4
I always liked the effect of Justicar Trueheart and always felt that it was a shame that it was only used in Warrior, Priest and sometimes in Paladin, so I tried to make a faster version.It has the same wording and the higher stats are the result of your opponent having the initiative with his new Hero Power
3
I tried to balance it around Faceless Manipulator , reducing the cost by one and making the stat line a little more aggressive, but giving it the drawback of only being able to choose friendly minions and destroying the copied minion