Hearthpwn

Back with more cards! This time I took a shot at creating "replace your hero" class legendaries in the style of Demon Hunter (for Hunter), Death Knight/Lich King (for Paladin) and Monk (for Rogue). I feel that adding classes to Hearthstone just isn't viable, but creating class cards that can change their gameplay temporarily is fine. These are my first attempts at such cards.

First up is the Hunter Legendary:

So, the Swift keyword comes from Fullas Games. It is essentially the First Strike ability from Magic: In combat, the character with Swfit resolves its damage first. This can kill targets of 3 or less Health without taking damage. If two characters with Swift hit each other, damage is resolved simultaneously as normal. It kinda acts as a psuedo-Divine Shield, though is unbalanced with high Attack stats.

The idea is that a Hunter deck that survives to the point of using this card will then switch tactics to board control, and close out the game with minions that can eat smaller minions, or softened up stronger ones, out-valuing the opponent in the late game. That said, it still can lose to Control decks if played, since against large control minions the Demon Hunters are essentially 3/3s that get killed for free.

Next is the Paladin Legendary:

Unlike Illidan, it's quite appropriate for Arthas to kill your hero. Note this started out as an attempt at a Death Knight card, but kinda morphed into Lich King territory as Frostbourne was too good not to use in the design.

Pure board control is the name of the game with Frostbourne. The power of the weapon and Hero Power combo is mitigated a bit by the double weakness of weapon removal and playing minions with 6+ health. Arthas is insanely powerful, but risky and prone to backfiring.

Last up is the Rogue Legendary:

This effect is easily the most complicated, but it works like this: When you play Aysa, first your hero is healed for 8. Then, Aysa replaces your hero, giving you 8 health and a unique Hero Deathrattle (indicated by a skull symbol beneath the hero portrait). When reduced to 0 Health, Aysa vanishes and your hero is returned, at the health total they were healed to.

A temporary hero replacement is something that hasn't been done yet, but I feel is doable with the right visual/audio cues. It basically is designed to be a mid-game hero replacement, rather than late game like Lord Jaraxxus or Majordomo Executus, hence why this card doesn't give you a weapon, and relies on having a board.

Adding a few more cards:

Alternate Priest Hero Power! The idea is this is how Priest would change their power to be usable on healthy targets (including themselves).

A bit of a tricky design I came up with when thinking about Blocking in Magic vs Taunt in Hearthstone. Note that it gains Taunt on your opponent's turn right after you play it to, assuming you don't give it Charge or something. After that it can act as a Taunt, with the option to trade if you want instead. Note it isn't given Taunt; it simply has it if not attacked with on your turn, which is re-evaluated each turn.

My own take on a 2-drop for Priest.

Where it gives the Exhausted state that all minions are summoned with, forcing that minion to skip its next turn. It's a lot like Frozen, except it can't be silenced and Charge minions are effectively immune (the Charge keyword always cancels the Exhausted state). It's a stall card that also improves the chances of the Apostle surviving to get buffed next turn, or to trade and heal.

I've recently gotten into designing custom cards, so thought I'd make a place here to share them.

My token Priest 2-drop attempt, and one of several cards designed around the Exhausted state. Basically it's the state every minion is in when first summoned. Charge cancels it out, meaning an Exhausted Charge minion will still attack normally. Otherwise, Exhausting a minion with this effect makes them lose their next turn. It's kinda like Frozen, except it can't be silenced, and Charge minions are effectively immune.

More Exhaust cards. Also added cycle to these because Priest needs more of them, and these could help stall the board in control decks.

Last Priest card for now, just a semi-decent buff.

Just a gimmick Mage spell idea.

Much like Forbidden Flame, Spell Damage applies to this. I'm not sure on the pricing; it was originally 4 Mana, but I thought that was too costly in exchange for giving up most of your board.

My take on a weapon destruction spell.

My take on Therazane the Stonemother.

None of the other dragon aspects have human form cards, so I didn't think the Dragon tribe was appropriate. Other than that, I wanted to give the card a unique ability based around safeguarding life. And yes, the Battlecry affects Alexstrasza too, along with any minions summoned after she is played.

I call mine "BEAST WARS".

Remember to air guitar the main theme while matchmaking.

Dusted Thalnos and Al'Akir, would eventually recraft both. Been very careful ever since. Still dusted Gruul twice, no regrets.

So I spent 20 minutes playing this, got Nefarian down to 30, as a Priest I'm 5 turns into fatigue... and the Shaman plays Shador or Light? and draws, killing me with fatigue. Waste of a lunch break.

Other than that it's interesting, but annoying to get a win, especially since, like the reworked Mechazod, no free pack for playing. Meh.

Quote from Blue_Banana_whotookthisname >>

Quote from RedMageCadwyn >>

The ladder is the most competitive I remember in a long time. The highest I've ever gotten was Rank 6 in April, but once Standard hit I've been struggling to hit as high as 10 last season. It's a sign the game is in a healthy place, even if it's sometimes frustrating that I can't get as high as before, I'm finding my stride in other ways than grinding the ladder. Way more decks, aggro, midrange and control. I get frustrated by it, but then I look back and realize that most of my frustrations come when my opponent plays something unexpected or off-meta (I ran into an honest to God face hunter the other day, beat me down before I realized what was going on).

This plus the upcoming adventure makes me really glad to have this game in my life right now.

No, if the rank player is capable of reaching doesn't stay about the same that is a sign some factor other than skill is playing far too great part in the game.

The ladder is the most competitive I remember in a long time. The highest I've ever gotten was Rank 6 in April, but once Standard hit I've been struggling to hit as high as 10 last season. It's a sign the game is in a healthy place, even if it's sometimes frustrating that I can't get as high as before, I'm finding my stride in other ways than grinding the ladder. Way more decks, aggro, midrange and control. I get frustrated by it, but then I look back and realize that most of my frustrations come when my opponent plays something unexpected or off-meta (I ran into an honest to God face hunter the other day, beat me down before I realized what was going on).

This plus the upcoming adventure makes me really glad to have this game in my life right now.

It's something I've been considering since the cards were announced, and am piecing together a deck for.

My reasoning with including Barnes is that just about every minion in Tempo is worth having a 1/1 of. You've got spell damage, spell cost reduction, fire ball cycle, card cycle, and potential to freeze. About the worst result is a 1/1 Mana Wyrm and even then it has the potential to grow for trades if it survives. Actually scratch that, Yogg-Saron, Hope's End is the worst result, but by the time all the cards are released it may not even be needed in the deck.

So, first cards of Karazhan revealed, what do people think of Firelands Portal and Barnes? Possible inclusions in Tempo Mage? Tools for a new Value Mage? Too soon to call?

Really excited for this adventure. Looks like fun, plus Medivh is handsome af!

My current ladder experiences have made Warlock a very frustrating matchup, due to Zoo's ability to overwhelm the early game.

In general that's true, though I would consider Doomsayer a reasonable counter.

I went ahead and synced my decks to HearthStats. You can follow that link to see my stats for this deck, and it's various iterations.

For the record, the differences between my latest tweak and yours is:

-1 Feral Spirit
-2 Azure Drake
-1 Doomhammer
-1 Ragnaros the Firelord

+1 Lightning Bolt
+1 Ancestral Knowledge
+1 Flametongue Totem
+1 Mana Tide Totem
+1 Bloodlust

I feel that Rag and Bloodlust are fairly interchangeable, so it could be a replacement suggestion. I haven't really been missing Doomhammer in this deck as much as I thought I would. The Lightning Bolt and Flametongue Totem help with board control, while I went Ancestral Knowledge/Mana Tide Totem for the potential for more card draw, which the deck needs to get to both the win condition (Bloodlust with a board) and comeback (Hallazeal the Ascended + Lightning Storm/Elemental Destruction).

So far, the matchup against Miracle Rogue and Midrange Hunter is highly favorable (66% and 80% winrate respectively), though Midrange Shaman is pretty unfavorable (33%).

The deck suffers a bit of a consistency problem; when it draws the dream it's golden, but it can flounder too. I'm still working out whether it's worth to keep Eternal Sentinel if you don't have any other 2-drop in your opening hand. That early game remains important in every Shaman deck these days.