Hearthpwn

[b]Trap Tester[/b]: KNC had a few kobold cards that replicated Hero Powers, and this is my take on that. Encourages either returning it to hand to repeat the battlecry over and over, or shuffling more copies of it into your deck.

[b]Pressure Plate[/b]: Entomb on a Secret, ala Vaporize being Assassinate on a Secret.

[b]Mushroom Visions[/b]: (Hunter card where you can discover a copy of a minion in your deck) except without a body, but you get three more copies to draw.  Serves as a quest booster from the previous expansion, plus allows you to have essentially up to four extra copies of a minion.

[b]Tunnel Sweeper[/b]: I originally had a “Unidentified Automaton” slotted in here where it would be four different versions of a Mech, but it proved too clunky for my liking.  This is essentially a semi-random Sap with a body.

[b]Prismatic Potion[/b]: The Sapper Recruit card.  This might be costed too low, but if (6) is the baseline for “Recruit anything” I think it’s ok.  There’s a potential for snowball (especially if you’ve managed to shuffle a buncha extra copies of something into your deck) but that requires a lot of other cards and opportunity to support.  At vanilla, it maybe draws the other copy in your deck, so no Legendary shenanigans.

[b]Rigged Loot Split[/b]: This introduces the ‘Straight Sapper’ subtheme of this set, or cards that care about a straight sequence of numbers (like a straight in poker).  At vanilla this gives your opponent a dead card in hand, which only Rogue can dispose of with ease.  If you manage to play the straight you get a nifty (hopefully) weapon to use. Originally the ‘straight’ extra was shuffling more Cursed Blades into your opponent’s deck, but that was too wordy to fit and felt overly punishing.

[b]Cinnabar Spellstone[/b]s: The Sapper Spellstone series.  This builds on the “any previously played Secret” theme of the Sapper class.  I made it specifically non-Sapper Secrets because otherwise you’d get at least 8-Cost worth of Secrets for the Lesser, with 16-Cost if you got to Greater.  Now you at most get a mix of Mage Secrets, with more likely getting some Paladin and Hunter/Rogue. I fiddled some with the upgrade trigger (Mechs played? Battlecries?, etc) but adding cards to add felt right, akin to the Lesser Jasper Spellstone upgrade requirement.  You can either use just the Hero Power, or tune your deck towards other Scourge heavy components.

[b]Guild Guide[/b]: The Epic “straight” spell for the set.  I made a draft card as a Neutral that turned all of your minions into 5/5s but it didn’t feel Sapper-y enough to me.  Upgrading your Hero Power to a Sap on demand felt much more right.

[b]Omega Class Delver[/b]: The Legendary “straight” spell, and a definite card screaming build around me.  I loved using Wish during Dungeon Crawls for how much of a swing it could cause, and I think this is enough of a gauntlet to overcome to make it reasonable to use in an actual game.

[b]Kobold King’s Crown[/b]: Like the Dark Knight, this went through a lot of revisions and iterations, although not as many.  I toyed (very) briefly with making it an attacking weapon, but a passive effect felt more right.  While there were some defensive or similar effects, ultimately I went with something that would help with the ‘straight’ Sapper subtheme, but also something that on its own would provide constant tempo for any other decks.  Originally this was more Mech focused (at first only triggering if you played a Mech, then only adding a random Mech that cost (1) more) but ultimately I settled on a more general Discover so as not to bottleneck possible designs.

[b]Snow Time[/b]: What better time than the Frozen Throne to beef up the Sapper Freeze deck?  This used to be a Classic card but I couldn’t bring myself to consider it something that needed to persist.  Cost wise, I took the baseline as Cone of Cold but shaved off two mana for the lack of damage and added the enemy hero freezing.

[b]Frost Breaker[/b]: In addition to Freeze, this is the Secret Sapper set.  This is a simple Secrets matter card, giving a beefier body with a downside.  Was originally a 10/10 for (6), but then remembered that you could still give it taunt even in a Secret-less deck.

[b]Dragonblight Scraper[/b]: Another Secrets matter/Secret assist card.  Mage has their “The next Secret costs (0)” cards, the Sapper can reduce the cost by less but for all in your hand.

[b]Runic Barrier[/b]: As might be obvious, I’ve included a bunch of (10) cost spells, mostly because I think it’s interesting to consider what the highest end effects should be.  The Sapper has a theme of being able to steal other Secrets, whether through taking control of them or just getting them as options once they’ve been revealed.  Another big reason is that if you reliably got five (4) cost Sapper secrets for only (10) that would be obviously broken; This way you may end up with five Paladin Secrets, or more likely a Christmas tree of assorted classes.

[b]Recycle Mana[/b]: A way to add a third and fourth copy of a Secret to your deck, or to grab a Secret previously revealed by your opponent.

[b]Borean Boggart[/b]: This is inspired by one of my petty annoyances, Southsea Deckhand.  Specifically, every time you equip a new weapon it gets the green Charge glow, even if its already attacked that turn, and every time I think that means it can attack once more.  This is my attempt at creating a card that actually does that.  Again, Sapper Secrets are expensive so the deck has to be built around making the most out of this, but it can quickly become a big beater if not dealt with.

 [b]Northrend Agent[/b]: This would probably be one of the biggest groaner Epics you could get in a pack, but the design of it tickles me a lot.

[b]Rift Eradicator[/b]: This is another design I just really liked. Getting 24-27 mana worth of minions in a single turn is a huge swing, but the precondition is having 20 mana worth of Secrets on the battlefield at the start of your turn (which means none of them can be triggered by your opponent after you set it up). I don’t think it would happen a lot, but could be a fun build around in Casual.

[b]Mogul Razdunk[/b]: This is me playing around with how to bend “Can’t Attack.” Here the enemy minions just have their Attack reduced to 0 or as close as you can to defang them.

 [b]Death Knight Hero: Professor Blam, PhD.[/b]: This and the upcoming legendary weapon have probably gone through the most revisions and iterations, and have even swapped text between themselves a few times.  Originally the battlecry was making all the opponent’s cards cost (10) the next turn or other variations of hand locking, but that didn’t feel impactful enough compared to the other DKs.  I stole the Boom Bot board fill from the Dungeon Run treasure, but it felt both under and overwhelming.  I added Lifesteal as a toss off when I realized none of the other cards in this expansion had it, and it just clicked, but then I felt the need to reduce it to just 5 Boom Bots.  The cost of the Battlecry keeps swinging in my head. I costed it to be around Uther level, since you are looking at a 5 Armor + 10-25 Lifesteal Health swing, compared to his less random 5 Armor + 15 Lifesteal swing.

The alternate Hero Power also went through a lot of revisions. Originally I really wanted something that was passive (like Armor gain at end of turn based on cards in your opponent’s hand, Secrets that replaced themselves, dealing 1-4 damage to any enemy minion played) but they were all either too wordy or just not grabbing even me. Then I put “Each player draws 2 cards” into the draft folder and it just felt right.

[b]Jungle Geographer[/b]: This is a common quest booster, but also in the vein of earlier cards allowing for a bigger body with a drawback.  In this case, you need a minion on the board you’re willing to shuffle, and in return you get an extra mana worth of stats.

[b]Red Queen Race[/b]: A Secret take on Evolving Spores, giving your minions two Adapt bonuses for the same Cost at the drawback of not being able to control when it goes off.

[b]Tribal Scout[/b]: What Gadgetzan Ferryman should have been, don’t @ me.  Original design was more focused on returning this to your hand through different triggers (getting injured, enemy spelled played, etc.) but it was too wordy and fiddly.

[b]Escape the Stampede[/b]: Quest booster and AoE. Ideal if you’re playing with an empty board, but if not you have to be willing to give up your presence while merely delaying your opponent’s.

[b]Exotic Tinkering[/b]: A Boom Bots matter card. Fingers crossed for Poisonous!

[b]Jungle Colossus[/b]: The Sapper entry into “if you played an Elemental last turn” along with this set’s advanced Scourge. My attempt to twist the “while in hand effect,” this encourages your opponent to hold on to it for longer (which means effects that key off cards in hand are more powerful) or bite the Boom Bot and take the full amount of repetitions.

[b]Crater Goblin[/b]: This is another card that plays off the fact that your opponent is more likely to have non-helpful Scourge spells while you have beneficial spells only.  Even if you get unlucky and your opponent plays only their spells you still keep their hand size from going down.

[b]Lakkari Serenader[/b]: More enchanted minion hate.  Note that Adapt-ed minions are enchanted, so this set will probably allow this to have a higher hit rate than normal.

[b]Spraggle Frock[b]: Actually based on a Tavern Brawl idea, this is probably my most esoteric/weird legendary.  Essentially, while this is on the board you make a metagame of minion play order and mana costs.  The Sapper deck will be filled to take advantage of repeatable Battlecries and cheap minions, while the opponent would need to get rid of this before they could actually use their high cost minions, lest it get bounced right after they play.  As a note, if you play Spraggle alone/first she’ll be bounced back on the same turn!

 [b]The Lost Explorer[/b] and [b]Dr. Boom, I Presume[/b]:  The Sapper quest.  Shuffling things into the deck is about on par with playing the same minion over and over ala the Rogue quest, but since you’re usually shuffling multiples I upped the number.  Flavor-wise, the shuffled cards are the rescue expedition to find Dr. Boom, who I guess got lost in Un’Goro and discovered a cache of Boom Bots he can share.  Note that if you manage to replay him multiple times the effects will stack, so if you manage to return and play him three times all minions will have “Battlecry: Fill the board with 1/1 Boom Bots.”

[b]Aractraz Portal[/b]: Earlier drafts of the class were more focused on gumming up the opponent’s deck with cards that would disrupt their draws, like shuffling Coins or deleterious cards.  Further refinement led me to believe that that would be less fun to play against, so the focus was shifted to stuffing the opponent’s hand and Scourges.  However, I still became attached to some of that deck stuffing, like this portal with the Scourge-esque Millhouse.  Also functions as Kabal disruptor once Gadgetzan gets released.

[b]Karazhan Cooler[/b]: Not too much to say.  A lot of the “can’t attack” cards are on spells, this seemed like a simple effect to put on a minion.

[b]Bounce[/b]: The anti-enchantment theme of Sappers begins to rouse itself.  While weak against Zoo decks who just flood the board, this would be a hefty deterrent against token/buffing decks. You can also enchant enemies and then play this, which works in a pinch if you’re willing to spend a few more cards.

[b]Shake Down[/b]: Rather than come up with a fourth gang, I decided to put the Sapper into the Grimy Goons. The class has a bunch of shuffle into deck effects so the Kabal was right out. I tooled around with some Jade cards, but a lot of it felt like riffs on Jade Idol.  Grimy Goons was easier to think up ideas for, plus they have more goblins in their art.  Shake Down is the Scourge take on hand buffing, putting the choice in your opponent’s hand but also gumming up their other costs.  Was originally “Can’t draw cards while this is in your hand” but that seemed so onerous that there effectively was no choice of whether to cast it.

[b] RP-LI-K-T0R[/b]: Like Hunter specialized in buffing Beasts, and Warrior buffed Taunts/weapons, the Sapper specializes in buffing Mech.  This is part of a cycle of “buffed Mechs matter” cards.  Hopefully it comes across clear enough; Intention is that if you hand-buffed this to a 6/6 (or whatever) the copy shuffled in would also be a 6/6 instead of a vanilla copy.  This way it could continue to grow throughout the game.

[b]Grimestreet Hustler[/b]: The Sapper version of a vanilla buffing card.

[b]Reroute Riot[/b]: A one-sided board return intended to prevent or alleviate a rush. This would probably require a lot of skill, or luck, to use; If you time it right you can return the entire board full of 10/10+ Jades, but if your opponent is cautious or just had nothing to play you’d only nab maybe one minion.

[b]Iterative Smuggling[/b]: The Mech focused hand buff.  I wanted it to be returnable, to match the name, but since the Mech has to have been summoned before you cast the spell it requires some work to get. 

[b]Chop Shopper[/b]: Another in the “buffed Mechs matter” cycle. Inspired by [b]Rat Pack[/b], beefing up to Boom Bots based on needing a Mech already in play and losing it to shuffling.

[b]Back Alley Vendor[/b]: I liked the Boom Bot Re-Up card for the way it helps to give some (unreliable) board presence.  Not sure if this would become an instant target since the threat is so delayed.

[b]Crowd Control Unit[/b]: Inspiration for this came from the Pokemon Hero entry into the Class Creation Competition a few iterations ago.  That class had a spell that shuffled all enemy minions with less than 2 Attack into the opponent’s deck.  This is my Mech twist on that.  If you manage to hand buff it enough you can do a board shuffle.

[b]Crowd Pummeler Mk XI[/b]: The end of the “buffed Mechs matter” cycle. Since this is an aura effect the opponent can still neutralize it with spells, or even bigger minions they have.

[b]Goblin Archaeologist[/b]: It used to be more prevalent (and will come back a little later) but the Sapper’s focus on Secrets was a lot about getting to re-use Secrets that had already been revealed/triggered.  Since it took extra set up to work (i.e. a Secret being both played and revealed) and your opponent had seen it before (i.e. lessened surprise) you get a Cost reduction.  In the case of this card, you might also snare another class’s revealed Secret even if you haven’t played any of your own.

[b]Ancient Automaton[/b]: Another one of my personal favorite quirky cards are the 0-Attack with a twist minions.  This essentially allows you to cast Sap on a few enemies while it sucks up 8 attack of damage, although your opponent can still play around the deathrattle or just destroy it with spells.

[b]Tomb Raiding Party[/b]: This is, realistically, a card that wouldn’t have been a class card, or at least not one during LoE itself.  Using a newly introduced mechanic and then making it work in a different way would be too confusing.  However, this is my set so Imma do what I want, at least for this instance.  These three Secrets are ones I had been kicking around to be actual cards, but they all felt pretty niche and tech so I figured they’d make more sense as a bundle.  I went back and forth on whether you’d get copies of all three of your opponent’s Discover options or just the ones they didn’t pick, but decided to treat it as a (4) cost draw 3 with the benefit of knowing what your opponent saw, if not necessarily what they chose.

[b]Goblin Cultist[/b]: A version of this used to be in the Basic or Classic set, sort of the Sapper version of the (1) 1/3 with a class twist. I kept edging it out, but I think it works great as the C’Thun buffer of the class.

[b]Ancient Invocations[/b]: Had a version of this closer to KnC (as deliberate anti-Spiteful Summoner tech) but I think it fits better in WotOG with all its big Cost-adjacent Cards. Played early this also has a side benefit of sticking your opponent with two extra cards they won’t be able to actually use for a while.

[b]Netherstorm Intimidator[/b]: Undirected Cost attack, but only for a turn.  Useful if you think your opponent has pulled their Old God and you need to buy some time at the end game.

[b]Piloted Infection[/b]: One of the few flavor-based/top-down cards I’ve made.  I just liked the idea of Mechs being ‘corrupted’ and tying that back into the Piloted Shredder class of cards.

[b]Apocalypse Engineer[/b]: The “If your C’Thun has 10 or more Attack” card for the class.  The C’Thun benefit is a discount to your cards and not an increase on your opponent’s because this is the ‘corrupted’ set (and because I couldn’t make the opponent version fit on 4 lines).

[b]Glimpse at Yogg-Saron/Glance at Yogg-Saron[/b]: I had an idea for a card that essentially wouldn’t leave your hand, so I worked from there to find an effect that wouldn’t be too OP to always have.  Luckily damage isn’t a part of the toolset, and I think this combo is fair.  You’d essentially have to pay (4) to completely Lock Down an enemy.  And of course, this would be a prime Yogg spell count booster.

[b]Corrupted Shredder[/b]: The corrupted and buffed up version of the “Whenever this damages a hero” effect.  I gave it charge because I wanted to make sure it had a greater chance of impact.

[b]Outland Scrapper[/b]: My Sapper take on Spellsinger.  Note that this encourages some careful timing on the Sapper’s part, because you can make sure that you play it after your opponent plays a Scourge, rather than one of their own spells.

[b]She Who Saw[/b]: My take on the corrupted version of Rixmix, upgrading the Scourges your opponent already has.  I tried to balance the Whispers so that they can’t easily be sidestepped.