Hearthpwn

Professor Slate: So, you're trying to fight my wretched colleagues to find that Darkmaster? 
A perfect time to try out my latest batch of potions and reagents! I promise you, it will literally change
your life forever... mwahahahahaha!

At the start of the adventure, you will Discover the first boss that you will be fighting in the investigation.

The Bosses play out similarly to the Nefarian Brawl and the Mechazod Brawl that is played in Tavern Brawl.
However, this is a Single Player venture - after your turn ends, the enemy Boss will play a single Spell, and hand
it back to you. The spells are still constrained by the Mana Crystals that the Boss has, so they can't do their high-costed spells right at the start of the boss fight!

Of course, their students are very willing to help their beloved teachers out... right?

Right above, you can see how the Bosses will appear on the board.
The Bosses themselves are unaffected by Spells, that is, they will not be affected by effects such as Polymorph and Hex. No way to cheese it out! To help you with this Investigation, your friendly neighbourhood alchemist, Professor Slate, will provide you with these three life-altering Potions!

These Potions have effects that will last you through the entire encounter.
Heroic Mode is simple - you will not be provided with these Potions... good luck!

Furthermore, aside from their normal arsenal of spells, each Boss has one Legendary Spell that they can only use once. These spells will be cast once they hit the required mana cost for it, like Overdrive from FFX, so be prepared!

Once a Boss is defeated, you will then pick from the remaining bosses left.
The cards that you have played in the previous boss will be reshuffled back into your deck,
and both you and the Boss's mana crystals will be reverted back to one.
Oh... and in Heroic Mode, cards will not be reshuffled back. Much more challenging! 

Without further ado... The Bosses! (In Spoilers to Prevent Clutter)

Instructor Chillheart: 
"Hey, what are you intruders doing here in the school compound! NO TRESPASSING ALLOWED!

 Jandice Barov: "GAH! What are you all doing here! Get out NOW before you ruin my experiments!"

Rattlegore: "Someone, please tell me why we're interrogating the pet dog?" - Watt-son.

Wrath Totem: Shaman really has some great Totem synergy but the only Totem deck that exists right now is Midrange Totem Shaman, which isn't that great compared to other Shaman decks like Aggro Shaman. We wanted Totems to shine with this adventure, giving Shamans multiple new tools to increase the effectiveness and usefulness of their Totems.

The main issue with Totems is that they are generally weak and unreliable, Wrath Totem changes that by allowing you to use your Totems to deal damage, whether it's to the enemy hero's face or to their minions. This also provides a significant buff to the Shaman Hero Power by making your Vanilla totems into 3/2's and 2/3's rather than their standard 0/2 and 1/1 bodies. It also benefits from Totem synergy itself, just not its own effect. If you have two Wrath totems on board, they will buff each other, however. Think of Timber Wolf but for Totems.

Professor Slate: Our beloved alchemy Professor has decided to join the foray and help bring into Hearthstone the first ever Perpetual Spells! These Potions are life-altering, in the sense that their effects carry on with you throughout the entire match, so it will help you in being more verstatile!

The Potion of Health is designed to help you against Aggro Decks, such that you can make a comeback!

The Potion of Mana is designed to help you ramp - effectively, it "expands" your mana pool to 12 mana crystals for minions only. With Emperor heading out, this would be a good replacement for Ramp Decks. You still won't be able to do crazy combos with Spells, since it only applies to minions!

The Potion of Experience is designed to buff your minion cards, so it could be useful in Tempo/Zoo-ish decks.

These cards, while not necessarily game-winning on their own, will help to generate tempo as the game drags on!

Enthralled Student: Darkmaster Gandling has a bad habit of mind controlling his students to carry out evil tasks for him. This student will imitate your casting, casting a spell of his own whenever you cast a Secret. Not only does this make Secret Mage decks a possibility, it provides a fun way to use damage-over-time effects in Hearthstone for classes other than Warlock. 

"Your first interviewee, the undead Lilian Voss, strangled her father - a high priest of the Scarlet Crusade - for treachery, and then started a rampage that eventually led her into the shadowy corridors of Scholomance. Rather than destroy the intruder, Darkmaster Gandling graciously decided to show Voss how to embrace her grim fate. The anger and runeblades she had once directed at the school are now turned toward Gandling's enemies."

You start off facing Lilian, who has a pretty unique boss encounter. In order to defeat Lilian, you must defeat her body AND her soul, which have been separated but are still linked together (confusing, right?). Basically, as long as her body remains on the board, her soul is immune, and you will have to plan your attacks carefully since the two will swap health every turn. Once you defeat the body, you'll have to deal with her soul's remaining HP, which can vary quite a bit depending on how well you managed to time your attacks.

Of course, in her deck, she will run cards that will buff her body's stats, such as Blessing of Kings, so be prepared to face off against a strong zombie! :D

Defeating Lillian Voss for the first time will reward you with two copies of the following cards:

Alchemist's Apprentice: At first the effect may seem kind of pointless, a 3/3 that swaps stats every turn. It is meant to be used to help against Aggro boards, allowing it to clear a few minions in the early game before it dies due to its stat swapping effect. It also works very well with buff spells like Power Word: Shield to provide a good, strong board presence to thin out an opponent's flooded board and regain board control.

Blinding Light: We wanted to give Priest some love this expansion. A big problem Priest has is with the early game and Aggro decks. Blinding Light allows you to blind your enemies using holy light, preventing them from attacking for a single turn, and also gives some card draw to make it more useful in a wide variety of Priest decks. This spell will help Priests survive long enough to build up a good board presence against Aggro or Zoo decks.

The boss was already highlighted in the Featured Boss section, so we won't go into detail about the encounter here, in order to save space.

 Upon Completing the Investigator Sequence, you will receive the following rewards:

Forsaken Oracle: The Forsaken Oracle is similar to how Mad Scientist is in the past in that it summons a random secretonce it dies. However, unlike Mad Scientist, it does not thin your deck, thus, the strength depends on what secret is being played. The rest of the neutral secrets will be unveiled in the next wing, so do await!

Tome Librarian: This card is one for the Control/Fatigue deck archetypes! Class Cards may be more powerful than just random legendaries, because they have a bit more versatility. By adding 2 extra cards in your deck, you delay 2 Fatigue Card damages if you're ever fighting a Control Mirror. This card will be slow against Aggro/Mid-range Decks; it was meant to be for the Control/Control matchup.

"MURLOC HOLMES? This is not a place for you to pry into! GET OUT!" - Darkmaster Gandling. 

"The recent defeat in Andorhal has put Darkmaster Gandling in the foulest of moods. More than ever, all students of Scholomance are advised to impress him at every turn. Pupils who dissatisfy the headmaster will be removed from class to perform lab work...or become lab work."

Darkmaster Gandling has no time for insubordination. Every few turns, he will use his Hero Power, sending you into DETENTION! While in Detention, Gandling fills his board with the other Scholomance minions who have been sent to detention. In order to get out of detention, you must defeat the other students. Gandling will not be in the classroom while you spend time in detention, so in order to deal damage to him again, you'll have to defeat all of the other minions in detention. Once you're out, the Darkmaster will have to wait a few turns before sending you back to detention, so use your time wisely!

His deck is a Warlock deck, filled with many wonderful students of Scholomance! Imagine fighting the whole school!

Upon defeating Darkmaster Gandling, you will receive the following rewards:

Flesh Horror: Similar to the 3-mana 4/4 Ogre Brute, now, we have a 4-mana 5/5 minion which has a random attack as well. How the Flesh Horror differs is that you wouldn't have a choice of targeting a minion in the first place - once the Flesh Horror attacks at the start of your turn, it will have attacked for the turn already.

Woven Boneguard: This card is part of the Armour Warrior archetype that we're striving to achieve for this adventure. Coupled with the Fiery Gaunlets introduced in the last wing, creating a card with the "If your hero have 12 Health or less..." from Warrior made sense for this archetype! This minion makes it such that if your hero has low health, you can get a Tempo Swing by destroying any minion from your opponent. It is risky to leave up Fiery Gaunlets up for too long, so you have to be strategic to when to get rid of the weapon! 

Upon completing the Scholomance wing you will receive the following rewards:

Professor Slate: *Was in the featured cards, see Featured Card Explanations for discussion on Professor Slate.*

Mysterious Inquisitor: When we promised more Secret synergy with "A Scandal in Azeroth", we didn't want Secret decks to dominate everything. Sure, Secrets are fun, but non-interactive mechanics aren't. That's why we're also introducing several Secret counters. Mysterious Inquisitor is a great example of a card that will allow you to play around Secrets. It does not prevent ALL Secrets from triggering, it simply cannot trigger Secrets by itself and will remain unaffected by Secrets triggered by another source. "Who are YOU? None of my Business..."

Shady Alchemist: This card is part of the Weapons Rogue archetype that we're nudging Rogues towards. A simple, healing card that Rogues will appreciate, since it encourages them to use their weapon more against enemy minions, such as this one that we introduced in the last wing. It's self-explanatory, so I'll leave it to you to appreciate it! :)

REMATCH: Against Lilian Voss!

Upon completing the Mage's class challenge, you will receive the following reward:

Enthralled Student: "Gandling doesn't like to call them 'slaves'. It feels derogatory. He'd much rather refer to them as mindless servants."

*See Featured Card Explanations for discussion on Enthralled Student.*

REMATCH: Against Darkmaster Gandling!

Upon completing the Shaman's class challenge, you will receive the following reward:

Wrath Totem:"It gets reeeaaaally angry when you refer to it as 'it.' Don't do it. It doesn't like it."

*See Featured Card Explanations for discussion on Wrath Totem.* 

"Urgh... Alright, alright, I will tell you all what happened, but I assure you, I was not the one behind it! Remember the Fel Meteor Shower back a week ago that was all over the Azeroth News? After that event, undead minions have been rising up from the graves with too much ease! I began to look into it more with Barov, and guess what?

It turns out that this wasn't some ordinary Fel Meteor Shower, it was in reality, the Hand of Gul'dan! Naturally, in order to raise funding for the school, I had to go out and investigate it, you know what I'm saying? 

Where did the Hand fall into? Huh, why do you want to know that Murloc Holmes?

... fair enough. If you promise not to reveal it to other people, such as those nutheads in Dalaran, I will let you know where the location is..." - Darkmaster Gandling.

Raven Sight: Unlocked from Hogger. 

Hunter has always been limited by its Hero Power and minions to being primarily an Aggro or Mid Range class. Hunter also lacks a good board clear, or solid removal that isn't used to target the opponent's face instead. Even spells designed for removal aren't played in Hunter very often. With Raven Sight, we wanted to give Hunters something that encouraged the use of spells for removal, specifically spells that were previously rarely used in decks, such as Arcane Shot, Powershot, and Explosive Shot.

Fiery Gaunlets: Unlocked from Lord Overheat.

One of my favourite designed Schizo cards of this adventure. On paper, it might seem bad that you allow your opponent to bypass your armour to hit Face. However, Warriors do have synergistic cards with this weapon. Firstly, it allows you to stockpile armour in order to cast spells such as Shield Slam and the likes. Secondly, it helps you trigger your "If you have 12 Health or less..." effects while you are stockpiling armour, such as Revenge. You can be sure that the other two Warrior cards in the set will be deal with these two trigger conditions.

Riverpaw Detective: Unlocked from Mortimer Moloch.

Not all Gnolls are bad! This sleuth is living proof of that. He provides a solid 3/5 body for 4 mana while temporarily preventing the triggering of Secrets. As long as you can keep it alive, it will allow you to play around your opponent's Secrets, for a time, to maintain the lead in a game that might be turned around by Secrets and force your opponent to find other ways to deal with your minions.

Watt-son: So glad of you to join us on this mystery! We could really use your help...

You will receive (2) cards for purchasing the adventure, similar to League of Explorers and the Karazahn Prologue. Both cards can be found below:

Arcane Foresight:

A fun secret in order to grant you the opponent's secret. Generating more secrets for your Yogg deck? Neat!

Hand of Gul'Dan:

What's this doing here in a detective-themed adventure? Hmm...

A simple card that will help Renolocks out against Aggro decks and providing them with a board as well. Might work with Cho'gall since it's a mid-ranged spell, but this deck definitely requires a lot of healing in it. 

Randolph Moloch: I never really liked working with Hogger.
He's always bragging about the number of newbies he has tricked.

The first boss you face in the Stockade is Hogger! The Scourge of Elywnn himself leads a band of Riverpaw Gnolls, who aren't quite happy to see him imprisoned in the Stockade. The city's officials have authorized the use of deadly force to subdue the rampaging Gnoll and put him back behind bars for good.

Hogger will use sheer numbers and brute force to defeat his challengers. His hero power summons one of three Gnoll warriors, the Gnoll, the Riverpaw Gnoll, and the Massive Gnoll. His deck makes use of Warrior cards such as Slam, Excecute, and Brawl. He also uses direct damage spells such as Hogger SMASH!, and cards that allow him to Attack (Claw, Bite, etc.) You will have to endure his heavy hits to put the criminal back in his place.

Upon defeating Hogger, you will receive the following reward(s):

Shady Herbalist: For Druid, we wanted something simple. A powerful minion with a drawback, so we came up with the idea of a minion that let's you choose a drawback, combining the Druid's unique keyword "Choose One" with one of our adventure's major themes. Don't trust this herbalist or his herbs! He's in the Stockade for a reason, after all...

Randolph Moloch: You know, the reason why the breakouts happen so frequently in the past
was because nobody thought to insulate the wire bars from extreme heat...

Next up you'll be facing Lord Overheat. Until recently his elemental abilities have been under control due to his imprisonment in the Stockade, but an unknown force has strengthened him and allowed him to break free from his magical bonds. You'll need to stop Lord Overheat to keep the Stockade from being burned to the ground. Unfortunately, he has acquired a large following of elementals, who have arrived to help their master break free from the Stockade. Don't get too close to the fires, detective!

Lord Overheat's deck is primarily composed of Fire-themed cards (obviously). You'll see some powerful spells like Fireball, Lava Shock, Lava Burst, as well as deadly elemental minions like Fire Elemental and Fireguard Destroyer. You'll have to extinguish his minions if you hope to survive long enough to take him down!

His hero power is rather new. Every time he activates it, you will be given a "Burn!" card (shown below).

Being in close proximity to a creature made entirely of fire is likely to cause some...well, burns. We wanted the boss encounter to reflect these dangerous conditions. The player will have to be sure to cycle through their "Burn!" cards efficiently to prevent losing board control and taking damage each turn.

Upon defeating Lord Overheat, you will receive the following reward(s):

Searing Destroyer: We went through a few different concepts for Searing Destroyer before arriving at this one. We wanted something exciting that could be used in several deck archetypes for Shaman. Since Shaman is doing fairly well, we wanted to reinforce their current archetypes, the two most popular being Aggro and MidRange Totem Shaman. It also has potential in a Battlecry Shaman deck because of its synergy with Brann Bronzebeard and Rumbling Elemental. Overall its a card that could be used in a variety of decks, whether to pressure the opponent and maintain aggro, or to develop a threatening board presence.

Boss details have been highlighted above, so there's no need for repetition over here. :P

Boss-Specific Cards:

Defeating Mortimer Moloch will reward you with the following cards:

Escaped Fugitive: As promised before, there will be several minions who interact with neutral secrets in this adventure. This Escaped Fugitive has many of his own secrets to hide, but he'll share them with you if you look out for him. Examples of some Neutral Secrets can be found below, and more will be revealed with the wings to come!

REMATCH: Against Hogger!

Upon completing the Paladin's Class Challenge, you will receive the following reward:

Elemental Guard: "Turns out that even Elementals have to do guard duties as well."

A simple 4-mana costed card that is anti-aggro, allowing Paladins to enter into the late-game. Not so useful against Control decks, so this card fills in a niche if the meta gets too much Aggro (which it will).

REMATCH: Against Lord Overheat.

Upon completing the Priest's Class Challenge, you will receive the following reward:

Crazed Cleric: "Sounds like somebody needs to be Purified."

A card that helps out Priests with the early game control. The main purpose for this card is to dominate the early-board against Aggro decks - the drawback prevents the card from maintaining too much board control against all other characters by healing them back up. The healing on the enemy can be used as a way to trigger certain card effects such as Northshire Cleric.

And yes, it can be combo'd with Purify if you wish. I thought Deathlord was a good contender for Purify if it didn't get excluded out of the Standard set.

Expect to see more cards with good effects and negative drawbacks throughout this adventure!