Hearthpwn

Entrance quotes:

"All life is to be treasured"

"I bring life... AND DEATH!"

THE AVATAR

Water, Earth, Fire, Air... The avatar is the master of all four natural elements. Just as his mastery of the elements is diverse, so too are the strategies he will use to bring down his foes. The most unique aspect of my class is it's hero power, which rotates between four separate powers. Although we have seen rotating hero powers such as Dr. Boom, Mad Genius there has never been one to rotate in a fixed way. However, there has never been a new class added to hearthstone either, so take that!!

Each element has a focus. Earth focuses on maintaining a wide board, as well as generating and then spending armor for beneficial effects. Water focuses on control, with many freeze synergies. Fire is mostly aggro with a lot of spell damage effects, and Air is all about draw and adding value through deck shenanigans.

KEYWORD: Focus

Focus is a minion-only keyword which is listed with a specific effect. There is some similarity to battlecry or deathrattle, but instead of activating when a minion dies or is played from your hand, the effect may be activated instead of attacking, whenever that minion could otherwise have attacked. The effects tied to this keyword will have a variety similar to those tied to battlecry and deathrattle; some will be minor, others will be deck build-arounds.

The keyword is fairly straightforward, but there are some clarifications I would like to make. The clarifications I added in P1 are included in a spoiler tag; the clarifications I wanted to add this time around are:

• In the case that a minion has multiple focus effects, they will all activate as opposed to choosing one; this is consistent with Deathrattle. Also, any spell or effect that mentions triggering a focus effect on a minion will activate all focus effects on that minion; this is consistent with Play Dead , which will trigger all deathrattle effects on a minion with multiple.
• In the case that a minion with a focus effect has 0 attack, that minion cannot activate its focus effect instead of attacking, as a 0-attack minion cannot attack. This minion may still have its focus effect by any spell or effect that triggers focus effects.

P1 Clarifications:

• Glacial Incantation - Very straightforward card here. Main purpose is to set up the many freeze synergies present in this class. Probably slightly better than Freezing Potion , but not by much.
• Water Whip - Classic move from the Avatar universe. Not-terribly-efficient damage without the freeze, but with previous card this presents a 3 semi-random assassinate (slightly better than Deadly Shot ), or with the hero power a slightly cheaper Assassinate . The downside here is you need both cards/effects to line up in the same turn, as freeze is obviously a 1-turn effect
• From the Earth - This is a basic taste of what to expect from earth cards - token generation, and capitalizing on a wide board. Balance is similar to Landscaping , with the tribe effect (worth 1 mana) traded for +1/+1 ( Mark of the Lotus )
• Whirling Flames - The cool thing about this card is that it benefits doubly from Spell Damage. Balance is similar to Consecration .
• Ominious Wind - This card shows off another unique aspect of my class, which is drawing from the bottom of your deck. I am very excited to play around with this mechanic in the following phases of the competition. Although it is more expensive for each draw than typical draw (i.e. Arcane Intellect ), there will be many times when the Avatar already knows what's at the bottom of his deck, or it may instead be a random card with reduced cost or bonus value.

Remaining Cards

Tokens

Previous Phase

The Avatar

Earth... Water... Fire... Air... In a world where most people have the ability to control one of these four natural elements, the Avatar stands out for being the only one who can command them all. What's more, the Avatar also has access to all of his past lives, including their experience and wisdom, allowing him to overpower his foes with the knowledge and combat experience gained over many millennia.

Hero Power

Fire: Deal 1 damage (improved by Spell Damage ). Deal 1 damage to your hero. Switch to Air.

Air: Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Draw one and put the other two at the bottom of your deck. Switch to Water.

As a true elemental master, the Avatar has access to more than just a single hero power. Each element - Water, Earth, Fire, Air - has it's own power, and each has a different effect. At the start of the game, your hero power is Water. After a single use, it switches to Earth, then to Fire, then to Air, then back to Water.

As can be obviously seen, one of the Avatar's greatest strengths is his versatility; each of his hero powers has a different effect on the board and on the state of the game, and overall the class has many different directions it can take. However, a common criticism of classes like this, or even video game characters  in general, that are extremely versatile, is that they become a jack of all trades, and master of none. To combat this, the Avatar will have access to effects that allow him to specialize in one element or one strategy. Though there are not any present in this initial reveal, the Avatar will have access to cards that allow him to control which element his Hero Power transforms to, as well as cards that buff a specific hero power in a specific way (i.e., Earth affects all friendly minions, or Fire gets double value from spell damage). This will allow him to specialize and stick to one coherent strategy. Additionally, you'll have the benefit of entering a match where the enemy really has to look for clues as to what your play style is, whether you are playing control, aggro, combo, or something else.

CLARIFICATION: order is Water --> Earth --> Fire --> Air --> Water -->etc. The transition occurs after a single use of the power. Water can freeze any character (including heroes) and Earth can affect any minion. For Fire, the "Deal damage" portion is affected by spell damage, while the "Deal 1 damage to your hero" recoil effect is not. Air is very similar to Tracking, except that instead of discarding the other two cards, you add them back into your deck, at the bottom. This does trigger a reshuffle, but before the cards are added back in at the bottom.

Class-specific Keyword: Focus (minion-only)

Elemental bending the likes of what's seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender is the stuff of dreams, if you ask me. I really wanted to capture this idea of commanding the elements in a creative or inventive way to gain the upper hand over your adversaries. At first I had four keywords, one for each element, which activated when the corresponding hero power was used. This felt like too much complexity, especially given that hero powers (which are indeed present in the basic set) are not supposed to reference class-specific keywords. Plus it felt like a copy of Inspire.

Focus was what I landed on. It's a keyword that can be stated very simply, and has a lot of flexibility in what it means, since the effects are minion specific. The idea here, is that instead of concentrating on physical combat, the minion is focusing all its effort into some feat of water, earth, fire, or air-bending. For a weaker minion, maybe that means hitting the enemy with a ranged attack and not taking any damage themselves. For a stronger minion, the results of their bending might have far more wild effects on the state of the board.

CLARIFICATION: The effects tied to the Focus keyword can be activated in one of two ways.

The first way is BY the minion, INSTEAD of attacking. That means minions may NOT activate their own focus effects in this way the turn they are played to the board (unless they also have Charge or Rush). Minions with focus and Windfury may attack twice, focus twice, or one of each (same idea applies for Mega-Windfury). Frozen minions may not activate their focus effects.

The second way is through spells or other effects which specifically mention triggering focus effects. This can happen on top of the minion activating its own focus on the same turn. Therefore, you could use a spell to trigger the focus effect on a minion, and then attack with that minion in the same turn. You may also activate a minion's focus in this way the turn it is played to the board, though in this situation you couldn't follow up with an attack. EDIT: minions who are frozen, or otherwise cannot attack this turn, may still have their focus effects activated through these means.

Cards

Cards with focus effects

Here's two examples of Focus effects. It is similar to Battlecry in terms of the variety of possible effects, with the main difference being the activation mechanism. Firebending novice is a slight upgrade on Diremole,  with the improvement being that it does not take damage while "attacking". Master Paku has a much more dramatic effect, and when especially when combined with the focus activation cards below, can completely shutdown the opponent's board and force them to use extra resources to remove it.

Cards that activate focus

Here are two cards that can be used to trigger focus effects. The interesting piece here is that a minion which normally must use up its attack for the turn to trigger it's effect, can trigger its effect AND attack. Whats more, these can be used to activate a minion's focus effect the turn it is played, allowing you to spend more mana to make the Focus into a Battlecry. Soldier of the White Lotus is a staple card of the Avatar class; it's well stated for it's cost, and its Battlecry has potentially enormous value (may need to cost 4 mana instead). Waterbending Scroll is a card I compare to Play Dead. 2 mana instead of 1, and can activate up to two Focus effects (though it cannot trigger the same minion's effect twice).

Cards that synergize with a specific element

As mentioned above, the Avatar will have access to many cards which synergize specifically with one of the four elements/hero powers. In this case, Bloodbending synergizes specifically with the Water hero power, which favors more of a control playstyle. My current idea is that water will be control, fire will be aggro/burst, earth will be token, and air will be combo/otk. This will be further fleshed out through the next rounds of the competition.

Thank you so much for reading this far! Congratulations to everyone on making it past the first round of competition, and good luck in further rounds! :D

EDITS:

• re-uploaded hero power images to include the required Hero Power at the top, and to make all 4 fit on one line
• made some minor changes to wording in the description of several things
• specified for Air hero power that the cards go back in the bottom, after a reshuffle, as opposed to being part of the reshuffle
• after resizing hero powers, Fire and Air became difficult to read, so I added a text description below them.

Was going for the feel of a wanted criminal on the run from the cops, constantly striking but gets busted if he makes one wrong move.

Agonizing about 3 mana vs 4, as it has a lot of spiral potential, but in many cases it might as well read "Deal three damage to a minion" which is much too weak for 4 mana.

Note: +1/+1 is permanent, only the stealth fades each turn.

I like your turn. I think I will TAKE IT

Bad anagram of the word 'avalanche'..

The first thing that came to my mind. Now i want such a card to exist.

Changes I'd made on your list : Overflow > Octosari ; Archmage > Floop ; Witchwood apples > Elise ; Moutain Giant > Sea Giant ; Cult Master > Oasis Surger. Even without the quest, two 3/3s with rush for 5 is very good.

2s become Piloted Shredder, 4s become Piloted Sky Golem, and 6s become Sneed's Old Shredder.