Hearthpwn

Apprentice Set part 2


*Commune can be used without minions on the board, and it will restore 1 Health to your hero.
Basic Set (for reference)

First half of Apprentice Set (for reference)

Capable of channeling ancestral spirits through their body, spirit walkers are revered in tauren and orc societies for the history and wisdom they carry within them.
More Lore:

Spoiler (click to show)

The eyes of a spirit walker are ancient and shine with the light of a thousand souls. Their bodies are vessels, conduits from the realm of the dead to the world of the living. A spirit walker strong enough to bear the weight of so many souls achieves a mystical transcendence, embodying the collective will and experience of the generations that are reaching out to him.

A spirit walker lives only partially in the mortal world. His mind roams freely, and countless personalities enter his memories and his thoughts. When speaking to a spirit walker one can never be entirely certain that only the spirit walker responds, for they speak with the voices of the ancient ancestors.

  Keyword & Class Strengths 

Kin and Kin (X) are on a basic level the same keyword. Kin is simply used as shorthand. Example: If Kin (Minion) is listed on a spell, it is written like that. If it is on a minion, it's just Kin. The same applies for weapons and spells.

The loyalty a spirit walker feels for his community is zealous. The spirits of countless ancestors fill his mind, impressing a powerful need upon their host to guide and safeguard the tribe.

In not so many words, the kin and kindred of a Spiritwalker are of the upmost importance to them, and empower them to do amazing things, gaining new powers through playing minions or spells in sequence, playing cards of the same or different Cost, or even Attack, Health, and spell school. For the Apprentice set, Kin cards focus on the most essential forms: Kin, Kin (Minion), Kin (Spell), and Kin (Weapon).

---

Class Strengths and Mechanics

Spoiler (click to show)

Strengths

1. Single target/lone minions. Handbuffs and board buffs like Power of the Wild or Bloodlust are few and far between for the Spiritwalker. However, this class excels at buffing powerful single minions, keeping them alive, and bringing them back from their untimely demise.
   
   
2. Dormancy and Immunity. A sleeper mechanic that saw more attention in Ashes of Outland, Dormant, is a key focus for the Spiritwalker class. Not all 'dead' things are really dead, and in truth, the spirits are merely waiting to be called upon. At some points, minions under the Spiritwalker's control may phase in and out of the corporeal plane, while still being able to attack, gaining Immune temporarily.
   
   
3. Card draw/generation. To keep up with your opponent, Spiritwalkers need every opportunity they can get to level the playing field, and that means card draw/generation.
   
   
4. Health Restore/Addition. Health restoration and addition is vital for the Spiritwalker to maintain board presence and keep themselves in the game.
   
   
5. Death-based effects. There will be a lot more minion demise related cards (not necessarily deathrattles) in initiate/core sets.
   
   
6. Taunt, and other keywords that significantly obstruct your opponent as you build a tall board.

Limitations

1. Low AOE potential. Board clears will usually be conditional and expensive, but they create swing turns to build up big minions.
   
   
2. Limited hard removal. As with AOE, Spiritwalkers don't carry Twisting Nether or Assassinate with them, but under the right circumstances, they can get good value removal.

Weaknesses

1. Low burst damage. Spiritwalker isn't inherently a class that rushes to the finish line (even though there is potential for early game snowball), so don't expect much in the way of face damage.

 Showcase 

Tokens:

Themes

All Cards 

I guess I'm having a bit of trouble seeing how this set coheres together? Here are the themes I detect:

• Granting, interacting, discovering deathrattles: A problem here is you only have 1 actual deathrattle minion on display - the Legendary, and you've made sure to avoid (somewhat) overpowered combos with Decrepit Necromancer. There should be more deathrattle minions in this half to justify the synergy.
• Things that died: This is something I suppose we can't avoid with our classes (overlap). Fate Denied feels a bit swingy, seeing as you can pair this with a board clear to 'mind control' 3 enemies that you just cleared. It's a somewhat binary card though - you can't play it on an empty board - so I think it'll a) stay dead in your hand or b) be a game winner. Particularly egregious with Anima Overflow, which in itself seems quite powerful with its cast-again effect - it shouldn't be too difficult to set up a godfrey-friendly board for this to work with. Feels like it could cost 1 more imo.
• Splitting Souls is like a subjectively better Flanking Strike. Good card, but quite aggressive - not sure if that's what you're going for.
• Ascended Judicator is a good implementation of your mechanic - vanilla stats so it doesn't feel bad to play on an empty board, but with an upside based on how you trade.
• Essence Harvest: What are Spirit Remnants again? Reminds me of Spirit Echo and cards like it in Shaman
• Soul Form: Discover in initiate set is a no-no in my view, just like in basic. Even though it's evergreen. I'd say move this to core
• Last Breath: It's an alright Deathrattle activator / pseudo windfury, but it just feels weird to have it on a 0-mana spell for this class, especially because it seems so... aggressive. It's essentially a hunter/warrior mechanic.
• Aggramar: Seems like putting a titan straight into the initiate set sets a pretty high bar for making any legendary beyond that lol... I would tone it down a bit. Also, Plague of Death on a stick used to be a legendary effect for custom cards, but I don't think it quite cuts it anymore (also negative synergy with your deathrattle cards).

So I wanted to get some opinions on which one of these iterations is more balanced for one of my epics:

I'm trying to compare it to Echo/Twinspell spells, as well as health granting spells - Power Word: Shield, Witch's Brew.
Also comparing to one of my basics:

So... Reflecting on the poll, I think my showcase cards many not have shown what I want to achieve with the initiate set - and perhaps that the initiate set itself has so far been quite complicated mechanically. I have a lot of ideas to brainstorm here, particularly when it comes to iterating on individual cards. Here is the basic set. The full Apprentice set is not finished by any means, but the cards up to the first legendary are the ones I submitted in the last phase. I'm going to try and get less complicated with this batch of 10, and hopefully more elegant and compelling - but I don't seem to be very adept at simplifying my cards.

The main mechanic of the apprentice is the Dormant keyword, which is something I've sort of fixated on to a fault. I can't seem to help myself, the design space is wide open. An additional mechanic is the keyword, Kin - if the last card you played had the same type (minion, spell, weapon), or Kin (X) if it had X type. Furthermore, there is resurrection and healing - I'm going to leave these by the wayside for now, as there is plenty of space to add that synergy into the core set. If I get to that point of course.

So without further ado, here are... A lot of cards.

So while Spiritwalker is meant to focus on a tall board. Only one or two strong active minions at a time. This could be a source of damage, as well as a way to add some stall. It also fulfills the 3 keyword challenge, but I think that's fine for this being a common? Not sure

Yes, there are Totems. Yes, that overlaps with Shaman. I want to add special synergies for this though that I think would not fit in Shaman.

or
Cloudtotem Defender is a way to let your totems fully get value. I've always disliked how fragile and ineffectual totems are. Balance and effect wise, which iteration of Soulbind Totem is better? Which is more balanced? Should the 0/2 produce 1/2s, or should the copies be 0/3s?

Deathscale Hydra is a big problem for me. There are a lot of different effects it could have - some better, some worse:
Original concept:

I'm a big fan of Dreamcatcher personally.


Hard to capture this flavor with an effect.

A mid-game card to incentivize single-minion boards. This is the first iteration (more in spoiler)

 Legendary:


Question: Am I going overboard with dormant? Is it unfun?

EDIT: I went wayyyyy too far with dormant cards huh

I suppose it's because in theory you could be voted up for immunity this week as well. Or at least that could be partly the reason. And also because some people don't vote for multiple classes, you could see it as a 'wasted' vote.

I know it's not quite the deadline yet, but a full 8 people haven't submitted this phase - interesting.

Introduced in Ashes of Outland (It's the best place for it!)


*Commune can be used without minions on the board, and it will restore 1 Health to your hero.
Basic Set (for reference)

Capable of channeling ancestral spirits through their body, spirit walkers are revered in tauren and orc societies for the history and wisdom they carry within them.

More Lore:

The eyes of a spirit walker are ancient and shine with the light of a thousand souls. Their bodies are vessels, conduits from the realm of the dead to the world of the living. A spirit walker strong enough to bear the weight of so many souls achieves a mystical transcendence, embodying the collective will and experience of the generations that are reaching out to him.

A spirit walker lives only partially in the mortal world. His mind roams freely, and countless personalities enter his memories and his thoughts. When speaking to a spirit walker one can never be entirely certain that only the spirit walker responds, for they speak with the voices of the ancient ancestors.

  Keyword & Class Strengths 

Kin and Kin (X) are on a basic level the same keyword. Kin is simply used as shorthand. Example: If Kin (Minion) is listed on a spell, it is written like that. If it is on a minion, it's just Kin. The same applies for weapons and spells.

The loyalty a spirit walker feels for his community is zealous. The spirits of countless ancestors fill his mind, impressing a powerful need upon their host to guide and safeguard the tribe.

In not so many words, the kin and kindred of a Spiritwalker are of the upmost importance to them, and empower them to do amazing things, gaining new powers through playing minions or spells in sequence, playing cards of the same or different Cost, or even Attack, Health, and spell school. For the Apprentice set, Kin cards focus on the most essential forms: Kin, Kin (Minion), Kin (Spell), and Kin (Weapon).

---

Class Strengths and Mechanics

Strengths

1. Single target/lone minions. Handbuffs and board buffs like Power of the Wild or Bloodlust are few and far between for the Spiritwalker. However, this class excels at buffing powerful single minions, keeping them alive, and bringing them back from their untimely demise.
   
   
2. Dormancy and Immunity. A sleeper mechanic that saw more attention in Ashes of Outland, Dormant, is a key focus for the Spiritwalker class. Not all 'dead' things are really dead, and in truth, the spirits are merely waiting to be called upon. At some points, minions under the Spiritwalker's control may phase in and out of the corporeal plane, while still being able to attack, gaining Immune temporarily.
   
   
3. Card draw/generation. To keep up with your opponent, Spiritwalkers need every opportunity they can get to level the playing field, and that means card draw/generation.
   
   
4. Health Restore/Addition. While there are some similarities to Priest, healing is a means to an end rather than an archetype for the spiritwalker.
5. Death-based effects. There will be a lot more minion demise related cards (not necessarily deathrattles) in initiate/core sets.
   
   
6. Taunt, and other keywords that significantly obstruct your opponent as you build a tall board.

Limitations

1. Low AOE potential. Board clears will usually be conditional and expensive, but they create swing turns to build up big minions.
   
   
2. Limited hard removal. As with AOE, Spiritwalkers don't carry Twisting Nether or Assassinate with them, but under the right circumstances, they can get good value removal.

Weaknesses

1. Low burst damage. Spiritwalker isn't inherently a class that rushes to the finish line (even though there is potential for early game snowball), so don't expect much in the way of face damage.

 Showcase 

Barrens Wanderer	Free Spirits	Talar Ghostmane
A powerful early-game minion that discourages playing more than one minion. This is a strength of the class, and buff spells from the basic set like Rite of Solitude and Anima Infusion reward the player for focusing on a single minion. There are mindgames for both you and your opponent: Do they want to trade into a smaller minion, awakening this one? Or do they go face? You can also 'save' this minion by simply playing another, creating a kind of pseudo Taunt effect.	Whether it's a wide board or a minion that you've been keeping alive to ward off your opponent's attacks, removal and trading can feel pretty bad. In any other class, this kind of effect might be too powerful; but for the Spiritwalker, it's just what they need. In concert with Rematerialize and Roots of the Weald, Free Spirits is an excellent board-recovery tool, especially when a spell is played before it. (Originally, the spirits really were free - they cost 0 - but that was a little bit too free).	Trading favourably or unfavourably into your opponent's minions is all a matter of strategy when Talar Ghostmane is in play. You may want to have a specific 6 dormant minions, and the board clear in your hand might give you some 1/1s that you don't want to have cluttering your board. Plan your attacks accordingly! Playing a minion before playing Talar makes your Dormant copies able to attack minions immediately after they awaken!

 All Cards 

Need some thoughts on this draft legendary. As a refresher, Kin activates when the last card you played had the same type (in this case, it would have to have been a minion). I think this synergizes well because it encourages you to commit resources to the battlefield before you play this - either on the turn before or on the same turn. Synergizes well with Taunt minions and other cards coming later in the set.

I guess I'll sort of let these cards speak for themselves. Here's the basic set for reference: https://imgur.com/a/NHFfmT9

(Debating whether to just ditch Kin and say Kin (Spell) or whatever, but it cuts down on text)

Not sure about the last two commons - whether I should replace them with some that focus more on healing/dormancy/immune etc.

Balance on Free Spirits is debatable.

Roots upgrades 1/1, 2/2, 3/3 etc.

By targeting themselves, it means first their hero and then their minions if it can't go face.

I don't mind shortening "Shuffle into your deck" to Bury, it might be a little excessive if it were expanded beyond the class, but if you're making significant use of it, it makes sense.

Your hero power should have Hero Power above the rest of the text. It's a little complex, but for the sake of the textbox, you might reduce the "Choose one to put on top" to "Put one on top".

Ritual of Ruin seems a bit powerful. Unconditional AOE on random turns feels a little too powerful. Fal'dorei Strider summons 4/4 tokens, so at least it gives your opponent the opportunity to interact with it. Maybe up the cost to 4 or 5? Or put it at 2 or 1 and make it deal 1 damage. 

Yes, I can see the problem with Forbidden Research... I'd tone down the effect on Ritual of Ruin then, rather than up the cost, as you still end up drawing two cards after the spells cast (because that's how casts when drawn works).

Quote from McF4rtson >>

I am the only active mod, and I have an 8hr shift today. The cutoff times are an estimate and I try to follow them, but it won't always be the case.

 Oof. I remember when Hearthpwn had more than one FC mod... didn't realize.

So, 9pm est right?

imgur album for ease of viewing

The Spiritwalker

 

(Hero power can be used without a minion on the board)

According to Wowpedia:

Spiritwalkers have a powerful connection to their ancestral heritage. Capable of channeling ancestral spirits through their body, spirit walkers are revered in tauren and orc societies for the history and wisdom they carry within them. The eyes of a spirit walker are ancient and shine with the light of a thousand souls. Their bodies are vessels, conduits from the realm of the dead to the world of the living. Spirit walkers are often looked upon with awe and fear by their brethren. A spirit walker strong enough to bear the weight of so many souls achieves a mystical transcendence, embodying the collective will and experience of the generations that are reaching out to him.

Class Identity:

Strengths

1. Single target/lone minions. The Spiritwalker doesn't do handbuffs or board buffs, but focuses on building up single minions and making sure it has a persistent board presence that can stand against even the widest enemy boards.
   
   
2. Health Restore/Addition. While there are some similarities to Priest, healing is a means to an end rather than an archetype for the spiritwalker.
   
   
3. Slow-burn weapons. A weapon that is better suited to attacking minions than going face is just a taste of the kind of unorthodox board control that Spiritwalker will introduce.
   
   
4. Death-based effects. There will be a lot more minion demise related cards (not necessarily deathrattles) in initiate/core sets.
   
   
5. Card draw/generation. To keep up with your opponent, Spiritwalkers need every opportunity they can get to level the playing field, and that means card draw/generation.
   
   
6. Taunt, and other keywords that significantly obstruct your opponent.

Limitations

1. Low AOE potential. Board clears will usually be conditional and expensive, but they create swing turns to build up big minions.

Weaknesses

1. Low burst damage. Spiritwalker isn't inherently a class that rushes to the finish line (even though there is potential for early game snowball), so don't expect much in the way of smorc.

More Lore:

Tauren and orcs hold spirit walkers in near reverence, yet they also fear them. A spirit walker lives only partially in the mortal world. His mind roams freely, and countless personalities enter his memories and his thoughts. When speaking to a spirit walker one can never be entirely certain that only the spirit walker responds, for they speak with the voices of the ancient ancestors. Elderly spirit walkers sometimes lose all memories of their original selves, slipping from one spirit to the next without warning or control. The stress of handling so many souls turns a spirit walker's pelt or hair snow-white over the years. Some tribes consider a tauren born with a white pelt to be destined to become a spirit walker. Such children sometimes refuse their destiny, but almost all give in eventually. Elder tauren have been known to develop spirit walker powers sometimes only days before their deaths.

The loyalty a spirit walker feels for his community is zealous. The spirits of countless ancestors fill his mind, impressing a powerful need upon their host to guide and safeguard the tribe. Despite this devotion, a spirit walker is often set apart from his others. He knows his friend not only as his friend, but as the child of a slain warrior spirit, as the grandchild of an elderly spirit, as the parent or sibling of a mournful child spirit. This makes any personal relationships complicated and very difficult. A spirit walker is a loner who sits apart from his others but defends them fanatically in times of peril. The rest of the tribe senses this conflict within a spirit walker, and while they treat their spirit walker with great respect and deference, they will resist forming close relationships with him to avoid further complicating his life. Spirit walkers rarely establish families. They live apart from the tribe they devote themselves to forever.

The only culture in Azeroth's history known to have brought forth the spirit walkers are the formerly nomadic tauren tribes. However, the orcish people have steadily been returning to the shamanistic practices of their Draenor ancestors, and the far seers of the Horde have taken a growing interest in the mystic phenomenon of spirit walking. Whether orc spirit walkers may have existed in Draenor's ancient past or not is lost to history, but when tauren and orcish shamans established contact with one another the tauren discerned that their orcish peers showed the potential for this level of spiritual awakening. To many of the orc shamans, the path of the spirit walker represents the only means left to them by which to recover the lost wisdom of their forebears.

Spirit walkers can use tauren halberds and tauren totems.

 

Showcase Cards

Have you ever been hit over the head with a tree? This guy hasn't been, but he might know a thing or two about it anyway...

I'm a lot better at my rites of solitude than my lefts of solitude.

Anduin has a patent on 'resurrect' effects.

• Unyielding Chieftain is a mid to late-game defensive option that packs a punch against token decks, especially when paired with buffs like Rite of Solitude or Anima Infusion. It can also be pulled from Rematerialize.

• Rite of Solitude can be used to establish an early advantage that can stop your opponent developing a wide board (used on Truesight Saber for example) and even put pressure on them.

• Rematerialize can pull that legendary minion your opponent killed, or the taunt that's been keeping you alive. An excellent combo piece/defensive tool.

Remaining Cards

Challenge

Is encourage you to look through to my profile and check out a custom class I made a few years ago that implemented minion armor. 

https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/fan-creations/211461-also-a-class-the-technician-ayy-lmao

You should try avoiding the mistakes I made with that class! (because it didn’t win)

https://imgur.com/a/NHFfmT9

here ^ is my basic card set (+ a few initiate but don’t look) and I’d love people’s feedback. I made a spiritwalker class 6 years ago and it was awful so I’m trying again!

Question: Since the core set was introduced, most classes have fewer than 10 basic cards. How should we think about our basic set then? Should we be looking at pre-core card sets for guidance?

Secondly, I'm thinking of not using a keyword for my class. A lot of people seem to be using them, but I figure I can get around it somehow. I might even add a spell school, but that wouldn't really be very helpful given we can't actually use spell schools until later sets.

It's easy enough to have regrets about the class as you go through the competition, but you don't always get the feedback before it's too late to change it – or you're too obsessed with keeping one aspect of the class over another – or indeed, you don't get enough feedback in the first place. If I went through it again, I would probably ditch my keyword.