Hearthpwn

Battle for the Earthen Ring: Expansion Details

Since Scholomance Academy, I’ve been working on a custom expansion intended to be a part of the Year of the Phoenix. This effectively would be a theoretical 4th expansion of this year, intended to function within the current standard rotation.

The Burning Legion’s siege on Azeroth will not be extinguished. Unbeknownst to most of the world, one of its most notable Eredar Lords stepped up and initiated a new faction that would prove to be far stronger than anyone thought. Lord Jaraxxus set his sights on the Earthen Ring, one of many enemies of the Burning Legion. He began building his new army with plans to annihilate them and any opposition.

He rallied up an arsenal of Demons and recruited many powerful allies, including 2 Elemental Lords that have been corrupted in the past. However, the Earthen Ring won’t be taken without a fight. The four current Elemental Lords as well and several other Elementals are banning together to quash this invasion on their land, rising up to become the Earthen Ring's guardians.

The theme of this expansion is the Earthen Ring vs Burning Legion, with 5 classes on each side.

Warlock, Demon Hunter, Hunter, Warrior and Rogue will fight alongside the Burning Legion. Shaman, Druid, Mage, Paladin and Priest will fight for the Earthen Ring.

I’ve done tons of research to make this expansion as flavorful as possible, but I still acknowledge that I’m not a WoW expert. So I do apologize for any lore inaccuracies or anything that may be considered out of place. I tried to keep those to a minimum.

Trailer

Just for fun, I made a few animations for some of the more interesting cards I created. I spent over 50 hours recording, cutting, and editing all by myself, so I hope y'all like it!

Expansion Info

• The expansion will contain 135 custom cards!
• A new Warlock playable hero card featuring Jaraxxus!
• New Keyword: Surge - When a minion Surges, that means it gains a buff that lasts until the start of your next turn. For example, if a minion had “Battlecry: Surge Taunt”, it would have Taunt only during the turn you played it and your opponent’s next turn. This allows for some cards to be temporarily stronger than other cards of the same cost, but you must be decisive when playing them to make the most of their temporary effect.
• Elemental Lords - Some Elemental Lords from the past, as well as some new ones, will be making appearances in this set. Six lucky classes will get to wield their power as legendary cards! Other popular Legendary minions will be returning with new effects as well that resemble their original. 
• Elemental Only Archetype - A new type of deck is now available. Can you build a deck where the only minions allowed are Elementals? If you can, some minions will reward you with incredible Battlecries.
• All classes with an Elemental Lord as one of their Legendary minions will have access to a class epic that supports Elemental Only as well as a powerful neutral Legendary minion as their centerpiece. Their Battlecries are worded in a way that allows it to trigger even if your deck has no minions left, just in case you happened to draw all of your Elementals.

General Notes

• Several card names are references to other things (primarily other games). Most take the form of puns or anagrams. I’ll highlight some in another section, but try to see how many you can find!
• Originally, this expansion was going to feature the return of the Old Gods recorrupting Ragnaros and Al’akir and fight against the current Elemental Lords. Each class was going to get a hero that was either an Old God or one of the 6 Elemental Lords. However, the Darkmoon Faire beat me to the punch, so about half of the expansion was changed. When the Burning Legion became the new concept to do battle with the Earthen Ring, Jaraxxus became the only hero card.
• Be aware that this expansion doesn’t consist entirely of good cards. I know there are some bad ones, and I’m aware of which ones they are. I focused primarily on creating interesting and flavorful cards that Blizzard could realistically release as opposed to making 135 five star cards. I even tried to make the “pack-filler” type cards more interesting than just one keyword and that’s it.
• I did my best to find the perfect art for each card, but sometimes I had to use in-game model screenshots for art when I needed something for a notable character. I also did what I could to not use art from other games and such, so please excuse me if you see something you recognize from somewhere else.

Battle for the Earthen Ring Card List

DEMON HUNTER

Demon Hunter Notes

• With Illidan switching from minion to hero of his own class, it only seemed fitting to bring back his Flames of Azzinoth as Demon Hunter minions. Especially since they’re Elementals, the main minion type of the set.
• A couple cards take advantage of “end of turn” effects. This is intended to be Big Demon support since including the new one, Demon Hunter will have 4 big Demons with end of turn effects.

DRUID

Druid Notes

• I gave some of the Druid minions deck buff synergy to help their Elemental Only style deck, which one of Druid’s current Elementals, Oasis Surger, scales very well with it.
• In WoW, Morchok summons Kohcrom when his Health reaches 90%, which is exactly the case for his card.

HUNTER

Hunter Notes

• Since Hunter has never had class Elementals before, it’s hard to imagine them having an Elemental Only deck. But if they can build a functional deck with NO minions, it isn’t too crazy to believe they can build one with certain minions. This is made a little easier with some secret support as well.
• In case it isn’t 100% clear, the total damage from Hail of Arrows depends on the number of targets therefore the number of arrows shot. If the only enemy is the hero, it will only shoot the first arrow the deals 3 damage. The other two arrows that deal 2 and 1 damage are shot if there are enough different targets to hit.

MAGE

Mage Notes

• I always wanted a Secret synergy card that uses Secrets as a resource instead of simply needing to control or reveal one. Mysterious Wyrm is a theory of what such a card could look like.
• I acknowledge that Sentient Snowball's art is unsettling, but this was the easiest face to edit onto a snowball while making it still look like it's ready to fight.

PALADIN

Paladin Notes

• I know Thunderaan isn't exactly associated with Paladin. In this case particular case, he decided to help the Paladins because of the light/lightning similarity. It’s a bit of a stretch, but if Ragnaros can be a Paladin minion, so can Thunderaan.
• I also featured plenty of Sand Elementals since Paladin already has connections to Nozdormu.
• The minions summoned by Sand Sculpting are called "Silver Sand Recruits", because of course they are.

PRIEST

Priest Notes 

• Velen makes an appearance in this expansion due to his history with the Burning Legion. Admittedly, Lyra is here because she was a Legendary Priest Elemental and that’s basically it.
• This new version of Lyra is given a supporting card that allows for card-generation cycling the same way Lyra the Sunshard and Radiant Elemental could.

ROGUE

Rogue Notes 

• The mechanic from Shadow of Death was a cool concept, but the card is just too slow for decks that don’t built combos around it. I always wanted there to be a card that does what it does but good enough to run. This inspired Rogue’s theme in this set of shuffling Shadows, as well as an “Ultimate Shadow” minion to do it the best.
• Despite the fact that you can have Shadows that summon different minions, Grand Empress Shek’zara can draw all of them at once since she, like Flik Skyshiv, only care about the name of the card.
• As a Raptor myself, I wanted to give the only raptor in the set an interesting effect while also resembling Unearthed Raptor.

SHAMAN

Shaman Notes

• Bringing back Freeze Shaman style cards was a pretty daring challenge, but one I believe to have somewhat overcome.
• There were 3 main problems with Freeze Shaman back in Knights of the Frozen Throne. 1: You had to combo the Freeze cards with the Freeze synergies mostly on the same turn. 2: All Freeze related cards were too weak. 3: There was no win condition. With the Freeze support I created, I thought it would have a chance to be worth trying out. My cards don’t have to be combo’d with Freezing on the same turn while also increasing in power through mana-efficient tempo potential rather than small amounts of value.
• Remnants of Kalimos is a combination of exactly one third of all four Elemental Innvocations (At least as close as I could manage to get it while fitting it all on one card).

WARLOCK

Warlock Notes

• Since we have yet to get enough big Demons in standard to make Archwitch Willow work really well, I created some to hopefully help her rise in value.
• I've always like the idea behind Handbuff related effects. Disapparate is my way of trying to find the most unique way to implement it.

WARRIOR

Warrior Notes

• Thane Thaurissan’s effect comes from the lore in which he and a group of Dark Iron Dwarves known as “The Seven” summoned Ragnaros, who then proceeded to kill them all.
• It’s important to remember that Sulfuras does not prevent any damage. It simply retaliates with damage when your hero is hit. Also note that attacking with it also reduces its durability faster.

NEUTRAL

Neutral Notes

• Murmur’s flavor works in more ways than one. Summoning copies of himself is supposed to mimic the echoing of sound. What’s the best way to stop a Sound? With Silence!
• Since some classes have little to no Elementals for an Elemental Only deck, I tried to include as many neutral Elementals as potential options for them.

TOKENS

Tokens

References

This just lists some of the ways I created some of these names. There are plenty of reasons for a lot of cards, but these are a few of my personal favorites.

• A Vengeful Assembly is a play on "Avengers Assemble".
• Anu'konom the Blackened is Monokuma, a main character in Danganronpa, spelled backwards
• Khirbrelios’s art depicts a cute white creature, which also fits the description of the inspiration for his name; being an anagram of Shiro Kibler.
• Naragarok is a mixed anagram of Aang and Korra, all masters of the 4 main Elements.
• Reckless Inferno Summoner is a reference to the Yugioh card "Inferno Reckless Summon"

Conqueror Jaraxxus

The Burning Legion hero absolutely had to be Jaraxxus. So many wish he was good, and now this version of him should bring this fan favorite character into relevance while still remaining true to the original card. He costs (9), summons 6/6s, and his Hero Power is basically the effect of Fist of Jaraxxus.

Special Thanks

Even though I made all of these cards, I couldn’t have done this without the help of a few friends. Without them peer reviewing my cards, this expansion wouldn’t have become nearly as good as it turned out to be. So thanks a ton to Xskarma, Mr Santos, Ahrimourn, and Mikechamp97!

Other Projects

• My first big project was my Pokémon themed expansion “Welcome to Alola”. This was big enough to where Hearthpwn noticed me and brought me on board the team.
• I’ve also made a smaller post of ridiculous Ace Attorney Hearthstone cards.
• One of my future posts will be Danganronpa themed cards with a few animations.
• My next big project that I’ve passively been working on since Rise of Shadows is a League of Legends themed Solo Adventure, a Dungeon Run style adventure with 30 playable champions, over 90 bosses, tons of treasures, and more! I will be making a high quality trailer for that as well. Unfortunately I cannot post it as an article like I could for this expansion for obvious copyright reasons, but they will be in the Hearthpwn forums. I hope you take the time to check it out when it get posted!

Conclusion

I hope that you've enjoyed browsing through my gallery of custom cards. Was something I made too strong? Too weak? Didn't make sense? I appreciate any kind of feedback to make any of my future cards even better!