'Warcraft III'-themed Expansion

This is a collection of cards based off Warcraft III.

A few goals I had with this set was to restrict myself from adding any new Keywords or Minion types, yet still have the cards retain the distinguishing flavor of their War3 counterparts. I wanted to make this set feel compatible with the existing Hearthstone game.

While I was working on this, imagine my surprise when Blizzard announced that some spells will be able to level up as the game goes on! Although in the Barrens expansion it seems to only apply to spells, I feel it could work for minions and weapons too. In War3, both hero spells and units can be upgraded, so I've definitely taken advantage of it for this fan expansion.

Mechanics Introduced

Human ( Mage / Paladin )

Orc ( Shaman / Warrior )

Undead ( Priest / Warlock )

Night Elf ( Hunter / Druid )

Neutral

Mercenaries ( Obtained from the Mercenary Camp card )

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Treasures ( Obtained from the Treasure Hunt card )

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Tokens

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No Maiev Shadowsong. That's Sad.

There are plenty of good idea in there, but I do have a few points of (hopefully constructive) criticism.

While I understand the association of classes with the races, I don't think that motivates making everything into dual-class cards. It would be sufficient for both mage and paladin to have a human focus, for example, but to also have their own distinct cards. Kind of like how warrior, paladin, hunter, druid and warlock were all dinosaur classes in Un'Goro, but they each had their own spin on it.

This is especially important when cards mix themes/mechanics from the two classes that they don't share normally. To highlight an example: why does paladin have access to a freeze effect in Dalaran Sorceress? There is nothing about that card that has anything to do with the paladin class. Perhaps the most problematic examples are the secrets. Paladin shouldn't have a 3-mana secret, and druid shouldn't have any secrets at all. 

Neutral weapons with non-0 attack is always a no-no. It has only ever happened with Atiesh, but that was basically an 8-mana weapon that was not really intended to be used to attack with.

You have a disregard for vanilla stats, with a 2 mana 3/3 and 3 mana 3/5 for example. I was glad to see River Crocolisk, Spider Tank and Chillwind Yeti in the Core set to make it clear that power creep in HS has not yet reached the point where vanilla stats have increased on low-mid cost minions.

The Sentry Ward, Shade and Sentinel Owl, all of which can be summoned very early on at next to no cost, should not have permanent stealth. Revealing the opponent's hand, in particular, ought to be valued quite highly. It feels like there are so many cards that ignore stealth (including these cards) just to mitigate this glaring balance problem. I'm sure WC3 inspired a lot of them, but HS isn't WC3 and you sometimes need to get creative to adapt effects to make sense within HS.

Quote From Almaniarra

No Maiev Shadowsong. That's Sad.

I wanted to avoid having cards with the same name as an existing Standard card (I was less strict about this with Wild cards), so instead the Iron Raven, Blink and Avatar of Vengeance cards stand in for Maiev.

Quote From AngryShuckie

There are plenty of good idea in there, but I do have a few points of (hopefully constructive) criticism.

Thanks, I do appreciate having detailed feedback to think about.

Quote From AngryShuckie

don't think that motivates making everything into dual-class cards. It would be sufficient for both mage and paladin to have a human focus, for example, but to also have their own distinct cards.

Yeah, I can understand the dual-class thing causing problems. While I could divide the cards more strictly into their appropriate classes, I just can't help but feel like it wouldn't be right if you couldn't use all of a race's toys in a single deck. I don't think it's weird for Paladins to have freeze though, since they can throw a Frozen Shadoweaver into their deck like anyone else.  Although I won't deny that this does present an issue with Secrets.

Quote From AngryShuckie

Neutral weapons with non-0 attack is always a no-no.

I guess I should mention that I got into Hearthstone with the Dragons expansion, so I don't really have a historical context for why something should/shouldn't be. I guess I didn't think much of it since even a Mage can swing an Ashbringer in Standard with the right cards in play.

Quote From AngryShuckie

You have a disregard for vanilla stats.

Guilty. I feel it's justified though since I don't think I ever saw someone use a vanilla card even once outside of new accounts. This might change with the new core set though, since some of them appear to be seeing buffs like Raid Leader.

Quote From AngryShuckie

The Sentry Ward, Shade and Sentinel Owl, all of which can be summoned very early on at next to no cost, should not have permanent stealth. Revealing the opponent's hand, in particular, ought to be valued quite highly.

Agreed. They probably could use some kind of a rework. Probably making it Stealth for 1 turn, or preventing them from being on the board so early.

3 mana 3/5 Rush with upside

3 mana 3/5 with big upsides

2 mana 2/4 with upside

2 mana 3/3 with upside

6 mana 3/11 Taunt with upside

It is very easy to create so blatantly overpowered cards, but this is just sign of bad design

Awesome cards. I love how Potion of Healing works, even better if you could somehow make Potion of Mana, "Restore X Mana Crystals"

I would also love Tome of Training. One spell I don't really support is how Amulet of SpellShield work, because opponent would just cast useless spell to waste it if they knew it. Maybe make it better like "Choose a minion, it can't be affected by spells for 1 turn (or just give the minion divine shield)."

Quote From Pies

I don't think it's weird for Paladins to have freeze though, since they can throw a Frozen Shadoweaver into their deck like anyone else.

Quote From Pies

I guess I didn't think much of it since even a Mage can swing an Ashbringer in Standard with the right cards in play.

Both of these fall under a very broad umbrella of class identify/mechanics/flavour/fantasy. Those sub-categories all mean slightly different things, but they are nonetheless there for the same reason: to make the classes feel and play differently. Not to the extent that everything every class does is unique to that class, but enough that they have their own take even where they overlap.

As you mention, this doesn't stop classes have some access to effects outside their class, especially through the neutral cards or rogue and priest's thieving. However, the thieving is unreliable and neutrals are limited in either quality or quantity. There are a few exceptions to that, such as neutral taunts often being quite good as a way to keep aggro in check, but for most effects neutrals should be OK at best.

When making cards, you might find it helpful to refer to Blizzard's own class identity breakdown from mid-2019: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/148-keeping-hearthstone-unique-class-identity-breakdown. It could do with a slight update, and would benefit from listing which mechanics (e.g. freeze and weapons) each class is associated with separately, but it's still a helpful tool for creating cards that feel like they would actually fit in Hearthstone.

Quote From Pies

Quote From AngryShuckie

You have a disregard for vanilla stats.

Guilty. I feel it's justified though since I don't think I ever saw someone use a vanilla card even once outside of new accounts. This might change with the new core set though, since some of them appear to be seeing buffs like Raid Leader.

The importance of vanilla cards is not that they are used competitively, but that they establish the boundary between over- and under-statted minions. That's especially important at 5 or less mana. Above 5, you can start to get away with printing over-statted minions, especially at 8+ mana, because you lose more tempo to hard removal and the stats just don't matter as much.

Of course, even below 5 mana you can print over-statted minions, but they need to either come with a drawback (e.g. King Mukla, Novice Zapper) or meet a condition to get those stats (e.g. Blackwing Technician, Edwin VanCleef).

Ultimately, the most important thing vanilla minions do is hold back power creep. Power creep still exists of course, but not in terms of base minion stats. That is good because once the vanilla stats are raised you set a precedent for raising them again and again in future, making everything that came before too weak to consider.

So while our old friend Chillwind Yeti hasn't made it into a serious competitive deck since 2014, he has still been on the front lines of the fight against power creep, and we should be thankful for it :)

Quote From h0lysatan

Awesome cards. I love how Potion of Healing works, even better if you could somehow make Potion of Mana, "Restore X Mana Crystals"

Yeah, that's on the list that I plan to get around to. I set a cut-off for myself to take a little break from these before the weekend so that I didn't make too many too quickly before getting feedback and then burn myself out :P. This one didn't quite make the cut-off this time.

Quote From h0lysatan

One spell I don't really support is how Amulet of SpellShield work, because opponent would just cast useless spell to waste it if they knew it.

Yeah, it's definitely awkward. It might be better if it only lasted 1 turn, and maybe costed less to compensate.

Quote From AngryShuckie

As you mention, this doesn't stop classes have some access to effects outside their class, especially through the neutral cards or rogue and priest's thieving. However, the thieving is unreliable and neutrals are limited in either quality or quantity … you might find it helpful to refer to Blizzard's own class identity breakdown from mid-2019

Fair enough. I guess I just figure the introduction of dual-class itself (letting mages combo, rogues freeze, druids overload, warlocks outcast, etc.) sort of establishes that the rules can be bent from one year to another. Cards printed this year show this wasn't going to be just a 1-time gimmick for Scholomance either.

Ultimately if I did break the cards up into the one class that 'most fit' them, the result would be pretty uneven, with for example Mages getting the few 'caster' units of the human race, and the rest going to the Paladin, and similar breakdowns for the other races. This way at least, each class is getting a similar amount of cards. And of course the Human player could still specialize by utilizing the 'canon' Mage or Paladin class cards of HS.

I wouldn't be opposed to turning the Neutral weapons into minions though.

Quote From Alfi

2 mana 2/4 with upside

2 mana 3/3 with upside

It is very easy to create so blatantly overpowered cards, but this is just sign of bad design

Quote From AngryShuckie

The importance of vanilla cards is not that they are used competitively, but that they establish the boundary between over- and under-statted minions. That's especially important at 5 or less mana.

After some thought, I feel it'd be fine for the Knight and Mountain Giant to cost 1 more than they do. Not sure how Hearthstone handles rounding, but in War3 '0.5' is rounded down. If that's also the case here, than in most cases the amount healed from the Dreadlord wouldn't be more than 2 before 6 or so mana except for on minions with nice enchantments or some heavy drawback. Nevertheless, it is free Healing for everything that Attacks, so maybe that's enough to make it cost 4 instead.

In order to properly fine-tune Durotar Grunt and Troll Headhunter however, I may need a bit of advice on what exactly makes a card overpowered. First though I'll say that from my understanding of the (Upgrades at X mana) mechanic, playing the card before the upgrade means it will not get that upgrade. While we can only guess, since these new 'Rank' upgrades currently only exist for spells in the new expansion, that's what would make sense to me.

I'll list the cards that I was looking at when I made these two. While their stats are not the same, I felt what they had instead more than made up for what I perceived to be a relatively minor stat difference.

Consider the Crabrider. For the same cost as the Grunt, you lose 1 Attack but gain both Rush and Windfury. So not only can it fight right away, but Attack bonuses are effectively doubled.

Dreamway Guardians. A Grunt split into two. They also have Lifesteal.

Midway Maniac. For the same cost as a Grunt, gets -1/+1 and Taunt. This seems more desirable if you happen to be going up against a deck with weapons or minions in it.

Compared to the Troll Headhunter, Felfire Deadeye, misses out on 1 Attack, but a Demon Hunter gets free extra damage that he can use right away. And the Hunter becomes scary too.

Foxy Fraud. A Headhunter with 1 less Health, but you get a free combo.

Faerie Dragon. A Headhunter with 1 less Health, but it can't be Frostbolted, Backstabbed, etc.

Am I overvaluing the mechanics on these cards? What exactly makes mine so overwhelmingly better than these? Ultimately I don't really feel right about nerfing them without first better understanding their standing with Standard cards.

Quote From Pies

Am I overvaluing the mechanics on these cards? What exactly makes mine so overwhelmingly better than these? Ultimately I don't really feel right about nerfing them without first better understanding their standing with Standard cards.

This hits right at the heart of how power creep exists despite vanilla stats not increasing. In truth Foxy Fraud probably is stronger than a 2 mana 3/3, for example. In other cases it is a bit less obvious because stat distributions can be bad. The keywords on Crabrider, for instance, are made a lot weaker by it only having 1 attack, so it requires buffs to actually make it good.

I guess the take-home message is that if you want to make powerful minions, always stick within vanilla stats but give them interesting/powerful effects. This is especially true if those effects require a condition to be met in order to be powerful, e.g. needing a buff for Crabrider or a combo card for Foxy Fraud.

The most compelling argument I can think of for not raising vanilla stats is that every minion has stats, so raising these sets the bar for every minion of the same cost to be compared against. Drawing power from effects, however, is much more narrow and will only serve to guide the power of a relatively small number of cards. Often they rotate out of Standard before a single comparable card is made, and they don't actually have a permanent effect on power creep at all.

Another aspect to consider is what contingency plans are there in case a card is too strong? If it has an effect you can change the stats and/or mana cost while still keeping a meaningful card. But if it is just a textless minion, all you can do to it is change a number to turn it into something that already exists.

I suppose a third aspect is that textless minions are just not very interesting. They can be strong if you give them enough stats, but are they really making the game more enjoyable than similar cards that reward players for taking steps to activate an effect?

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This is all quite subtle and more subjective than I make it sound, so I encourage you to question everything I said and only apply it if/when you have understood it and actually agree with it. I have the advantage of having played Hearthstone most days since early 2014 and have been able to build an understanding of the game's design slowly as it all happened, but I can still be wrong. In the end I have no more control over what cards get printed than anyone else, and maybe one day Blizz will raise the vanilla stats, making me look jolly silly!

Shade, Sentinel Owl, Sentry Ward, Spirit Hawk.

First of all, that effect would never be printed (or at least shouldn't be printed), and second, almost every class has it, and  then you add a neutral card that also comes with the effect?

Certain effects are specific to X class for flavor, having either Hunter or Priest have it, would be ok, having more than half of the classes with access to that is borderline insane.

I mean, it would seem as a 0/1 minion, with a simple effect, until you realise that for at least one turn you know exactly what's up with your opponent hand and secrets, totally screwing the semi "intended" way of a card game.

Again, it would seem something minor, but that is a brutal effect.

Quote From AngryShuckie

I guess the take-home message is that if you want to make powerful minions, always stick within vanilla stats but give them interesting/powerful effects.

Makes sense. This is sort of where it gets tricky balancing those ideas while adhering to source material. In War3, a Grunt's whole identity is being a basic unit that won't go down easily in the early game. I won't deny that ends up being a bit less interesting in HS than in War3, but I'd feel weird giving cards extra things they didn't have originally.

Quote From Fedrion

Shade, Sentinel Owl, Sentry Ward, Spirit Hawk.

The Spirit Hawk only disables Stealth, it does not reveal the opponent's hand. I agree that the hand-revealing cards need a re-work though.

Quote From Pies

Quote From AngryShuckie

I guess the take-home message is that if you want to make powerful minions, always stick within vanilla stats but give them interesting/powerful effects.

Makes sense. This is sort of where it gets tricky balancing those ideas while adhering to source material. In War3, a Grunt's whole identity is being a basic unit that won't go down easily in the early game. I won't deny that ends up being a bit less interesting in HS than in War3, but I'd feel weird giving cards extra things they didn't have originally.

How about flipping the whole effect around and making the grunt be a 2 mana 2/2 with an effect like: "Has +2 health if you have less than 5 mana"? That way it is overstatted in the early game but you pay the price of it being weak in the mid-late game.

Note that losing a buff in Hearthstone doesn't reduce your health unless you were above your base health. E.g. if he has 3 or 4 health at the start of turn 5 he'll go down to 2, but he won't lose any health if he's only got 1 or 2 left.

It's a slight departure from the intended upgrade mechanic, but perhaps it is an interesting twist on it nonetheless.

Quote From AngryShuckie

How about flipping the whole effect around and making the grunt be a 2 mana 2/2 with an effect like: "Has +2 health if you have less than 5 mana"? That way it is overstatted in the early game but you pay the price of it being weak in the mid-late game.

Note that losing a buff in Hearthstone doesn't reduce your health unless you were above your base health. E.g. if he has 3 or 4 health at the start of turn 5 he'll go down to 2, but he won't lose any health if he's only got 1 or 2 left.

It's a slight departure from the intended upgrade mechanic, but perhaps it is an interesting twist on it nonetheless.

An early-game minion should taper off naturally as more powerful cards get to be played. If it's got a built-in 'only play this before this time' ability, I dunno, I personally feel the result is an even less interesting card, and we may wonder why other good cards don't need to be sectioned off into a designated time-slot.

Ultimately, I think it's okay to have a valuable textless minion. In my view, it does not follow that other minions must have their stats raised to keep up with it. I would also like to point out that there is precedent for a class card being a 'same-with-better-stats' version of a neutral card. See Spymistress, Worgen Infiltrator.

Quote From Pies

Quote From AngryShuckie

How about flipping the whole effect around and making the grunt be a 2 mana 2/2 with an effect like: "Has +2 health if you have less than 5 mana"? That way it is overstatted in the early game but you pay the price of it being weak in the mid-late game.

Note that losing a buff in Hearthstone doesn't reduce your health unless you were above your base health. E.g. if he has 3 or 4 health at the start of turn 5 he'll go down to 2, but he won't lose any health if he's only got 1 or 2 left.

It's a slight departure from the intended upgrade mechanic, but perhaps it is an interesting twist on it nonetheless.

An early-game minion should taper off naturally as more powerful cards get to be played. If it's got a built-in 'only play this before this time' ability, I dunno, I personally feel the result is an even less interesting card, and we may wonder why other good cards don't need to be sectioned off into a designated time-slot.

Ultimately, I think it's okay to have a valuable textless minion. In my view, it does not follow that other minions must have their stats raised to keep up with it. I would also like to point out that there is precedent for a class card being a 'same-with-better-stats' version of a neutral card. See Spymistress, Worgen Infiltrator.

There is a distinction between 'same with better stats' and 'same with better than vanilla stats', but you are right that it is safer when made a class card. I admit I have been keeping quiet about Frazzled Freshman, which is the one card I can think of that does go beyond vanilla without any conditions/drawbacks.

So fine, the Durotar Grunt is fine to stay as a 2/4 because it's a class card, BUT at that point I would remove the text that has it grow when you reach 5 mana. It's one thing to argue for going beyond vanilla stats, and quite another to then also give it an up-side so it is way stronger than other 2-drops in the late game.

I'm not going to budge on your over-statted neutral, Skeletal Orc Grunt, though.

By the way, I just remembered we already have a Goblin Sapper card (it's effect was a bit of a pun on how Sap works). We also already have DOOM!, Obsidian Statue and Spellbreaker, so those cards might want renaming.

Quote From AngryShuckie

So fine, the Durotar Grunt is fine to stay as a 2/4 because it's a class card, BUT at that point I would remove the text that has it grow when you reach 5 mana. It's one thing to argue for going beyond vanilla stats, and quite another to then also give it an up-side so it is way stronger than other 2-drops in the late game.

That's reasonable. I don't want to take out the upgrade though, so instead I'm thinking about making it cost 3 in its upgraded form.

Quote From AngryShuckie

I'm not going to budge on your over-statted neutral, Skeletal Orc Grunt, though.

I have a plan for this one that will hopefully make it more palatable.

Quote From AngryShuckie

By the way, I just remembered we already have a Goblin Sapper card (it's effect was a bit of a pun on how Sap works). We also already have DOOM!, Obsidian Statue and Spellbreaker, so those cards might want renaming.

Yeah, I did check for these, and it might be bias due to me not playing Wild, but I let it slide if the card wasn't in Standard. That said I'm sure I could come up with alternative names for them if I put my mind to it.

There are a few major problems I see with this set, some touching upon core ideas in Hearthstone. First of all, dual-class cards where very fun and a great addition in Scholomance Academy. What you have done, however, is just made sets of two classes completely the same. In giving Paladin and Mage all the same cards, you have completely destroyed the class identity for both classes. The point of dual-class cards is to mix the class mechanics in fun ways (like Lightning Bloom) or to touch on mechanics that the two classes share (like Adorable Infestation). What you have done, is just make Paladin cards and then give them to Mage and vice versa, like Lordaeron Paladin.

Besides that, I don't like the huge amount of Neutral spells. Ignoring their power level, lots of these give effects to every single class that they shouldn't have.

Then, there is the power level. It's all over the place. You have absolutely unplayable cards, like Makrura Prawn and Repair, and cards that are obviously overpowered like Sentinel Owl and Skeletal Orc Grunt. Try to figure out why a deck would want to play a card, and how strong it would need to be for that.

Fourthly, there's the "Upgrades" mechanic. It's a fun mechanic, but not on 50% of cards. It will cause way too many decks to have way too many spikes at specific turns. It is also very not-straightforward what actually changes at 5/10 mana. Does the effect of the card change? Do the stats increase? It's unclear.

Finally, card text in general. So many of these cards are completely filled with card text. You will notice that most Hearthstone cards actually have quite little text on them, although the text can say a lot. This is one of the game's major strengths: most cards are very easy to understand. The cards in this expansion are so unclear, with long, unclear text, that I actually have no idea what most of them do. Like Stone Giant, where I had to read the card like three times to really figure out how it works, or Obsidian Statue. This is Hearthstone, not Yu-Gi-Oh!: simplicity is key.

Quote From Erodos

There are a few major problems I see with this set, some touching upon core ideas in Hearthstone. First of all, dual-class cards where very fun and a great addition in Scholomance Academy. What you have done, however, is just made sets of two classes completely the same. In giving Paladin and Mage all the same cards, you have completely destroyed the class identity for both classes.

Besides that, I don't like the huge amount of Neutral spells. Ignoring their power level, lots of these give effects to every single class that they shouldn't have.

I can understand this perspective. It might help to think of this as a new game mode that features a set of cards organized in such a way that they belong to what they belonged to in Warcraft III (including Neutral). Maybe Human is a 'custom class' that gets its own set of tools, but can also borrow from either the HS-canon Mage or Paladin. There could be a better way of handling the race breakdown, but thematically, it feels right enough to me. See earlier in the thread for more detailed considerations as to why I went with this approach.

Quote From Erodos

Then, there is the power level. It's all over the place. You have absolutely unplayable cards, like Makrura Prawn and Repair, and cards that are obviously overpowered like Sentinel Owl and Skeletal Orc Grunt. Try to figure out why a deck would want to play a card, and how strong it would need to be for that.

The Makrura Prawn is a token spawned by the Deepseer. I may organize tokens into their own section to make this clearer. I am a little curious if you could elaborate on Repair though. I could see it being handy in a mech-focused deck, but I may be overvaluing it.

Quote From Erodos

Fourthly, there's the "Upgrades" mechanic. It's a fun mechanic, but not on 50% of cards. It will cause way too many decks to have way too many spikes at specific turns. It is also very not-straightforward what actually changes at 5/10 mana. Does the effect of the card change? Do the stats increase? It's unclear.

Quote From Pies

Click a card to see its highest rank version (if it has one). I would have displayed them all on the thread, but it would probably make the load time worse than it already is.

Quote From Erodos

Finally, card text in general. So many of these cards are completely filled with card text. You will notice that most Hearthstone cards actually have quite little text on them, although the text can say a lot. This is one of the game's major strengths: most cards are very easy to understand. The cards in this expansion are so unclear, with long, unclear text, that I actually have no idea what most of them do. Like Stone Giant, where I had to read the card like three times to really figure out how it works, or Obsidian Statue. This is Hearthstone, not Yu-Gi-Oh!: simplicity is key.

This I definitely agree with to some extent. Many could probably re-worded to make them simpler yet still largely keeping their identity.

Hope my account is considered mature by now, because I've got a big new update!

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Thank you for the valuable feedback & suggestions so far. Keep 'em coming!