Guide to making a Basic Set for Custom Classes

When making a custom class, the Basic Set is arguably the hardest set to get right. We all want to get to our flashy cards as soon as possible, but the Basic Set is the most important set. It defines the groundwork for the class. The quality of your Basic Set will greatly impact the rest of your class. The other hard part about it is that they can't be very obscure, because they're intended to be... Basic. They're cards that are intended to be very simple, yet very essential for the class.

Each class's Basic set should include:

Single Target Damage

• Demon Hunter: Shadowhoof Slayer, Chaos Strike, Glaivebound Adept, Inner Demon
• Druid: Moonfire, Claw, Starfire
• Hunter: Arcane Shot, Kill Command
• Mage: Frostbolt, Fireball
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath
• Priest: Holy Smite
• Rogue: Backstab, Shiv
• Shaman: Frost Shock, Fire Elemental
• Warlock: Mortal Coil, Soulfire, Drain Life, Shadow Bolt
• Warrior: Heroic Strike

AoE

• Demon Hunter: Coordinated Strike (situational) Soul Cleave, Chaos Nova
• Druid: Savage Roar (friendly), Swipe
• Hunter: Multi-Shot
• Mage: Arcane Missiles, Arcane Explosion, Frost Nova, Flamestrike
• Paladin: Consecration
• Priest: Holy Nova
• Rogue: Fan of Knives
• Shaman: Totemic Might (friendly), Bloodlust (friendly)
• Warlock: Hellfire, Dread Infernal
• Warrior: Whirlwind, Cleave

Every class should have access to at least one non-friendly AoE with Shaman being the odd one out, presumably because they have Lightning Storm in the Classic set. Even Rogue, whom is supposedly the epitome of weak when it comes to AoE, still has Fan of Knives in their Basic set (and formerly, Vanish as well).

Card Draw

• Demon Hunter: Chaos Strike
• Druid: Starfire, technically Wild Growth also counts because of Excess Mana.
• Hunter: Tracking, Starving Buzzard
• Mage: Arcane Intellect
• Paladin: Hammer of Wrath
• Priest: N/A
• Rogue: Shiv, Fan of Knives, Sprint
• Shaman: N/A
• Warlock: Mortal Coil
• Warrior: Shield Block

Both Shaman and Priest are notably odd men out here. Shaman can be assumed to be out because of the existence of Mana Tide Totem in the Classic set. Priest is out because of the rotation of Northshire Cleric out of the Basic set and the change to Power Word: Shield.

Removal/Neutralization

• Demon Hunter: N/A
• Druid: N/A
• Hunter: Hunter's Mark
• Mage: Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Polymorph
• Paladin: Humility
• Priest: Shadow Word: Death, Shadow Word: Pain, technically Mind Control also counts.
• Rogue: Sap, Assassinate
• Shaman: Frost Shock, Hex
• Warlock: Sacrificial Pact, Corruption
• Warrior: Execute

Druid this time is the exception to all of the other classes. We can assume this is because removal is supposed to be a weakness for Druid and they make up in other aspects. Demon Hunter similarly has no direct hard removal, but does have a lot of access to damage and specializes in attacking (whether it be from your hero or your minions).

Once you get past that, you can also add cards that specifically fit to your class's themes. For example:

• Beasts for Hunter (Timber Wolf, Animal Companion, Kill Command, Houndmaster, Starving Buzzard, Tundra Rhino)
• Healing/Health Buffs for Priest ([Hearthstone Card (Power Word Shield) Not Found], Radiance, Power Infusion)*
• Ramp for Druid (Innervate, Wild Growth)
• Totems for Shaman (Totemic Might, Flametongue Totem)
• Discard for Warlock (Soulfire, Felstalker)
• Weapons for any weapon class (Fiery War Axe, Truesilver Champion, Assassin's Blade)

Northshire Cleric would also count for this category, but his since left the Basic set.

A class's Basic set usually only has 1 or 2 minions.

The class with the most is Hunter and Demon Hunter with 4. If you have more than 4 minions in your Basic set, you should cut a few of them. Rogue formerly used to be the only class with none, but has since had Plaguebringer added. For reference, here is the number of minions in each class's Basic set:

• Demon Hunter: 4 (Shadowhoof Slayer, Sightless Watcher, Satyr Overseer, Glaivebound Adept)
• Druid: 1 (Ironbark Protector)
• Hunter: 4 (Timber Wolf, Houndmaster, Starving Buzzard, Tundra Rhino)
• Mage: 1 (Water Elemental)
• Paladin: 1 (Guardian of Kings)
• Priest: 1 (Psychic Conjurer)
• Rogue: 1 (Plaguebringer)*
• Shaman: 3 (Flametongue Totem, Windspeaker, Fire Elemental)
• Warlock: 3 (Voidwalker, [Hearthstone Card (Succubus) Not Found], Dread Infernal)
• Warrior: 2 (Warsong Commander, Kor'kron Elite)

*Formerly 0

Top tip: It's also a really good idea for cards to follow more than 1 aspect, increasing utility and space. For example:

• Fan of Knives (AoE and Card Draw)
• Chaos Strike (Single Target Damage and Card Draw)
• Frost Nova (AoE and Neutralization)
• Pretty much all tribed minions count as well (such as Tundra Rhino, Water Elemental, and Dread Infernal)

This doesn't mean you should try to make every card like this, but it's nice to have should it happen. Some classes (Shaman and Druid) in particular may not follow some of these categories, in part because they have easy to access cards in the Classic set (Mana Tide Totem, Lightning Storm) or are intended to be weak in a particular aspect. You could possibly justify skipping one of these should that come up.

Updated to include Plaguebringer and Radiance.

Even without Vanish, Rogue still has an AoE effect (Fan of Knives), so it's still important to have one even if it's an intended weakness for the class.