I greet you! Are you waiting for the United in Stormwind reveals to start and are getting bored due to the 3 weeks cooldown? Then I have something to entertain you while you're waiting. I was working on my first custom class before I got to the second expansion of the Year of the Wolf, my custom Hearthsotne year, and now it's the time to show it, and I present to you now my first custom class: The Shapeshifter!
The Shapeshifter
The Shapeshifters, as the name suggests, are the masters of form manipulation, and can turn anyone, anything and themselves into ANYTHING! Unlike Druids who can only transform themselves into Beasts, or Shamans who can only transform people into frogs.
The hero representing this class is know as Nayda Darklight, an Archshapeshifter capable of shaping anything to her liking. Her real name or form is unknown, since she keeps changing her apperence, but all we trully know about her is her ultimate goal: Become an Old God. And if enough interest is shown on the class, i'll write her full story in the form of Book of Heroes.
An now let's get to the important part, the strengths, weaknesses and themes of the class.
Strenghts
- Tempo - Shapeshifters have access to pretty powerful tempo tools, they do everything in their reach to conquer the board soon and never lose it.
- Single target removal - When a Shapeshifter transforms into someone, they don't want its friends to discover they are an impostor, so they kill their targets as swift and clean as possible, finishing the job in a single blow.
- Versatility - Since they can assume many forms, Shapeshifters can adapt to any situation. If they need to be aggressive to win, they get aggressive, if they need to control the situation, they control it. And thanks to that trait, they can even overcome their weaknesses sometimes.
- Disruption - Messing with their opponent's mind is one of the main tools of the shapeshifter, sometimes they don't even need to fight their enemies, just confuse and annoy them enough until they lose the will to fight.
Limitations
- Card draw - Shapeshifters can turn everything in their reach as a resource, but when there's nothing nearby, they just can't do anything about it;.
- Survivability - Shapeshifters has very feel access to healing, but they can use a bit of Armor and Taunt minions to reach the late game, and they do so by using some very special cards that I'll show in a minute.
- Burst/ Damaging Spells - Finishing minions are one the strengths of the Shapeshifters, but killing heroes are another story, since their access to damaging spells is very imitated, they finish their opponent's with late game Charge minions.
- Swarms and Big minions - Shapeshifters usually must transform their minions into big monsters to put pressure, that's why sometimes they must swarm the board to always have a target, but they can't use the little minions to finish the game with mass buffs like Druids. They also have access to big minions who can't be easily removed, but since survivability is not their main strengths, using that strategy might be too risky to try.
- Buffs - Shapeshifters have access to some buffs, but they rather transform minions instead of buffing them, that's why their buffs are limitated to a few Handbuffs and Keyword Buffs (Give Rush, Taunt, Lifesteal, etc).
Weaknesess
- Card Generation - Getting stuff out of nowhere like Mages is impossible for Shapeshifters. They must use their own resources and surroundings to fight their enemies.
- AoE - dealing mass damage or mass buffs is not a shifter's thing, they rather deal with one minion at a time.
Keyword, Class Mechanics and Themes
Morph - Do something after a minion transforms (emphasis on AFTER here).
Costless Cards - Cards that costs around 4.5 Mana who can only played when another weaker card puts a cost on it. Since card generation is one of the main weakness of the class, they won't get those cards out of nowhere and end up with a useless card in hand, they must build their deck around those cards in order to use them properly.
Shapeless cards - Cards who will change their form each turn, like Shifter Zerus, Molten Blade or Shifting Scroll, except that Shapeless cards turns into specific and mechanical cards, Example: Transform into a card that restores Health, that draw cards, that can be played right away, etc. Also, they don't count as a Costless card in order to make the Costless archetype consistent.
Forms - Temporary Hero cards who only lasts until you lose your Armor. Unlike the usual hero card, they are not legendaries, so you can put many in your deck and even stack forms to make them last longer. Note: I kinda of forget Shadow Form was a card when I was creating them, so ignore this little detail, ok? Note2: Also ignore the little Dragon on the top right, they are not legendaries, but Hearthcards doesn't have a Dragonless template for Hero Cards.
Faceless, Dragons and Worgens - What those three have in common? They're all shapeshifters! So they will be featured a lot in the class, both mechanically and flavourly.
Basic Set
Shapeshifter's Initiate set
Since hero cards were introduced in Knights of the Frozen Throne, and the first expansion of a year after it was The Witchwood, the Shapeshifter's initiate Set would be launched along side The Witchwood expansion, already featuring Rush and Forms (Who're basically hero cards).
The Witchwood
A mechanic not well explored in the witchwood was the worgen mechanic, cards that would switch their attack and health at the end of the turn, and since transformation are the main thing of the shapeshifter, this will be their main theme, and remember, this is the set the class is supposed to be lauched, so you can expect some OP cards in this expansion and the whole Year of the Raven in general, just like Blizzard did with Demon Hunter.
The Boomsday Project
And now in boomsday, Bioengeneer Shululu is using his minions as subjects of mutation, using his main creation, The X Factor. What horrible things is he doing to his minions? Find out.
Rastakhan's Rumble
In Rastakhan's Rumble, the troll champion is Makumba, a specialist in changing the form of other beings, and he is here representing Kith'ix, a faceless who one was worshiped as a Loa, but when the true came out, most trolls stopped worshiping him, except for a few who now master the shifting arts.
Rise of Shadows
In the Dalaran's assault, Shapeshifters are helping defending the city, everyone is suspicious towards their help, but protecting the city is more important now. A mysterious Archmage called Torvic standed against the league of EVIL, but his powers were not enough, and he fell in battle. After the assault, Torvic's body mysteriously disappeared, what could have happened?
Saviours of Uldum
During the fight against the Plague Lords, the League of Explorers founded a man searching for a relic called the Titanic Forge, his name was Victor Blackrock, a half Shapeshifter half Warlock who got tired of fighting and became an explorer. Victor helped the league through the temples of Uldum, and managed to find Tekhan, but failed to stop him and died before the explorer's arrived. After the steal of the Plague of Undeath by Rafaam, Victor's body disappeared.
Descent of Dragons
Turns out, both Torvic and Victor Blackrock was actually Nefarian! who was helping the League of Evil the whole time, hurting Khadgar from behind and locating the exact location of the plague of Undeath, who was used to resurrect Galakrond, the Shady. Nefarian also did everything in his reach to delay and sabotage the explorers, the perfect infiltrator. So shapeshifter's are the first class to feature in both the good and bad side in the Year of the Dragon.
Galakrond's Awakening
On the Galakrond's Awakening mini-set, Shapeshifters will get all EVIL tools from Dalaran and Uldum, now that Nefarian's is openlly working with the League of Evil, bringing his Scheme's, plagues and Lackeys to stop the explorers and awake Galakrond.
Ashes of Outland
Here in Outland, shapreshifters are doing their best to adapt to the aggressive enviroment, and they do so by transforming into big Taunt minions and disruption effects to slow their enemies.
Scholomance Academy
In Scholomance, Shapeshifters are partnering up with Druids and Shamans. With Druids, they'll learn to master their versatility in battle and improve their Beast forms with the help of the shiting theacher Mon'ark, and with Shamans, they'll practicing the evolutionary arts with teacher Cogu'mel by evolving their minions, and they'll all be wacthed by Mr.Bigglesworth, who belive it or not, is actually a gnome shapeshifter.
Madness at the Darkmoon Faire
Corruption is runing loose in the Faire, transforming its victims into tentacled monsters. Maybe Nayda will manage to achieve her goal here? Probably yes, but the only way to know for sure is by getting corrupted, so enter the faire and embrace the corruption!
Core Set 2021
Forged in the Barrens
In the Barrens, a Shapeshifter is infiltrated in the horde territory, with the mission to investigate the Shards of light, and bring the information back to the Alliance. His name is Wurleen Dustclaw, and with the help of the other infiltrators, he shall accomplish his mission.
Bonus
There's not a shitload of Bonus content like last time, but I might update that section later, for now, I'll just post some hero skins.
1000 Wins portrait | 
Book of Heroes Portrait |
Level 100 in Battle Pass Portrait | 
Level 200 in Battle Pass Portrait |
And that is it, I hope you've enjoyed this random brainstorm of mine who turned into a class, most sets were very easy to make, but some others were hard as fuck and took more than half of the development phrase, wich lasted 2 months or so. I don't plan to update this class with every expansion (since I'm working on another project), but if there's enough interested, I'll keep updating it with each expansion (But not the ones before The Witchwood). I might look like a politician with all those promises, but free time is short and there's another project of mine in the way as I said before. And for last, feel free to share your oppinions, I would really appreciate it since this is my first custom class, all suggestions and critics will be noted, that is all for now, take care and bye.
